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because the record label didn't want to just go straight in and say here's a brand new artist with
a brand new album. The point they're trying to make is here's an established artist with a previous
track record, doing something new and that's what the album is supposed to reflect. So a couple
of the new tracks that I’ve put out have recently been recorded and put out. Thereon in, once
that album’s released, next year will be a brand, brand new album of completely brand new stuff
and that's the way that they wanted to manage it and it sort of makes sense really, especially
after lockdown.
BiTS: It certainly does. When you go into the studio with a new track and you're laying something
down, does it tend to change as you go through multiple recordings of it?
GW: Yes, it does. Everything I work out, usually on an acoustic guitar, so it's acoustic guitar and
voice and that's where you start to establish and build the song and the lyrics and so on. What
I've done with the last song that I
released, which will be on the album,
‘Urban Blues’, is that a studio quite local
to me in the Cotswolds, Migration
Studios, and I've worked with a guy, he’s
a producer and also a drummer, Dickie
at the studio who's a lot younger than
me, which is what I wanted because it's
a different set of ears on my music. We
do sit down and collaborate and come
up with some things to add to songs. So
yes, I go in with the raw acoustic track
and then come out with a fully-fledged
song with the bells and whistles.
BiTS: Are there other musicians
involved with you?
GW: No, not usually. I mean, for
example, on ‘Urban Blues’, Dickie played
the drums because I like a live drummer
rather than a drum machine or
whatever. But all the other instruments
I managed to play myself. So that's usually how I go, unless there's something really specific,
maybe thinking in the future, I might need a violinist. I might need a flute player, something like
that, then I'd look to get somebody in, but probably not up to now.
BiTS: You indicated earlier on that things are still I think a bit in the air. Can you tell me some
of the titles of the tracks that are on and maybe a little bit about the songs?
GW: Well, sure, the most recent single was ‘Urban Blues’, which was only released last month
in March. That's a modern-day take on the world as I sort of see things with my northern-based
kaleidoscope, as I tend to call it. The previous single was ‘Stomp N Shake’ which was just a
straightforward does as it says on the tin really, because I thought there was that much shoe
gazing going on with lockdown and everybody getting sentimental and stuff, I thought I need to
break away from that. I want something that's straight in your face, that's simple and at it, and
that's what that was. But looking back at the previous stuff, there’s ‘Kind Of Blue’, which is a
tribute really to Miles Davis, and ‘What The Blindman Saw’, which is an odd title for a song that