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‘You Are My Sunshine’, and now ‘I Miss The World’, and then I've got two more coming out over
the next two months.
BiTS: Are these going to be included in an album or is this work for an album?
DW: Sort of. I think eventually, I am still gigging, but I'm not touring the way that I was before
I had my kids. My little one’s still quite young, my youngest and so my plan is when I'm on the
road doing the big tours again, the proper tours when I can, you know, go off and leave the kids
for two weeks at a time and so on, then I will release an album of the VizzTone singles that will
include all of the singles that I've put out digitally with them so far and some new ones as well
because I think it would be nice to have a physical product, eventually.
BiTS: Tell me something about ‘I Miss The World’. Why did you write it?
DW: I think I was feeling quite low with the lockdowns and then the way that Brexit affected
musicians and the general kind of politics and news at the time, really. And I just started thinking
back to my childhood and how idyllic it was. I mean especially because I was shielded from, you
know, to me, my childhood really feels like a better time.
But actually, you know, I was born in the 80s and grew up under Thatcherism, but I don't
remember that. I was very shielded from it and I grew up in the countryside with two loving
parents and my brother, and obviously before the Internet revolution, before mobile phones,
and the song is about that, really. It was just kind of feeling a bit low about the here and now, but
having this lovely warm feeling, thinking back to my childhood and wishing that I’d had that kind
of childhood for my children, wanting that for them really. So that's what it's about missing that
world.
BiTS: On the album, there's some fabulous vocals from yourself, but also what sounds to me like
a small choir, and who are they? Or is it you doing backing vocals as well?
DW: That's all me. That's all me on backing vocals. That's one of my most favourite things to do
in the studio is just to layer up harmonies and experiment with big
backing vocal arrangements. Especially with the first single where
we combined, ‘You're My Sunshine’ with ’Didn't It Rain?’ which is
traditional, but I really know the Sister Rosetta Tharpe version
and so I was working on that single with Chris Holland, and he
played piano on it and did the finger clicks [chuckles] and then
afterwards I layered up all the
harmonies because I really
wanted to have that gospel feel
that the original has.
BiTS: Some lovely harmonica playing from Will,
not I think, quite his usual style. It sounds more
like straight harp playing rather than blues.
BiTS: Yes, because Will at the moment, he was doing the
heavy blues thing. Now he's doing like this kind of rock
metal thing and all his harmonica playing with his own
band is really intense, I guess, if there's such a thing as
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
metal harmonica, Will has kind of created it. But on my
record, it was really stripped back, no effects other than
like a little bit of kind of natural reverb on it and a very kind of intimate performance. And that's
how I like his playing the best really, and you know, is kind of approaching it more from a