Badly Drawn Boy Interview

The ‘shambolic’ subtext of nu acoustic guru, Damon Gough, a.k.a Badly Drawn Boy was an affectionate enough tribute one would have thought. But think again. This is a man who holds court with one hand and plays beautifully realised music with the other. Northern Crud plays host to Northern Man.

Damon Gough is almost invisible as he wanders onto the stage at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia on a warm October night. Shuffling in from the wings, he walks to centre-stage with the nonchalance of a roadie. There isn’t a hint of bombast in his movements. No exploding fireworks. No emcees pumping the crowd. Perhaps it is the lingering effect of punk’s aesthetic minimalism, which deposits on him on the stage nearly unnoticed, or maybe it is just the effect of quaffing too many beers in the nations’ capitol the night before. Whatever the reason, on this particular occasion, Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, takes the stage like a ninja and skilfully disarms the crowd with arresting charm. He singles out a girl from the audience and serenades her. He tells jokes. He offers to pass around photographs of his children. He drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney, and through it all he commands his band with the agility of a seasoned conductor while holding court with the composed serenity of a guru.

But things haven’t always gone so smoothly for the bright-eyed boy from Bolton. In fact, sometimes they still don’t. “I used to piss quite a few people off,” Gough admits between drags on a Marlboro Light. “But I’m not shambolic anymore. Now, I play a set with 35 songs.” Despite the obvious discipline required to deliver 35-song performances, reports of Gough’s drunk and disorderliness persist. One night he’s radiant, the next incoherent. But either way, the magic of Gough’s music comes across much better in recordings anyway.

For fans of beatific love songs, Gough’s debut The Hour of the Bewilderbeast and his newest release Have You Fed The Fish? offer them in spades. Dressed in the finest sonic fabrics and accessorized with an array of musical jewels, Gough’s songs blend Paul McCartney’s sense of elegance, sans the schmaltz, with a modern melange of Burt Bacharach, Phil Spector and Brill Building et al. It is no surprise, then, that HYFTF? was largely recorded in the same studio as the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. And like Brain Wilson and the Beatles, Gough is perfectly at home behind the mixing desk, outfitting his creations in all manner of acoustic frippery. Ah, but there’s the rub. How does an artist recreate the depth of a studio recording on stage?

“It’s almost impossible to recreate some of the songs live,” concedes Gough. On You Were Right, for instance, I was aiming for a wall of sound in the studio, but live I only have five guys up there so I try to jam like the first time I ever played it with a drummer.”

But it is not just the lack instrumentation that sabotages Gough’s live performances. It is also the fact that his band, the seventh by his count, lacks the verve that comes with accruing to something more than a group of hired hands. And there is also that hobgoblin of little minds: consistency. Gough has a knack for getting knackered and its shows in his live performances. While it is charming to watch him develop a sincere rapport with an audience, it is maddening to watch a guy drunker than you are start and stop the same song five times in a row, especially if you have paid for a ticket. But even if Gough did rally a full-blown band to his aid, one he could trust and and immerse himself in its esprit de corps, you have to wonder if it would last. “I do find myself occasionally missing the band ethos,” grants the 33-year-old singer/songwriter. “But I enjoy being the boss, the purveyor of my own destiny, and I always predict problems with a band, like everyone will want their say too much. You never know, though, it could work.”

For all his faults as an uneven performer, Gough is a wizard in the studio. Progressing from recording directly into a four-track in his bedroom to professional studios around the world, Gough’s current album was produced by the veteran L.A. producer Tom Rothrock. Well known for producing such solo artists as Beck, Jay Farrar and Elliott Smith, Gough says Rothrock understands how to push solo performers to give their best and deserves a large measure of credit for the inspired performances contained in the album. Add a crew of top session men like Joey Waronker, Pete Thomas and John Brion, and it is easy to see why it would be difficult to replicate the album’s effervescent energy. Or, maybe it is the safety and control that studio recording offers. Given that Gough has reservations about the dynamics of ceding some of his control to a band–and that he likes to tipple a few before taking the stage–his scattershot live performances are probably here to stay. Nevertheless, his tattered style has earned him a Mercury Music Prize, several world tours and presented him with the opportunity to rub elbows with his heroes. None of which provides much impetus to change. And, combined with the birth of his son, Oscar, in March, his sudden inclusion in the firmament of the elite has contributed heavily to the autobiographical nature of his new album.

Inspired by the surrealism of his new existence as a “minor celebrity,” Gough says he used the songs on his new album as a means to sort out the ramifications of life as a rock star. So when he sings, “I just had a dream the other night/I was married to the queen/And Madonna lived next door” in You Were Right, it is clear that he has the feeling that the last few years have been a bit of a fairy tale. However, in between flights of fancy HYFTF? is deeply romantic and shows signs of Gough’s maturation as an artist and a father. Using metaphors to express how fame and parenthood have changed his outlook, Gough sings, “Maybe there’s a reason why I’m born again/ There’s something rare going on under my skies.” Developing the theme further in “All Possibilities,” Gough says he used the phrase “modern innocents” to refer to his children, suggesting that he sees the world anew through their eyes.

Of course, before you conceive children you must have sex. So, if Bewilderbeast is a perfect romantic record for wooing a new beloved, then Have You Fed the Fish? is a perfect record for cozying up with your betrothed, and there is plenty to get the party started. “Using Our Feet” burns with bi-polar fission and danceable passion while “Born Again” rocks with the anticipation of Friday night’s promise and “40 Days, 40 Fights” rolls into Saturday afternoon, painting love in shades of American Gothic. But the party does not end there. “You Were Right” is ecstatically euphoric and slips listeners an aural mickey with the potently aphrodisiacal line “And I turned Madonna down.” Naturally, sex and comfort are linked, so it is interesting to note that the word eiderdown is mentioned twice during the album, which could possibly indicate Gough’s desire for something emotionally soft and comfy to curl up with. Though the thread which stitches its way through his creative and personal life is also the thread which holds his new record together, namely his new topsy-turvy life, Gough says he did not set out for the record to be so specific.

“It was after I established the title track and I set the parameters that I realized what the album was about,” he explains. “Have You Fed the Fish? became the best title because it represents so many different things. It could be a metaphor for feeding the kids or attention to detail. It’s about perspective and the details of ordinary situations.”

While HYFTF? may deal with ordinary situations, what is not ordinary is the way Gough toys with the record’s conceptual continuity by repeating phrases in different contexts to subtly shift their meanings. “I wanted to cross-reference some of the songs by using the same line to see how the music being different affected them,” elucidates Gough. However, the results are mixed. The first example of repetition appears in You Were Right where he recites the line “get you tickets to what you need.” Unfortunately, the line comes off as a bit of a non-sequitor. When the line appears again in Tickets To What You Need it benefits from the set up in the first song, however it is still anaemic. How and The Further I Slide use the technique as well, repeating variations of the line “What if after all this there is nothing else for us.” Again the payoff is negligible. Gough says his goal was to enable the lyrics to stand alone as singular phrases or slogans and that he tried to enhance those qualities by leaving the lyrics off the CD insert, but it is hard to imagine a banner reading “I need a new eiderdown” having much meaning to anyone outside the context of the album.

Still, Gough gets points for trying, and criticisms aside, HYFTF? is a well-rounded record. But considering Gough did not land a major/minor deal until he was nearly 30, it makes one wonder how many other great talents are left undiscovered. “I was 26 or 27 when my first EP came out, but I didn’t really see that it would ever happen. I didn’t think it happened to people like me,” ruminates Gough. “I thought it was another kind of person who did music. I could easily be sitting here at 33 saying, ‘I’m better than all these people. I can do this.’ But you’ve got to direct your fate. If you don’t go out the door, it’s never going to happen.”

Sipping a rum and coke in an Irish bar in the heart of Philadelphia’s tourist area, Gough sums up his fate: “Success is just a combination of luck and persistence. The difference between me and somebody else who doesn’t make it is that I stuck it out. You can’t be discouraged by failure – that alone weeds a lot of people out. They may be talented, but if they haven’t the heart to endure some knocks they’ll never make it.”

Set List