Euan McMeeken by Lis Ferla (lastyear'sgirl_)

The third in this series of interviews is with another multi-talented creative type, Euan McMeeken, who is not only lead songwriter and vocalist in Edinburgh band The Kays Lavelle (who have just released their debut album Be Still This Gentle Morning on the Wiseblood Industries label), but also writes the excellent blog The Steinberg Principle, where you will also find links to his two other enterprises, the tireless gig promotersTrampoline and record company mini 50 records (phew!).

I sent him a wee email interview asking what motivates him to do so much, and how he manages to fit it all in – here are his answers which I found very inspiring because he truly does what he does for the love of it and it’s made me pick up my guitar again for the first time in ages.

Q: Hi Euan. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions- I know you’re busy with the recent launch of the new Kays album Be Still This Gentle Morning. Can you tell me a bit about how the album came about e.g. the writing & recording process?

well graeme and i decided it was about time we got our fingers out and released something, is really the jist of it.  what that was to be, we really were not sure at the time, but we had enough songs at the time to consider an album.  the plan was simply to record a certain number of songs then figure out what worked with what.  if that resulted in an album great, if we could only piece together a couple of eps then that would have been ok too.  fortunately it all came together nicely as the recording sessions took shape.  the biggest problem we had then, and have now, was that we were struggling financially so where and how we were going to manage to record was unclear.  after a gig we did with meursault i’d mentioned the situation to neil pennycook and he said he’d happily record it for us.  i don’t think he really knew at the time just what he was taking on but he was kind enough to be involved at the beginning and for most of the project.  it took from november 2008 until february 2010 to complete, with help from alex fenton who finished recording when neil got too busy with meursault stuff.  it was a much longer process than i had planned, but i’m very glad it panned out the way it did and i’m very proud of the result. the songs had been sitting with me for 3 years.  it was nice to finally give them a home.  i am now excited to get cracking on new songs.  hopefully it won’t take 4 years to get the next record out there though!

Q: The Kays are another Edinburgh band to build a much higher profile in recent months. Do you think it’s set to continue? It seems like the Scottish scene as a whole is incredibly strong right now.

it’s been weird.  we’ve had a lot of ups so far this year but then something negative comes along and it kind of knocks your for six.  just when you feel like you’re getting a bit of momentum somebody comes along, in the form of the skinny in our case, and knocks the wind from your sails.  the music industry seems a bit like a game of snakes and ladders in a sense, i guess.   i’m honestly not going to complain though, this is the first time in six years that i’ve been able to read anything about the kays, good or bad, so it feels pretty great to finally be getting recognised within the scottish music scene.  i hope it continues and gets better and better for us.  i really do.  i’m greedy that way!

As for the scottish scene itself, i don’t necessarily think it is any stronger than it has been in the past.  there are just more blogs, podcasts, radio shows and people who love music out there promoting and supporting the artists these days.  avenues which were perhaps not so readily available in years gone by are now plentiful.  so whilst the music coming out of scotland at the moment is unquestionably of a high calibre, i think the vibrancy of the scene is more to do with accessibility to the music than simply the quality.

Q: Also did you have any specific aims in mind that you wanted to achieve with this release and how easy do you find the promotional side of putting a record out?

there were no real aims in mind when we started recording other than finishing a record that we were proud of.  we achieved that.  now we live with the thoughts of others. but i’m not one to sit and say i’m not ambitious.  because i am ambitious.  in everything i do.  so i see where i want the band to go and i’m quietly confident that i can guide us there.  it might take a little longer than for other bands but i’d rather be a slow burner that got to where i want to go in the end than have 5 minutes in the spotlight, because i did what others wanted, then disappear.
in terms of promoting the record.  well, daydream our management and pr company have handled most of that.  but at the same time, i don’t really like it when bands hide behind management and agents etc, so i am very conscious that we should retain a human element and be involved in the whole process.  it’s not a big ask when you are passionate about what you do.

Q: I’m ashamed to say that though have probably been at a few of the same gigs over the years, we’ve never properly met – but then I’m an antisocial hermit. You however are an active member of the local community with the Steinberg Principle blog and having run Trampoline gigs for a long time now. You’ve also been organising a wonderful tribute to a trio of great songwriters, Smith/Chesnutt/Linkous. How do you balance your time so you can do your own creative stuff as well as all the support you give to other artists?

who ever told you i was social??! i think you’ve been misinformed sir!  nothing could be further from the truth.  i love silence and the feeling of being alone with my thoughts. i love my books.  i might be an active member of the community but i do it all from my steinberg lair surrounded by test tubes, notebooks, books, cds and far too many thoughts!

i also know for a fact that i take on too much.  but i need to be active.  i need to have things to sink my teeth into.  the kays and my own music are my primary focus and always will be. however, i know how hard it is to get noticed and heard.  i know how important a good review or the right person liking you can be.  when I started trampoline and my blog the aims were similar: to support artists that i love and that i think deserve to be heard.  the same applies to my label mini50.  i want to put out music by artists I love and i think deserve wider public attention.  and projects like the smith/chesnutt/linkous tribute.  well i just wanted to raise awareness about depression.  it’s a very dangerous illness and it affects lots of people who you’d never think were depressed.  those artists were so important to me, especially mark linkous, so i felt compelled to raise awareness of their music and their illnesses through the project.  i hope it’s working.

Q: As a writer you are very honest and wear your heart on your sleeve which makes your blog very readable. Your music is also very heartfelt. Do you ever worry that you are putting too much of yourself out there?

i like writing that says as much as possible, using as little as possible.  i always have.  i like short sentences.  i like to not use capital letters (you might have guessed).  i like breaking the rules.  i think as an artist or a writer you must always wear your heart on your sleeve.  for me writing, of any form, is a release.  why would i want to hide that?  i do mask most of the lyrics but I’m not afraid to address the things i think about or the subjects i write about.  i think again, it adds a human element to the music and the blog.  you tell me?!

Q: As a musician you probably have the same concerns I put to Bart Owl recently about the ability to make money from music. What motivates you to keep making music and doing the things you do, even though there is not always a guaranteed monetary reward?

it’s very simple.  i love to make music.   i love the feeling you get when you get it right.  when you create something that you know is right.  that you know is what you’ve been searching for.  more often than not, it comes when you least expect it.  and i love that feeling too.   i don’t do this to make money.  i don’t write music to make money.  i don’t run music nights to make money.  i don’t run a record label to make money.  it’s all about the music for me and it always will be.  if i get lucky enough to sustain a life because of my music or my label then i will be very thankful and ultimately, it’s what i want.  but i’ll never stop making music.  you cannot place a price on the feeling of sitting at the piano with a bottle of red wine.  even in my darkest moments, i still feel at peace with a piano and bottle of red.  if i stop feeling that.  then i’ll stop playing music.  i don’t know if that answers your question though!

Definitely, thanks for answering the questions Euan.

Be Still This Gentle Morning is out now. Photo by Lis Ferla

Photo by Dylan Matthews: of Meursault at the Roxy Art House Edinburgh

The second in this series of interviews is with Edinburgh-based photographer and blogger and now radio DJ, Dylan Matthews. Dylan’s photos have been published by an impressive list of publications including  BBC Online, The List, The Sunday Herald & The Skinny, and he is of course an integral part of the Song, By Toad team. His new radio show with Ali Millar started last week and runs for the next 3 weeks on Fresh Air.  Cheers for taking the time to answer these questions Dylan!

Hey Dylan. Your blog Blueback Hotrod is focused on your photography. How did you get started taking photos and where did the name come from? (Yes, this is a lazy and obvious and quite possibly inanely stupid question, which you are under no obligation to answer)

I’ve always enjoyed taking photos since I was little. My dad took us on a trip to Disneyworld in Florida when we were little kids and bought me a little Kodak Disc Camera. I remember him commenting that the photos I took on that holiday were quite good – all sort of nicely framed and composed and so on. I remember I was always trying to look for interesting angles and outlooks for pictures even at that point.

Since then I’ve always got a kick out of taking photos, I love travelling partly for that reason, and if you go to any party or gathering you’ll find me on the other side of the camera taking candid snaps! It’s great that the live music scene in Edinburgh seems to throw up lots of really good opportunities for photos.

The name of the site is the most boring thing you’ll ever hear, but you did ask! If you’ve seen the site you’ll know the header has a picture of a little red hot rod car. Well, that I took that photo in the car park of this truckstop off the highway driving through Northern Québec. When I saved the JPEG image into my holiday snaps folder, I called the file ‘hotrod.jpg’. Then, when mobile phones first developed screens that could display images, I decided I wanted the wallpaper image on my phone to be one of my own photos instead of the stock ones the phone came with, and I remembered that photo of the little red car. I cut out the car from the background of the car park and mounted the image on a plain white field, but when I uploaded it onto my phone you couldn’t see the menu commands on the display anymore, because they were in white text. So I changed the backround field colour to a nice pale blue so the writing would show up and christened the new file – you’ve guessed it – ‘bluebackhotrod.jpg’. For some reason that filename sprung to mind when I was trying to think of a name for the blog. Told you it was a boring story!

You also do a lot of different things for the Song By Toad blog/label, including appearing on Toadcasts, editing and writing for the ‘Sunday supplement’ section and the bulk of the filming for the excellent Toad sessions. Why? (sorry I couldn’t think of a better question for this either)

Standard response for any questions relating to Matthew and/or Song By Toad: “I was a bit drunk, [insert "Officer" / "Your Honour" / "Mum" here as appropriate]”

No, seriously, I do owe Matthew and the Song By Toad family a debt of gratitude for introducing me to some great people and giving me the chance to make my own little contribution to what goes on over at Toad Hall. The Toad Sessions in particular have been a real privilege to be involved in. We’ve had some great days hanging out with the various bands who’ve been through the sessions, we all usually end up having a few beers, a good chat and a bit of skylarking, and I’ve made some good friends off the back of that. But aside from that, to have been in the room during some of the performances we’ve had has been just incredible.

I remember during the Eagleowl session we were all just pottering about, setting the gear up and whetever, Malcolm was tuning up his violin, Clarissa was texting on her phone, Rob was petting the cat or something, and I think Bart was browsing through the books on the bookshelf, when suddenly Malcolm latched onto a more coherent riff and – as if by telepathy or something – the sound in the room just swelled and within a split-second the whole band had launched into Blanket. It was seriously – like – a jaw-dropping, breathtaking, hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment. And the tapes weren’t even rolling. I was like “Whoa! Where did that come from?!”.

It was a similar thing with Mumford & Sons – I couldn’t help grinnning like an idiot during that little banjo-led interlude in the middle of Awake My Soul – which has been one of my favourite bits of music since I first heard it (on Song By Toad!) a couple of years ago. Just looking around the room watching them play that within a few feet away was just mindblowing. Sparrow & The Workshop was another standout, they made food for everyone, and Jill played this fantastic version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. I keep coming back to Found’s stunning acoustic version of Mullokian, too. Ziggy’s twelve-string is blistering on that. (It’s quite funny if you listen to it – you can still download the MP3 off the website – check out Ziggy couting himself in then pausing, and than playing the song at a completely different tempo!)

Yeah – it’s really been an experience to have been involved in these. Long may they continue!

You’re now also doing your own radio show on Fresh Air and have already been praised by random strangers for your dulcet tones and ‘relaxed banter’ with your co-host Ali Millar. What can people expect from the show and how did you enjoy your first show last Saturday?

Last week was a great fun – but it was a bit of a disaster on the technology front! Hopefully we’ll get the hang of it soon. The idea of the show is to link it in with the live scene each week, which makes sense what with Ali doing her promotional stuff with A+E Promotions and me with the photos. Ali’s a cheeky little so-and-so, so there’ll be plenty more banter I imagine, and I’ll have to be gracious about the “dulcet tones” thing and take it as a compliment – not so sure myself!

Dylan & Milo: rather drunk & out of focus

You always seem to be in the right place at the right time (apart from in the above photo obviously)– just looking  at your photos from Homegame you were able to capture some great moments. Any tips for photographers wanting to get closer to the action e.g do you have a special technique to make musicians relax in your presence? (besides plying them with rum obviously or have I just answered the question for you)

I don’t know really. I suppose I’m quite lucky in that I often seem to be taking photos of mates, so maybe they relax a bit more because they know me. I think the trick to taking photos in a close-quarters situation is to just relax, chat to people and help everyone have a good time, then people won’t bother about you wandering around with the camera so much. Oddly though, I feel much more self conscious near the front of the stage during a gig, I keep telling myself that no-one in the room is looking at the photographers, but it doesn’t seem like it sometimes!

I believe you have a day job, do you find it a struggle getting all the other stuff done and being so sociable as well? Don’t you ever fancy a night in watching Taggart or something?

Yeah, I’ve got a very dull 9-5 IT job. I get very antsy sat at home in front of the TV unless there’s either something brilliant on (which isn’t often), or I’m worn out. But I do seem to spend plenty of evenings sitting at home.

In terms of bands/music you are obviously a big fan of the Scottish alt-folk scene is there anything in your record collection that might surprise people? You must have a few guilty secrets??

Oh god, there are plenty of guilty secrets. You certainly couldn’t put my iPod on shuffle and expect the good times to last long! I have to admit to being a bit of a sucker for 1980s power-rock. If I’m drunk and near the stereo, then it’s not usually long before things like Why Can’t This Be Love by Van Halen and Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins come on!

So thanks very much to Dylan for agreeing to be interviewed. I thoroughly recommend tuning into his and Ali’s show on Saturday at 12:30pm, it’s a nice mix of light-hearted repartee and chilled out tunes to start your Saturday in style.

Also worth reading is his recent post on being inadvertently off the sauce for the Song, By Toad Sunday Supplement- it’s nice to know I’m not the only one on the ginger beer at the moment!

Photo by Dylan Matthews, taken from Song, By Toad session (click for link)

This is the first in a new series of interviews with people who are doing great things creatively both locally and hopefully a little bit further afield too. First up we have the ridiculously likeable Bart from eagleowl, the stunning Edinburgh band whose music has genuinely moved me to tears on more than one occasion.

Bart. You’re in a band called eagleowl. You’ve got a new EP out called ‘Into the Fold’ which is already getting a bunch of good reviews. It is of course, beautiful and literally made me cry 3 times. Cos I am a girly boy, or a complete wuss. Are you trying to make people cry? Why, why are you trying to make people cry?

That’s really touching. People have said that before – not often, granted – but a few people have said that certain songs on certain occasions have moved them to tears. It’s quite a compliment. I think to have someone cry – to have that level of unreserved emotional response – is hugely flattering. It feels more genuine, since its almost involuntary. Obviously we don’t set out with the intention of making people cry, but I think the songs are intended to instill at least some kind of emotional response or involvement from people.

And you’re launching the EP this weekend with gigs in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Given the emotional quality of your music, I find at your gigs I often start daydreaming about a litany of lost loves and remembering a bittersweet combination of events in my life, like the day my dog died crossed with the day I got my first Bontempi keyboard. is there anything I can do to emotionally prepare for this trauma prior to the gig?

Oh my, I really don’t know. We’re not really as miserable as we appear, honest. We’ve been discussing playing a show in animal costumes at some point. I think it’d help lighten the mood.

I asked you to do the first ever ‘Creative Types’ interview because like a great number of people I admire, you’re multi-talented. Not only have you played in every band in Edinburgh ™ but you also promote excellent gigs under the name The Gentle Invasion’ and if I’m not wrong design gig posters and the like. Do you have any advice for other creative types on (a) how to fit it all in, and (b) how to stay motivated and focused. (Ok, I say other people but really I desperately need this advice myself.)

I’m not sure if I’m the best person to give advice. But I think just stay focused, and remind yourself why you’re doing it in the first place. Be sure you’re in it for the right reasons. Don’t be put off by one bad show or one bad review or whatever. As to how to fit it all in – I’ve really no idea. Make sure you have a very understanding partner. I think that’s a key factor.

You did a really great interview with Ewen over at the Steinberg Principle about how good the local scene is at the moment but what are your thoughts on spreading the word beyond Scotland? I know people like Marc Riley are doing a good job, but is it difficult to break out beyond that? I really think you guys deserve to be heard by as many people as possible.

We’ve been talking about that a lot recently. I think we’re planning to try and do more English shows this year and play in more cities outside Edinburgh and outside Scotland. There does seem to be fewer and fewer outlets for smaller bands at the moment, and I do think that a lot of the National press does have a distinctly English bias. But I think that will come from them being London-based. It ‘s only natural, I guess, but no less frustrating.

I feel that the internet is becoming more and more important in giving the smaller bands a voice. The current rash of new bands in Scotland over the last couple of years seems to have coincided with a lot of new music blogs starting up as well. And with less and less space being devoted to smaller releases in the National press, it’s really nice that sites like Drowned in Sound are giving those releases the attention they deserve.

Also, is that enough if most people aren’t willing to pay for music? What do you think musicians should be aiming at these days? (I know this is a tough question)

Oh my. It’s a conundrum. With our releases we try and make sure that we do everything to ensure it’s nicely packaged. With the shift towards downloads, to ask someone to fork out for a hard copy you have to make sure it’s an attractive item in itself, asides fro the musical content. I think the rules are changing and there’s been this huge shift in the industry, and everyone’s still not sure how to deal with that. Time will tell, I suppose.

Thanks to Bart for taking the time to answer these daft questions with such honesty. Don’t forget to check out eagleowl’s new EP ‘Into The Fold’ – (you can hear the song No Conjunction on April’s podcast). It’s being launched with two gigs this weekend:

30th April at the Roxy Room, Edinburgh

1st May at the Flying Duck, Glasgow

Also, check out their recent session for Song, By Toad at which Dylan Matthews took the excellent photo above.

With 17 albums recorded over 15 years under various pseudonyms, Kentucky-born Will Oldham has established himself as one of the most prolific and talented songwriters in alternative music today. That’s despite starting out as an actor – at the age of 17 he starred in John Sayles’ 1987 film Matewan, but found the accompanying pressures unmanageable and instead drifted into making music (just don’t mention Joaquin Phoenix).

After recording a number of albums under the names Palace Brothers, Palace Music and as himself, he settled on his greatest character role to date, that of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The first album he recorded under that moniker, 1999′s I See a Darkness, is a masterpiece of ragged, lo-fi coal-black country-folk, his unaffected, fragile voice spitting out brutally honest poetry that seemed to come from depths rarely mined by other songwriters. It’s as if the protection of an alter-ego has afforded him the freedom to express a much deeper side to himself than he would feel comfortable doing under his own identity. The album’s title track has even been covered by the late great Johnny Cash (with a little help from Oldham on backing vocals).

Since then the Bonnie one has forged his own distinctive musical path with follow up albums such as Ease Down the Road, Master & Everyone and the Letting Go, plus collaborations with Matt Sweeney, Tortoise, Björk and PJ Harvey, and even appearing in videos for R&B stars Kanye West and R. Kelly. And following his success in music he’s been able to return to acting on his own terms, taking roles in a selection of credible indie films such as Julien Donkey-Boy and Junebug, and Wendy and Lucy, out in the UK this month. However for all his critical acclaim, it would seem that Will Oldham is not a fan of the music press. Why else would promotional copies of Beware, the latest Bonnie Prince album, also out this month, contain so many excruciating spoken interruptions during each song, rendering the album virtually unlistenable and leading one journalist to recently describe it as “the worst promo CD ever”?

Speaking on the phone from a “very attractive” Hawaiian island where he’s due to play a gig the following night, Oldham admits that this wasn’t just some evil record company ploy, and that he was complicit in the decision (Oldham is signed to Domino Records in Europe and Drag City in the US). “That’s something that we agreed on. I guess it’s all well and good for reviewers to complain about something like that, but I think it’s partly the reviewer’s responsibility to figure out a process by which music can be gotten to reviewers in advance of the release of a record without it being leaked all over the internet, and when reviewers get off their asses and start taking a little responsibility for their jobs then things can go smoothly again.”

In fact, he also considers the current process of doing interviews inherently screwed up. “Doing lots of press takes so much time away from playing, writing and listening to music. And I think there’s something wrong with this process of soliciting huge numbers of writers to talk to somebody about their work in a solid mass of interviews, rather than doing say, four interviews over the course of a year. It might have something a little bit more to do with the writer’s desire to find something out and the musician’s ability and desire to express something about what’s going on, and that would make for ideally more interesting articles.”

Oldham’s attitude towards promoting his records may seem overly antagonistic to some – and seems to have led to a reputation as something of a curmudgeon, with even his own mother describing him as “ornery” in a recent in-depth article in The New Yorker magazine. Whilst on some levels the New Yorker piece fits into Oldham’s ideal of how the interview process should work, he also says he considered the author’s detailed description of his Kentucky home life including his dinner with his mum to be “a strange invasion of privacy” as he hadn’t realised the writer “would be on the clock 24/7″.

But his self-protective stance actually serves to illuminate his entire life and career philosophy, helping to explain how he has managed to produce a discography almost as prolific and rewarding, at least to his huge and dedicated fanbase, as Dylan (to whom he is oft compared) or The Fall (who he has revealed are on his ipod). It also explains his sometimes surprising changes in musical direction, and his preference for recording under multiple names: “I feel strongly about protecting my ability and enthusiasm and energy and desire to continue making music, and it seems, as with in every walk of life, there are a lot of forces constantly acting against you to make you feel like it might be better and easier to stop.” He went on to spell out his strategy for dealing with such forces. “It’s a regular checks and balance system, when things do seem stupid or futile or wrong, to not necessarily get claustrophobic, but to decide OK, this just means turn left or turn right, and not to feel that if you’re not moving straight it means you’re not progressing.”

Leaving the acting profession could be seen to be a case of this philosophy in action – “I didn’t get to go to career counselling and choose to play music over acting, it was more that music started to open up, it started to happen.” It’s a similar open-ended approach to the one Oldham took whilst recording Beware. “I wouldn’t say that it was necessarily loose, I definitely was very tense throughout the whole time, but I guess the idea is to spend a lot of energy making sure that things stay open.”

Oldham admits that- much like contact with journalists – some engagement with the public has been unavoidable in this pursuit of a musical career. “I understand that things like faces and names help people connect with music, so if that has to happen then there can be some sort of representation of a human being through these photographs.” Yet it would seem he’s happy to remain elusive, a character trait that has only heightened the fascination of his fans, as if he is a rarely sighted hairy man of the woods, a kind of Bigfoot of American indie.

But then Oldham believes that is far better than the kind of ubiquity enjoyed by massive stars these days. “I’m satisfied with the littlest thing – if I love a song by the Greek singer Demis Roussos, I can go on YouTube and watch some strange video – that I can’t make head nor tail of, which looks bizarre, ridiculous and frightening – in 3 minutes and I’m satisfied. Then you get the extreme pinnacle example of somebody like Michael Jackson or Britney Spears, where we find out so much about them and see them so often that both they and the public become fatigued. If Britney Spears just released music and you didn’t have to deal with her personality then you might every once in a while be like, oh, I want to listen to that Britney Spears music”.

However despite his love of R. Kelly, who he says “has originality going for him”, the Bonnie Prince won’t be putting Britney on his turntable in the near future. “i’ve always been kind of mystifed and even offended by people’s claims to like her- I mean Britney Spears is sort of like the Oasis of America, I don’t understand how somebody who likes music can look you in the eye with a straight face and say that this is good”. Realizing I embodied the twin evils of both music journalist and Britney apologist, I kept quiet at this point and thanked my lucky stars that I had gotten off so easily with this notoriously difficult interviewee. In fact, whilst clearly a complex man, Will Oldham was a very nice chap to chat to, despite what his persona would lead you to believe – unless this was just a case of him playing yet another of his many roles.

As published in the March issue of The Skinny Magazine