Interview with Badly Drawn Boy

Dave: I'm talking to Damon Gough. Did I pronounce that right?

Damon: It's Goff, as though it was Goff. Everyone in the States seems to say Go. Yeah, but it's Goff.

Dave: Goff. Okay. Let me try it again. I'm Dave Corey, and you're listening to Joe's Blue Plate Special, and today I'm talking to Damon Goff, a/k/a Badly Drawn Boy.

Damon: Hello there.

Dave: Thanks for coming on the show.

Damon: You're welcome. Cheers.

Dave: You first began playing and recording music I understand while working in your parents' printing press.

Damon: Yeah.

Dave: Was it difficult to move out of the safety of the day job and try to take a chance with your music full-time?

Damon: It didn't really happen in an obvious or a way that I can even remember. It was just a gradual curve. I mean, I was working that day job because...I never really assumed music was going to be my life. I was always doing music anyway, I always sat home in my bedroom strumming on a guitar, recording it, and bought myself a four-track, bummed around in a few ___________ where I played guitar or keyboard and never really contributed my songs 'cause I felt they were too personal to give to anyone else, so I gradually developed the idea that I could sing, or the only way these songs were going to get heard was if I started singing, so once I'd amassed a lot of songs that were sort of snippets, not unfinished little symphonies I suppose, I put together the first EP which was released on my own label, and that was how it started. I was still working in the print factory amongst the first two releases, which were self-funded, and it just gradually became apparent that I was not going to be working anymore because the work I was getting offered through the music and people were offering me record deals left, right and center, that just meant that I was going to have to stop before I was going to take this seriously, so it was sort of a pipeline dream that I never thought would happen, but now it has, so I've been pretty pleased.

Dave: Yeah. You mentioned that your music was too personal to have other people play it. Did you have any trouble letting yourself let go of those personal things?

Damon: Not really. The problem was, the last sort of band that I had that I tried to get together to play my songs, one was an ex-girlfriend of mine and one was my sister's ex-boyfriend, and the two of them would sing the songs that I gave them, I'd sort of hum them the melody and give them they lyrics, and they'd sing, and some of it works out okay, and there came a point where I just realized I had to start singing as well. There was a week of fate where me and my girlfriend split after six years and my sister split with her boyfriend, so the two members I was working with, we were no longer together 'cause we'd all split, so that became me being a solo artist, and that's when I knuckled down and started to record on my own and become who I am now, so it was a twist of fate, really. It was quite devastating at the time, but I had to turn things around, so it was obviously fated out for me that I became this person Badly Drawn Boy. I'm a big believer that you guide your own fate as well, but that event in itself just kicked me up the ass a bit and made me get on with it. It was a troubled time, and it's why it probably took me so long to get around to even releasing the first record. I was like 27 before I released the first EP, and I'd been writing songs since the age of 20, so, yeah.

Dave: Speaking of releasing your records, you and Andy Vitell formed your own record label. How did that come about?

Damon: Again, it was just the only way I knew how. I didn't really understand the way the record industry worked. I didn't really have any inroads. I didn't come from an environment where I knew anyone within the industry. I didn't know many of the bands. I just used to go and watch bands as a fan, and then when I first moved to Manchester around '94 or 5 or something, Andy was one of the few people I met that so inspired me. He was DJ at the time when I met him, and the stuff he was playing was really inspiring, and he just put his own single out on Grand Central Records in Manchester, which I bought and listened to and liked it, and we just gradually became friends over the period of six months. And slowly started to talk about where we could go with our music. Andy was a fan of what I was doing, and he said he'd always wanted to start a record label and never found anything that he really liked that much. And he said my music was the perfect thing to start this thing with, so I sort of met him in the middle and we funded it between us, called it Twisted Nerve Records, and released the first EP. Got it pressed in Nashville, actually. We sent the DAT tape over to Nashville, the records were flown back, just 500 copies, in a box back to the airport. We picked 'em up and took 'em to the shops, and that's how it was born, and before we knew it, we had people knocking on our doors, ringing us up, just trying to find out more about Badly Drawn Boy or more about Twisted Nerve and me getting personal offers for record deals, people driving up from London every day. It was like a pretty crazy time around the end of '97 this was, so, again, it was just the only way I could see how to do it. I just start dreaming of putting needle to the vinyl and not being my music, 'cause I had grown up as a lover of vinyl, so initially it was just to satisfy that curiosity of what it sounded like coming off a record, and me and Andy picked up the styles together, put it on, and signed the first copy that we'd listened to, which probably is underneath somebody's bed or something at the moment, but it was just a great success borne from nothing, just borne from necessity of getting on with it, so it was quite organic, I'm quite proud of the way things began for me.

Dave: And you guys have continued to put out records and put out a number of other folks' records as well. How has that been, kind of an education in the other side of the music industry from being a performer?

Damon: I learned so much just by talking to people. There was a period of a few months where I was talking to every record label. All of a sudden, 10 labels' interest became 20 labels and 30 labels, you know, from majors like EMI to the small independents. I ended up signing with Excel Beggars Banquet, but I got a lot of inside knowledge of the way the business works and the amount of crap that goes on, so as an independent label we just ____________ up to give people that we met simple deals like two-album deals and 50-50 split like a standard independent record deal. So that's how we've set it up, and we got like five or six acts now that are signed under those terms, you know, moving at their own pace. It's not really a pressure situation. You know, we want to grow as a label, we want to start selling enough records so we can survive. It's an education in how much things cost more than anything. You can understand why record labels don't survive. I mean, we're surviving on the credit, the __________ that we've got. I think from outside point of view, people see us as the coolest independent label in England at the moment. Again, we're just aware of it, we just do it out of a love for music really, and it is tough, especially with me being so busy now touring the world, you know. Just finished a big tour of Europe, been to Japan twice, this is the second time in the States, so come the end of this tour, I'll be back home for a while recording the next record and getting more involved in the label again.

Dave: Sounds good. I understand that you got an interesting chance meeting with Markey Smith of the Fall. What's the story there?

Damon: That was again right around that time of the end of '97 when the first EP was out. I was waiting outside a club in town in Manchester to pick up Andy Vitell actually, and he didn't show up. I think I missed him by a few minutes. He'd gone and got a train or something. Then Markey Smith just opened the door and got in thinking I was a cab. It was quite funny. I mean, he didn't know who I was 'till that point, but he was really inebriated, drunk, and he said ________________, and I said, I'm not a cab, and he was just indecipherable, as he is anyway, so I took him to a cab run, let him out the door, and he sort of fell over. I thought, well, there's no way he's going to get a cab, so I offered him a lift. I said, if I do you this favor, can we do a collaboration, 'cause I'm a fan of your music, and he went, yeah, sure. Scribbled his number down. I called him about two days later and he remembered it and thanked me for helping him out we arranged to meet and listened to a raft of my tapes, music that I had not really got around to writing any lyrics for or melodies or...and he particularly liked one which I'd called Tumbleweed, and he took it away, wrote some sort of words for it, and called me again a few months later, and we went to the studio and I recorded all the guitars on it with the original four members, and it was pretty intimidating. I was just like, one of the first experiences of recording in that way that I'd had, and he was rancing around the studio telling all the band they were this that and the other. I was the boss today, Damon's the boss, listen to him, and they're like looking at me sneering like, who the hell's this guy. So it was pretty intimidating, but the result was great. It became a B side of one their singles around that time in '98, and I have a copy of them. But it was really good. I was really proud of the result of it. And that happened around the same time as like getting a phone call from DJ Shadow and James Levell to do the Uncle project, and this was literally like a month or two after finishing work, which I'd been doing for like nearly eight years, nine years, working in a factory, and all of a sudden I'm flying to San Francisco working with the Fall, just after the release of one EP, 500 copies, which was quite astounding really. I was a bit shell shocked at the time by the whole thing, again, going, the San Francisco trip to work on Uncle was a real big deal, really in at the deep end(?), and again, I think the result was good because of that in a way. I had to do it or it was gonna make me look a fool, so I was glad. Those things just happen for a reason, I suppose.

Dave: Yeah, how did you get involved with the Uncle project?

Damon: As I said, it was just a phone call. I had these rumors that they were trying to get in touch with me, and I'd heard little bits in the press about this project featuring __________________ Light, Tom York and Mike D and Richard Ashcroft, all pretty much established artists, and I think James Levell, looking back on it, he was looking for somebody that he knew that he was coming in for some criticism because he was just sign his record on the back of these names, and he wanted a voice that was a new voice, I suppose, and he picked me, 'cause he liked the sound of it on the first EP. I think Shadow bought a copy while he was in Manchester, saw him with Radiohead, actually, and then gradually they got in touch with me. I went down to the ___________ office around Christmas in '97, and they were having a party, they were all drunk and I was opposite James Levell. I didn't know what he looked like. I don't think he knew what I looked like. So we sat opposite each other for about an hour before either of us realized who the other one was, and then he said, oh, you're Damon, oh yeah, you're James. Nice one, nice to meet you and just said, you fancy doing something on this record with us. I said, well, I will, I'll give it a shot, but I've never done this really. I've never sung in a studio properly. I done it all at home on a four-track. But he said, nah, you'll be fine, you'll be fine. I'll send you some of Shadow's ideas and you can choose what you want to do. I think he initially wanted me to sing about three or four songs to be like a character throughout the record in a way, and we did attempt a couple of others, but they never seemed right. I was just happy with the one good song really. So it was pretty mind blowing, but I just thought, well, take it in your stride, you know, all these things are happening to me and I'm just gonna go with it, go with the flow. If it didn't happen to me, it would happen to someone else, so I'll take it as it comes type of thing, and it's all good experience for me, you know, generally, all these help you to become more confident with what you do.

Dave: Yeah. Excellent. Your first full-length album, Hour of Bewilderbeast, seems pretty quirky at times to me, and has a lot of kind of playful experimental elements and a huge range of instrumentation. How did those aspects enter the equation?

Damon: I suppose it's _________ personal taste. I mean, I've got my personal tastes, and a song isn't really finished until I put those elements in. Basically, most of the songs can be stripped down to a guitar and vocal, which is something that interests me. Somewhere down the line I might be more comfort in the....lay the things out as bare as that. You know, like Bob Dylan's early material, which is really inspiring, but it's really tough to get a song that works just like that. The Shining, the first tracks, and Epitaph, the last track, are the nearest on the album to songs that are more or less just acoustic guitar, but there are quirks in that. It's just the way I like it. It's stuff I've grown up listening to. A lot of stuff throughout the 90's, Buns like Weed, and Guided by Voices and Money Mark and Dubnokotsic. There's loads of bands I could mention. Or going back further to someone like Frank Zappa. All these bands, I just like the approach of the non...I'm not really into traditional or classic sort of approaches. I'm more...the quirk is part of my character, it's part of what feels like is at my core, it feels like what Badly Drawn Boy's about, so the songs I like best, stuff like Fall in a River, where there's the sound of the music going underwater literally, which is just ideas that come to you as you're working on particular songs. _________ a qualifying one and sort of what it is that you do with music. I just want it to sound as good as possible. I mean, some songs are just pure pop in a way. Some have got more depth than that because I suppose all my influences from the 70's through the 80's and the 90's, you know, it gives you a lot of scope of how something can sound. I listen to a lot of _________________ old stuff. I just bought a Rainbow album, Since You've Been Gone Again, 'cause that was a song I was into when I was a teen....well, before being a teenager, late 70's, I'd been about eight years old, and it's a song I might try and cover. So I listen to all that because it reminds me of what my musical past, 'cause you forget. I get so immersed in my stuff that I don't really listen to a great deal of music 'cause I like to keep it as pure as possible, like my ideas are my ideas and they're not stolen from anywhere.

Dave: Yeah, that actually kind of leads into another question that I had. I understand that you're a pretty big fan of Bruce Springsteen. Are there any songs that you've written that have any kind of tribute or something like that to another artist, either lyrically or musically?

Damon: There's quite a few on the album. One of them actually ended up almost getting in a lawsuit about...the main two, Strap Your Hands Across My Engine from ____________________, Bruce Springsteen, which is in the second song on the album, Everybody Stalking, and there's also a reference to the same album, lyric from Thunder Road, trade your wings for wheels, which I used in Under the Pearl, although I reversed. I think I say wheels for wings instead, 'cause that was the original version of _____________ on the Road, it was called Wings for Wheels on a bit like I"ve got. I mean, I mentioned all this to Bruce when I met him about two years ago, two and a half years ago in a hotel in Manchester, and I told him, apologized for buying all these bootlegs ______________ it was really important to me, it was an important part of my learning process about what music is. It was more...I bought all the studio albums, but going back to these tapes from the 70's where he was playing little clubs and rediscovering all that, and I saw why it's a thrill for me to come here and play. I mean, this place in Denver where we're playing, it looks like one of those clubs might have looked just from hearing the bootlegs. So that's why this place suits me, 'cause it's a lot of that stuff I learned is all sort of American, tinged with American attitude and the distance from where I live to where this place is, and the romance in the names and everything. It doesn't show through in the music, but in the spirit of it, that's where it came from with Bruce. I was only 14 years old, and it was a big part of my life. For three years, Bruce was the guy. He still is, you know. He'll always be one of my favorite artists, but for a while, he was like the only artist in the world for me for three years. Apparently, Rob, the guitarist, said he met this guy in Philadelphia who was in a band and he'd been around to Bruce's house for dinner, and they were both talking about my album, which they liked, and Bruce remembered me, so it was really nice to hear that he's come back full circle and I'm doing music now and I'm a peer, I'm one of his peers, so it feels really great __________ that whole thing. I used to go to sleep at night with a Walkman listening to a taped radio show from say the Roxy in L.A. from '75 or something or the Main Point in Philadelphia, and then here I am doing it myself, so it's good.

Dave: Yeah, that's incredible. You mentioned a lawsuit.

Damon: Oh, yeah.

Dave: What happened there?

Damon: Well, it was just a really ridiculous situation. It's not the fault of the artist concerned, but in the song Magic ___________ I sort of tribute ___________ Contagious, a song by ______________ Sevell, and I think because the album was becoming successful, somebody, a lawyer somewhere, and a musicologist decided that the whole song was a complete steal of that song, and it couldn't be further from the truth. It's nothing like the song. I just included it, and they were asking for the whole publishing on the song, and I refused because that song I wrote way before I even decided to include that tribute. I know what went into it, my heart and soul and everything, so it really annoyed me, so I had to delete it from the record and replace it with an instrumental section, because there was no way I was letting any of the publishing rights go to someone else, because it was my song. It's like one of your children. It'll always be there for the rest of my life, and to give it to someone else when it was my work. So that was a bit unfortunate, but it's water under the bridge. I never blamed the artist, because I don't think artists are that aware that these things go on. It's usually the publisher in conjunction with a lawyer and a musicologist, and it was all a little bit ludicrous, you know, 'cause I work with integrity I feel. It was like the worst thing I could have heard that somebody thinks...to not see it as a tribute. I mean, people have used my music already, even though the album's only been out a year, it's been sampled, and some guy did a version of Once Around the Block, changed the lyrics and I heard it, and I said, oh, let him go with it. He's obviously done it 'cause he liked the original. I don't want any money from him 'cause he's done a good job on it. Live and let live, that's my attitude through and through, as long as nobody's taken advantage in a nasty way or anything. Let him go on with it, 'cause it's another way of promoting what I've done, 'cause he's using my guitar licks or whatever, so I see that as flattering and that's how I think other people should see it, although they don't. When money's concerned, people get a bit greedy, but nevertheless, it's not a big deal anymore I don't think.

Dave: For anybody.

Damon: No.

Dave: The word "Bewilderbeast" seems to be kind of a concept that you carry throughout the album. Where did that come from, and how did you approach representing that concept musically?

Damon: It sort of came after the event, really. I needed a title. The instrumental song that's named Bewilderbeast, it appeared, and I chose to let it appear earlier on in the album as a little interlude, as though it was a thematical theme coming through, and I chose to call the song Bewilderbeast 'cause it just had this...sounded like a landscape to...I remember after I had finished recording it, I was watching David Lynch Straight Story, and the music in that is so majestic and this guy traveling across the country to see his brother on a lawnmower, and the seemed, I was really pleased 'cause it....__________________ in the music _______________, it was a similar nature, so the title had to be grandiose and I chose Bewilderbeast as a euphemism for me as a person, like feeling bewildered, but getting somehow....it's an amalgamation of bewildered and wildebeest, so I think I got the word in Japan from something, like one of the guys in the band at the time was really, really hung over and like he was never going to get through the sound check, and I said he looked bewildered, and then someone else said a beast, and the two words, the words stuck together, and that was how it became used. And I wanted the title of the album to encapsulate the main feelings of it. It's sort of an album about my 20's really and the ups and downs of relationships throughout that period, and this being my triumph at the end of all that, when I've got a steady, long-term relationship and a new baby daughter and stuff, so this is my hour, this is the uprising, this is the music, take it or leave it, but hopefully people will get on board and enjoy it, which seems to be the case. It's going really well. I just needed a title that said all that, and now this is the hour of Bewilderbeast, this is my hour type of thing. A bit of a tongue in cheek thing. And a blatant admittance that this is what you're trying to do. You're trying to gather disciples that follow what you do. Bands want adoring fans and they don't admit it. In fact, they probably treat their fans with contempt a lot of the time the bigger you get. So I was blatantly saying that this is what I want now. I want you to adhere to what I'm doing. I think it's quite bold to be able to admit that, you know. _______________________

Dave: I wanted to ask you about your daughter. Has that changed your outlook at all on life, or your career?

Damon: Yeah, I think it's inevitable that it will do. It's too early to say whether there's any direct influence on the music, 'cause I've not really had a chance to write many new songs. I think there'll be subliminal references to it. I don't suddenly want to start singing about what being a daddy's about, 'cause I'm still not that sure. It's still fresh in the memory. She's only five months old, but it's already made me feel like I've got more importance in the world. Making music is an introspective thing, you're always looking in...like in an interview you're discussing a lot of things about yourself. It's like free therapy in a way. You're always going through your mind. So it's good to have...for once I've got someone else to think about that's more important than me, which is selfish to have never...I mean, I've always had a lot of friends and stuff, but now I've got such a responsibility for someone else, and it makes me feel that the music's worth more as well. As soon as I found out my girlfriend Claire was pregnant, I started listen to the album, and felt like the job was even better. I felt even better about the work I'd done, because a lot of it was about Claire, and the whole thing's come together with...now we have a baby to represent the two of us. It's inevitably going to change things. It just makes you feel stronger and better, though, that the reason I'm doing it is deeper and it's not just a selfish thing. I mean, music's something I've always loved, and I'm just proud to be able to do it, but I've now got the chance to give her a really good life as well, because I'm doing alright financially because of writing songs, and there's always something that crops up...you get offered this, that and the other, like money for using songs in adverts and commercials or whatever, and you start to think, oh, should I do this or not, and sometimes you say yes and sometimes you say no. Try and keep it real. Your music's not just a product...it's so hard to keep that message in the current climate, because music is just money to a lot of people, and especially in companies that put out, so I'm just trying to keep it as close to the truth as possible and not sell out, but it's not for me to say whether I've sold out or not. I know I won't, but other people, especially the British press, will try to say I'm sure.

Dave: Certainly will. Yeah, many of your songs seems to have a very intense emotional component. Does a lot of that relate to specific events in your life, or is it more of just a general outlet for those sentiments?

Damon: It's not the sentiment. The songs, I've been singing them so long now since the album came out and touring, and the lyrics just come out second nature, and occasionally you'll remember the reasons why you wrote them. I can pick out a few songs that were definitely written about certain situations, such as This Illusion was written about a period of time where I was trying to woo Claire, my girlfriend, and I was trying to impress her or just go out with her basically, and she just kept knocking me back and knocking me back. Not to her discredit, she just wasn't sure, she wasn't ready for...obviously our timing was a little bit wrong at that point, and it was because I had made that mental decision that she was the one for me, I suddenly became the most attractive guy in the world to loads of other girls, where the old cliche, 'cause I was cool, I suppose, I didn't care about anyone else, so all these girls were coming out of nowhere. So it was like a triangle of nothing, 'cause these girls wanted to go out with me and I was interested. The girl I wanted wasn't interested. So it was all disillusion, and it was like, what's the deal here, and why do you have to make it so complicated. Can't it just be beautiful? I don't want to stifle your flight, I didn't mean to fall in love. Those lyrics were all about that, like trying to get her and not make her feel like I was...it's basically self-explanatory when I say it like that. So those words were definitely about that, and the words at the beginning of the album, with The Shining, were about the first night I met Claire. But it's also about general, there's a lot of general, imaginary stuff there about other people's situations and my situations that I've probably exaggerated a little bit as well, so there's healthy amounts of truth and fiction within the same package, because generally my life's not that interesting, I just write songs. So I can't really write that close to home all the time, because it wouldn't be that interesting. So there's bits of everything in there. Magic in the Air is about the imaginary best summer night you could have, the sort of feeling a great summer night gives you when you're like in England where you got through the bad weather or the winter and then the summer's there, so Magic in the Air is sort of about that and the stupid things you might do when you first meet somebody new, like wearing their shoes and climbing a tree or whatever. It's a bit goofy really, I suppose. But just anything that sounds good with the music is what I aim for with lyrics. I don't really sit and write them down. I just work and make shapes and they turn into something.

Dave: Final question. Do you have any advice for artists who are just starting out?

Damon: I meet a lot of kids who come up to me. In fact, just yesterday in the hotel bar, a young kid called Nick, and he's writing songs and he's trying to get a band around him, and I just always say, well, if you're good and you stick at, there's a good chance, because record companies are desperately looking for good, new music all the time. I meet them all the time. I'm involved in the business myself and looking for bands for the Twisted Nerve label. ______________ sort of scared that the more good bands we see, 'cause we want put all the good music out, and we sort of get scared that we're going to see another great band, 'cause we're thinking, oh, shit, we can't afford to do it at the moment. But I'll just say don't be disheartened because I get given tapes and it takes me sometimes weeks and months to even get around to listening, so don't ever feel...I mean, I didn't really attempt that many....I maybe gave a tape to two or three people just as a gift. I didn't really ever attempt to get a record deal. I think if you do your music and do it well and maybe go out and play live or whatever, whatever you need to do to get better at it, it'll come, because the world needs good music, and if you're any good, it's not a great mystery. Just get on with it, and it will happen, 'cause look at all the crap music that gets there, so if that can happen, I'm sure most of the kids that like what I'm doing, I'm sure it's 'cause they've got a little bit more integrity with what they're trying to do, because that's hopefully what I represent, and I get a nice bunch of people coming to my shows, 'cause I think they understand the detail and everything. So that's really nice for me, but I always sort of maintain, even on stage sometimes I'll point out that anybody can do this. If it's your passion, you'll do it. If your passion is to grow flowers and sell 'em on the street, you can go out and do it. It's just that this industry's a bit competitive and it's lucrative as well, so I just say, believe in it and get on with it and it'll happen. Really, that's the only advice I can say.

Dave: Cool. That's great. I've got a present for you. It's a Samsung digital audio player.

Damon: Excellent.

Dave: A little MP3 player.

Damon: That's for me?

Dave: Yeah, for you.

Damon: That's amazing. Thank you very much. That was highly unexpected. Fantastic.

Dave: You didn't think I was a giving person or something?

Damon: Well, it's just that you don't get many gifts off anyone, so that's very, very kind of you Dave, thank you.

Dave: Ah, it's not me. It's the Samsung Corporation.

Damon: Is it?

Dave: Yeah, they sponsor our show.

Damon: Alright. Brilliant. Well, that's very kind of you. And we'll put that to good use. Excellent.

Dave: Station id's.