Psychedelic Crooning

Whilst holding down his position as sometime/part-time guitarist with Britpop veterans Pulp, Richard Hawley has also quietly been establishing himself as one of the most respected singer-songwriters in the UK. Quietly being the operative word, with his beautifully orchestrated arrangements and silky laidback vocal recreating something of a crooner of old vibe and one for which he has gained much critical acclaim across his first five solo studio albums. There was a very noticeable shift in his most recent and sixth release, Standing At The Sky's Edge, though. Suddenly there's some noise in his music. It's like the antithesis of the unplugged movement as Hawley cranks it up a bit.

For someone who started out at a guitarist, never imagining he'd be an act in his own right, that development was perhaps a long time coming. And despite the blaringly obvious switch in sound, he is very reluctant to analyse the way his music has changed.

“I suppose I'm not qualified to judge that, I would say that that's more your territory really, rather than mine,” he deflects. “I'm not my own critic as such, I just keep going. You don't walk through your life backwards; that's a golden rule of mine.”

Hawley views his latest collection of songs as just an extension of what he was doing before rather than being anything radically different. As he reasons, “It's the same man that's making it. Guitars are my first love; it's the instrument that I fell in love with and has been a love affair all through my life and I just felt it was something that I'd neglected quite a lot with my records. I wanted to try and create the same sort of drama if you like but without using an orchestra or any of the usual sort of things that I've done before – just try and do it with playing electric guitar. It sort of limits you but allows you up to experiment in a different way.”

Since he is constantly writing and always thinking about the next song, Hawley says that he is unable to pinpoint a specific moment when he made that conscious decision to add a rockier element. But was there a sudden realisation things were going that way? “Yes, when I plugged a fucking guitar in and turned it up I thought, 'There we are, this sounds good,'” he laughs.

Where strings used to place some tight constraints around his music, the introduction of electric guitar has changed the dynamics of his songs in every way.

“I just wanted it to get back to some real simple basics like five guys playing in the room without thinking about it too much. Most of it's recorded live with me and the band just sat in a room playing together and it was a really enjoyable process. Not all of the record was done like that but I'd say about ninety per cent of it was. My father and my uncle were both rock guitar players and it was also something to do with that really, just trying to get back to a simple way of doing it. And you can be more adaptable as well; it's like putting all these songs through quite a narrow aperture actually; it then brings more freeness to them.”

Lyrically Hawley still thinks much of the album is pretty gentle, despite the volume being turned up. The new tone though has also lent itself to the occasional more political stance in his songs, such as the swirling psychedelic colourful tones of Down In The Woods, a song written in reaction to the Conservative government's attempt to sell off woodland near his native Sheffield.

Although it's a different sounding outing for Hawley this time round he doesn't think it will be that much of a surprise to his fanbase: “Anybody who's aware of my history, no. I've been playing music for thirty years and I've been involved in noisy projects before. I think that I'm trusting that people have an open mind despite our horizons being lowered all the time by people leading us. I think that I'm trusting the human being's ability to accept new ideas.”

With the critical acclaim that Hawley's releases have received you would probably expect him to receive greater recognition than he does. It isn't a situation that particularly bothers him though – in fact he appears almost pleased about it.

“No, I think I'm where I should be. I've always shunned any concept whatsoever of anything to do with celebrity; I despise it. That might have held me back in terms of what you're talking about but I'm quite happy to just keep ploughing on. I just want to keep going and earn the right to make another record and that's enough for me.”

Indeed, he recalls that when he began his solo career he did find it difficult to suddenly be the main focus onstage rather than just being a member of a band as he was used to. Even now Hawley admits that he's not fully comfortable with it.

“Well I sort of have good and bad days with it really, I suppose,” he concedes. “I'm the guy, I'm the one who writes the songs so it kind of falls to me to be the guy that has to sing them really! Like I said, I have good and bad days with it. I'm not really your classic rock performer, spandex is not really my thing!”

That resistance to being the centre of attention even extends to social media as Hawley reveals a real dislike to a particular website: “I don't do all that fucking ArseBook shit, I can't cope with that. That really does my head in, the pointlessness; 'Hey, I've got 4,602 friends!' Friends come round and help you move sofas, friends give you and your kid a lift to the doctors if your kid's sick, friends cook you tea. That whole thing, I find it really fucking weird!”

With his 'take it as it comes' attitude Hawley admits that he doesn't even look ahead to what he may or may not be doing in the future. “It's like Lewis Carroll said, 'if you don't know where you're going then any road will take you there'! I'll go with what happens; it's been an interesting ride so far.”

And that now finally includes a trip to Australia in his own right for his first ever tour here, something Hawley has been keen to do for a while.

“I really wanted to come back, I really did. The last time I was in Australia was so long ago, I think it was '98 and that was when I was over there with Pulp and I've never played on my own. I want to come to Australia to see some real friends!”

Richard Hawley will be playing the following dates:

Sunday 27 January - Sydney Festival, Town Hall, Sydney NSW
Tuesday 29 January - Forum Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 31 January - Astor Theatre, Perth WA