TLOBF Interview // Richard Hawley

After a four part radio documentary on the history of the sea and a similarly nautical EP due for release Adrian Mules caught up with a slightly hung-over Richard Hawley on a warm Parisian morning.

False Lights From The Land is an ocean themed EP and in February your documentary ‘The Ocean’ was broadcast on Radio 2 – where did your interest in the sea start?
Buckets and Spades as a kid. Then just realising as you get older that our history and culture is so massively affected by the ocean. Its brought everything, but its taken lots away as well.

Historically people saw sea travel as a dangerous thing to do, but one that offered a means of escape.
Yeah. For example, the reason why the Vikings came to us was that in Nordic countries they have six months of day and six months of night – which can only support so many people. Which brought their culture to our shores.

And do you think the reason behind so many songs about the sea was because it was so emotive?
Our modern culture has no concept of what it must have been like, none whatsoever.

People think nothing today about hopping on a plane to any destination, but in the seafaring days it was a totally life changing decision.
Occasionally, sadly, a plane goes down. But in those days one out of every three ships would fucking sink. If you were a soldier or a sailor and you got sent to the West Indies your chances of coming back were pretty much zero. I just find all this stuff interesting, it is very life affirming – because we take so much for granted today.

Did the documentary inspire you to put out the EP?
It was something that was on my mind for a long time, but it seemed to be the right time because of that.

During the Radio documentary ex-spinner Hughie Jones performed T’he Wreck of Ellan Vannin’ – is that what inspired you to cover it on the EP?
Definitely. Yeah. The Spinners are remembered as a corny thing but at their time they were quite important.

My mum took me to see them when I was seven and I can remember it being very cheesy.
I think Hughie is amazing. I’d like to hear him do a documentary, as his knowledge of the sea and ships is just phenomenal. Not only that, he’s a really lovely bloke and an amazingly talented songwriter.

I hope he won’t be forever remembered as this kind of cheese-master. They were one of the first multi-racial bands in Britain and they brought a lot here that was not heard of before – but in an easily palatable form. Plus, he wrote ‘The Wreck of Ellan Vannin’ and for that I’ll always think of him as a fucking legend.

The Smoke Fairies play on both the cover versions on the EP, how did you come to work with them?
A friend of mine called Craig runs this struggling, but really boss, modern folk club called Wagon Wheel Promotions. He puts things on in The Grapes pub in Sheffield every Thursday – sometimes lots of people turn up and sometimes no fucker turns up.

He rang me one time when the Smoke Fairies were playing there, as he thought I’d like them. So I went to see them and there were about twelve people in the audience. But they literally blew me away. I was speechless. We got chatting and ended up having a lock-in in the pub, we just played for ages together and became friends. When it came to doing ‘Ellen Vannin’ and ‘Shallow Brown’ it seemed apparent that that was the time to work together.

Why did you pick ‘Shallow Brown’?
When I was doing the ocean documentary we were in a pub called the Kings Arms in South Zeal in Devon. I heard 24 men singing ‘Shallow Brown’ and the hairs on the back of my neck were just tingling. I’d heard that song as a boy – it was one of those things I’d forgotten – my dad used to sing it and he’d learnt it from Big Bill Broonzy. I was nearly in tears listening as it was this full circle thing. When it came time for me to do that song there were lots of issues going on in my head, around my dad dying and all that stuff, it just seemed right to work with the Smoke Fairies.

I didn’t want to do any tricks with it, no studio nonsense – nothing. It was just me, my band and the girls sat round the microphone – we sang together live and it was a really beautiful moment for us all.

I interviewed them earlier this year and our conversations came round to the ‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Rock Band’ video games. Do you think they are an effective way to get people into both listening to and making music?
I used to mime in front of the mirror with a tennis racket, so it’s probably a modern version of that. I’ve got no opinions against it – that’s for sure. Anything that starts kids thinking about music is a good thing.

Do you think it offers a more honest view of making music? Rather than shows like X-Factor.
That’s just a cancer in our society. It really is. It focuses totally on the aroma rather than the taste – it’s all about the by-product of making music. You become famous for a reason – which is because what you do is quite good. It just focuses on the horrible side of it. It takes the hand away from the hammer, it takes away from the learning of the craft. I’m glad my kids know there is a mechanic at the back of the Ferrari.

You’ve a long history of music in your family – from an early age were you keen to make music your livelihood?
I certainly wasn’t keen to be famous. It just occurred to me that I saw my grandfather, my uncle and my dad smiling a lot when they made music. To me music is to do with deep-seated emotional content. They were all steelworkers as well and they were all hard-working men, who I admired very much. They formed me much more than any other musician I ever knew. I became obsessed with learning the guitar and trying to do it as well as I could.

I realised if I made music, even if I was just busking – then there was a way I could negotiate myself through this life without compromising. Without having to do the things that my mentors had to do.

A lot of the new acts I speak to are having to work alongside being a musician; whereas ten years ago they would have been able to sustain themselves through a musical career alone. There doesn’t seem to be much money to be made anymore.
That’s going back to the fifties. But it will separate the men from the boys – people will make music because it’s what they are driven to do, rather than seeing it as just a career move. Music is a means to touch heaven, but it’s also a means of being based on earth as well.

Thanks for your time today Richard, let’s end on your plans for the rest of the year.
I’m wanting to do very little in terms of playing publicly. My son and my daughter are very interested in learning their various instruments and I want to focus on guiding them in that, which takes time.

Passing it on.
Fucking right. It’s just a chalice that we hold for a while. It’s like instruments – when I started doing well and buying lots of nice old guitars, my dad used to say to me “Son, we don’t own these, you know. We just look after them for a little while.”

False Lights From The Land is out on the 7th of June.

Photo by Joe Dilworth.