Roxanne de Bastion: Reflections Of Memories
It was early May when somebody on Twitter claimed ‘this is the best song I’ve ever heard’, or words to that effect. I’ve tried finding this tweet for this article but the internet has since swallowed it up. The tweet referred to a song called ‘Erase’ by an artist I’d seen shared around Twitter but hadn’t engaged with. With an accolade like that, I simply had to listen to it. And I’m glad I did, for it unlocked a world I’d previously been oblivious to – the songwriting of Roxanne de Bastion.
Image Credit: Carl Osbourn
Born in Berlin, Roxanne emigrated to the U.K. in 2007, a place where her musical ambitions were more aligned with the environment she wanted to achieve them in. When most people were listening to Take That and Steps as a child, de Bastion was raised on The Beatles, life-shaping music which took her on a pilgrimage to Liverpool and eventually performing in The Cavern Club. She took up guitar and performed her songs in English, inspired by music old and new in The Kinks, Regina Spektor and David Bowie. de Bastion played her first gig at the age of ten where her covers included the rock and roll classic ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and Alanis Morissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’, complete with explicit lyrics.
Though Roxanne has been making music since the late noughties, February 2012 saw the recording of de Bastion’s debut album ‘The Real Thing’ back in Berlin at Ablg.m Studio. Recorded and mixed in just six days, The Real Thing was produced by Gordon Raphael (whose other production work includes The Strokes and Regina Spektor). Extra instrumentation beyond vocals and guitar is minimal, with Raphael playing Hammond Organ and Wurlitzer and drums supplied by Tom O. Marsh.
‘Red And White Blood Cells’ jumped out at me upon my first listen of The Real Thing, a song that could easily have everything thrown at it, but hasn’t, which only makes you pay attention to the lyrics even more. It has great wordplay by de Bastion in ‘Your agenda hit me right on the head, I can’t pretend anymore, give me apple juice and paracetamol!’ Who squeezes the word ‘paracetamol’ into a lyric? Speaking of great lyricists, the video here reminds me of a more basic presentation of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ with the stop motion delivery directed by Graeme Maguire. My calves hurt just watching it. The call and response of ‘Red And White Blood Cells’ in the chorus is an excellent moment in Roxanne’s live sets which I hope to experience in person someday.
‘Seeing You’ EP Artwork: Left (2014), Right (2020)
Following up The Real Thing was Roxanne’s ‘Seeing You’ EP, released in September 2014. Produced by Ben Walker, the four tracks on Seeing You have more of a folky edge than de Bastion previously had. Ben Walker’s list of credits is long, but two of my favourites include mixing Kirsty Merryn’s excellent ‘Our Bright Night’ record and performing guitar on Petula Clark’s brilliant 2016 album ‘From Now On’. This EP would include earlier versions of Roxanne’s tracks ‘Wasteland’ and ‘Rerun’, but more on that later. After being unavailable for some time, de Bastion uploaded the Seeing You EP to her bandcamp page in 2020. Though instead of utilising the original artwork, she opted for an updated cover, more in keeping with her current works.
Roxanne’s vocal on the title track is more timid, but the layers of acoustic guitar, electric guitar (supplied by Ben Walker) and voices are more intricate than the sparse arrangements on The Real Thing. The added percussion here from Seb Hankins is an asset to this track, as well as cello from Raphael Knapp, it is the first indicator of Roxanne’s future sound over the next six years. Though this video isn’t the studio track that opens the EP, it is remarkably close to the original’s sound, this time with Stuart Irwin on bass guitar.
Glastonbury 2016. Image Credit: Chris Rowe
‘We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the festival. Come rain or shine (and both did frequently), Glastonbury is as special as everyone says it is. Yes, it’s too big to see everything you want to see, but you get to soak up all of it and are surrounded by so many people, over three generations and from many different walks of life, all there to enjoy music. It was the perfect place to be on a day where you feel the whole world is going to shit.’ – Roxanne de Bastion (de Bastion, 2018, p. 97).
A significant moment in Roxanne de Bastion’s career has been playing on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2016. For this event, Roxanne played a mixture of previously released songs on her debut album and Seeing You EP, as well as compositions yet to be recorded for her next album. A huge part of Roxanne’s career is playing live, and for the most part she has done it alone. A travelling musician with an acoustic guitar in a hard-case playing tiny venues and meeting new people everywhere she goes.
‘Tales From The Rails’. Cover Art: James Gardiner
Inevitably when you’re playing across countries like Germany, Italy, the U.K. and U.S.A., you tend to gather stories of the people you meet and the funny situations you find yourself in. To that end, Roxanne began a blog entitled ‘Tales From The Rails’, with entries going back to 2010 and a hope it will continue post-pandemic. It features photographs, experiences playing on radio and yearly round-ups as well as a host of other tales. The best of these were compiled into a book of the same name, with Roxanne’s Glastonbury experience closing out the first volume (we hope there will be more!). de Bastion has a talent for storytelling, writing as if she’s speaking directly to you, like you, yourself, are too going on the journey.
Image Credit: Amanda Rose
Beyond touring and recording music, Roxanne de Bastion is a board director for the FAC (Featured Artists Coalition), a non-profit organisation that aims to educate and advocate for the rights of musicians in the U.K. Their homepage is a ‘Who’s Who’ in the music industry with photographs of Sir Tom Jones, Sia, Paloma Faith, Robbie Williams, Katie Melua and Annie Lennox amongst many others. Roxanne also runs her own organisation entitled From Me To You (FM2U), where independent musicians are at the core, sharing experiences and allowing networking between the community in the form of a one-day conference.
‘Heirlooms And Hearsay’. Photography: Carl Osbourn, Artwork and Layout: James Gardiner, Sketch: Geraldine de Bastion
Released in 2017, Roxanne de Bastion’s second album ‘Heirlooms and Hearsay’ is her most coherent and impassioned work to date. For the most part, production is shared between Roxanne and Peter Miles, whose previous credits include Eliza & The Bear, The King Blues and Lonely The Brave. As well as the unique role of recording, mixing and mastering the record, Peter Miles is responsible for ‘guitars, bass and various synths and lots of tape echo machines’. Ben Walker’s work on the Seeing You EP is resurrected for Heirlooms and Hearsay on ‘Wasteland’ and ‘Rerun’, now featuring newly recorded elements which further capture Roxanne’s vision. Raphael Knapp’s cello performance on Rerun is kept intact for the album.
Some familiar faces returned to work with Roxanne on Heirlooms and Hearsay including Seb Hankins providing drums on ‘Train Tracks’ with Stuart Irwin playing bass on the same recording. Roxanne’s father Richard de Bastion added piano on Train Tracks, while her grandfather would appear on occasion in archive recordings, especially in his own composition ‘The Old Mill’ which closes the record. Charlie Deakin Davies co-produced ‘All That Remains’ with Roxanne and also provided electric guitar for the track, while fellow songwriter Thom Morecroft (who appears across Roxanne’s YouTube channel) co-wrote ‘The Painter’ and supplied backing vocals. James Gardiner returns to contribute in the art department after working on The Real Thing and Tales From The Rails.
‘They know your name, you’re the one, who plays piano, a model son…’ I was immediately gripped by this record the first time I heard it, which begins with these words from ‘Run’. I’d often find myself with the words in my mind, determined to know what they meant. The front cover illustration by Geraldine de Bastion features train tracks morphing into piano keys. Consequently, Run also refers to a piano many times. When I purchased the CD (and later the vinyl), it featured a short essay from Roxanne which tells the story of her family, uprooted during World War II and taking with them a family heirloom, a baby-grand piano once owned by her Great-Grandparents.
‘My family has a piano. It has tiny marks on the top right corner, where my Dad used to gnaw at the wood with his baby teeth. Years later, I would play underneath it, while my Dad played his compositions, soaking up the sounds before my hands were large enough to reach a fifth.’ – Roxanne de Bastion (de Bastion, 2017, p. 7).
This is the very same piano that Stephen de Bastion would play on The Old Mill archive recording, made in 1954, and the one Richard de Bastion would play remotely in Berlin for his performance on Train Tracks, bringing together three generations of family musicians on the same album. A photograph of Stephen de Bastion playing the piano is included, and to whom Heirlooms and Hearsay is dedicated. This album is so wonderfully rooted in family identity, inside the booklet are more of Geraldine de Bastion’s illustrations, including ones of the baby-grand.
The more produced of Roxanne’s videos is ‘Heart Of Stone’, the second track from Heirlooms and Hearsay. Featuring expression-restricting make-up and a studio set of a wrecked interior, Heart Of Stone is another one of Roxanne’s uplifting tracks, mostly in black and white, but with glorious shades of animated colour produced from her piano chalk drawings.
My own interpretation of the lyrics is a person finding the strength to carry on, despite the difficulty of doing so. ‘I didn’t want to go outside, I didn’t want to, but I tried. For my heart turns into stone, becomes a weight to carry around, wash the blood up off my hands, and let me come to.’ As well as Roxanne and Peter Miles being staple performers on the album, others include Patrick James Pearson on piano and Hammond, Tim Langsford on drums and India Bourne on cello.
Image Credit: Oliver Prout
From here on, the lead-up to 2020 included playing Heirlooms and Hearsay in full with a band at King’s Place, playing live at Folk Alliance in Toronto, Canada, witnessing Paul McCartney from the front row in none-other than Abbey Road Studios, and then getting to record there. A last minute call brought Roxanne into the studio to contribute guitar and vocals to a version of Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution” for the HEARD Collective. She celebrated Beatles anniversary milestones with fifty years of The White Album and Abbey Road, curating live performances of both including performing herself. Finally in 2019, Roxanne recorded her third album with producer Bernard Butler.
And here we are. The very first track I heard from Roxanne de Bastion back in May. ‘Erase’ is a real step-up in Roxanne’s sonic palette. Those lively drums are Butler’s contribution, as well as bass and guitar. The scrapes on the strings are almost inside your head with their grinding definition, and somebody here is playing piano too! The arrangement is so happening with wonderful lush string performances from Clodagh Kennedy on violin and Meg Ella on cello. There are also backing vocal additions from Roxanne, a multitude of wordless ‘Ooo’s’ and turning into a firing squad for the chorus, added percussion, and that descent into chaos at the end like an ice cream being melted with a hairdryer. It’s a phenomenal marriage of excellent songwriting and production prowess, turning it into the perfect single.
It’s a wonder how much different this year could’ve been for de Bastion, as she reported this has been her longest time not performing live since she first began playing open mic nights in 2007. Momentum could’ve been stirred up with live performances around Erase, but artists have had to adapt more than most communities in 2020.
So Roxanne took herself on a virtual tour of the U.K. where she inhabited social media pages for small venues around the country. These included The Stables in Milton Keynes, Liverpool Acoustic, Louder Than War in Manchester and Melting Vinyl in Brighton. Every night she would leave her house with her guitar and suitcase, before turning around and going straight back in to perform the gig. Not only that, but sprinkled in were readings from chapters of Tales From The Rails across her own social media pages.
In the absence of meeting audiences at the conclusions of gigs, Roxanne brought people together via her newly established Patreon account. A subscription-based system (which is month-by-month, not annual) allows you access to demos, previously unreleased songs, Q&As and excellent music industry discussion. Now with many years of experience, it’s interesting to have knowledge imparted by someone who has toured, recorded, supported and booked independently. To read an extended edit of this article, as well as more of our telephone interview featured below, head over to Roxanne’s Patreon to indulge.
Later in the summer, Roxanne released a cover of ‘I Should Live In Salt’ originally by The National and put out in 2013 on their ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ album. Recorded with Ben Walker, the arrangement on Roxanne’s cover is more simple, forgoing the band sound of the original. Still, there are acoustic and electric guitar layers, and lovely harmonies in the chorus. Having never heard The National before, it was this song that introduced me to their music.
Technically the last gig I saw was in March, but I did pay to see Roxanne de Bastion perform at The Moth Club in London at the start of September. A professionally filmed performance with Meg Ella on cello, Roxanne played a full set with songs from The Real Thing, Heirlooms and Hearsay, her 2020 releases and even some tracks yet to be released.
Armed with her trusty Rickenbacker electric guitar, the pair’s rendition of ‘Wasteland’ is just as disarming as the original. Based upon the gentrification of a specific area after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wasteland is a reminder that brand new shiny things don’t always make somewhere better than it was before, a subject touched on in our interview. The final verse of Wasteland in particular is powerful songwriting; ‘On the graveyard, they’re building hotels, fluffing up pillows, so no one can tell, you’re lying where I once took my final stride, face down in the mud, heading for the other side, it’s only wasteland to them now.’
Five tracks from the Moth Club gig would be compiled into an EP release on gold vinyl in time for Christmas, which is unfortunately sold out now. The selected songs would be a cross-section of Roxanne’s released material with Red And White Blood Cells, Erase, I Should Live In Salt, Wasteland and Rerun representing the performance.
In October, de Bastion embarked on a new endeavour, turning herself into a radio DJ for her ‘podshow’, a cross between a radio show and podcast uploaded to Mixcloud. Each episode has a theme, the first is a special on Liverpool featuring an interview with Thom Morecroft. There is further rumination on Tales From The Rails, a lyrical special with Lisbee Stainton, and a big sister episode with Geraldine de Bastion! I imagine Roxanne running a regular slot on BBC 6 Music in the future with her diverse taste and natural flair for presenting.
Roxanne de Bastion’s latest single ‘Heavy Lifting’ is yet more new ground for this singer/songwriter. Instrumentally driven by piano and soft atmospherics, Bernard Butler’s production reminds me of ‘Wildest Dreams’ by Taylor Swift, and though this was recorded before, Taylor Swift’s ‘folklore’ and ‘evermore’ works. This is the most emotion I’ve heard in both de Bastion’s lyrics and voice, and perhaps even the most honest. ‘Look, don’t you start, I’m having a bad time, holding my breath, waiting on punchlines. Heavy Lifting, when no one’s looking. I am done, enough already.’
The music video filmed, directed and edited by Max Bandicoot features Roxanne’s favoured studio shots under dramatic lighting. But it’s the exterior shots in the park surrounding Alexandra Palace in North London that really aid the emotional impact. Would it have the same effect if shot in Summer? Probably not, that’s why this careful release timing is essential. Plus, I think we all feel somewhat done after the year we’ve had. All of these elements coming together might make this my favourite Roxanne de Bastion song so far.
Read on for the detailed telephone conversation I had with Roxanne on the eve of Heavy Lifting’s release in late November. We cover working with producer Gordon Raphael on The Real Thing in Berlin, Ben Walker on the Seeing You EP, Charlie Deakin Davies and producing Heirlooms and Hearsay with Peter Miles. We also dive deeper into touring stories after the events of Glastonbury, Roxanne’s work with the FAC and From Me To You, and the future of Roxanne’s third album produced by Bernard Butler. But this is only part of the interview, to read an extended version of our conversation, be sure to subscribe to Roxanne de Bastion’s Patreon page, with a link at the conclusion of this article.
Image Credit: Amanda Rose
Teri Woods: So we’ll start with your latest single. ‘Heavy Lifting’ is one of the most, actually one of the most soothing pieces I’ve heard from your catalogue, is this inspired, and this is the only one by the way, is this inspired by the pandemic or something else entirely?
Roxanne de Bastion: It was written pre-pandemic and was inspired by the struggles we’ve all been facing, but it definitely did influence the decision to release it now. It just felt very apt.
TW: Ok, will it be on your next album?
RDB: Yeah so it’s the second track I’ve released off of the second album that I’ve recorded with Bernard Butler.
TW: Oh so Erase will be the first single from the album then?
RDB: Yep.
TW: Oh right. Oh that’s exciting. So your latest EP, ‘Live At The Moth Club’, features five tracks from the live streamed show you played back in September, how did that gig come about?
RDB: So when did lockdown start? In March? Obviously for all musicians it was a real shock to the system to have all live work just disappear from one day to the next. It did have silver linings as well, but, you know it was definitely a bit of a panic. I felt very lucky that I spent the last years just relentlessly gigging and playing in people’s living rooms and small venues, because it did mean that I had a little established fanbase. So the first thing I did was start a Patreon and early on in lockdown I went on a virtual UK tour, so that’s where I sort of took over social media accounts of venues and promoters that I’ve enjoyed working with in the past. And that worked really well so the Moth Club show was kind of the next experiment, or sort of the next step to film, I really wanted to team up with a venue and actually record something on site. And it just so happens that Moth were just looking for an artist to try out their gear I suppose, that they’d just gotten in to record live streams. I played that show with my lovely cellist Meg Ella, and it was very strange sort of trying to perform in an empty venue, but I’m really glad I did it. It was really nice to create a moment that felt we could share even though we weren’t in the same physical space, if that makes sense?
TW: Yeah, was it always the plan to put out the EP afterwards?
RDB: It was at least always a consideration that we could do that, but then really to have gold vinyl was more of a- (laughs) more of a thought after I’d been on the nice golden stage at Moth Club I thought ‘that’s a good idea’.
TW: Yeah, how did you make the decision of what tracks to include on the EP?
RDB: Just really to pick my favourite performances from the gig, but also to be honest, I couldn’t put too many new songs that aren’t released out, so that kind of dictated it as well. So ‘Erase’ is on that and the cover version of The National that I released this year, and other than that, it’s songs off my ‘Heirlooms and Hearsay’ album.
TW: Now we’re gonna sort of go further back, you worked with Gordon Raphael in Berlin on your debut album ‘The Real Thing’? What was that like?
RBD: It was great! I loved working with him, so that just came about because I’m a huge Regina Spektor fan and he’s primarily known for working with The Strokes, but he also worked with Regina Spektor on her first album. This was even before she was signed to a major- her Soviet Kitsch album? So it was just one of those things, I just turned around the album to see who produced it and I looked him up and I saw that he was currently living in Berlin, he’s originally from Seattle. But because my family is in Berlin and I’m from there, when I saw that he was based there, I saw that as my ‘in’ and that I might have a chance at this? So I just, you know what this sounds crazy, but I couldn’t even find an email address for him so I just sent him a message on facebook. And he got back to me! And we met up when I was in Berlin over Christmas, and we just took it from there. And he’s such a nice man, and worked really hard. We did the whole- because I had like no budget, we recorded the entire album with mixing and everything in seven days.
TW: Wow.
RDB: Which- you can hear because it is very much like ‘these are my first collections of songs’ and they’re quite sort of raw in there, it’s either just me with an acoustic, well I think they’re all just kind of me with an acoustic guitar and like little chord bits around them.
TW: So if you were gonna approach those tracks now, what would you do differently?
RDB: Ha, that’s a great question. Well, sometimes having budget constraints and time constrains can be a really great thing because as a solo artist, there are always like a myriad of musical avenues to go down, and it’s really easy to get lost. So sometimes, you either have to have a really clear artistic vision and stick to it and have the confidence to stick to that throughout the recording process or you’re just sort of happy to meander and see where it takes you. I have always heard full productions to songs when I write them- like when they first come to me and I think I’m predominantly a singer and a songwriter. As in I would never really call myself a guitarist or a piano player, for me those things are really more a means to an end. So whenever an idea comes it’s usually accompanied by other sounds, which we did get fixed down, there are songs on there I wouldn’t really treat differently. Like, ‘Red and White Blood Cells’, I still love that, that crazy guitar solo that Gordon actually put down at the end of it. There’s a song that I’m still quite fond of that I hardly ever play anymore called ‘My Shield’, where if I re-record that now, it would definitely just be real strings, because at the time I didn’t have the time or the money. So yeah definitely little things, but it’s a difficult one because you can always, you know songs are never really finished, as happy as you are with it, you can always hear what you could do differently. You could sort of tweak, ad infinitum. So sometimes it’s sort of good to let things be, as they were at the time.
TW: You mentioned Red And White Blood Cells, so what inspired the lyric on that one?
RDB: Genuinely a doctor’s visit! It was nothing serious at all, and I’ve had so many concerned comments from people like thinking that there was something really wrong with me. I’m interested in language anyway and I’m very interested in expressing things or using vernacular in songs that aren’t commonly used? It’s hard- you know you never really know where inspiration will come from but Red And White Blood Cells was written- it was one of those songs that came to me and then kind of written instantly. I think it was- the whole thing- I picked up the guitar, played that one note, and I think it wrote itself. But yeah, just a small white blood cell deficiency, which wasn’t in any way meant to be dramatic (laughs). I think as a songwriter you just see pattern and weird connections that other people don’t see maybe? (laughs) Does that answer the question?
TW: Yeah, yeah! (laughs) Speaking of your writing, have you ever been tempted to write in German for any of your songs?
RDB: Rarely tempted. Asked many, many times. So when I started making music as a teenager in Berlin, I was asked all the time because whenever I sort of hit an industry level, it was just popular at the time to sing in German, that definitely goes in and out of fashion. At that time when I was in high school, just a few bands had broken through that were super popular and sang in German. So I was always asked then, and it was always out of the question for me as a stubborn teenager, not because I didn’t like German speaking music, some of my favourite bands are German-speaking. But, it just wasn’t my musical mother tongue? I didn’t find it easy and it didn’t come naturally to me to express myself in that way. Now, having said that I definitely wouldn’t say that that’s never going to happen? I once wrote a song in German that I was quite fond of, but I never even properly finished it so- On the last tour I did though, I went on one small tour in Germany this year which seems like an absolute lifetime ago now. I played a German song for the very first time, so I covered a song I love, and it went down so well and it really made me think ‘well why have I not done this before?’ Because it’s just nice to- obviously the vast majority of people in Germany speak really good English, but it’s something special to connect with the people in there so I really enjoyed doing that.
TW: Ok, what was the name of the song you sang on the tour?
RDB: It was called ‘Junimond’, which means June Moon and is by a really influential German songwriter called Rio Reiser.
TW: So after The Real Thing, you released the Seeing You EP, and Ben Walker worked on that as well as Heirlooms and Hearsay, what was he like to work with?
RDB: He was great to work with! I’m trying to remember how that collaboration came about. I think because I played with an acoustic guitar- so at first I kind of pretended to be indie electro pop and landed in the Barfly and kind of where I felt I should be- like in that more kind of band environment, but because I played an acoustic guitar and I was a solo artist, I quickly got booked for a lot of more folky nights? Which I also really enjoyed, but I think through that kind of singer/songwriter folk scene, people started recommending Ben Walker, and he’s just a real guitar whizz. And is just very, very easy to work with and I remember, I really enjoyed doing that EP with him. I didn’t know it at the time but, the little bit of production that he did on ‘Wasteland’ and ‘Rerun’ which I then took on for the album, it really helped sort of set a musical path for me. So that really helped me understand what kind of a sound I wanted to achieve and how I could achieve it. I love working with musicians, so I’m not classically trained in any way, so I need to work with musicians who are cool with that and can understand, like who can speak the same language? Especially with a song like ‘Seeing You’, the timing is quite particular because it follows the lyrics and not anything else. Erm, which is really difficult for musicians, or can be because you just need to remember that there’s an extra beat in the second verse, things like that. So Ben was really, really good at being very sensitive to that, and yeah treating that sort of with respect and building a really great track around it.
TW: Seeing You features earlier versions of Wasteland and Rerun, like you already said, what made you decide to re-record those for Heirlooms and Hearsay?
RDB: I only re-recorded them partly, so on Wasteland it’s actually exactly the same, I just re-did the vocal and then it’s mastered of course. But I just thought I could sing it better now, so, yeah, the same on Rerun, I put down a new vocal and built upon what we already had. But essentially they’re the same recordings because I was really happy with them. I was really happy with the whole Seeing You EP, it’s just that those are the two songs that made it onto the album.
TW: Right! I was sort of tricked into thinking because there’s a new vocal, that the entire thing was brand new, so- ah that’s really interesting. And so staying on Heirlooms and Hearsay, for people that are about to listen to that for the first time, how would you sum up the concept of it?
RDB: It’s inspired by my own family history, specifically my Grandad who, my Grandparents were from Hungary and they came to the U.K. as- I would say ‘refugees’, my Grandad would probably prefer I say ‘immigrants’ in the Second World War. They fled after being persecuted in the Second World War and my Grandad’s story- there are so many stories like that, but it is quite an incredible survival story, but what inspired the concept of the album was really just seeing eerie parallels in rhetoric and events between them and now. So I had that in mind, then I wrote ‘Run’, which is the song that is most direct about him and about that. Then the idea was to have songs half about him then, and half about me now, so it’s quite personal- it is a concept album, but it’s not a concept album as in the songs all sort of stand alone as well. It felt really good to have that in mind writing the songs and then, it gave the project more of a purpose for me as well.
TW: Yeah I mean you’re right, they absolutely do stand on their own aside from the concept, I mean like you say with Run, to me that was really obvious and erm, I wanted to say Wasteland, but maybe not? But, that’s such an important song, I think, Wasteland. That really- that’s one of the ones that grabbed me on my very first listen.
RDB: Thank you! It’s a funny one that. I rarely write songs inspired by very specific events. But it was this headline of East Side Gallery in Berlin being torn down to make room for a luxury hotel. The East Side Gallery was just a remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall that artists sort of reclaimed with messages of love and it was just such an interesting conversation because, it’s just how we want to deal with our history. And I’m not saying we should memorialise everything, you know, change is good and progress is good and necessary. But the fact that it was just to make room for a luxury hotel was just so jarring to me and I was just really inspired by that. I was just inspired by Berlin because it’s a city that changes at such a fast rate. It was a very different place when I left. And it’s just really interesting to see. I’m sure people who live in Williamsburg know that feeling of sort of seeing gentrification played out in real time. So, that was inspired by that and that was another song that came really easily and quickly and it’s also one of my favourites to play, it’s one of those songs where no matter how many times I play it, I’m always really in it when I play it.
TW: Yeah! I mean that’s on the Moth Club EP as well, so the hotel was actually built and it did all happen?
RDB: Yeah it all happened, it’s really ugly.
TW: Oh dear.
RDB: And there was a lot of protests at the time. There was a public referendum but they went ahead and did it anyway-
TW: That sounds familiar.
RDB: Yep.
TW: So, Peter Miles mostly produced that album, what was the process of putting Heirlooms and Hearsay together?
RDB: We very much co-produced that, and it was a really lovely experience because for me that was the first time, despite the fact that Gordon Raphael was kind of like the bigger name- Well like one thing I loved about working with Gordon Raphael, again because I was like, poor, the studio we worked in, I booked the cheapest, tiniest studio you could find in Berlin, and actually it was such a happy accident because it was so cool, it was kind of- I forget what it was called but, it was some kind of- it was just three letters and it was erm- the guy who built the studio, he built it all himself, and it turned out that it was one of the places that they used to use to intercept post from the West to the East in Berlin. So when he built the studio, he took the wall down and all of a sudden he found all these wires and it’s like spyware and it made him research what the hell happened there.
TW: Oh that’s so cool!
RDB: Yeah! So it was like a really inspiring place to record, but it also kind of goes to show how cool Gordon is because he doesn’t care where he works, he just works really hard and sort of gets on with it. But yeah it was this tiny, tiny room.
TW: So I’ve got your album here. I’ve got all these bits here, and it says it was recorded at ‘Ablg.m Studio’?
RDB: (laughs) Well yeah there you go!
TW: What- is that how you pronounce it or is it-
RDB: So that ab-thingy is short for ‘abteilung’, which means ‘department’.
TW: Right.
RDB: So it’ll be ‘Department M.’ I don’t know what ‘M’ stands for but, he named it after whatever it used to be called when they used to intercept post from the West to the East, that’s what I mean like Berlin is still full of these relics because it’s still such a recent part of our history. But when I started working with Pete Miles it was really the first time I recorded in like a nice studio and it’s in beautiful, rural Devonshire, erm which is difficult for me as a city person because I kind of get easily spooked when there’s no phone reception and like no- (laughs) no city, but it was a very nice tranquil place to be creative. One thing I’ll say about working with Pete Miles is that he is super sensitive to the subject matter. In particular there’s- I mean, what I like to call a hidden track (laughs) at the end of that features my Grandad’s piano playing.
TW: Yep, er- The Old Mill?
RDB: Yes that’s the one. My Dad had sent me a recording of it and Peter Miles really delicately tried to clean up that recording as best he could? And I remember being really surprised at my emotional reaction, because I never even met my Grandfather, he died when I was really little. So like we did meet, but I have no recollection of it. But there was something about, because we had to shorten the piece somewhat because the original is like really long and just- I really wanted to do it justice, and I was so sort of acutely aware of the fact that I couldn’t consult him to make sure he was happy with it, and all of a sudden I really felt that weight of having that responsibility. And I remember starting to just completely involuntarily cry when Pete started to chop it up, and he was so nice about it and was so understanding and how delicate that was and for that reason the collaboration worked really well. He treated it with such respect and he was really kind. And I love what he did, he did a great job, erm, again with my sort of ‘can you make it sound more “orange”’ and him kind of figuring out what I mean by that and yeah.
TW: Well my next question was gonna be about the older tape elements, so what was- so did you ever see those tapes at all or were they all just sent from your Dad and you just had digital copies of those?
RDB: We must have the 8 tracks somewhere, so my Dad was definitely the one who sort of took the time to digitise as much as he could, so he sent me that, so that’s how I know it- We still have his piano, which- I grew up with this piano- it sounds weird because we grew up in like a very like modest household, but we have these really weird relics from this bygone era, and the most precious one is definitely my Grandad’s piano. It still blows my mind thinking about it and I never tire of talking about it because this piano has done a 360 circle in the space of a hundred years because it was bought by my Great-Grandmother in 1905 and comes from Leipzig, which is in Germany, not far from Berlin at all. So, got shipped to Hungary where they lived and made it to England in one piece in 1947 I think? And eventually made it back to Berlin with my Dad and yeah it’s crazy to me that that piano has so much of my family in it, and has seen so much and it’s just, I feel really lucky to have that. And no one- it’s a shame that I mean no one’s around anymore who knows the answers to some like really pressing questions I have like no one really knows how they managed to smuggle a fucking baby grand piano out of Hungary at that time.
TW: (laughs)
RDB: (laughs) Like how? I don’t- and then they lived in this like council flat in the West-Midlands and like what the neighbours must’ve thought when they rocked up with this grand piano, how did they cope with that!? So, it’s a great story with some mysteries.
TW: Oh it’s just fascinating, I love that. I mean you said about ‘The Old Mill’ being chopped up by Peter Miles. I actually had no idea that that wasn’t the full piece because it’s so well edited. I thought that what we were hearing was the complete piece.
RBD: Yeah I’m glad! I’m not sure I’ve actually ever shared that before but he did such a great job with it, that was one of my favourite moments making the album and it was really towards the end. But it was just because he took such care to do a great job, I remember like we had this big hug afterwards because I think he really felt the pressure to get that right as well.
TW: Oh yeah and there’s also I think it’s at the end of ‘Run’ or ‘Heart Of Stone’, I think there’s some of Stephen de Bastion there as well?
RDB: Yeah! Yeah there is. Erm, it’s just again I feel so lucky to- because the average household didn’t have any means to record anything in the early 50’s! I feel so privileged to be able to hear his voice even though I never met him, erm. Ooo so let me try and remember. I think that little bit of his voice is a blurb of him talking about his son, so he explains the concept of ‘The Old Mill’ which is autobiographical, but the song is about an old mill in the night dreaming that it’s young again and trying to turn its wheels, but it can’t. So, like you know, trying to come to terms with your aging body at the end of your life and being quite sort of- yeah just face a reminiscing tone. But that thick Hungarian accent, I don’t know it just made me really, really emotional to hear that.
TW: So, I’ve got one more question about Heirlooms and Hearsay and that’s that, you got to work with the legend that is Charlie Deakin Davies, I just- I love her. What was it like to work with her?
RDB: (laughs) Well I’ve known Charlie for ages, like we’re mates, and she is a legend! So I knew Charlie through her Mum, which I’m sure is of case for many musicians actually because her Mum is also a total legend, total like go-getter of a woman who got into music really just to support her daughter which is great, and then went on to be a really great promoter on sort-of the D.I.Y. folk scene. So that’s how I know Charlie, so the song we recorded together- we’ve recorded a couple together, we recorded a song of mine called ‘Butterfly’, which isn’t anywhere other than a Folkstock compilation which is on Folkstock Records- it’s erm-
TW: Ah that’s right I meant to pick that up, I still haven’t done that yet so-
RDB: (laughs) I’m so impressed by your, like, completist ambitions when it comes to music (laughs)
TW: (laughs) This is why I do this website, you know, it’s very comprehensive.
RDB: So that’s erm, you know I don’t even know if there were physical copies of that?
TW: There are, I just couldn’t afford it at the time.
RDB: There are? (laughs)
TW: Yeah! So coming away from your personal music, you also created the organisation ‘From Me To You’, would you tell us more about how that began and where you’re at with it now?
RDB: Sure! I at some point got invited to speak at a music industry conference to give the artist’s point of view? And through doing that, I got invited to join the board of directors at an organisation called the Featured Artists Coalition, they are like the U.K. trade body that represents artists. But because I was really the odd one out at the time, I was like the youngest artist there for sure, kind of- I was like representing D.I.Y. musicians. So I started going to music- sort of traditional music industry events and just found it really frustrating how often, if there was a musician on the panel, it seemed to be a bit of an afterthought. And there seemed to me to be such a disconnect, or- still is really, such a disconnect between music industry and the reality of artists out in the world, doing really interesting things and creating these careers for themselves outside of these structures. So, you know like I got tired hearing advice from some person who’s never written a song and never been on the road and say like ‘well just write a better song’ or ‘what you need is a manager’. I thought it would be really interesting to have an event like that, you know, similar structure, panels and key-notes and all that jazz. But from our point of view as artists. So what started as a- we’ve got a saying in German called a ‘schnappsidee’? So like a little sort of ‘booze idea’? It’s like a little, crazy, crazy idea. I just sort of went for it and put on a conference and it worked really well and it was really well received and I wasn’t surprised that was well received from the artist community point of view. But I was really surprised at how open the traditional music industry was to this. Because I think, I don’t know I just think- you know the music industry has been struggling and is notoriously very slow to adapt to new landscapes, so I think the traditional music industry was quick to realise it might be a good idea to see how these independent artists are successfully creating careers and making music now?
TW: I mean there are so many misconceptions and the average person thinks that when an artist goes on tour, they come back rich, and it’s like – nope. (laughs)
RDB: Totally. And it’s all- like there’s no reason why the wider public should know and I don’t know about you, you said you’re a drummer but for me, we don’t know how it works until we sort of find out, you know? I used to think that songs got played on the radio because they were good and the radio DJ liked them.
TW: Yeah – no. (laughs)
RDB: Yeah you know? (laughs) I remember what it felt like to find out about the profession of the radio plugger and it felt like such a let-down. So what? You pay someone to be good mates with the radio DJ? So there’s a lot of that, there’s a lot of, sort of, smoke and mirrors. To be fair, it is changing and things are getting more transparent, and that’s why I love working with the F.A.C. because that is very much their mission, to educate artists and fight for a more transparent, fairer industry. That’s not to say that there are obviously very good people working at major labels and who are in it for all the right reasons, but it’s just the whole system is so complicated, so complicated! It’s really hard, you know no one goes into music because you can earn copyright money by being on the radio. It’s like that doesn’t occur to you, you make music because you have something to say and because you want to make music. So everything else is like a bit of a shock (laughs) to the system, and how it works.
TW: Yeah (laughs). Ok so going to your book ‘Tales From The Rails’, it features excerpts of your blog of the same name, was it difficult choosing which blog posts to include in that?
RDB: Erm, not really. I think there were obvious milestones, like the first two Italy tours. It wasn’t hard to choose which ones I wanted to feature, it was just a real weird memory trip going through the older posts and sort of- because they all mention like musicians or music venues that I came across at the time and a lot of the music venues are closed now. Some of the musicians have become my really close friends. Others, I’ve like completely forgotten about- you know it’s just life, but it was just really fun to revisit and like we’re only talking a space of I don’t know? Five years or so? But it feels like a lot of experience to have your- I’ve played like an average of eighty shows per year for a good few years, and that’s a lot of little music venues to remember (laughs). And a lot of people to meet! And I feel especially in this very weird year, it’s the first time ever that I’ve not been on tours like that. It’s made me feel so lucky to have already soaked up so many experiences and- like there’s no way I would’ve seen as much of the world without playing little gigs in weird places. Like especially in America! That was a such a gift that- you know like my music was the passport to take me there and see rural America as well, like stuff you wouldn’t normally see on holiday.
TW: So what I remember is you went to New York, like multiple times you’ve been to New York.
RDB: Mmhmm.
TW: But where else did you visit because I can’t quite recall that part?
RDB: So I’ve been on two tours there. One of them is in the book, the other one is post-book. So the first big U.S. tour was from L.A., up the West Coast to Portland, Oregon. And then across through Ohio and Pennsylvania and then we ended up in New York. So that was a massive, massive five week trip, which for me was the longest time I’d been on tour and been away.
TW: Yeah that’s a lot of ground to cover!
RDB: Yeah! We did skip over a few states (laughs). So like we flew from Portland to Ohio (laughs). Then the second one was from Canada, from Toronto, across and then down to New York, which was also really fun.
TW: Ok. It’s good that they were kind of individual in their own way as well, it wasn’t just like going back to the same places and-
RBD: Yeah!
TW: -because you could go to different venues every time in the U.S. and still see so much every time.
RDB: Oh you definitely could, that’s why for U.S. artists, they could tour non-stop, because by the time you’ve travelled up the coast, you’ve covered enough time and enough ground to sort of just travel back down again (laughs).
TW: I mean there are so many American artists over history that have almost exclusively toured in the U.S. and once you really think about the breadth of the United States, you kind of think ‘oh actually I do understand that’ (laughs) because of the amount of people and the amount of cultures you go through in one country.
RDB: Yeah it is crazy! Apparently there are artists who are just like famous in Texas.
TW: I’m- do you know I’m- I really believe that. Yeah.
RDB: (laughs)
TW: So with your touring experience, what would you say has been the absolute stand-out moment?
RDB: That’s a challenging question just because so many moments come to mind, which I suppose is lucky. I’d say the best gigs that come to mind from a career point of view are- I mean obviously Glastonbury is a really big one. Cambridge Folk Fest - I had such a great time playing there because the audience was amazing and I had a really good slot. Erm, also one of the shows I did opening for Marillion, which was such an unlikely pairing- playing at the Barbican in York, opening for Marillion, just because it was like a huge crowd for me. And they were so nice, you know as a support act you like really don’t take it for granted that people are gonna listen or care and they really did, and a lot of people who got to know my music on that tour have been really loyal and keeping in touch with me and were at the virtual Moth gig and yeah so that’s been really nice.
TW: Oh that’s great. Like really worthwhile gig!
RDB: Totally! So a huge thanks to Marillion for having me on that tour. And to all the support tours I did, like I loved opening for Lamb Chop, that was great. But some of the moments that really stick out as well are playing in people’s living rooms. And like tiny gigs.
TW: Oh it’s so intimate, I love those sorts of shows.
RDB: Yeah, it’s not for everyone because it is like, super intimate, but, I don’t know like I just remember playing- this was in the States, this was in Ohio somewhere and I played ‘Run’, and this woman came up to me after the show in tears. She was really emotional and she just said ‘my Grandmother was also on that list’ and it was just such a powerful- You know that’s what you kind of aim and hope to do with music, like create something that brings people together and like through a shared feeling or a shared experience and, yeah so that was- moments like that are special.
TW: Yeah that’s majickal. (exhales in awe) So my next question I was debating whether or not to ask, but without dwelling too much on the negative, has there been a worst experience?
RDB: Oh yeah and like luckily they’re kind of funny? I mean I haven’t had like any terrible experiences, but there have definitely been an abundance- especially again in America, because it’s so big, sometimes, you’ll book a gig that you know isn’t gonna be good. But it’s just serving a purpose of sort of getting you from A to B and providing a place to sleep. I played (laughs) I played in the middle of nowhere in North California. I cannot- we’ll run out of time if I told you, like someday I might like tell you the whole story but essentially we were booked by this guy who only played bluegrass music and I think he tends to only book bluegrass acts, but, have you seen Blues Brothers?
TW: (laughs) I have yeah.
RDB: It was like the Good Ole Boys moment.
TW: (laughs)
RDB: Like, it really was like that. He said ‘oh I make a habit of- I never listen to the people I book, I just book them on a whim’ and I was like ‘ok this is gonna go well isn’t it?’ He was like ‘listen, this is how I do things. I play a 45 minute set, you play a 45 minute set, and then we play a 45 minute set together.’ And I was like…ok-
TW: What.
RDB: What am I gonna do? And-
TW: That is not standard practice!
RDB: It is not, and I think we had an audience of like two people, which is bad because it was just on tips. So like we already knew like ok we’re not gonna make any money today, that’s fine. It’s a place to stay. Turns out that wasn’t a place to stay but, that’s a different story.
TW: Good lord.
RDB: Like he insisted we play the full two 45 minutes and I think, I don’t know, I think he ended up just like teaching me a Hank Williams song on the fly because it’s only like three chords or something. We played a few Bob Dylan songs and like somehow got through those 45 minutes but yeah it was a very- it felt like I was in like a Coen Brothers movie or something like that, it was just ridiculous.
TW: (laughs) Wow. That is…I’m really glad I asked that question. I didn’t know what to expect, but that’s great (laughs). So you already mentioned the livestreaming tour earlier this year. What was your favourite moment from those performances?
RDB: I think just seeing a group of the same people pop up everyday? It felt really nice to have that little sense of community, and I love this on the Patreon as well. I’d love for it to happen more, but when people start talking to each other it’s just- so I really enjoyed that people were, you know, just really running with it? Because I made a bit of a joke of leaving the house, heading to the venue, or just things like that. But people sort of ran with that as well and you know they’d post something like ‘I’m at the bar!’ or ‘got here early’ or ‘front-row seat’ or you know whatever. But it was just nice that people- it gave people something to look forward to and that people enjoyed it and the interactivity of it I suppose, I enjoyed.
TW: You already mentioned your Patreon page, what content has been your favourite to share on there?
RDB: Good question. I’ve really enjoyed the Q&A’s to be honest, because you all ask really good questions, and it’s been really nice because it’s felt like a genuine dialogue because the people who are there are like obviously by default people who genuinely care about me and want to see me do well. And also I love that there’s a real thirst to understand how things work? You know like someone asked like ‘oh you keep pushing Spotify even though I think, my understanding is that it’s not good for artists, so can you explain how does that work?’ You know just this genuine wanting to understand and help and support, that’s really heart-warming. So I really enjoy the Q&A’s. And I also really enjoyed sharing a new song? That I haven’t shared anywhere before and getting people’s thoughts because I just really enjoyed hearing people’s thoughts on it? People had clever things to say about it as well, and yeah I quite enjoy the platform. I hope to keep finding new and good ways to grow that community there. I think it was you who posted- like you asked a few questions to other Patrons and I was a bit like ‘oh come on why aren’t more people sort of chiming in?’ Because I thought that was really cool and it was really nice that you were trying to talk to other people there as well. But it is a good group of people and it’s- some people are Patrons and they never chime in? And they’re just sort of there quietly and that’s totally fine too of course. But I do enjoy the feeling that there’s like a cool little group of people there that I can talk to. I think I’m a very sort of open and approachable person, so my shows in real life are kind of like that too. Like, obviously you play the show, but then afterwards you’re in the room and you meet the people and like, you chat. And again if you’re on that circuit of playing in people’s living rooms, you know, these people really do sort of become your- you get sort of a little tour family. Erm, like Dietmar who’s a Patron, he hosts house shows in Frankfurt and I’ve played there a bunch of times. He’s one of those brilliant people who just also offers his home to touring musicians even if they’re not playing at his house. Erm, and it’s quite sort of, it is like going back to sort of minstrel days, you know when you just kind of travelled around playing your songs, but I don’t- you know so many artists couldn’t survive without the generosity of these people, and it is obviously reciprocal but it’s a really beautiful- yeah I think it’s a really beautiful relationship. I think if- it is also people like that and travelling, whether it’s America and Ohio was like Trump-land. The amount of like- I’m so not into Nationalism, I don’t get it. So, but to see, you know in America that’s so prevalent, and you drive down roads that are just lined with U.S. flags-
TW: I was gonna say, yeah.
RDB: But, playing those kind of shows and tapping into communities like that, it’s very humbling when you realise well there are good people everywhere, you know, it gives you- it gives you a different perspective on that sort of wider picture, like whether it was in Foggia in Italy or in St. Paris, Ohio, there are sort of really great people who work really hard just to improve their community around them, and that’s, erm, encouraging. It’s just the world isn’t- it’s just not black and white. And this Us Vs. Them narrative I just- it’s just not helpful, it’s not gonna get us anywhere.
TW: (pause) No, no, right how do I go from that to talking about ‘Erase’?
RDB: Erm, yep go for it.
TW: Let’s just do it. Right, erm, so you released ‘Erase’ in the summer, so, would you tell us what that song is about?
RDB: Well! I am going to refer to one of my favourite artists, who is Regina Spektor, this is a bit of a cop-out, but she always tends to say she doesn’t like talking about what songs are about specifically because sometimes the ambiguity is good and sometimes it’s- you know art is so much in the eye of the beholder than in the creator so. Yes I appreciate this is a cop-out but, I suppose, Erase- I really like writing songs where you could take them in different ways. So on one level it’s just about interpersonal connections, you know it could be very directly about someone that you’ve fallen out with, but also it’s just- I suppose I’m always inspired by this concept of trying to like rewrite history or just spreading misinformation, so that definitely fed into that, as well.
TW: I mean yeah! I hadn’t thought of it like that before, but that’s so interesting. (laughs) Erm, it’s absolutely not a cop-out at all-
RBD: (laughs) Good! I’m glad you think so!
TW: -it’s entirely your prerogative whether you want to talk about it or not so, I just thought it’s worthwhile asking because that was the first song I ever heard by you so.
RDB: Well I would say that I really wanted to release that one because I thought it was a really good sort of statement of intent for the album to come. Like, you know when I said earlier that every time I write a song, I hear all these- you know a big production and- or these sort of instruments, Bernard Butler is really like the first person that I’ve worked with who’s taken all my ideas on board and helped me translate them, and then some. I remember he kind of ran away a bit with this one. Like I remember coming into the studio and him sort of saying ‘I stayed up late and may have worked on this’. Like he was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t like what he did. But he played me that string arrangement and I just loved it so much and I’m really- yeah I just felt really honoured that he felt like inspired by that song to build such a cool grand orchestration around it!
TW: I mean that’s right, to me it is the biggest, most grand song that you have released so far in terms of arrangement. Can we expect more of that on the album? That sort of sound?
RDB: Yeah. It’s definitely- you know like with Heirlooms and Hearsay, I really don’t like doing one thing. Like I get quite bored with albums that are sonically the same throughout? So you could definitely expect sort of more surprises and different sort of musical avenues, but you can definitely expect some big productions.
TW: Your cover of ‘I Should Live In Salt’, that was kind of released as a follow-up, and was played at the Moth Club as well, so what made you want to cover that song?
RDB: I love The National. My music taste really hasn’t changed since I was like five (laughs), and so it doesn’t happen a lot that I come across a new artist that I really, just love. And I also never tire of songs. I don’t understand when people say ‘oh that song has been played to death’ like that’s not a thing for me. So I love The National’s songwriting, and it is an obscure choice, I think that one just felt very natural for me to play? Erm, and weirdly I just thought again it was quite apt sort of in lockdown because it’s a song about sharing a lot of time and space with one person and I think that’s what a lot of people are doing right now. Erm, and yeah it was- I wasn’t quite ready to release another song of mine and I’d never actually like- oh no I tell a lie, I have released a cover before. But it had been a really long time since I released a cover, so yeah I thought I’d go with that.
TW: What was the other cover?
RDB: I released- I’m sure it’s still on Spotify. I released a cover version of ‘Hey Ya!’
TW: That’s right! Yes of course! So I did know that. I have heard that. Is ‘I Should Live In Salt’, will that be on the album?
RDB: No. That won’t be on the album. So that was just a little stand-alone thing.
TW: Like a little diversion.
RDB: Yeah.
TW: So you know you were saying that your music taste has hardly changed since you were five, and this is oddly a really good segway into this next question. You previously said you enjoy a bit of hip-hop, when did that start?
RDB: Sort of my early teens? I guess? Erm, and it’s my Dad, it was my Dad really. He got super into Dr. Dre.
TW: (laughs) That’s not what I was expecting! Ok.
RDB: Well my Dad was just such an enthusiast for music and he always wanted to know, he was also an educator. So he was just always wanting to know what the kids were listening to, and I’ve got an older sister which is also great for music. You know because older sisters are really good at like playing you what’s cool. I remember my sister making mix-tapes with erm, yeah KRS-One and that kind of stuff. But yeah, so yeah my Dad got me into Dr. Dre. (laughs)
TW: Well yeah I did buy the 2001 album on your recommendation so-
RDB: Did you? (laughs) It is- how did you find it?
TW: You know? I actually loved it.
RDB: Cool!
TW: Erm, I already had Eminem and N.W.A. and a few other things, erm, so that’s just something I should’ve had and just didn’t and it’s great to have finally caught up with that. And, of course, I’ve got to ask a Beatles question and I wracked my brains thinking what could I ask, and you know it’s not terribly deep, but hey ho. Out of The Beatles album releases prior to Rubber Soul, which is your favourite? So for the benefit of the reader, this would be between ‘Please Please Me’, ‘With The Beatles’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, ‘Beatles For Sale’ or ‘Help!’.
RDB: I mean…that is a little bit like asking me to pick a favourite child. Erm-
TW: But everyone does pick a favourite child, so it’s ok.
RDB: (laughs) I’m a big fan of the early stuff. In fact, this isn’t the answer, because, it’s not an official album, but one of the first things I owned- My parents had this hippie friend who played sitar, he, uh, when I was like seven, he made me a cassette tape of The Beatles Live At The BBC, and so that’s full of their old BBC sessions where they do all the originals. But also a load of Chuck Berry, Little Richard covers and Buddy Holly covers, and I just love that kind of Hamburg, early rock and roll Beatles era as well. Erm, oh god, I don’t know. Can you pick a favourite out of these? There’s something special for me about With The Beatles, only because it was the very last album I got to complete my collection, and as a kid- I know this is gonna make me sound like such a nerd, but I experienced The Beatles pretty much chronologically. Like I’d always get an album for like a birthday or Christmas, and because this is like pre-internet, you couldn’t just seek out music otherwise, so I remember With The Beatles was just like this mystery for a really long time. And that energetic, you know, it goes straight in with ‘It won’t be long yet’, there’s just so much energy there, so, yeah. I might go with that one for now.
TW: Ok, I imagine it’s ever-changing? But-
RDB: (laughs) Yeah, definitely.
TW: Yeah I have to get one in so- And, we have reached the last question. So thank you so much for sticking with it (laughs) Like, I didn’t know how long this would take, quite a long time as it happens, but anyway. So-
RDB: No worries at all.
TW: -coming right up to date. You have an album recorded and ready to release, is there anything more you can tell us about that?
RDB: Erm (laughs), not- not really. I am really excited to share ‘Heavy Lifting’ because it’s so close to my heart. It just holds a really special place, because it was like one of my Dad’s favourites? And yeah, he passed away just as I was finishing the record, and we shared some really special moments over it. So from a personal point of view that was- I’m just- yeah, it was nerve-wracking to share it, but I’m really, really excited to share it. And I think it’s- you know what’s the point releasing music, if you’re not going to release what’s closer to your heart? So, I’m very excited to see where this will take me, and then I can’t really share anything other than that, just it’s definitely coming out next year. There will definitely be a couple more singles before the album comes out, just time and everything has been a bit up in the air obviously with the pandemic and what-not. I’ve been doing my best to try and come up with alternative plans, so, yeah for now, I hope everyone enjoys ‘Heavy Lifting’ and yeah, I look forward to sharing more news soon.
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References:
de Bastion, R., ed. Curran, S. (2018) Tales From The Rails, Nomad Songs
de Bastion, R. (2017) Heirlooms and Hearsay album liner notes, Nomad Songs
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Links:
To purchase Roxanne de Bastion’s latest singles and ‘Heirlooms and Hearsay’ on vinyl, visit her bandcamp page.
To read select passages from Roxanne’s blog ‘Tales From The Rails’ in paperback, purchase a copy directly from her website here.
Or to experience the uncut blog in full with more adventures between 2016 and 2020, read ten years of Roxanne’s blog here.
Find out more about the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and the work they do from their official website.
Check out Roxanne’s own organisation, From Me To You (FM2U) on Music Glue and their official Twitter page @FM2UMusic.
Get exclusive access to demos and cover versions, ask Roxanne questions and get the extended Moths and Giraffes article and interview on Roxanne’s Patreon here.
Listen to Roxanne’s Podshow on Mixcloud for a great selection of music and exciting interviews.
Finally, follow Roxanne de Bastion on Twitter and Instagram @Roxannemusic, and on Facebook @Roxannedebastion.
