When Paul Butler was producing your first record [Home Again], we met for a beer in London and you came up in conversation.
Yeah, man; I love Paul. Paul's the one who put me on to Tape Op when I met him. He's a genius. He's had loads of studios; but the studio I worked in, on that first album, on Isle of Wight, was a magical place. It was the best-sounding studio ever, and it was just his basement.
Was it nice to get away, to not be in the middle of London, making a record early on?
Yeah, it was amazing. On top of that, Isle of Wight is a holiday place for the U.K., so I was always there around November; out of season. No restaurants would be open. It was so quiet. I had enough to do, but I could still be creative. I always look back, and often I never realize how good I've got it until after the fact. It was the most perfect place to be creating.
Working, with Paul producing, were you trying to figure out how to present your songs, how to focus your sound, and to figure out who you were?
Yeah, definitely. The idea of a studio was still new to me. I've always loved records and writing songs, but I had no idea about what it entails and how to do it. I could write and play my guitar, and that was it. Paul showed me the ropes and what I could do. Even things I didn't think I could do, he would show me, "You can do this."
on like that?
Producers always do that. They bring out of you what you don't know you have. I remember when we were in the studio, and we got stuck. We were talking about rhythm and the feel of music, and he was saying, "You've got a good feel." I'd always try to bring a band to the studio, because it's always, "How do you make it sound big, with just an acoustic [guitar]?" He said, "We can do that together. You don't have to be a virtuoso at the instrument in the studio. You can bring your rhythm and feel to the table, and it actually sounds cooler." I thought you had to be an expert. If you need bass, you get a pro bass player in. He's like, "No, you do it. We've got time here. Let's start playing." That added a new element to my music that I never thought I could have. At that point, I got excited and I came up with this song "Tell Me A Tale" on the first album. That was towards the end of making it. There was no way in my head, before doing that song, that I could imagine making a song that way. Paul brought that out of me. "We can jump on the bass and have wild ideas." That would be how he began to show me the ropes of what it means to be an artist and creator, and to be making records.
In the studio, so many times the simplest little two-note guitar part makes a recording better.
Yeah, exactly. I continue to learn about it every day, but that was the beginning of the journey. What an amazing person to start that journey with, because he thinks so outside of the box. He's perfect for any artist who wants to be creative. He will challenge you to do something interesting. On top of that, the way he gets his sonics – the sound he can get out of instruments and the mixing desk – he's unbelievable.
Yeah. I'm a fan of his group, The Bees, too.
It was a cool time, because I knew, at that point, I had to work with him. They were about to put out [The Bees' album] Every Step's a Yes. I was about to get a record deal. At the time, 2010, people would make mix CDs. One A&R guy had a mix CD with the first song ["I Really Need Love"] off Every Step's a Yes. I said, "Who's that? That sounds like the most classic music I've ever heard." He said, "It's this band called The Bees." A couple of months passed, I signed a record deal, and a different A&R person sat down and asked, "Who do you want to work with?" I said, "I don't know anyone in the studio industry." He said, "Listen to this. I think this could be a cool match-up." And he played me that same song! "I definitely want to work with Paul, and this is a sign." I remembered it as soon as it came on; it has that unique sound.
How long did you guys spend at his place on Isle of Wight making Home Again?
It was on and off for two years. I'd get the train from Camden and I'd go up for about a week, sometimes two. A couple weeks later I'd go down again. It was a gentle, slow process. As I grew more confident, we started to pick up the process a bit quicker. Towards the end, we found a bit of rhythm.
That's a nice gestation time. You can throw material out and redo songs.
Yeah. I had no gigs, so I had loads of time. It was such a good time.
Were you still playing guitar on other peoples' sessions?
No, I was focusing on my songwriting and the studio. I was pretty overwhelmed by everything in those days. Record labels and budgets! I wanted to focus on that.
The first record did well, too.
Definitely.
I know you and Paul started working on a follow-up. Some of it ended up on the next album, Love & Hate, but it was also a stalled out record, right?
Unfortunately, yeah. We did a whole record, which we loved; but it was hard to rally the troops around it, in terms of the business and record label. We finished the record. We didn't mix it and master it, but we got to the end of the process. There was no real excitement to it like there was at the end of the first album. We didn't know what to do so we stopped for a while. Then it was back to the drawing board, because the label was pretty much, "We're not going to put this out." It was either to go with the label and do loads of random writing sessions with songwriters to try and test the pop route, or to continue to find what I'd had with Paul, but in another way that would spike interest to get the company behind me. I got to know Danger Mouse, and I said to him, "I need some help making a second record. I'm struggling to get anyone behind it." He said, "Let's make one." I was also working with Inflo at the same time.
Right.
He's now co-produced the last two albums. We were in a similar position, career-wise; both in a no-man's land. We were making music together for fun. Everyone was thinking, "Nothing's going to come of this," but we struck something. I always use the Paul experience as a good anchor. If it felt anything close to what I had with him in the studio – where I feel super creative, someone's pushing me to do my best, I'm not following trends, and I feel I've got a purpose to the music – then I know that something good's happening. I always look for that feeling I had on the Isle of Wight, and I found it with Inflo and Danger Mouse. I loved the whole album that me and Paul did, but there were a few songs that I wanted to pull over that I thought fitted the new record [better]. Paul came to the studio in L.A. a couple of times – he had just moved there – and we worked together there.
