We caught up with Chris Cleverley to chat about his recently released 4th album ‘Broadcast the Secret Verse’, his UK tour, his recording process, sexism in the industry and which new artists are currently on his personal playlist, read on for more…..
You kick-started your UK tour earlier in November to spread the word about your 4th studio album ‘Broadcast the Secret Verse’, how is the tour going so far?
It's been going great so far. I've aired a few of the songs earlier in the year, but it's so cool to take them out to audiences again now that people have heard the record and they're a bit more connected with the music. Releasing can be a bit of a slog over several months so getting back out and making music again really helps to reconnect with why you were doing it in the first place.
Which venues/places are you most looking forward to?
It's going to be great playing the Hare & Hounds in Birmingham again for the homecoming album launch. I grew up about 5 minutes away from that venue and while I've moved away since, my Birmingham fanbase have been with me every step of the way on this journey. It will be magical to be back there and see familiar faces again.
You’re heading to Birmingham and London on November 19th and 20th to play at the Hare & Hounds and The Slaughtered Lamb with your full band. Having seen you play solo before, I’m assuming a completely different dynamic to your music with the band behind you?
100%. I usually go out solo acoustic and it's a lot more of a detailed focus on the fingerstyle guitar playing and storytelling, inspired by the folk traditions that I love. The full band shows are going to be a lot more about presenting the songs with rich, detailed musical textures and arrangements. I've got a fantastic lineup of John Patrick Elliott (The Little Unsaid) on drums/keys/synths/samples, John Parker (Nizlopi) on Bass, Graham Coe (The Jellyman's Daughter) on cello and Kathy Pilkinton (Said The Maiden) on vocals. We're going to be playing the new record in its entirety and really recreating the eclectic sounds. For people who have seen my live show before this is going to be a whole new world.
Tell me, do you prefer playing solo or with the band?
I love both to be honest. Solo you have a lot of freedom to play around with arrangements and sets and go where the mood takes you on the evening. It can be a lot more of a bespoke performance. But then playing with a band you have the amazing connection of a group of musicians feeding off each other's performance. Touring solo can be a lonely thing, but with a band when you're all in a van traveling around together there's such a shared sense of purpose and achievement.
I read that you recorded the new album in Totnes, this must have been around the time I saw you at the Ashburton Arts Centre earlier in the year?
Yeah it was not too far off. We made the record in February of this year. We took a very different approach, rather than hiring an expensive studio we gathered together some great mics and built a pop up space in Totnes. It was a completely different recording experience from my previous albums. Without the pressure of the studio costs we were able to go in with a much less firmly set idea of how the songs were going to be. There was so much extra time to explore arrangements and instrumentation and be led by the magic of the creative process. We were a stone's throw away from the River Dart and all the natural beauty of the area. Connection with nature is a really important theme running through the album so being able to record in such a beautiful place really helped to embody those themes when making the music.
I was amazed to see that you had wrapped up the recording process in just under a week, some people take longer than this to get the drum sound ‘just right’, how did you manage to get it completed in such a short space of time?
We had spent some time making some really robust demos, mapping out a lot of parts. It doesn't mean to say they were all used but it provided a really good framework to experiment over the top of. My Producer John Patrick Elliott is an incredible multi-instrumentalist so between us we were able to cover pretty much everything that went on the record. This meant we could just dive straight in to get an idea down as soon as it came up. There was also a less-is-more approach on some songs - really allowing the melody and the story to breathe rather than throwing a load of layers at it which ultimately get stripped back anyway.
’Broadcast The Secret Verse’ tackles themes of climate change but also pervasive artificial intelligence, institutionalised racism and mass displacement of people, these are all ongoing, long standing issues, do you think that the subject matter will make appearances in future tracks or are you looking to tackle other topics?
I think they are all issues which are so prevalent in wider societal conversations so they are things which should be on our agenda for many years to come. They are dense topics too and it's hard to get to grips with them completely in just one album so there's definitely potential to explore them further. I wouldn't say I set out with the intention of covering certain topics on a record, it's more what happens to be at the forefront of my mind during writing. I wrote a lot of the material during lockdowns and these are some of the issues that were getting a lot of coverage in news cycles during 2020-21 so I think naturally I was forming a lot of opinions and wanting to explore them further through art. I think we live in such a rapidly changing world, and it's the responsibility of the artist to keep the pace with this and make sure their artistic context develops at the same pace, so I'm always seeking new artistic input to develop my output.
I’d be interested to hear your views on sexism within the music industry, in particular, are men involved in the scene doing enough to ensure that equal opportunities exist for all?
It's heartbreaking to be in 2022 and still see so many female artists raising issues of discrimination, harassment and insufficient representation. I hate that so many of my good friends and colleagues in the industry have to have these negative experiences. I'm inspired by the articulate way that female performers are able to draw attention to these experiences and amplify the public conversation around them. Men within the industry must never lose sight of the important role they must play in using their platforms to help amplify these voices too. If artists like myself fall short of that responsibility then we're basically complicit in upholding a system which is greatly rigged in our favour and female artists will continue to have these negative experiences. I want to keep listening and learning and developing my understanding of how I can contribute to shaping an industry which works for everyone.
I read that you draw influence from many acts and artists including (but not limited to) Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith, Depeche Mode, Anais Mitchell and Bright Eyes. Can you tell me about some newer acts/artists that are turning you on at the moment?
I'm lucky to work in a scene with some incredible emerging artists breaking through and releasing inspiring new music in 2022. Just a small selection of some of the music which has really captured my imagination this year has come from Ollie Dixon, Bity Booker, Kirsty Merryn, Minnie Birch, Eliza Marshall, Dan Whitehouse and Jacob & Drinkwater. They're all on Spotify, all on Bandcamp. I can't recommend enough so give them a peek!
We’d like to thank Chris for sparing the time to chat to us and we wish him every success for the album and the remaining dates on the UK tour.
Chris Cleveley’s 4th studio album ‘Broadcast the Secret Verse’ is available now.
Keep up to date with his whereabouts on Instagram and Bandcamp
Interviewed by Steve Muscutt