A lot of laughter, some jokes and an oddly over lapping live call between a taxi driver and BBC Radio… That’s an overview of my phone interview with Fyfe Dangerfield. For some more indepth details about what we chatted about and the release of his debut solo album Fly Yellow Moon keep on reading.
ND: When’s the album out and what’s it called?
FD: It’s out Monday [Monday 18th] and it’s called Fly Yellow Moon.
ND: I’ve heard that you’re playing a few gigs soon, when do they start?
FD: It’s just one week. I’ve just got four gigs starting next week [Monday 18th]
ND: Where are the gigs being played?
FD: Playing, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and London. I’m looking forward playing all of them. Playing Scala in London is going to be quite exciting because I’ve played there with the Guillemots. Going back it’ll be exciting going there to play that one myself.
ND: How do you feel about the album and the tour coming out, since it’s your first solo stuff?
FD: It’s really exciting; you always get a kick out of being in a position where you have something that you can bring out. I’m just really excited.
ND: Your solo stuff is a lot different from what your fans are used to hearing from you. What are your hopes for the success of the album?
FD: I’ve not really thought about that too much, I’m just thinking about the next thing I want to do. I just want people to hear it, you can’t worry too much about what you want a record to do. It’s coming out and that’s about as much as you can hope for really.
ND: I know that you recorded a whole load of songs for the album and you had a bit of trouble narrowing it down to just 10 songs. Do you have a favourite song on the album?
FD: I don’t really have a favourite. There’s a song called “So Brand New” which was one of the most fun. Most of them were very fun to record. I just remember that one being quite funny as we did it. The whole album was just really fun to record. It’s really hard to pick out just one track; it was really hard narrowing it down just for this one album. But I have this sort of special edition that’s coming out. It has the other extra tracks, another album of bonus tracks and other stuff as well; that will eventually come out online. The stuff will all find its way out eventually.
ND: You recorded the album at Urchin Studios which is where you recorded the first Guillemots EP. Do you think that was a good way to start your solo career, where you started with The Guillemots?
FD: Yeah, it was funny it was just down the corridor from the studio where we did our first EP. It’s a lovely, great little studio. It’s really, really cool there.
ND: What made you decide on going solo?
FD: It wasn’t really a big thought. It’s just something else to do, it’s not instead of Guillemots, we’re really busy in the band at the moment writing our next record. It was just I had some songs that I had quite a good idea of what I wanted them to sound like. They were pretty acoustic and stripped down, well most of them were anyhow. They just didn’t seem like band records. Or something you would do with Guillemots. It’s nice to do something different anyway, it reinvigorates you for all the other stuff you do.
ND: What do you think the biggest difference is between playing solo and with a band?
FD: They’re both different kind of things, but you know I haven’t really played any gigs yet for this record. I’m still kind of finding out what it’s going to be like anyway.
ND: You said earlier about recording Guillemots next album as well as doing Fly Yellow Moon, do you think you’ll be doing any tours or festivals this summer?
FD: I’m not sure yet, hopefully I might do a few. I’m not sure whether we’ll be doing any in Guillemots or not this year; we’re just focusing on getting the next album ready. We’ll see.
ah i saw his birmingham show, was okay; had loads of tech probs though which kinda ruined it….but, nice to read his side of things, thx