John Bramwell: Playing solo at Pocklington Arts Centre tomorrow night
HYDE singer, song-spinner and sage John Bramwell has been on a never-ending rolling adventure since working away from his cherished Mancunian band I Am Kloot. Next stop, Pocklington Arts Centre, tomorrow.
Leading light of those Mercury Prize nominees from 1999 to 2014 and screen goddess Cate Blachett’s “favourite songwriter of all time”, Bramwell will be spotlighting songs old and new, as well as his sophomore solo album, February 2024’s The Light Fantastic, in his Pock one-man show.
“I’ve been touring with my full band, then touring as a trio, and now some solo dates,” says John. “A different set of songs, of course. With this set there’s more Kloot in there and more from the new album, not The Light Fantastic , but the next one, out next March, on Townsend Music again. Three songs from that…
“…and stories from my past. Just funny stuff that happened with John Peel. Getting to tour with John Cooper Clarke and how he’d try out his gags on me on his way to gigs. Remembering my late friend Bryan Glancy [who played with Bramwell in The Mouth before he formed I Am Kloot].
“I’ve written a song about him, When The Light Goes Out. I literally just had this dream about him and it was almost like the song was there.”
What happened with John Peel [the legendary late-night BBC Radio One presenter]? “I made this single, Black And White, as Johnny Dangerously, a name I got when I walked on stage, tripped up, went over the edge. The place went crazy. I got a massive cheer,” he recalls.
Pooling redundancy money from being relieved of his position in the Tesco beverage department with a sum from his dad, John printed up vinyl copies of Black And Blue. “It was at the point when Peel said he couldn’t receive cassettes any more, so I went down to London on the train and waited for Peel to come out of his studio. ‘You’re John Peel,’ I said. He looked at his stomach and said, ‘it would appear I am’!”
Vinyl handed over, it turned out the trip was worthwhile. “Peel played it the following night. Among a lot of German industrial rock, and lots of bands with black hair, of course, in the middle of all that, I’d released a ballad – but he played it!”
When playing Kloot songs, John will tell stories of what happened when making recordings. “Like not wanting to have the opening to Sky At Night, which to me is like Suspicious Minds, but Garvey [producer Guy Garvey, of Elbow], said no-one would notice – and he was right.”
Provisionally, he is toying with calling next year’s album Still Got The Magic. “I played a new song at one gig and it got an amazing reaction. I don’t write as much as I did: the quantity isn’t there but there’s still the quality,” says John.
“This new album will be purely a solo record. Just me, because my finger-style playing is really coming on, so I’m actually recording at home, a place near Monmouth, rather than on the boat that I rent by the River Wye at Symonds Yat.”
Pressing John on I Am Kloot’s legacy, he says: “As I find now, what people say to me, is that there’s a spirituality to it, the lyrics and the form, that I didn’t realise, being at the centre of it. It’s very emotional without being sentimental.
John Bramwell, centre, in I Am Kloot days with Andy Humphries and Peter Jobson
“So The Light Fantastic really is the breakaway, but I think this new album, with me and the guitar, is more of a culmination of Kloot.
“Looking back, Moulin Rouge [released in April 2008] is my favourite Kloot album – and the least successful. I love the feel of it. It reminds me of how, when playing with Andy [drummer Andy Humphries] and Peter [bassist Peter Jobson], we were really mashed together on those songs.”
Looking ahead, John’s next album after “Still Got The Magic” (TBC) will be a band record. “That’s the key for me: rather than being purely solo, I look forward to working with the band again, and after that, it’s great to bounce off new ideas.
“I’ve sprung this idea of doing an album every 18 months, and as the label has pointed out, that would mean I’d be touring all the time. If the health holds, I’ll be doing 90 gigs a year. I’ve got my stories, I’ve got my two guitars It’s what I’m meant to be doing. “
At this point, I praised on John for changing the word “trip” to “skip” in his opening lyric to The Light Fantastic: “As I skip the light fantastic/And I live my life of ease/I’ve put my heart out on elastic/And my soul upon the breeze”. “I thought it was ‘skip’! I always thought that! Maybe in different parts of the country it’s different,” he says. “My girlfriend is Scottish and they have different meanings for some words.
“If I’d known it was ‘trip the light fantastic’, I wouldn’t have used it, as I don’t like the psychedelic stuff like LSD!”
It was time to mention John’s prodigiously long hair in the latest publicity photograph. “I’ve had it cut, though it’s still long. I went to get it cut to shoulder length, but the barber refused to cut it that far, saying it was magnificent and he’d cut it for free. So, it’s still long, not crazy, crazy long.”
John Bramwell, Pocklington Arts Centre, Friday, October 17, 8pm. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
“Cate Blanchett’s favourite songwriter of all time”? She chose the John Bramwell-penned Proof, from I Am Kloot’s Sky At Night, as her Desert Island Disc on BBC Radio 4 in December 2022.
John Bramwell’s promo, featuring Cate again: https://youtu.be/zmaLfoETfKc?si=lTHKO1o-jETZswaI
John Bramwell on writing songs for 2024’s The Light Fantastic
“AFTER both my mum and dad died, I started writing these songs to cheer myself up. “The themes are taken from my dreams at the time. Wake up and take whatever impression I had from what I could remember of my dream and write that.”