Prolific Teesside singer-songwriter Andrew Johnson returns this month with a new release, so Lee Allcock caught up with Andrew to discuss staying motivated, working on a concept album and more.
Tell me a bit about ‘Dreams of Yesterday’ and what listeners can expect…
It’s aimed at people that struggle to accept that the world is always going to change; those that cling to a rose-tinted view of the past and see very little of worth in the present. It’s a slightly wistful, gently psychedelic affair that hints at nostalgia whilst pulling the concept apart too.
This is your, I think, 53rd track release of 2023 alone. What keeps you motivated?
It’s either 33 or 53, depending on how you count. I’m quite impatient so I just put stuff out when I feel it’s ready. The objective with everything I release is to present it to a level that does the initial idea some justice. I’m not a perfectionist by any stretch – I’m more of an impressionist really (Monet or Yarwood though? I can’t decide). I do have times when I’m not motivated but that’s usually because I’ve used up my current well of ideas. You have to take time to input or there’ll be no output. Sights, sounds, phrases, other music and art, news, politics etc all feed into what’s coming next and I never quite know what the spark will be that ignites it.
What inspires you?
It can be literally anything. I got into podcasts in a big way during lockdown and they’re probably as much of an influence now as music. There’s a Beatles one called ‘Nothing Is Real’ which I love and Steven, one of the presenters, came out with the phrase: “Yesterday is everywhere”. By the end of the podcast, I’d written a song around that title. Things people say is often a trigger to writing something.
How do you find the time to write, perform, record and produce all of your work?
I’ve been very lucky in a way. I’ve usually been in a situation where I have a decent amount of “free” time to be creative and that’s really important to me. I think I’d have dropped down dead from stress years ago if I hadn’t had time and space for a creative outlet of some kind. I have a studio set up at home that makes it easy for me to get ideas down really quickly and once I start I go into a kind of fever until the song is finished.
You’re also planning a concept album in 2024. Tell me more about that…
‘Dreams of Yesterday’ is the first song from that album. As a concept, it’s influenced by the early Rock Operas of the late 1960s by The Pretty Things and The Who but most notably The Kinks’ album ‘Arthur’ with a 21st Century, post-Brexit flavour. The music is intentionally reflective of that period too as it’s the era the central character would have been young. I love what a band like Benefits (is there a band like them, except them?) have done making, at times, avant-garde, visceral music highly reflective of the emotional intent of the lyrics, but I’m going for something more generally accessible. I write melodic pop songs at the end of the day. The lyrical inspiration is often rooted in beliefs I don’t agree with so, taken out of context, some of the songs might be misinterpreted – but that makes it exciting, I guess.
And we’d love to catch you live again. Do you have any gigs lined up in Nov/Dec?
If I get the album finished, I might put something together to present that in its entirety in 2024.
You can listen to ‘Dreams of Yesterday’ from Friday 10th November at https://soundcloud.com/shoeboxuk.
