INTERVIEW: David Ford
- Posted on August 3, 2007 5:00 PM
- 3 comments
THE DAVID FORD EFFECT
Interview by Katie Spain
The road to a succesful music career is a long and hard one; something that UK artist David Ford knows all too well. After touring America extensively and supporting the likes of KT Tunstall, Richard Ashcroft, Elvis Costello and Gomez he is now on the brink of an album release. 'Songs For The Road' was a long time in the making but the result is worth the wait. After a week of pressing 'repeat' on an addictive 37 minutes of tunes, I vow to experience the David Ford effect live. In the meantime, I pick up the phone to chat to the softly spoken musician about his musical journey, about the risks he takes on stage and about a very big hole in the Eglish coutryside. The things some people do for their art...
I read that you don’t like talking to strangers… it’s a pity we can’t meet and shake hands – then our own chat wouldn’t be so faceless. Was the first time you stood up in front of a crowd a nerve racking experience?
I don’t know really because the nature of the way you do these things (unless you have some sort of strange freakish experience) is you ten to start off by playing to your mates in your bedroom and then in small increments you start playing to a paying audience so I don’t remember a time thinking ‘wow, this is my first ever performance’.
Was music a part of life from a young age?
Very much not actually. No-one in my family is musical, none of my friends were particularly musical and as I was growing up I never had piano lessons or anything like that. The summer that I left school before going to Sixth Form College – I bought my first guitar then and just taught myself how to play it. I liked music as a thing to listen to but I never paid close attention to any particular musical scene or anything. I think I just got an album I particularly liked and that meant something to me – so I thought that writing songs and playing music was something that could be more than just shallow entertainment – it could be something more musical and a bit more powerful. I wanted a little bit of that so I bought myself a guitar and tried to learn how to play it.
Do you still have your first guitar?
I don’t! I was a student back then and not a particularly well off one so I bought the cheapest, shittest guitar you could get, which back then was probably worth about £50. Nowadays it would be some horrific bit of junk driftwood lovingly crafted by children in some horrific Asian sweat-shop. It was a horrible, horrible instrument and it didn’t actually last that long. Before I could even play the damn thing I decided I needed a better one.
I hear you like to tackle a variety of instruments on stage… is there something you haven’t played yet that you’d love to master?
Well, in my opinion I haven’t really mastered any of them yet. Most musical instruments fill me with a certain amount of fear and dread. Probably because I don’t have any musical background or theory… I don’t know any scales or anything technical. Anything I play is purely from me making it up as I go along and from me making my mistakes. It means that my familiarity with any musical instrument is only a passing one so I still get a bit freaked out when I have to play the piano sometimes because look at the keys and they’re just a blur of black and white blobs.
I started playing a little bit of trombone awhile back and I have played it at some shows but I really am very poor at it. That’s what I’d like to improve… a little brass here and there.
The audience must feed off that fear factor too…
Yeah, I like to think that’s one of the things that you get from my live performance that you maybe don’t get from other people these days. There’s a need from a lot of performers to keep it safe and under control, whereas I’m planning a few shows at the moment which are actually beginning to get a bit of a worry because every time I do a new show there’s some piece of terrifying equipment that does some kind of clever job… or I’m playing a song I don’t know how on an instrument I don’t know how to play – then pull a band together and decide we’re going to rehearse during the sound check. I like to keep it scary because as soon as soon as music becomes easy and you stop thinking about it, it loses a certain edge. I like to stand up there at the beginning of a show and not know whether by the end of the show I’ll be in a fit of despair or on a massive high.
What’s the most memorable gig you’ve ever been to as a punter?
I kind of make a point of not going to many gigs because if it’s your day job it kind of.. well. It’s like if you work in a chocolate factory – you probably wouldn’t eat chocolate much when you get home because you’re sick of the sight of it. When it comes to music I don’t go to that many shows.
As far as ones that stick out… hmm, I went to see Duke Special in Belfast a couple of years ago at the Empire Music Hall and that was fantastic. I’ve always liked him anyway and he’s a friend of mine so it was a fantastic show – a great atmosphere in this old converted church/music hall with a hometown audience and lots of singing along.
You tell stories through your songs… often other people’s. A lot of this is put down to empathy… are you one of life’s observer’s?
A tricky one… I’m not into people watching at all. I can’t just go into town and sit with a cup of coffee and look out of the window and watch and analyse people. I generally like to keep my finger off any given pulse at any given time. Sometimes, every now and then you can’t help but notice things. For me, with my writing, that’s what it’s about – rather than scrutinising (in minute detail) the intricacies of other people’s lives, I’d much rather wait until the bigger, broader strokes are making themselves apparent. If you’re going to write songs that are going to mean something to somebody, generally you have to tackle the weighty subject matter and other people’s concerns. I don’t know… some people write about the mundane in a fantastic and really interesting way. It’s something I think Blur always used to do… they literally wrote about pretty dull and mundane subject matter but always managed to make it sound interesting and relevant. I always just go for the big ones.
I read one fan’s story about meeting and recognising you – for the first time in front of your wife… with a new album release there comes a possible boost in the public eye. Are you prepared for that? The British media can be quite invasive.
It’s a two way street really. I’m in no way worried about them being invasive partly because I know the kind of record that this is. Obviously, I hope it’s a very successful record but these days (if I can wax slightly political about the music business), a record is just the last part or a marketing campaign nowadays – whereby the marketing strategy is what determines the success or failure of a record. The record itself is just a little part of that. I know because of the way that there isn’t any type of glamorous “My drug hell / rehab story” or no celebrity sex tape to scandalise, I know that my record will come out and it’s not going to be massively hyped and there’s not going to be a huge story around it.
It’s going to be a good record and hopefully a well-received record and I hope that over the next year or so it will become very successful but it’s not going to happen through any type of celebrity channels or because of me suddenly becoming interesting to the press. You get some people who sell millions of records and the press don’t give a toss about who they are. You don’t get people like David Grey being snapped coming out of a pub at three in the morning – just because that’s not what he’s about. Generally it’s not really what I’m about so I’m fairly sure that whatever happens, whatever the success of my record, the press aren’t going to bother me one little bit. It’s a game that you play and if you don’t play the game they won’t play back.
You’ve done a lot of touring in the US… is there a part of America that stands out?
I had a really good time in America. To start with I used to get really homesick but I kind of got the hang of it and got to really like it. I like New York but not Los Angeles, Los Angeles is horrible. My favourite places are the little middle of nowhere funny bits on the road between here and there. The thing you come to understand about America is that it looks exactly like it does in the films. Everywhere you go is just like in the movies – in a really strange, familiar way. You can go to these one horse town in Iowa and feel like you kind of know them and know where everyone is.
What about Australia – did you like it in my home country?
Hated it – they’re all bastards! No, I loved Australia, I was pleasantly surprised by it but it’s SUCH a long way to travel. I know a lot of people say they want to go there – but with no disrespect to Australia or Australians, I was never really bothered to go there. I never really knew what I could get from it – but I really loved Australia; there was a perfect balance between the good parts of British culture (like pubs and beer and marmite). Oh, you have vegemite don’t you… well, your general type of spread. There was an overriding Britishness to the place but at the same time with vast improvements on the model that we have. It seemed like the perfect cultural halfway house; between the good parts of American and the good parts of British in a distinctly fiercely and proudly Australian way. It was lovely and the people are so very friendly and welcoming.
You’ve supported some high profile musicians - KT Tunstall, Richard Ashcroft, Elvis Costello and Gomez and you were invited by Robert de Niro to play his NYC ‘film festival’ launch party… I get the feeling though, that you play your music for you… not for any acclaim or status. Are you just as happy in a tiny intimate venue?
I’m certainly happier and comfortable in a small, intimate venue than I am at a festival; I find festivals quite impersonal. I love small venues and small gigs – ones where you really feel like you’re connecting with the individuals in the audience as opposed to a mass of people. I wouldn’t say I only want to play small gigs – I absolutely love playing in larger rooms. Both have their place… being a support act to bigger people is great and affords you certain luxuries – the main one is of course, you only have to play for half an hour. You come on, play your best five songs and then you f*** off before everyone gets too bored. If you know what you’re doing (I’ve been like a hired gun in the support act stakes), you get to know what you’re doing and how to make an impact. You just come on, play a very short set to the best of your ability and try to blow everyone away… then you leave and don’t have any of the responsibilities. If you’re terrible, that’s all that people expect of you. At the same time, it almost feels a bit easy and a bit shallow to be a support band all the time. The really important and special shows are the ones where I’m forced to get on for an hour – whether they’re in a large place or a small place they’re the ones that are really good because you have to show all the colours in your palette. You can’t really get away with just being twenty-minutes of excitement and then get out; you have to display a little more depth. It’s a terrifying challenge but ultimately a gratifying one if you get it right.
A fan posted a question on your forum… they thought they’d seen an interview where you said you intended to get a new album out every six months? This was just after your solo career started (apparently). Is that true… and after an exhausting album creation process, is it likely?
I don’t remember ever saying that and yet, I’m sure I did because it’s the type of stupid thing I’d say without thinking about it. Back in the day, I may well have intended that to be the case but I think it’s rubbish. “I maybe should put out more than one record per year” is maybe my re-addressed opinion on the subject… just because if you’re going to put out a record and then tour it anywhere then there’s not enough time to get the damn thing done. Your song writing would suffer then – particularly if I did that because I write very slowly and very sparsely. There are nine songs on my new album and I only have ten. I don’t do that thing where you write thirty-eight songs and then choose the best twelve. I just think ‘write ten really great songs and use them all’.
The thing that happened with the first record – as much as I would have loved get straight into working on a second one, was that I didn’t expect that there would be any action going on in America; just doing some touring in America took nearly a year out from my schedule. If I hadn’t done America then I guess we would have been having this conversation a year ago.
What are your feelings ahead of the release?
I feel nothing towards the release of the record… the way I see it is that the exciting bit is done. The important bit for me is all about the record being good enough and okay and then you send it out to the world and it’s sort of out of my hands now. I don’t want it to be important to me because ultimately my job has been done and now it’s up to the people who work in marketing and promotion to get their job done.
I really enjoyed the ‘Go To Hell’ video – do you enjoy that side of things? Dirt in the face must be one of the perks!
I love making videos… it’s something I’ve always had an interest in and since I’ve been making my own records we’ve done three videos and they’ve all essentially been made the same way. My best mate and I go down the pub and have a chat for about half an hour about videos and things. We’ll come up with an idea that we think is pretty cool and then we shoot it at no expense and without a great deal of time going into it. The Go To Hell video was the most time consuming one that we’ve gone because we shot it about twelve times in the end (which is a lot of mud to take in the face!).
Were you actually buried?
There’s no way of faking that on the budget that we had so we just dug a massive hole in the countryside and I just sort of sat in there for about four-hours getting repeatedly buried and then uncovered until we had one that we thought was ‘the one’. It’s fun and essentially larking around with your mates. It’s a very juvenile pursuit and I’m sure it’s something we used to do when we were twelve; running around with your parent’s video camera trying to fake accidents that you could send in to TV shows and get paid money for it.
You mention Karen in your online diary… who in January attended your 75th gig – the tally must be right up there by now. Is Karen your wife, manager or very enthusiastic fan?
Karen is just someone who’s been coming to shows for a long, long time. She used to come and watch the band that I was in and when the band split up she continued coming to my shows. But yeah, she must have made over eighty (knocking on the door of 100 by now). She’ll turn up and we’ll say “Hi” – she’s on this kind of ‘frequent flyer’ scheme at the moment whereby when she came to our 75th she got a set of cows (Karen, we may have misheard this… please let us know what you ACTUALLY got! - Ed) and we’re going to have to up it to a carriage clock of something – maybe with some ornate engravings in it. It’s pretty safe… I don’t think anyone else is going to get close to seventy-five, or indeed one-hundred so I can promise the earth for now.
Catch David at The Soho Revue Bar in London – Wednesday 8th August
David Ford’s second album ‘Songs For The Road’ is now available for you to buy from all outstanding download stores, including iTunes and 7Digital. The album is in digital form only (the physical CD is released in October)
For more information, check out David Ford’s official site or his MySpace.
If you’ve seen David live, we want to hear from you. Post your messages and reviews in our comments section.
SOHO REVUE BAR
11 Walkers Court, Brewer Street, Soho
Comments (3)
Ginny
I've seen david Ford live - he's amazing. Moving, enlightening and uplifting all in one. If there's one gig to see this year, this is it. Small, intimate gigs will be a thing of the past soon... he's an amazingly well kept secret so grab the chance while you can!
Can't say I'm anywhere near Karen's 100+ gigs though. Wow!
Posted on August 7, 2007 10:21 AM
Steve
I first saw David supporting Suzanne Vega at the RFH. I arrived late due to a friend wanting to eat first so I only caught 1 1/2 songs but was so amazed that at the interval got up, headed for the foyer and bought his first album. He was and is incedible live and to my mind one of the best singer songwriters in this country (and at my age I have seen a good few believe me!).His songs are beautiful, emotionally charged mini masterpieces. Love him!
Posted on August 10, 2007 7:27 PM
Patrick
Seen David twice now. Once at Bowery Ballroom in NYC opening for Aqualung and once at ACL. The Bowery show was far and away the more intimate. After he finished, the lights came up a notch and everyone just stared around the room at their friends and those around them for a brief moment nodding in agreement that they'd seen something so brilliantly humble and so unabashedly beautiful. Do not miss a chance to see this man perform.
Posted on August 10, 2007 10:22 PM
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