Issue 95 / Dec18/Jan19

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SPOTLIGHT BRAD STANK Brad sits down with us and talks Jack Kerouac, Marvin Gaye and his new EP, Eternal Slowdown. “I’m trying to become a Buddha but can’t help but keep it sexy too” “Sexistential slow-boy dream-funk, with elements of devotional and pious massages,” replies Brad when asked to describe his music. BRAD STANK is very much a solo project. On his latest seven-track EP, Brad exercises complete creative control, writing, performing and producing all the songs on the record. “My first gig was at the MOTH Club in London with Her’s, so that will always be pretty special to me; but my favourite venue as a venue has always been the Brudenell in Leeds,” says Brad. As the drummer for Trudy And The Romance, Brad is no newcomer to live gigs. I had the pleasure of catching his first live gig in Liverpool last June at the Shipping Forecast, joined by an all-star backing band of members (and former members) of bands like Trudy, The Orielles, Hannah’s Little Sister and Pink Kink. Brad’s favorite song to perform live is a single he released back in 2017 – O.T.D. “It means a lot to me,” he says. “It was written in that time of red-hot new love, and it’s probably my most personal song, even though it’s like four lines of lyrics in total.” Brad doesn’t take much influence from current music. On Connan Mockasin Brad says, “He’s the main modern influence, I guess. There are not many artists from the past 10 years that have influenced me that much.” Brad is much more concerned with the soul music of the 70s, specifically he points to two Marvin Gaye albums – I Want You and Here, My Dear, two of his most laidback and spacious records. You can hear this mellow vibe weaving all through Eternal Slowdown, especially in the sublime grooves of Flirting In Space and Take Me To The Crib. On the track Butte Magic, Brad enlists the South Liverpool rapper MC Nelson to spit some verses while Brad sings the sultry chorus in a low drawl. “I wanted to sit back and act as producer and make a hip hop tune,” he intones. Brad cites D’Angelo’s psychedelic-soul masterpiece Voodoo as an influence, and this MC Nelson feature casts the same spell as Method Man and Redman’s feature on Left & Right. Beat poetry is a deep influence on Brad both lyrically and philosophically. “Kerouac, he’s my biggest influence probably,” says Brad. Butte Magic takes its title from the opening line from Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues. Kerouac’s interest in Eastern philosophy also has an impact on Brad. The final track on the EP, Maithuna, features a dreamy choir of voices chanting the word “Maithuna”, the Sanskrit word for sexual union. He also points to the poem Wales Visitation by Allen Ginsberg, a meditation on the self and nature, which Ginsberg wrote under the influence of LSD. Brad evokes Ginsberg on Condemned To Be Freaky, with lines like “Every flower just like a Buddha’s eye/Repeats the story over and over again”. “I’m interested in how people deal with the tragedy that is life; for me it’s writing these silly, sexy songs.” Sure, the Brad Stank persona is quite tongue-in-cheek. In the music video for Condemned To Be Freaky you can find him dressed in a bathrobe and gold chain, singing into a massive flower and surrounded by four groupies. The music is no joke though, with each track on Eternal Slowdown transcending catchy slow jams into an introspective poem on death, love and sex. If Jean-Paul Sartre was the father of existentialism, saying “man is condemned to be free,” then Brad Stank is the daddy of sexistentialism, saying “man is condemned to be freaky.” ! Words: Joel Durksen / @Joeldurksen soundcloud.com/bradstank Eternal Slowdown is released on 7th December via Untitled Records. 30
SMOPH You may be more used to seeing her behind a drumkit with Pale Rider, but Sophie Thompson, aka SMOPH’s talent with her guitar and voice is just as formidable. If you had to describe your music in a sentence, what would you say? Soft as shit: memoirs of a wet flannel. How did you get into music? I guess I’ve always messed around with instruments since I’ve had access to them. I started recording with my mate on his laptop when I was about 17 and that made me think a bit more about what I was doing. Around the same time, I was in a band with three mates from school so I learnt a lot from writing with them. When I went to uni I taught myself to record, which allowed me to write independently. Can you pinpoint a live gig or a piece of music that initially inspired you? I remember seeing a lass (can’t remember her name – standard) covering A Case Of You by Joni Mitchell when I was just starting to play. I went home and learnt it and I guess that inspired my guitar playing a lot. From there I got into a lot of Nick Drake, Bob Dylan and other artists with a similar style. Do you have a favourite song or piece of music to perform? What does it say about you? I think Never Sleeping is my favourite to perform. It’s the only song that I’ve thought about lyrically first. It’s also quite recent, so I remember where I was when I wrote it and that it came from a good place. How does where you are from affect your writing, if at all? I’m from Carlisle originally. Live music when I was growing up was alright, actually, but you had to know what was going on. My favourite band from home has always been The Lucid Dream, so they got me onto The Black Angels, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Spiritualized and all that. Clearly that doesn’t influence my solo stuff, but it definitely does Pale Rider [who Sophie drums with]. I’ve occasionally considered covering some psych on my acoustic but surprisingly it’s always sounded like dog shit. Who knew? How useful do you think music is as an expression of your emotions? Do you ever use it to express things that you’d find it difficult to say otherwise? Yeh, 100 per cent. It’s really cathartic to write. Also, it’s quite interesting to listen to songs you wrote at a different time. It puts things in perspective. Why is music important to you? It makes a lot of sense but it’s not boring. Photography: Richard Haywood soundcloud.com/smophmusic “It’s really cathartic to write. It puts things in perspective” CHARITY SHOP POP Ranging from danceable 80s pop to lo-fi bedroom productions, this Ormskirk native’s lush music has caught the attention of The Label Recordings, who release CSP’s debut single in December. “There’s something special about music that you don’t get with anything else… It just allows me to express myself in ways that I can’t otherwise do” If you had to describe your style in a sentence, what would you say? ‘Bedroom indie pop’ is the usual summary, but it’s rather genreless, in the sense that one song will sound like an indie pop banger, and then the next will sound like you’ve got a DeLorean back to the 80s; but whatever it is, the sound is quite often very laid-back, because that’s the sort of person I am. Have you always wanted to create music? Nope, I wanted to be a car designer up until I was 16. Then after flunking college, I spent some time thinking about what I actually wanted to do in life and I kind of naturally fell into writing music about love and stuff. Can you pinpoint a live gig or a piece of music that initially inspired you? I think probably when I went to see The 1975 back in 2014. The music was incredible, they were the first band I’d properly fallen in love with and the fact it looked so cool to be up there playing groovy indie tunes to thousands of people, I was just inspired to start making. Do you have a favourite song or piece of music to perform? What does it say about you? I’ve just written a new track in the past few weeks, which is not the sort of music I usually write, but I love it for that reason. It’s about partying in the 80s, which is the only music I actually feel comfortable dancing along to. Because of that, it’s quite a groovy, 80s-sounding song, so I can dance along. What do you think is the overriding influence on your songwriting: other art, emotions, current affairs – or a mixture of all of these? Mostly I’d say my emotions, like trying to explain my feelings. Although, I’m kind of branching out of that lately, to give myself more credibility – I hope – with some more political tracks referencing Donald Trump and Brexit. Sometimes I mess around on Photoshop with some visual ideas and then write a song off the back of that, so I try to mix it up. Why is music important to you? It’s important to me, because it just allows me to express myself in ways that I can’t otherwise do. Even before I was making it, just listening to music helped me release something inside, it felt like therapy for whatever I was going through. I think there’s something special about music that you don’t get with anything else, it’s hard to put my finger on what I mean exactly, but it just helps. Whatever you’re feeling, you can find a piece of music that will help in whatever way you need, whether it’s a ‘make you feel better’ dance song or a ‘cry along to’ emotional song. I have a sweater that says, ‘Life without music would B-flat’ and there’s nothing that more sums up music for me than that. charityshoppop.co.uk Charity Shop Pop’s debut single Always You is released on 7th December on The Label Recordings. SPOTLIGHT 31
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Issue 95 / Dec18/Jan19

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