It’s time for PART TWO of our FENCE TO FENCE feature with Seamus Fogarty and James Yorkston. This time around it’s Seamus’ turn to fire the questions – and he deftly manages to weedle out some exclusive news on forthcoming JY releases in 2012 … OOH!
Before all that, though, here’s that fantastic live video of ‘Rita Jack’s Lament’ – the recorded version of which will appear on Seamus’ debut God Damn You Mountain, out on Fence early next year:
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SeamusFogarty: James, I think it best to get the serious questions out of the way first so let me begin by relating to you a headline I read in the Limerick Post last year. Above a picture of you wearing a flowery shirt, and clutching a tiny cat, was written the following: “James Yorkston, Gentle Giant of Folk”. How does it make you feel when the press focuses on your physical size as opposed to your prowess as a songwriter and would you not prefer to be an angry giant, like say, the one in Jack and the Beanstalk? Do you hold small cats/kittens to appear bigger than you actually are?
JamesYorkston: Ach I wouldn’t say it’s particularly true they focus on my size, I’m not THAT big. I think worrying about what the press, or anyone really, say or think about me is pretty daft. After all, there’s only so many times I can say I’m not a Folk Singer. I think I do ok by the press, in general.
Answering the kitten question, I have no idea which picture you’re referring to, but I do sometimes pose with tiny dogs. This is because my ego is so fragile I can only be pictured with animals who I could quite clearly wallop in a fist-fight.
SF: Sorry about that last question. The first few times I saw you playing live, you were surrounded by The Athletes, a tight group of musicians. These days you’ve a different lineup on stage every time I go to see a JY show – you even let me up there on occasion, and the Pictish Trail. Do you miss having a stable lineup and whom can we expect to see in the next incarnation of the JY band?
JY: I don’t miss having the same band with me every show, no not at all. Although some of the people I play with nowadays I’ve played with for yonks – Emma the violin has been there since 2005, Sarah the clarinet not long after that. And Doogie, although he’s on sick leave right now, well, he’s played with me since 2001. But they just turn up whenever it’s convenient, so it’s a fluid line-up, which keeps things fresh for us all. This year I’ve also done shows with some amazing “guest” musicians – Lau, Suhail Yusuf Khan, Andrew Cronshaw, Jon Thorne, and I’ve just started doing shows with Serafina Steer. Having her on board has been great fun. It all sounds a bit higgledy-piggledy and random, these people coming and going, but I enjoy that – I enjoy the freedom. Who’s next? Well, wait and see. I am reasonably excited about who’s next.
SF: It’s been a while since we heard a new JY record but you’ve been playing some sublime new songs lately. Does this mean there’s a new album in the works?
JY: Yep. There’s a wee bit already recorded, then we’re getting the most of it done in January. It won’t be released for ages though as Domino are putting out a 10th Anniversary Re-Issue of my debut album, Moving Up Country, which will probably have a bonus CD of the demos from that period, plus Peel Sessions and the like. Then the Olympics get in the way, so I guess… Next autumn? Who knows though. Domino may fancy releasing it in May. We’ll see.
SF: Are you one for writing a whole raft of new songs when the time comes to make a new album or do you have a great store of them padlocked inside a big timber chest in the attic?
JY: I just write them as they come to me. I don’t rush them, particularly, although I do enjoy the craft of sitting down and whittling a new song out of thin air. I do have a fair few unrecorded, but right now there’re not enough hours in the day to do anything with them. So many plans, so little time.
SF: I grew up in the Great Plains of the West of Ireland where we spent hours singing songs and dancing around an open fire, waiting for the potatoes to boil, before walking to school, 15 mile away. However truthful that statement, I can’t deny that almost all the music I write ends up soaked, to some degree, in the sounds of the countryside. Where did you grow up and how has it affected the music you make?
JY: I grew up in Kingsbarns, Fife. It undoubtedly has affected the music I play as people always comment on it, but I’m unaware of it. I just get on with things, you know? I don’t think, Ah there’s a young bullock, sitting on a hillock, beside some pillock eating a pollock – it must be time to write a song for them thar city folk.
SF: You’re strolling through Anstruther to buy some award winning, um, chips, when all of a sudden you’re bursting for a piss. You check your pockets and sure enough you’ve got the requisite 30p needed to use the public toilet. You meet a 20-year-old version of yourself walking out as you’re walking in. Do you think he’s impressed with how you’ve turned out?
JY: Aye, I think he would be. I’ve got nae day job, just music, a nice wee family, a few barry guitars, a good back catalogue, I travel around, got more than 4 friends, stopped smoking – aye, he’d be happy. A bit pissed off about the hairline though, I imagine.
SF: I think you’ll agree when I say that Fence has become much more than just a record label. As one of the first people to start releasing music under the glorious Fence Umbrella, are you surprised with how far it’s come in the last 10 years? Who else was knocking around all those years ago?
JY: Has it really come that far? I’m not sure. Kenny used to put on those wine cellar shows and they’d have maybe 30 folk in, all packed in. Nowadays the Homegame gets around 600. It’s not a huge leap, is it? But, I think that’s why it works, really, because of the sense of community. There are loads of folk who were heavily involved then who still pop-up – Kenny, Johnny, Een, Gordon, Jenny, Pat Ma’ Cloud, Andy AfroCreosote, – but new blood comes in, folk like Adro Crowley, Rozi Plain…. It’s all good, I think.
SF: You’re a published author now. You must be proud of It’s Lovely to be Here? I think you should be. Anymore books in the pipeline? Maybe a short feature film?
JY: We’ll see how much time I have. I’ve been writing more, but right now, I have to focus on the next JY opus. When that’s all done and wrapped, I’m sure I’ll get around to writing something else. The feature film ran into financial difficulties as Cupar swimming pool weren’t happy when they got flooded with raw sewage, but to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of musicals and was glad to be out of it.
SF: You sang a song recently about how you almost made it into an episode of The Antiques Roadshow. Is this a secret ambition of yours and would you be OK if someone brought on a JY record to be evaluated instead? Where did that song come from anyways?
JY: That was just a nonsense I’d made up on stage a few nights previously and embellished upon in the gig in-between. It’s a fun thing to do, just singing whatever comes into my head, but sometimes it doesn’t work quite so well. I doubt I’ll sing that particular song again, but usually at gigs I dredge something similar up from my foggy memory and put it to a random tune. Most of them end up on Adrian Crowley albums, so keep an ear out.
SF: Shorter Questions.
You’re in Manchester when you suddenly run out of t-shirts. You walk into a shop and the following 3 t-shirts are available:
- One with a picture of Ken Barlow
- One with a picture of Gary Barlow
- One with a picture of Bez from The Happy Mondays
Which one do you buy?
JY: I’d get the Bez one and send it to Vince from Geese, as he has a bit of a man-crush on Bez. I met Bez once, funnily enough, at a party being held on a canal barge somewhere in Belgium. He was good fun. The beer was running out so we all had a dance-off – and I’m pleased to say my break-dancing was too much for him, so I won the coveted trophy – a small bottle of 8% Belgian Beer.
SF: Favourite Fence moment?
JY: A few Homegames ago, Kenny, Johnny and I had set up for a secret gig in one of the Craw’s Nest Hotel’s wedding suites – Paul Webb from Talk Talk had come up (he’d just produced my Year Of The Leopard album) and we’d learned a version of Spirit Of Eden between the four of us – Kenny had left clues throughout the brochure and we had champagne and beer ready for those who cracked the code. But no-one came. Not a single soul. We ended up having a quiet hour drinking average champagne in a slightly shabby hotel suite. A bit surreal. We played the songs anyhow, it was quite romantic. Johnny taped it on his Dictaphone thing.
SF: Favorite Irish Album?
JY: Bess Cronin Vs Seamus Ennis & Willie Clancy Vs Planxty
Seamus Ennis & Planxty lose out in the first round, leaving
Bess Cronin Vs Willie Clancy.
And Bess Cronin wins. God bless her.
SF: On the album Moving Up Country Are you trying to put on an Irish accent at the start of I Know My Love when you introduce the song?
JY: Am I? I haven’t heard that for years. We recorded it all live, I think. It’s probably a slightly slurred BBC Scots accent you’re hearing.
SF: How would you rate King Creosote’s Irish accent?
JY: It’s ok. Not as good as mine. When we first met Adro Crowley, when Adro joined Kenny and me unannounced on tour, Kenny and I decided to deploy Irish accents for as long as possible, to see if we could bluff Adro into thinking we were Irish. Adro told me later that he’d initially thought I was from Cork, then Wales, then India, whereas he’d suspected that Kenny was a bit slow upstairs.
SF: Would you play in a super group with Ken Barlow (as chief songwriter), Gary Barlow and Bez from The Happy Mondays if they asked?
JY: I doubt it. I imagine I’d ask what the fee was before declining though, being a man of principal.
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Seamus Fogarty’s debut album, God Damn You Mountain, will be released on Fence Records in the spring of 2012. You can catch him on tour before then … he’s got a gig in Cardiff, supporting Carwyn Ellis from Colorama, on Sunday 11th December, at the Full Moon Bar.
James Yorkston has got some live shows coming up too – including a Xmas Jamboree with The Pictish Trail and Lisa O’Neill in Glasgow on the 17th December (buy tickets here), and a gig at the Union Chapel in London (also with The Pictish Trail) on the 21st December.
