var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-26792292-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Richard Oakes is a musician of many dimensions: songwriter, guitarist, pianist and backing vocalist - best known for his work for British band Suede. He has co-written the band's international no.1 hits such as "Beautiful Ones", "Trash" and "Saturday Night". Went into hiatus after Suede split in 2003, but is now back in the music scene, writing and performing for Suede and Artmagic. Recently released Become the One You Love (Artmagic debut album) in 2012 and Bloodsports (Suede's comeback album) in 2013 to a mostly positive response. Profile photo by LinWei. Avatar picture by LinSong.
âPainfully honest and deeply moving ⊠Mike Christieâs portrait of Brett Andersonâs 1990s glam-pop outsiders gets everything right.â â The Su
Screening of The Insatiable Ones starts on the 2nd of August during Melbourne International Film Festival 2019.
Went to the screening last night at had a mini Melbourne Insatiable Ones meetup :)
1.Please tell us more about your folk experience/ history and howâs it going now?
When I was at university in the 1990s I made friends with a couple of people who were folk musicians, and it was the first time I was aware of the folk scene. I knew a little about Irish folk music but it didnât really do too much for me - I find the dance music a bit too jolly, really! Back then I was also trying to learn to play piano accordion - Iâd started as a child and picked it up again in my twenties, but I was struggling with what music I wanted to play on it so I dropped it. I bought the odd folk record from time to time and carried on with my life.
Years later, I was still buying the occasional folk album, but I gradually started getting more interested. I started buying more English folk music, discovered I particularly liked the dance music - itâs kind of shufflier and more grinding than its Irish cousin - and bought a D/G melodeon after trying out a mateâs. Then I discovered an artist called Chris Wood, completely fell in love with his work and that was the catalyst to start really exploring the music in depth, and thatâs led to me going to loads of gigs, buying loads of records and working hard on trying to get my melodeon playing up to the standard where I could play at sessions etc.
So, really, itâs become a musical hobby. Itâs good for me to have something to do thatâs still musical but has nothing to do with my day job. I practice the melodeon every day and whilst Iâm not very good, itâs very rewarding.
2.In the interview with Nicky Lee-Delisle you said the reason you started artmagic was âA Desire to carve out a space to call my ownâ, does that mean no solowork of yours in the foreseeable future? Please tell us more on your own music writing!
I really donât enjoy working alone, to be honest. I feel like I need people to show off to! I have occasionally worked alone but those have been very specific commissions. Those tend to work because I love nothing more than a deadline - give me a task, give me a deadline and Iâll deliver something on time. But I canât imagine ever working up a solo album. Then again, who knows? Anything could happen.
3.Music festival or One-off gigs? Why?
Well, festivals are a bit more stressful because you donât get much of a soundcheck, and youâre not in control of the overall situation. But thatâs also the reason theyâre good to do - to go on stage and make it work like that is quite exciting, too. Plus you can get to play to an audience thatâs never heard of you, and maybe win them over. When Artmagic played Tramlines festival in Sheffield that was one of our best shows - a performance in a cathedral and an audience who didnât really know us, but who seemed to really get it.
When Artmagic put on shows in London, we worked out quite quickly that most of the promoters we worked with were useless, and didnât do any actual promotion. From that point on we started hiring the venues ourselves, booking the supports and running the whole thing. That was good because you were able to curate what you were doing and make it a more satisfying musical experience for the audience.
Touring is great too, though - itâs more of an adventure and you get to refine and improve as you do the shows.
4.So far you have worked with so many musicians: Kate Havnevik, Andrew Montgomery, Richard Oakes and Alison Moyet, etc. Richard Oakes has took part in the production of Montgomeryâs album making. Any collaborative work in the future?
Various things are bubbling away but nothing much I can talk about at the moment. Richard and I are discussing when we can go into the studio to start recording the second album and weâre hoping itâll be sooner rather than later.
5.As fan of artmagic, I really miss singing the backing vocals of The glass arcade and the poetry sharing session. Will there be more chances like this?
Hard to know; they were great fun to do but they were both pretty off the cuff and unplanned - we just took the idea and ran with it. Â Until weâve got another album to promote itâs hard to think of things like this. The next record will be a bit more âinternalâ so we might promote it differently. Iâd like to push the album right to the front and us right to the back next time around.
6.Could you tell us the reason you fall in love with Doctor Who? Was it because it is a story about adventures in time and space?
I donât know, really! Why do you fall in love with anything? It just really appeals to me. Here are some possible reasons:
- I like the Doctor a lot. Heâs heroic without being showy. Heâs funny. Heâs very clever. And heâs (mostly) compassionate, too. And he always wins!
- I like it when the monsters are humans whoâve been taken over and then speak with a dramatic voice through a pitch shifter. The audio plays are particularly good for this.
- The old series manages to make exciting family adventure serials on the same resources as a sitcom and I love that ambition.
- I like the fact that it exists as a TV show, as a comic strip, as novels and as audios. All have radically different approaches to the source material and yet all of them bring something new to it. Some of my very favourite Doctor Who stories are 1990s novels from when it wasnât even on telly.
- Bowties are cool.
7. Do you go out and drink for happy hour?
Is happy hour even a thing anymore? I do enjoy a drink but I donât go to the pub all that often.
8. Whatâs your favourite accent on English?
The Birmingham accent is much underappreciated, although I would say that since I was born there. Not to mention hard to imitate (Iâm looking at you, cast of Peaky Blinders.) Handsome men with West Country accents make me blush.
9. Can you recall what kind of food you had during the China tour?
OH YES. The food was my favourite part! Steamed fragrant wheatgerm bread. Black fungus on ice with rice vinegar & soy sauce. And a stir-fry from a food court in a Shanghai mall - pickled vegetables, lotus root, bean curd sticks, broccoli fried in a spicy sauce with coriander and a fried rice cake, washed down with milk tea which was mixed with a kind of sweet sticky rice. My god, that was good. Oh, and finally getting to eat stinky tofu in Xiâan! Oh, and the vegetable congee at the hotel in Xiâan was brilliant too.
10. Do you write any poetry? If so, do you think poetry is similar to how you write song lyrics?
I only write lyrics. I feel that, whilst on the surface they seem like similar disciplines, theyâre very, very different. A poet can play around with meter and stress in a way that a lyricist canât so easily. And a lyricist has to always remember to keep the words âsingableâ. You need to know what consonants can go next to each other or which vowel sounds work well with the tune. Plus, you can have an incredibly simple set of words that can be brought to life by a good melody. Poets donât have that luxury - it has to work on the page. Most rock and pop lyrics sound a bit crap when you see them written down.
11.Do you have any favorite poets? Any other literature you love?
My favourite poets are Philip Larkin, A.E. Housman, Clare Pollard. I donât read a huge amount of literature but I never, ever miss a book by David Leavitt. I love his writing and his insight into gay life and love really helped me when I was younger. Big fan of comics, too - Seth, Joe Sacco, Guy Delisle, Chris Ware all fantastic writers / artists.
12.What about some favorite song lyrics?
God, where do you start? Off the top of my head:
Chris Wood, âThou Shaltâ - âThou shalt sit into the night / thou shalt stare into thy rage / thou shalt tell them youâre alright / let âem think itâs just your age / but your body will soften / at the turning of the year / oh, your body will soften / as you grin from ear to earâ.
Pet Shop Boys, âTwentieth Centuryâ - âWell I bought a ticket to the revolution / and I cheered when the statues fell / everyone came to destroy what was wicked / but they killed off what was good as well / sometimes / the solution is part of the problem / letâs stay togetherâ.
Paul Simon, âTrain In The Distanceâ - âWhat is the point of this story? / What information pertains? / The thought that life could be better / is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brainsâ.
John Grant, âIt Doesnât Matter To Himâ - â vulnerable feels like / a cold wet concrete room / lit with flourescent light / which, as you know, makes everything look badâ.
Kate Bush - âRunning Up That Hillâ - âYou donât want to hurt me / but see how deep the bullet lies / unaware Iâm tearing you asunder / there is thunder in our hearts / is there so much hate for the ones we love? / Tell me we both matter, donât we?â
Joni Mitchell - well, pretty much every word of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, Hejira and Don Juanâs Reckless Daughter but especially âAmeliaâ - âI pulled into the Cactus Tree motel / to shower off the dust / and I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust / I dreamed of 747s over geometric farms / dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms.â
Sandy Denny, âJohn The Gunâ - âI am the master of the games that you will hardly ever play / so I will teach your sons / and if they should die before the evening of their span of days / why, then, they will die youngâ.
Of course, Iâve gravitated to lyrics that look good on the page. So many work perfectly but donât. I could go on forever, really. Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Mark Eitzel, Everything Everything, George Michael, Gillian Welch - all fantastic lyricists. And also some artist I love (naming no names) write words that are nothing special, or occasionally embarrassing, but itâs all about the whole effect, isnât it?
13.How did you come upon your current tweedy dressing style? What did you dress like back in the 90s? Did you follow fashion trends?
I always wanted to dress the way I do but I used to prefer to slip into the background so it was black t-shirts, black jeans, every day. Iâve never followed trends much, although I looked like your archetypal grunge kid in the early 90s - plaid shirt, band t-shirt, army boots. In some way trends have caught up with me because that hipster waistcoat look is definitely a âthingâ now. So, of course, I stay away from that to a large extent now.
14.How is performing up front different from being a backing vocalist in terms of physical presence?
If youâre singing lead on stage, youâre a focal point, whether you want to be or not. So you have to push yourself forward and try and be worth watching. When Iâm singing backing vocals, I prefer to concentrate on my performance and slip into the background.
15.I like the arm movements you do while singing on stage, is this something that comes naturally or did you catch yourself practicing stage-moves in the mirror?
It just comes naturally. To be honest, a bit more mirror practice wouldnât hurt! Next time Artmagic play, I want to be more still, but that says more about the material weâre writing, I suppose. I need to act my age and remember that our work is about our music, and not us.
16.Do you have some favorite episodes of the Simpsons?
You can stick a pin in the first nine seasons and find someting Iâll love. âItchy & Scratchy Landâ might be my all time favourite - every line in that is perfect. âBart Sells His Soulâ, is amazing too. I could be here all day listing my favourite scenes.
In âHurricane Neddyâ thereâs a bit where the wind blows through a harmonica store and the instruments all play tuneful music. It then blows into a harpsichord store - the harpsichords come flying out the window and crash to the pavement with a hugely discordant chord. I actually fell off the sofa I was laughing so hard the first time I saw that.
17.Were you a huge Suede fan before you met Richard and/or was he your favorite member of the band?
I was a fan. I wouldnât say a huge fan; certainly, Iâd drifted away by the time of A New Morning and I wasnât mad keen on Head Music at the time. But someone lent me Sci Fi Lullabies in the mid 2000s and I really got back into them and started listening more closely - Iâd never heard most of those songs before. As for him being my favourite member, I never really thought of it that way, I just liked what he was doing musically, which is why I wanted to work with him. Iâve only met the other band members very, very briefly.
18. Which placeâs culture has influenced you most and why? Are you a fan of Deutschland?
Iâm not sure - I love to travel but Iâm not sure I could isolate an influence. Most of what drives me is music and thereâs plenty of music from all over the world thatâs touched me in some way.
I am a big fan of Germany, though. I love the language, I love the culture and I love the beer. Iâve travelled there many time and always enjoyed it.
To all followers. I apologise for the lack of updates in the past months. Real life aka lots of personal things have been going on, everything from relocation, separation, and few other things that ends with -ion. FYRO is not dead. It's been around for almost 5 years now, this blog and Mr.Oakes mean alot to me. I won't quit even with all the shit that's gone on in my life. There will just be delayed updates. So I hope you can all understand. Thank you for your continued support to Mr.Oakes and his works, and this blog dedicated to him. Love you allllllllll!!!
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