{"id":26555,"date":"2017-04-11T15:10:56","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T14:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=26555"},"modified":"2017-04-13T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T17:50:14","slug":"punching-above-his-weight-mark-nevin-on-bowie-morrissey-and-finding-his-voice-as-a-solo-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2017\/04\/punching-above-his-weight-mark-nevin-on-bowie-morrissey-and-finding-his-voice-as-a-solo-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"PUNCHING ABOVE HIS WEIGHT – Mark Nevin On Bowie, Morrissey And Finding His Voice As A Solo Artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s not often you get to talk\u00a0to someone who’s had a number one single and double platinum album, had a song covered by David Bowie<\/strong> and who also just happens to be a fully qualified psychotherapist.<\/h4>\n

So it was with some degree of trepidation I picked up the ‘phone to chat with Mark Nevin<\/strong>\u00a0about his new solo album\u00a0My Unfashionable Opinion<\/strong><\/em>.<\/h4>\n

I needn’t have worried, Mark is one of the most relaxed\u00a0and down ro earth artists I’ve ever had the fortune to speak to.<\/p>\n

Easy going and quick to laugh, he’s in good spirits, buoyed by positive reviews of the album and its jubilant live launch\u00a0at St Pancras Old Church in London (see video below).<\/p>\n

Blooming\u00a0with pride about the backing band he calls his family, he’s ebullient and poetic about what he describes as the “magic” of songwriting.<\/p>\n

Over the course of a wide-ranging interview, he speaks with moving honesty about his struggle to cope with the sudden and dramatic fame of Fairground Attraction<\/strong>, his “bonkers” time working with Morrissey <\/strong>and getting “out of his tree”\u00a0with\u00a0Kirsty MacColl<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Oh and then there’s the time he wrote a song with\u00a0Ringo Starr <\/strong>and attended the recording presided over by a certain George Martin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But we begin with his idol, Bowie, who recorded the Nevin-Morrissey composition\u00a0I know It’s Gonna Happen Someday<\/strong><\/em> in 1993, and whose tragic death last year helped provide the motivation\u00a0for Mark’s new album.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tell me a bit about what inspired the album \u2013 My Unfashionable\u00a0Opinion<\/em> sounds like a bit of a statement of intent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Bowie dying was a big part of it. He was such an important person to me growing up. The reason why I bought a guitar in the first place really \u2013 so when he died, I think, like a lot of people of my generation, I was really saddened. Up to that point, I used to worry that one day I\u2019d run out of songs, or run out of ideas and then it just became apparent I was more likely to run out of time. Like Bowie did, he was writing like crazy – in that video at the end with Lazarus<\/em><\/strong>, he\u2019s just writing, writing, writing, because he knows he\u2019s going to go. And I thought: “Wow! Maybe I should do that now \u2013 rather than the day before I die”. So that was a big impetus to really get the energy going. And getting out with my band and for the first time really enjoying my position at the centre of the stage. It\u2019s taken me a long time to feel comfortable there and not really feel like I was pretending. So stepping up to that was a real part of it.<\/p>\n

There seems to be a quiet defiance about the lyrics – is that fair to say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely yeah! If you come and see my show that is definitely the theme \u2013 joyful defiance. When I was a kid no-one said: \u201cOh go and be a songwriter\u201d, they said exactly the opposite: \u201cYou can\u2019t do that! \u2013 that\u2019s not a job\u201d. Then when I started singing my publisher said: \u201cOh you\u2019re committing career suicide\u201d. Everyone\u2019s told me I can\u2019t do what I\u2019ve done \u2013 all my life! So I keep doing exactly what I want, whatever they say, in fact I\u2019m more inclined to do something they tell me not to do. It\u2019s part of the fun.<\/p>\n

How did the album launch show go?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was absolutely amazing actually, because we had the Kick Horns<\/strong> with us, so it was 10-piece band, which we\u2019ve never had before and it was just thrilling with that huge brass section \u2013 it was just awesome and it went down a storm \u2013 it was packed \u2013 so we really feel like we\u2019ve properly launched it now.<\/p>\n

Is performing live a real joy for you these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is now, it really is. Everything seems to have gone up a big notch and because I\u2019m doing what I thought was impossible, which is singing and making my own records, performing them and having a really fantastic response to them, I think it\u2019s like: \u201cWow! It\u2019s all becoming real now!\u201d It\u2019s very exciting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Do you feel more confident as a solo artist now with five albums under your belt?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Completely. At first you think you\u2019re having a go at this, or something, people don\u2019t really take it seriously. For years people have been asking (does whiny journalist impression) \u201cWill you get Fairground Attraction back together?\u201d- that seems to be a thing of the past now. It\u2019s not something I would ever do and people are seeing that THIS is what I do.<\/p>\n

When you first started out as a singer was it a completely new thing for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, the thing is, my dad was Welsh and he liked Mario Lanza<\/strong> and Harry Secombe<\/strong> and that\u2019s what you were supposed to sing like and if you didn\u2019t sing like that you couldn\u2019t sing and you SHOULDN\u2019T sing. So I didn\u2019t – and when I wrote songs I looked for singers who were \u2018proper\u2019 singers \u2013 people who my dad would approve of (chuckles). But most of the records I like are by people like Neil Young<\/strong> and Bob Dylan<\/strong>, Lou Reed<\/strong> and Leonard Cohen <\/strong>\u2013 they are all rubbish singers! So it\u2019s been a long journey to really stand in this position, so I believe it and own it.<\/p>\n

You said you admired Lou Reed \u2013 \u00a0were you one of the people who formed a band after listening to The Velvet Underground and Nico<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah definitely. The one that I really love is Live at Max\u2019s Kansas City <\/em><\/strong>\u2013 I love that! I loved all the talking in between {adopts Noo Yawk accent}. \u201cIs that Pernod? Give it me immediately\u201d \u2013 all that stuff! I actually spent the evening with Nico<\/strong> once, because when I was with Sandie Shaw<\/strong> I think they had the same tour manager. I remember being in Stoke Newington sitting on the sofa up there with Nico thinking: \u201cThis is pretty surreal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Can you see yourself ever writing for another singer again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well a lot of people that I would have done it for are dead (laughs). And I never actually wrote for people anyway. I always wrote songs for myself and people sung them. I think if you start writing for someone you are putting the cart before the horse. I think that\u2019s the trouble with so much pop music is that record companies go: \u2018I\u2019ve got this singer, all we need now is some talent, so let\u2019s get a songwriter and producer and polish this into a handsome beast so that we can fool people into thinking this is a real artist.\u201d It\u2019s backwards, it\u2019s bonkers. So not really. I used to love Roberta Flack<\/strong> and if she did one of my songs, I\u2019d be utterly delighted, or Aretha Franklin<\/strong> people like that, but it\u2019s not really what I do anymore.<\/p>\n

You took a nine-year break to train as a psychotherapist \u2013 what prompted that move?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well partly because I didn\u2019t really know how to go forward as a songwriter at that point. I\u2019d made two solo albums, which had been breath-taking commercial failures. They\u2019d cost a lot of money to make and I thought what is the point in doing it. And at the same time, I\u2019d become fascinated by the whole idea of psychotherapy, because I went to therapy and I got interested and I started reading about it. So I absolutely loved that time of learning about therapy and becoming a therapist. But then, I sort of accidentally wrote some songs and after a while there were a few of them hanging around, so I started to record them at home and then I just felt frustrated because they just sounded like demos. So I just went into the studio, just to get a couple of them down, and then it just bounced. And I just enjoyed it so much coming back, because it was without any agenda at all. My training as a therapist has helped because I\u2019ve seen with other people how they stop themselves. I know as human beings we are all living so far below our capacity. And the song Punching Above My Weight <\/em><\/strong>is really about faith and doubt \u2013 the two sides of the same coin. That if we\u2019re not feeling out of our league a bit \u2013 we\u2019re not really living enough \u2013 we\u2019re too comfortable.<\/p>\n