{"id":13598,"date":"2014-09-19T17:49:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T16:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nusic.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=13598"},"modified":"2014-09-22T14:02:02","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T13:02:02","slug":"artist-of-the-month-gallery-47-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nusic.org.uk\/wordpress\/artist-of-the-month-gallery-47-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"ARTIST OF THE MONTH: GALLERY 47 – Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week GALLERY 47’s<\/a><\/strong> second album “All Will Be Well<\/em>” was released to critical acclaim. We for one, bloody loved it, and found it to be one of the most satisfying, beautiful pieces of music that we’ve heard all year. If you want to know our exact thoughts you can find our review HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Jack, the man behind GALLERY 47<\/a><\/strong> was kind enough to answer some questions for us about his influences, the album, and lots of other things. And I’m sure you’ll agree, he’a a very interesting, passionate man….<\/p>\n

Tell us a bit about yourself, who are you GALLERY 47<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m not sure how much to write! Okay, my name is Jack, I live in Nottingham and have done my whole life like Tom Green with Ithaca in Road Trip. I have a weird body clock and often stay up til 5 in the morning drinking terrible beer and playing on FIFA Career mode. I’ve just turned 25 years old. I often listen to records by Neil Young and Bob Dylan, who were both around my age when they were releasing some of their greatest albums. Sometimes I listen to Joni Mitchell<\/strong>, John Martyn<\/strong>, Jeff Buckley<\/strong>, Scott Matthews<\/strong> and Leonard Cohen<\/strong>. They were a bit older when they released some of their greatest albums, in my opinion, so it makes me feel better. I’m not sure why I’m talking about age. I’m an English graduate who enjoys friendship and time alone in equal parts. I have a guilty passion for football. I’ve smoked and drank too much for my age and I’ve long since given up caring if I end up in a ditch by 30. I’m a bit crazy but I guess this helps with the music. In any other profession, the stuff I do when songwriting would be called talking to yourself, but I do it all the time.<\/p>\n

How would you describe your music to those unfamiliar with it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s Pop music for pandas. I don’t know. I guess I’d freak out if you asked me that normally, because I feel like I can’t really win. This one time the BBC listed me as resembling Bob Dylan<\/strong> and then I had this blogger writing an article on precisely why I wasn’t like Bob Dylan and why I was probably more like James Blunt<\/strong>. Gah. I didn’t even say I was like >Bob Dylan, that’s the thing, I don’t know what I sound like, but I don’t think it’s particularly like James Blunt. I’d say I’m closest guitar wise to Paul Simon<\/strong> and I have quite a high voice so maybe a bit like a British Neil Young<\/strong> in that respect, but they are both so good that I wouldn’t really want to compare myself. I try to keep my music quite minimal and I try to get commercial elements into the song structures, but I wouldn’t say I was a Pop artist or anything like that. Really it’s just Folk music that some people might really connect with and others might not.<\/p>\n

What Notts specific things influenced the album? Musically and non-musically.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything and nothing. I hardly saw anyone but my friend Paul and the doctors in that whole year. For a while I had worked at this marketing firm in West Bridgford for a worryingly sociopathic character who hired and fired people – friends of mine – just like that, for what seemed like nothing to me. I guess that was an influence in the sense that it made me want to run a mile from the business world. I was living in a little Coach House just off Derby Road when I recorded the album. It’s difficult to explain which things influenced it because it’s highly probable that the stuff I was perceiving back then in 2012 wasn’t really happening at all. Songs like “Some Things<\/em>” and “Invasion<\/em>” were, in part, responses to this persecution-complex-style-thing I had going on at the time. <\/p>\n

I’m quite shy and I always expect the worst, so sometimes I can really read into things that people say or do, or rather what they don’t say and what they don’t do. When I was writing “All Will Be Well<\/em>“, I’d been left by my girlfriend and I couldn’t get a job, so I was in the same boat as a lot of other people, probably. For a while I withdrew from the scene and felt bitter about everything – amazing how you can feel like you’re over the hill at 23 – but then I had a bit of a health scare and it made me realise how trivial all that stuff had been. Before, I’d just left the University of Nottingham and I could feel myself starting to panic about the future – I mean what do you do, especially in a recession, when you want to carry on with your music but you have all of these pressures – social, economic, maternal – to shape up and get a job and prepare yourself for a family and a mortgage. For a while I was overwhelmed but when I thought that I might not be around much longer I forced myself to focus and it’s been that way ever since.<\/p>\n

In your opinion, how does this album differ to your debut?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well the first album looks yellow and the new one looks kinda blue. I think they both have their similarities, but they are quite different. The first album was written and recorded steadily over a year or two in 2011. I was still learning as a guitarist and a producer so it was a bit more like a sandbox record compared to the new one. Sometimes it was easier to mess around and make something a bit psychedelic than it was to make everything single-worthy. Making a single is hard work sometimes. Back then I was quite eager to get an album out so I didn’t worry too much about all that, but with the new one I wanted to make everything a bit more snappy. There’s a track on “Fate Is The Law<\/em>” called “Life in Cotton Wool<\/em>” which was pieced together from guitar fragments I’d cut up and spliced together from other sessions – it was experimental and fun – there was no pressure to do anything a particular way and no management involved, no labels, no directions, no external opinions. I didn’t know anything about publishing deals or labels or mastering costs back then and I wasn’t really prepared for any sort of criticism, good or bad. <\/p>\n

I think there’s a certain na\u00efve liberty afforded to unknown musicians making their first albums and I’m glad I got the chance to release that one without having to panic about how many copies it would sell. With “All Will Be Well<\/em>“, everything came a lot quicker. I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen. I recorded everything in one room and learnt how to play the Dulcimer for “When The World Gets You Down<\/em>“. I worked all day until I couldn’t stand the Cubase screen anymore, then I went and drank myself into a hole at my friend’s house every night. It was pleasant self destruction. I’m not sure if this actually answers the question but they’re both acoustic, both fairly minimal – the main difference is the subject matter of the second album which is a lot more personal and really focusses on one girl all the way through.<\/p>\n