Maddog: How did the band come together?

Tawny Owl: Well I’d been playing solo for many years as Tawny Owl and the songs I was writing and recording were always intended for a band of some form. One night I played a gig at the Birdcage and Alex Carson who runs the cabaret night there asked me if I would like to play these songs with a band, he knew lots of musicians and so on so he was a key contact. And of course he plays guitar and its good. So we just culled the band from other bands Lucy from Francis and Louis, Alex from Alex Carson, Lydia is a great singer / songwriter / multi instrumentalist in her own right. It took some time to settle on a drummer veering from Fab of The Kabeedies (very good but very busy) to our current wonderful drummer Mr Hector Barley who also plays in Magpied, Norwich’s raddest electro pop trio. We started practicing and hanging out a lot and it all just fitted nicely.

MD: Talk a little about the band dynamic, particularly the percussion and harmonies Lydia and Lucy lend the songs. It all seems quite unique. Did you intentionally want to get away from the conventional band structure?

TO: Not intentionally but I did have rather specific ideas for how I wanted things to sound and so I just went with that. The drum thing is a bit like stuff by Boredoms and Liars (circa Drum’s Not Dead) and the harmonies are very much Motown inspired. We are, without sounding arrogant, I think quite unique, but like many bands today we are indebted to our influences. I think we perhaps have a wider source of influence than a lot of other bands, again I’m not trying to sound arrogant. I like trying to mash together different styles. Like Ska, New Weird America, Motown, Punk, Shoegaze and 50s in one song. We kind of do that not very well and that is the Tawny Owl sound.

MD: You've got a wonderful old cabaret sound with vocals like Scott Walker. How did you develop this style? Do you often find yourself at odds with the contemporary music scene because of it?

TO: Thank you very much, a comparison with Saint Scott is high praise indeed. I learnt to sing in a choir as a pissed off teenager listening to punk. So it’s kind of a combination of perfectionism and a more laisez faire attitude coming together. My favourite singers are all soul singers or dead pop singers. Back in the day pop songs were sung incredibly well by real people with a whole band behind them. I have no desire to return to such an age and neither do I have some halcyon days haze misting my eyes with nostalgia. The fact is to be a pop star in 1962 you had to be able to sing. Obviously this ridiculous kind of perfectionism had to die and unconventional voices provided something totally different. For example all the thousands of Goddamn cover versions of Dylan songs by these unreal good singers today sound shitty because Dylan sounded amazing with his very unique voice. Same with Cohen and what happened and will continue to happen to Hallelujah. I just try to blend these two schools of thought. It’s ironic that what was considered de rigueur sixty years ago is now unconventional. I don’t really think of myself as being at odds with the contemporary music scene because I love contemporary music and I feel a part of it. I just think my voice is a distinguishing feature in our band and something that I’m proud of. I’m very proud that I sound like me and I’m not trying to copy anyone specific more I’m just taking influences from whatever I want and using my classical background to inform it.

MD: There's also a very off kilter, dare I say ironic, element to your music. Do I detect any influence from Neil Hannon and the Divine Comedy?

TO: I must be totally honest and say that I have never really listened to the Divine Comedy, but yes there is a certain amount of burlesque to our music. We play with the music, most of my songs contain a joke here or there but its wry, dark humour. Laughter in the dark if ever I heard it. I like scary things and scary things are kind of funny in a way, particularly in music. There is nothing to be afraid of in music, it is just signal, yet it manipulates your emotions and sometimes it can create fear. We do this by making parts of our music sound like bits from horror movies, the same chord structures, clusters and minors and those little chromatic runs. The listeners association with them means that they think it is scary when really it is not scary - it is a joke. Or on the other hand it might be that we are trying to be scary, maybe we want to frighten you, so we use the things you associate with calm and subvert them. I love pop music, I associate pop music with fun times and dancing and being a kid so when I hear what is ostensibly a pop music hook hiding somewhere in all that distortion and noise I feel uneasy. Like seeing a fluffy bunny rabbit in covered blood raping a Rotweiller. That is the music I want to make. The fluffy bunny dog raper kind.

 

 

  

MD: Any other musical points of reference for your sound?

TO: Sonic Youth. Clipse. Kate Bush. Nick Cave. Ottis Reading. JimmyVinton. Ray Charles. Animal Collective. The Temps and The Supremes. Diana Ross. Jerry Lee Lewis. Diplo. Little Richard. Cash. The Cramps. The Dead Kens. Everything, I like everything. Literally. Not like people who say oooo I like a bit of everything. I literally like every piece of music on some level, from Bach to The Backstreet Boys. Most music has something that I can appreciate. From Penderecki to Pentangle. I also use film and literature to inspire the sound a bit. I know that’s pretty vague but its definitely true.

MD: How do you come up with your lyrics and what do you hope to achieve, if anything, through your song writing?

TO: I generally write in notebooks. I have about five notebooks and its whichever is closest to hand. I tend to write the majority of my songs in the shower or in bed. I wake up in the morning humming something and I write it down or record it onto the Dictaphone. Lyrics then come slowly, rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. I often know what I want the song to be about and how I will relay that information. I like them to be what I call “water tight.” Every word has to count for something and has to mean something. There are still songs with words that pain me when I sing them as I know they are a waste.

In terms of what I want to achieve frankly I’m not sure. I’ve always made music and written words so my first aim is to make stuff that I like and feel happy with. Whilst my songs do regard politics in a vague sort of way I’m not trying to inform anyone or help them come to a decision about anything. I’m just saying stuff. Hopefully it makes people think but it’s not the 60s anymore and there is a lot of greyscale in modern life. A lot of things that are very complicated and difficult to come to a clear right / wrong divide on so I just dramatise the search for happiness really and the ways in which I think it is very difficult to be happy.

MD: Do you hope to reach a wider audience through Hot City Sounds? What do you think the strength of the festival is?

TO: It’s in Norwich and features Norwich bands. Norwich bands are some of the best in England. Put simply I would rather spend a night in Norwich watching people like Mat Riviere, Checkout Girls, Lunaire, Cold Hands, Magpied, The Queens English, The Middle Ones, Scraps, Francis and Louis and so on and on and on and on ad infinitum than go to some shitty show at some shitty venue to watch The Generics, NME’s next big thing chug their way through a set of passable indie rock nonsense. Norfolk has a wonderful scene and Hot City Sounds is a great celebration of the diversity that the scene offers.

MD: Your songs are quite long and freewheeling, and Cinema in particular has an incredible crescendo of noise at the end - do you find it hard to sustain this energy on stage?

TO: Hell no. Just come see us at The Waterfront, covered in blood, masks and make up with our guitars feeding back and our voices cracking. We are plenty energetic. Too energetic sometimes, I’ve been knackered for about a year now.

MD: If you could be birds of prey, what would they be?

Jack Tawny Owl Ramm: he is nocturnal

Alex The Crow Carson: he raids bins

Sam PUFFIN CAT Hill: he is the most terrifying of all and a dastardly commie

Hector Peregrine Falcon Barley: the fastest animal on the planet, his drumming like this particular falcon’s dive can reach speeds of 625kmh

Lydia Red Kite Walker: A rare beast.

Lucy Barn Owl Burns: Contrary to popular belief, Lucy does not hoot (such calls are made by typical owls, like the Tawny Owl or other Strix). Instead Burns produces the characteristic shree scream, ear-shattering at close range. It can hiss like a snake, and when captured or cornered, it throws itself on its back and flails with sharp-taloned feet, making for an effective defence.

Photo > Rhian Brighton