Interview: Johnny Lynch

You’ve played live with a variety of different line-ups from Massacre Cave to eagleowl and will embark on a UK tour playing with JY and Seamus Fogarty, yet both albums seem to be recorded with very few people. Why is this?

Good question. There are a few different reasons I suppose. I write on my own – usually with an acoustic guitar, or with a keyboard and drum machine – so the songs tend to begin as solo pieces. A lot of bands write songs whilst “jamming” (I hate that word) a “riff” (I really hate that word) all together in a rehearsal studio – and then jigsaw a song around that. When I was writing the songs that appear on both Secret Soundz Vols. 1 & 2, I didn’t have a band immediately to hand, so all the songs were shaped by myself. It means there’s not all that many solos, or fiddly bits. I was lucky enough to have Manchester-based band The Earlies (along with King Creosote) play on a few recordings on that first album – but for the most part, it’s just myself playing everything, and it tends to be quite simple parts. With Vol.2, I enlisted the help of my friend Steve (Sweet Baboo) – ’cause I really love his recordings, and he’s a much better bass player and keyboardist.

Another reason for recording with very few people is that I’m always keen for the record to sound different to the live show. I find it really dull if I buy a record by a band after seeing them live, and it’s like a tinnier, flatter, polite facsimile of the gig. It’s just never as exciting … so I make a point of making the recorded versions of the songs quite different. There are certain tricks you can do with solo recordings that are difficult to contextualise with a band sound – extreme panning, weird harmonies, ambient sounds etc. Listening to music – particularly the kinda singer-songwritery stuff I do – is increasingly becoming an intimate pastime. I reckon folk listen to my Pictish Trail stuff on headphones more than they do on their stereo, say, or in a club even. So I like the fact that I can make the listening experience of the records something that is unique to them. I don’t know if any of that makes sense.

Do you think it’s a fair distinction to say there are two types of Pictish Trail song: one that has its roots in folk music and the other that has its roots in electronica? Do you have different song writing processes for each and do you try and balance them in an album?

While I’d agree there are Pictish Trail songs that are more electronic than others, I don’t think I consciously write songs with specific genres in mind (although that was slightly different with Silver Columns, I suppose). I guess the songs I write on acoustic guitar tend to sound more folky than the ones I write with a keyboard, sampler and drum machine. Usually I’ll start with a melody and lyric in my head, and I’ll try and find the easiest way to express that with an instrument.

I had toured that first album for 3 years, mostly solo, so when it came to recording the new album I wanted to subvert the idea that all the songs I wrote were just acoustic-driven ballads. I made sure that I mucked around with my voice on each of the new songs, with different effects – and, where possible, removed the straight acoustic guitar sound and replaced it with a keyboard or something. The funny thing is, now that I’m performing the songs live, I’m playing the guitar again!

How different is the process of writing music for Silver Columns in comparison to writing your solo stuff?

Silver Columns is very much a collaborative process, and the writing tends to be more about sharing ideas. Also, when you write with someone else you tend to come up with songs much, much quicker. Normally, with a Pictish Trail song, I’ll have an idea and I’ll record a demo of it, and then I’ll leave it to gestate for a few months. It can sometimes take a year for a song to find its way. With Silver Columns, we were writing and recording songs in a day – coming up with an idea each, and then fusing them together. Then we’d leave the recordings for a few months, and come back to them with fresh ears, make a few tweaks, and that was it. I loved doing it, and I’m dead keen to do it again.

How much has living on Eigg and in Cellardyke influenced your music?

I think if I had spent the past 10 years living in a city, I’d be struggling to do music full time. In fact, I doubt I would have released any albums! There are just too many distractions. On Eigg, I’ve got all my gear set up in a caravan, and it’s easy to just plug in and start playing. Everything about the island – the views, the people, the atmosphere … it’s perfect for what I do.

Your songwriting is very personal but often quite cryptic. Is this a conscious decision to distance yourself from it or because you have an audience in mind? Do your standards of what is a good lyric get higher when you’re dealing with subjects that are very close to your heart?

My songs aren’t particularly lyric-heavy, and I’m not a big fan of songs that are, to be honest. I find it a bit odd talking about lyrics, because I think it’s the one part of songwriting I find hardest to control or define. Words come, and I’m compelled to make them work in a song. I’ll get a line stuck in my head, and trying to figure out what it means tends to shape how the other lyrics flow.

My writing tends to be very much about conveying an emotion as opposed to telling a straight story – and so often specific words, or fragments of sentences and conversations will come out of the ether, that might paint a situation about how I have felt. I take it pretty seriously, which is why it can take a long time. Different songwriters have different techniques, and I think lyrical style is a lot more important to shaping an artist’s songs than specific music genres are. King Creosote, for example, employs a lot of word-play, and puns; Lone Pigeon’s songwriting tends to be more surreal, and structured around words that are onomatopoeic or have a cadence and innate rhythm to them. A good lyric is one where you believe the singer. It doesn’t have to make sense, or even be a proper word, but as long as it conveys some sense of the singer’s personality, it’s a good lyric.

Are you ever stifled by the amount of Fence admin you have to do on a day-to-day basis or does being connected to other bands’ music serve as a source of inspiration to you?

The amount of work can get a bit overwhelming, at times. But I love it, and it’s a huge inspiration, definitely. The problem with being self-employed is that it can get really difficult to switch off at times – there’s always stuff you could be doing, whether it’s updating the website, writing blurb for a newsletter, organising an event… The good thing about it is that I can afford to prioritise my own music when I want to, so it never feels like a chore. I get a big thrill out of other Fence Records acts doing well, and it spurs me on to do more of my own thing.

You’ve mentioned a few times that you deliberately threw in allusions to the first album and sought to mimic it in a non-exact way, and we were wondering how you perceive the new album – is it a progression from your last work, or a continuation?

Aye. I like that idea of balance. Referencing previous work seems like a natural thing to me – it’s a way of acknowledging the songwriting process, and the frame of mind you enter when you’re creating something. So there are some lyrical references to songs on the first record, a couple of themes that are expanded upon, and a few musical ideas reflected too. I see it as both a progression and a continuation.

Tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like it when an artist disowns their previous record. “Oh man, this new album is soooo much better than the last one … that last one, ach, I don’t know what I was thinking” etc. etc. Although there are things from the first record I would change if I was recording it today, I’m still dead proud of it. It captured where I was at that moment. I think the new album captures where I was at the time – and I’m still very much in that space. It still feels relevant.

Two of my favourite records of the past decade were the last couple Sparklehorse albums – It’s A Wonderful Life and Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain. And, although they were released five years apart, they shared quite a few lyrical and musical themes. It was like Dreamt for Light Years was the bastard cousin of the previous album – a bit darker, and a bit wilder in places, but the song structure seemed identical in places. I really loved that about that record – and that definitely informed how I approached the recording of the new album.

The Pictish Trail will be playing St Andrews Union, Venue One, on 3^rd February. Andrew Pearson and the Riflebirds start their album launch tour in the Barron Theatre on Friday 15^th February.