After some time away from the music spotlight Alistair Griffin is back with his new and personal album Albion Sky.
I caught up with the singer/songwriter to talk about the new record, what he has been up to since we saw him last and what lies ahead.
- You are about to release your new album Albion Sky so what can we expect from the album?
My maxim on making movie generally is it is all about the songs; it’s about the purest things such as the melodies and the words.
I wanted to make an album where there was no weak song and it was twelve songs of pure quality. It’s all about the tunes for me.
But there is quite a range of material from big belting choruses as well some folkier elements to it as well.
- This is an album that has some anthemic moments as well as more acoustic based sounds and you play around with a bunch of different instruments so how would you describe the sound of the record to someone who hasn't heard it yet?
I like to think that it is quite a British record but I have been influenced by a lot of writers and styles - the last album that I did was probably influenced by American styles. So I think that it is a British sounding album and it harps a little bit back to the Brit Pop era.
I think there is quite a bit of variety on it - broadly speaking people would call it pop but it’s quality, the thinking man’s pop.
- The album is also incredibly person from a lyric perspective, Silent Suicide, being the perfect example so how easy to you find bearing your soul for want of a better word?
I suppose it is part of your job and your make-up as a songwriter to put across the rawest emotions, it is partly why people listen to music because there are things that they can’t necessarily say or want to say that you say.
Silent Suicide is definitely the dark side of the album and it probably was hard to say it and it think that I probably wouldn’t have gone as far in the past I would have kept it hidden.
- As I said Silent Suicide is an incredibly personal record so what inspires you to write - do you always draw on personal experience?
Yes I think that that is always your first port of call as a writer finding something that means something to you and then you hope that that will connect with the people that are listening.
There is quite a bit of writing off the ghosts of the past, Albion Sky and Silent Suicide they are a little bit about leaving behind what went before and staring a new.
- The album is produced by Ed Buller so how did that collaboration come about?
I send some demos to Ed because I liked what he had done with The White Lies and Suede and I liked his work. We met one afternoon in London and he agreed to produce some of the tracks.
- He has worked with the likes of Pulp and Suede so how did you find working with him and what did his experience bring to this record?
He is a really interesting fellow and I have never worked with anyone who had such a take on music and how he produced everything was an unusual process for me but that was good because if forced me down a route that I wouldn’t normally go down.
He is very into synths and stuff so we got quite in-depth with that and Blinding Lights is him and his many synth sounds that make it sound huge; I think there is something like twenty five synths stacked up on that track.
- It has been quite some time since the release of your debut record so what have been doing since we saw you last?
Well I did a little bit with Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees, we worked quite closely with him and we released a single together as well as a tour in Europe. And then, as happens sometimes, there is a bit of a trough in your career but in my case it was several years.
I am from North Yorkshire and I moved back up there and built and opened a little recording studio just outside York.
So I have spent several years there writing bit and pieces of other artists and television and film stuff and then started work on Albion Sky.
- Just Drive really has been hugely successful as it was picked up by BBC's F1 so how did that come about?
I knew that the BBC was looking for a song to end their coverage of the Formula 1, a big montage scene at the end, and I pitched it in. Jake Humphrey, the anchor man for F1, said he liked it and so I hastily produced it up for them and they used it.
Then it became this phenomenon with motor sport and F1 fans and it has been made the theme tune for the Sky F1 coverage.
- You kicked off your career as part of Fame Academy so how useful was you time on the show?
In terms of being useful it was a hell of experience just to be part of something has high profile as that but you also got to see the inner workings of TV programme.
But you get thrown in at the deep end with an experience like that and it was certainly a challenge psychologically to go straight into people’s living rooms on a Saturday night and then all that happens afterwards.
But it was a valuable experience in terms of learning about how showbiz works and, to a certain extent, the music industry.
- But off the back of that, as you say, you got the chance to work with Robin Gibb so how did you find that?
Yeah working with Robin Gibb was one of the pinnacles of being on Fame Academy because he is an absolutely legend.
It was a great experience to do a single with him, hang out with him and I was lucky enough to go on tour with him and share a stage with him. We then even wrote a couple of songs together.
You learn a lot from someone like that because he has decades of experience and all those hits. Always with Robin it was about the songs, the voice and the melody and being true to that kind of purist thing.
- As I said there has been a fair about of time since your last album so how have you seen yourself develop as an artist in that time?
In terms of song writing I think that the more you write then the better you become and the older you get, it’s a cliché, but the wiser.
You can and you are able to draw on a wider range of subjects and you probably have the confidence to do it as well where as when you are younger you tend to write about the same stuff.
I think my song-writing has developed into a different thing as I can call upon a wider range of material and experiences.
- Where are we going to be able to see you perform live this summer?
I am playing at Silverstone at the British Grand Prix and that is the 7th and 8th of July and then I am playing at hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park on 14th and then Guildfest on the 15th July.
- And finally what's next for you after the release of the album?
I will be looking to be doing a tour in the late summer, we will have to see how things go, but hopefully we will be out on the road somewhere.
Alistair Griffin’s new album Albion Sky is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw