Heidi Talbot
Heidi Talbot’s become one of Ireland’s best modern folk singers over the last few years, and next Monday see the release of her latest album Angels Without Wings.
Before the album’s launch, we talked to her about the new record, how she got guitar legend Mark Knopfler on the CD and why folk music has its own timeless quality.
To start with, what can we expect from Angels Without Wings?
Well, originally the idea we had was to write a modern day folk album and have a different co-writer on each track. Instead of writing about somebody going off to war and returning nine years later, write about somebody falling in love in the queue at Marks and Spencers.
We didn’t achieve a different writer on every track, but we did get Tim O’Brien, King Creosote, Lee Abbott and Boo Hewerdine, as well as me and my husband John writing on the album. For the other people was just time restraints, but maybe for the next project it will work out better.
It turned out to be lots of modern folk songs but I actually ended up writing the last few songs with my husband, which we hadn’t set out to do, but it’s worked well I think and we’re really happy with the songs.
The album’s got a real delicate feel to it, how did you go about doing that?
Well, we tried to make it as live as possible. We recorded the album in a studio in Glasgow and we had six booths, so we were able to record it like a band and just go for full takes instead of everyone playing their part separately and mixing it all together later. If there were big mistakes we’d stop, but if they were only little ones, we’d try and keep going and go for a performance rather than it being totally perfect.
We preferred that there was more emotion to the take rather than it sonically perfect. You can hear little things, like you can hear Ian Carr (who plays guitar on a couple of tracks) breathing, but it was a really good take so we decided to keep it in. You can hear little things like the harmonium creaking and the accordion bellows. I quite like that, it sounds more organic and I hope it makes you feel like you’re in the studio with us rather than it be totally slick.
The album’s got great reviews so far, how does that feedback make you feel?
It’s great. It’s very complimentary that other people like the record but we certainly don’t make records for reviews. You hope that, but we’re happy with and proud of it and you hope when you let it go that the world enjoys it and it’s received well.
You’ve always got that that little bit of apprehension of “We think it’s good but what if they think its crap”. I don’t want to say we don’t care, but we’ve made a record that we’re really happy with, so it’s lovely that people are enjoying it.
You work with a lot of different people on the album. What inspired that?
We listened to lots of different things ranging from The Furies and Mary Black and other Irish folk artists to Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub, so we explored that angle and we actually asked them if they’d like to write a folk song with us. They all came back positively, but just the time ran away from us and we needed to have it done. That was the idea though, to write with people who might not have written a folk song before or thought about our sort of song, but we knew would be brilliant.
What was it like working with Mark Knopfler, as he’s pretty legendary?
He is, he’s a master musician. I got to know him through my husband, he’s in his touring band for the last four or five years. So I got to know him that way, whenever they’re on tour I usually go with them for some of it. So, I just asked him if he would play on a couple of the tracks and we were delighted he said he would.
He was actually one of the artists who couldn’t be in the studio, so he sent down his parts, he laid down the guitar tracks in London and them back up to us, but it was great. He’s totally amazing and we picked songs that we thought he might suit and because he’s Mark Knopfler, he knows exactly what the song needed. It was never too much or too little, he always did exactly what it actually needed.
One of your past albums, In Love and Light, won you awards. Does that recognition spur you on at all?
I guess so, but to me every record is different. With a lot of singers I know, as soon as you’ve finished one record, you’re already thinking about the next one. So, when we did in Love and Light, straight away I was thinking of new songs for The Last Star. It’s that sort of constant work ethic that means that you’re on to the next thing.
Why do you think that folk music has an almost timeless quality to it?
I think because there are so many people who love it and there’s so many young people now playing and studying music and going to gigs, so many more than when I was growing up in Ireland. Music courses are now specialise ion folk music which is an amazing thing.
It’s really exciting to see what this next generation is going to do to the music and what kind of records they’re going to make. Every generation brings more to it and even more so now. It’s incredible the amount of kids playing folk music and loving it.
So, you start touring really soon. Excited to get on the road?
I am yes, I’m really looking forward to it. We’re starting this Friday in Scotland and then we’re all over the UK for four weeks, but I’m really looking forward to it. I really want to play the songs off the record and doing them live, they morph into a different thing than when you record them. You have to find a way of performing them live with a pared down band. I’m looking forward to both that and touring with the guys in my band.
For our London shows we’ve got some special guests, like Louis Abbott and Julie Fowlis so that’s very exciting. We just did a record launch in Glasgow and I had as many of the artists I could there for the performance, so we’re trying to recreate that in London.
Apart from that, what’s in the pipeline for you then?
We’ve got lots of festivals lined up and we’re off to Sweden for a month in the Autumn. We’d also got a little place by our house that we’re turning into a studio at the moment, we’re in the middle of that and we’ve started our own record label.
We’re going to be recording the new Tim O’Brian record in our studio at the end of the year so that’s giving us the push we need to get the studio ready.
Heidi Talbot’s new album Angel Without Wings is out February 18th.