Tunde Baiyewu
It has been eight years since we heard new material from Tunde Baiyewu but he is back with his new solo record Diamond in A Rock.
We caught up with the singer/songwriter to char about the new record, going it alone and what lies ahead.
- You are about to release you second solo album Diamond In A Rock so what can your fans expect from the new album?
I would say that this record is more soulful and gritty than anything that I have done before. I recorded this record in Portland and it is a very vibrant indie scene, in terms of music, but it also has a great community of creative young talent. So recording the record out there has definitely influenced the end result, in a manner of speaking.
But for the very first time I have been able to make the record that I have really would like to make as I haven’t had record companies and manager sticking their ore in. So I think that that will be the main difference.
- I gave the record a listen to this morning and there is more of a soulful feel this time around - not to mention incredibly personal - so what did you decide to take your sound a more soul path?
I grew up in Nigeria, in Lagos in particular, and so as a kid I was always listening to soul music. When you soul music people have this mental image of this of this smooth crooner singing to the ladies - nah, that is not my definition of what soul music is.
For instance James Taylor has an incredible amount of soul to his stuff; I love him and a lot of those kinds of artists. Growing up in Nigeria I also listened to a lot of African artists that were around at the time and there was a lot of soul to what they did.
I have always felt that that part of me has never really found a complete expression in my music because when you are in a band everyone has their say and you make compromises here and there.
- This is the first material we have heard from you for eight years so what have you been up to in that time? And why has it taken so long to get another solo record out there?
Between last time and now I have got married and I have got two daughters - that has kept me busy (laughs). I didn’t want to rush into making another record - for some of the reasons that I have mentioned already - as the last album that I made was under the umbrella of a major label.
Nowadays these major labels don’t really support artists fully in terms of sticking with them if they have a hit with their first single or not; if you put a record our there and it is not a hit first time around they don’t stick around because they just want to make money.
So I wanted to take my time and make a record that saw me being true to myself and give the whole thing a bit of a chance and not rush into making it.
The only way you can have the patience to do that is to do it yourself and not have this huge umbrella of the record industry breathing down your neck. So going off and doing it myself with my friend Sebastian Rogers, he produced it, give us a lot of time and space to make it exactly the way we had dreamed it in the first place.
Even while making the record a lot of the creative processes were still going on - it didn’t end because I went to Portland with a bunch of songs.
I got to Portland and I continued with some people that I met out there and when we got into the studio and started record the creative process were still going on. The musicians on the record were truly allowed to express themselves and no one was restricted in what they brought to the table.
- You have slightly touched on my next question you have made the record that you have wanted to make without the pressures of a label so how freeing and thrilling has that been for you as an artist?
It was extremely liberating (laughs); I can’t even put it into words. What makes it a double whammy for me is the record has turned out so well.
When you do these things you do take a bit of a risk - you know what you want to do but you are never really quite sure if you have done the right thing when you decided to go on a tangent like this.
But at the end of the five month period that it took to make the record the end result is just the most liberating thing that I have ever done.
When you go and make a record yourself you hope that when you get back you will find somebody that you can sign up to or license it to - but even that is a bit risk as that might never happen. But when we got back we found people who were really interested and we signed to Sandbag as they totally understand the artist’s perspective.
So all that has worked out and that has really added to the thrill. I have just felt so free to be able to do it the way that we want to do it and the plan worked out.
- Move is the first single to be lifted off the album so how does this song introduce us to the rest of the record?
I wrote that song with a guy called Andrew Stonestreet… if people heard that Tunde, the guy from Lighthouse Family, is making a solo record you might expect a certain thing and they think that they know what they are going to hear.
Move is a song that totally sidesteps that expectation as it is not a typical Lighthouse Family song. I talked to Sebastian a lot about Fela Kuti, a well known Nigerian artist, he used a lot of brass and some of those influences we have made out own and used them in the way would use them in a Western pop way that makes it different and unique.
This is out of the box of what you would expect come a Lighthouse Family record and I think it is a good introduction as to what you can expect.
When we made the record we would run through all the songs with the band and play them live - almost like you would do if you were playing a gig.
Then after you have spent pretty much half the day going through that process then we would say ‘now we are going to record and you all know the song and everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing’ and we would record the whole thing as a take.
You can really hear that in the record as there is an organic feel to it that was missing for me in a lot of the Lighthouse Family stuff. I am not knocking that at all it is just the way that things were done then but I think that it did take away from the organic feel of the record.
So the trick with his record was to capture that and make it feel real and organic - but at the same time it is still pop music.
- How have you found the response to this single and the rest of the album so far?
The people that have heard it so far the response has just been amazing, it has been really really positive. I have been reading what people have been saying on the Facebook page and people have been going to watch the videos on You Tube - it has been quite amazing.
This is a record that really represents what I wanted do in the first place and what I have always wanted to do and I can tell simply from the response that we have done the right thing.
- You have mentioned Sebastian Rogers a couple of times already and serves as producer on the record so how did that collaboration come about?
Sebastian Rogers use to be an artist and I have known him for a long time - on the last record that I made we wrote quite a few of the songs together.
We understand each other and we have seen the best and worst of each other (laughs). Since he moved to Portland he has produced ten indie albums - there is a really thriving indie scene out there.
He has always said that he wanted to produce my album and I knew that it was only something that I could do if I was in control of the process - not if you have to shop the idea to a record company because they will have a string of producers for you to use.
So it worked out fantastically well with him because we were operating on the same wave length in terms of what we were trying to achieve.
- Catherine Fenny provided some of the vocals on the record while Jon Neufeld played guitar so how did you find working with these great musicians?
Amazing. Catherine Fenny is Sebastian’s wife and she is an amazing artist. She was signed to EMI about three years ago and had made a record. So going over to Portland and hooking up with those guys again was just amazing.
There is a track on the album called Awake and I wrote that with Catherine. I wrote Move with a guy called Andrew Stonestreet, Sebastian introduced me to him while I was out there, and he is an amazing young songwriter.
The most important thing was a lot of us shared in the same perspective in terms of what we are trying to do and express in our music - and that just made it so much easier.
A lot of these guys don’t have you typical pop mentality and they are quite harsh in what a song should express emotionally - they go for speaking the truth and all costs and not compromising at all. So it was great hooking up with them and operating and writing together.
- As I said earlier this is your second solo album so how do you feel you have developed as both a musician and a songwriter between that record and this?
I think leaps and bounds actually. In terms of being strong enough to have the courage of my own convictions and just doing things that I want to do the way that I want to do them I think that I have been able to do that much better than on the last record.
A lot of that came from being surrounded and encouraged by people who also thought the same way; people like Catherine Feeny and Sebastian Rogers and all the other collaborators.
- You are obviously well known as the front man of the Lighthouse Family but how have you found the transition from band member to solo artist?
There is a lot to be said for being in a band as you share the weight workload and you can bounce ideas back and forth - I really enjoyed that. People may not believe it but I am actually quite a reticent and shy person and it is not really my nature to want to be up front and be in the middle of the spotlight.
While there are all these pluses of being in band it can actually be quite tough, especially when the band becomes successful as there too many people vying for control of credit for that success. So that does make to difficult and you have to learn how to manage and handle that in the right way so the whole project can continue.
Going off and making this record in the way that we have is much more liberating - I am not saying it is going to be easy with all the work that potentially lies ahead.
- Finally what is next for you - are we going to be seeing you get out on the road with this new record?
Oh yeah, definitely. That is one thing that I cannot wait to do. We are just waiting to get the record established and then we are going to talking about doing some live shows.
How soon that is going to be I am not sure but I am sure that at some point this year we will be doing some live shows.
Tunde Baiyewu - Diamond In A Rock is released 4th March.