Richard Walters
Richard Walters returns with his third album ‘Regret Less’, released on his own Beard Museum label.
Recorded in his hometown of Oxford with close friend and touring partner Rob Stevenson, ‘Regret Less’ marks a new stage in Walters’ career, and is his first album to be recorded without the backing of a record label or music industry management.
Whereas some artists may have felt daunted by the prospect of going it alone, Walters is rejuvenated, going back to what he does best and recording his most complete record to date.
"I had this sudden revelation," he says, "that, having dismissed and shed so much in my life - girlfriend, home, manager, record company, publishing company, everything - in the space of about four months, I could build whatever the fuck I wanted.
"I went in with a greater confidence than before, possibly because I knew without doubt that these songs would be heard."
The result is an album that takes those bare, brittle and - in his words - 'uncertain' bones of his past life and fleshes them out with true musical and lyrical conviction. ‘King Of Leaves’, with its eerie ambience, starts ‘Regret Less’ on a sinister but ethereal note, Walters’ voice twisting through the air, ghostlike, the first steps of his transition: 'Do you want a piece of me now? A scrap, a brick, a word or anything? But I don’t even remember you.'
For ‘Redwoods’, the fourth song on the record, he collaborated with esteemed British poet and playwright Simon Armitage. "I wrote to him asking if he'd be happy for me to write songs using some of his poems," Walters recounts, "he got back to me, we met up and he gave me a new poem he'd finished that day, which was ‘Redwoods’. I’m so proud of that one!"
Richard’s last album, 2011’s ‘Pacing’ (written and recorded with Bernard Butler), proved to be a frustrating experiment in reaching for a more ‘accessible’ sound. Whilst Walters enjoyed the collaborative writing process, musically the album was a departure from his critically acclaimed 2009 debut ‘The Animal’. Ultimately, Walters says ‘Regret Less’ feels like his true second (solo) album.
In between working on his own material Walters also found time for other projects including co-writing ‘Eyes Out For You’ on Joe Henry’s latest record ‘Reverie’, collaborating with Grammy nominated producer Morgan Page on his new album ‘In The Air, as well as gaining an intense, yet rather surprising, following in the contemporary dance world arising from the repeated use of his songs on US TV show ‘So You Think You Can Dance America?’
Richard Walters will embark on an 11 date headline tour in support of his new record, ending with a headline show at London’s Vortex on the 16th October.