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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Si Connelly and his music
03:45 The process of releasing a large amount of music
06:12 Exploring personal themes in songwriting
08:36 The impact of personal experiences on art
17:02 Navigating the balance between art and commercial considerations
23:42 The role of escapism in music and art
26:39 The importance of creating and expressing oneself
31:39 The challenges and rewards of being an artist
33:03 The power of connection and being seen
33:50 The Healing Power of Music
35:26 Finding Space and Escape
37:47 Navigating Desperation and Isolation
41:29 Ambitions and Expectations
46:40 Being True to Oneself
49:04 Trauma and Self-Analysis
53:49 The Public and Private Self
56:04 The Reality of Being an Artist
59:01 The Importance of Just Being
01:00:45 The Pursuit of Success and Happiness
01:01:53 Take Me Back to Graceland
0:00
Music Welcome to the Music & Trauma Podcast. We are Chris and Teri Potter, we're asking artists, musicians and guests, what are the Three Songs that Saved You? and exploring what matters to them about music and mental health.
0:38
Teri's gonna kick us off today. We've got the wonderful Si Connelly. We're very excited to say, I want a good old chit chat in the kitchen, and now we're sat in the potting shed. And Chris, do you want to give Si a proper introduction? I do. So for those that don't know him, si is an incredibly talented musician, singer songwriter, who's been writing and releasing songs for the last decade or so his songs are deep, heartfelt, dynamic and powerful. And I had the pleasure of meeting him pretty much at the start of that journey, pretty much. And I've been fortunate enough to work with him on and off pretty much during the whole period as well. He had a really prolific 2022 where he put a EP out every month.
1:21
And 2023 as well, has been super busy. Has released an incredible three albums this year so far, and we still got a few weeks left,
1:33
coupled with literally hundreds of gigs every year, he is the hardest working musician I have ever met and supremely talented with it, I have to say, Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm actually a little apprehensive today. There's apprehension, yeah, a little bit healthy apprehension. I think so got it. We're easing you inside, see, yeah, so apprehension, but there's also excitement. I'm enthusiastic about the idea of really exploring more of your world. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's it for me. And I'm feeling that in my body, a little jittery in a way, but I'm relaxing, for sure, because we're in this space and it feels good. So yeah, over to you. Si, yeah, okay, I'm feeling sort of like,
2:19
like a rhubarb and custard. It's not an emotion. It is. The point is that to have an emotion is to have an arrival, a landing place of where you feel right. The problem is, when you do art use like a pendulum, trying to track how you feel is instantly a lie, because by the time you said it, you swung to the other side. Half of me is happy to be here and talking about the process of emotions and the process in general, and the other half of me is reeling from yesterday, yeah, of just the mundanity of life and feeling invisible and feeling, you know, lonely, I guess. So it's a kind of weird juxtaposition. So to be totally honest. There's no way of saying one emotion over the other, but overall, I am content, yeah, because I'm with you guys, you know, and I'm happy doing something that is explorative, certainly that, right? Thank you so and I want to put a bit of context to that as well, because you are a relatively new father as well, and that's taking up a lot of your time and energy and and sleep. Don't remember sleep? No, that's gone right for all. But I just want to say thank you for being here, because you know it's, it's a lot to show up and just sit in this space and and have questions asked of you.
3:35
So you know you can get up and walk out anytime. Yeah, if I storm out. There's two soundboard doors, so it really hard to storm out here. Maybe not. Well, you
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got a couple of questions to kick us off, I think, haven't you? Chris, yeah, easing, shall we? So what's the factor that's, you know, led you to release so much music this year, in fact, the last couple of years? What? How has that happened? Okay, when I write songs, they're like, kind of ghosts, right? If you imagine I'm kind of like a horned house, and all these little ghosts are walking around, and you need to kind of exercise them. What I found for years and years in my earlier record is that I'd spent so much time trying to get perfection, I missed the point. I guess when I look back at the best things I did back then, they were created within minutes. I've got this song. Let's get it captured and get it out, and get out the way of it, you know, let it be. So the reason I released 12 EPS was that really what I was doing that year, even though I was recording 37 songs, I was really just releasing a series of things. And the thing being the series of 12 EPS. If I'd have released 11 EPS, it would have failed. My advice, just on a side note to any artist, is, don't do this
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anyway. I put out 12. That was the process. So therefore, when you do that, you have to commit to whatever you're doing quickly, not giving yourself time to overthink it and let go.
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Each Wow. I've always loved albums and records, so for me, you know, it was very important. Jackals and dogs was the first one I released. And then, nevertheless, and then the big blue they were all very thematic, and the songs on them were part of that. Has it been a helpful process? Have you found it sort of cathartic releasing that much music in such a short space of time. Yeah, it's cathartic. Because I was trying to get to a point where I was writing songs that were going to be on the album I was making, which I've never really been at. I've kind of almost been filling in the gaps because of the album I should have made, flowing alongside all of
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this, if you imagine, my creative side is on my left hand, my economical side is on my right hand. My economical side is hindered my artistic side, so I haven't been able to put these records out. So these albums really should have come out years ago. They just didn't, because I had an economical issue stopping me from being able to do that. And what I want to be able to do as a creative person is look forward and just see an empty piece of paper that needs filling, rather than seeing a notebook full of stuff that I somehow have to kind of go through and and dress up and then hang up on the wall. It makes sense. Yeah, financial aspects don't always go hand in hand, yeah? Give us an idea some of the themes that you kind of exploring lyrically in some of these songs. Yeah. Okay, well, you four and joy came out in 2016
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that was my first album, which was really spanning my youth and the difficulties after my youth, and then the joy of getting to a point where I could put that album out. Eject was my second album which was, as you can imagine, just very emotional. Just wanted to get everything out. You know, just throw it out. That's why it was a double album. It was baggage, and I wanted to put it down the third album, then the one I put out, beginning in 2023 was jackals and dogs. So jackals and dogs was extremely personal album about loss, filling in the history of where being and where I'm at. Now, it starts with a song called, better off dead, where it says, Is it okay to take medicine if you're already dead? And it's really talking about, is there a point to doing something, even if you think it is going to fail? I mean, going to fail and you think you're not going to get seen doing anything, really? The answer is yes, there is a point. Because if I'm not going to do this, I may as well be dead. The second record after that, nevertheless, nevertheless was like my classic record. There was a record I always felt was almost like my second album, I probably would say less personal. It's much more of a kind of artistic realization. So it wasn't as analytical. I'm really proud of these songs, and a proud machine of it had a kind of 80s vibe to it. I suppose the less I give away of myself, the more I can kind of enjoy the record.
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The big blue which is the most telling one, which is one I just released, was really about my life. Now we'll go into this, I guess, bit more, but it was a distilled album, which is where I'm at. When you have a baby, your relationship with yourself becomes so secondary. Another time my life, when I was distilled, was anytime you're on holiday, you're like, on one of the Sun lounges, looking out to the sea, and you want your book and stuff. Those little moments, those, like few minute moments where you just feel distilled. I wanted to make an album to create that entire thing. It starts with a song called I get boring, which is, anyone who knows me realizes I get boring really quickly. And I get boring was about
being so tired of yourself that you just want to switch yourself onto standby. You don't want to switch off. You just want to just say, look, okay, this is the way I'm gonna be. And you just nothing makes you feel like that more than than suddenly being
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secondary to this baby. You have to, you have to make sure that's happy all the time and stuff. So many of us can relate to that song. Yeah, if I was listening, I will be going, I've got to listen to everything he's written, because I just wanted to acknowledge that. Because you've just got this immense catalog. The songs that I listen to of yours, you capture so much, and there's so much for people to dive into and explore. Well, thank you, and it's one of the weird aspects of making music. You all need a reaction to something we do. It's very easy to feel small because you haven't achieved what you thought you should achieve based on what you've done, the song that you wrote about, is there any point if I'm dead, does anybody see me? Does anybody hear me? And the answer is yes, there is a point. Could you tell me a bit more about what is the point? The point is that you can give up on anything and no one will ever know. And when I did a big support tour a few years ago, obviously I'm just a Support Act, so I'm just there to warm up the crowd. I know that's my job. They don't know who I am. I came off stage, my friend said to me, it was great, but there was a lot of talking. And I said, Well, you never hear who's listening. You can only hear who's talking. You can't hear who's listening. You can't know the effect you're having, which doesn't help in real time, but it does help broadly speaking, you know, our job is just to do whatever it is we're meant to do, whether it's nurturing something, whether it's creating some art, and then we have to just put it out. We have to learn to let go of the reaction, because we may have a reaction, but we might have better hear it, because the Talking is so loud. But it doesn't mean that the people that heard that message or the people that saw what you did. It doesn't mean everything to the.
10:00
Am. But there's a personal thing, which is, you just on an honest level, if I knew I was no one ever listened to this stuff, I'd still create it. Yeah, right, those painters, they used to paint endless amounts of things and just put them up, yes, against the wall, they still create because it's, it's just the human condition as I'm hearing what you're saying. I'm also likening it to this enterprise, which we're all equal parts of. Here, we're showing up. We're doing this podcast. We don't know who's going to listen. We don't know there's going to be an audience, but if somebody's hearing it and they're feeling like it matters to them, or it's shifting something in them, or they're intrigued by the fact that we're all human on a very commercial minded way. I'm very stubborn. I mean, I might be thinking that whilst someone's knocking on the door, you know, a
bailiff, you know, trying to get
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but at least I'll go well, you can't take my intellectual property, no, and they'll go well with AI we've managed to
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dissect just because you have an art form, or whatever it is, being a writer or a gardener, for instance, like, whatever it is, just because you create, it doesn't mean that you can't have a separate relationship with it, which is commercially minded. Does the gardener working in allotment, they're not allowed to sell, like, the vegetables they grow, but there's a weird rule about that. Like, does it mean that if she does sell this stuff, that her joy for creating the courgettes was diminished. You know,
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they still the two are different things that she might need certain amount of money a week to come in for to pay for some pet food or whatever. I feel like, I want to frame this message, because it's massive, isn't it? I mean, probably all of us at different times in our lives and times in our days, even, like, what is the point? Whether it's art, even, whether it's just the drudgery of it, or does it matter? And you're answering that question in a really deep and profound way, it actually does matter. Check in with yourself. It matters because you're here. If we go, like, right back to the beginning, yeah. What's your earliest memory of music. My dad was a DJ. He had all these records, and I would just discover them when you're a kid, vinyl, for instance, it's just a physical thing you're sort of enamored with. Plus, I grew up with Michael Jackson and Wizard of Oz and all of these kind of things that played a big part in the musical landscape. The earliest things I really recollect were like doors and the Beatles and Michael Jackson, specifically, when I got more conscious of it. But the earliest memory I have of music is I had one of these, like Fisher Price record players, which is like a toy brand on its like little plastic versions of records. These, Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, little star. And Mary Had a Little Lamb and all this, yeah, I was thinking to myself, why did she only have one?
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So I got my little rabble player, and my dad had his. You know, music became a trap door and escape very early in life. How did you get involved in creating music. What was the point at which you got involved in that? I mean, I started when I was really young, I started dancing and stuff like that. I would just teach I taught myself how to dance, and I taught myself how to sing and all that. But friends of mine played a guitar at school when I was like 12, and they just kept playing Smells Like Teen Spirit over and over again. And I was just so sick of hearing them play this song. Can you play anything else? Is that all you can play? And they go, Well, you can't play anything, you know? I thought, well, I'll show them, you know. And I locked myself in my room for like, six months, and when I came back, I could play more songs, you know, my own songs. The minute I could play a two
chords, I started writing songs. And the minute I could write songs, I started playing live in bands and stuff really, like, quickly, like, within a month or something. I think we did a show. Our first show, we didn't even have music. We were just little posters, and it was like, Dan and si 50 p at the shed behind number 25
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and no one turned up. But we had a great time putting that gig on. But we didn't have any idea of what the gig was going to be. It was just the posters. You know, we little pencil posters. We put them up on a few trees, but no one turned up. But for us, it was the process of creating this world. You know, it's probably most successful gigs, to be honest. It's time for great times. I should go back to that. I started touring, like 13 so, like, a year later, I started touring UK and playing shows seriously. Started recording my stuff straight away, really quickly, really quickly. When you say touring, tell me a bit more. What do you mean? I toured like I played Manchester, London, Swindon, yeah. What kind of venues are you talking about? Think we did night and day Manchester. Wow, turned up. They were like, you can't play, but it's one of those daytime things. We played at Tewkesbury in Cheltenham. There was a which where I grew up. There was a place called the axiom, which was like an art center that was like the best thing in the world to find that place. My creative side started way before, like, I was three or four, you know, I taught myself how to dance like a maniac. You know, I would just sit and watch Michael Jackson's videos and put.
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Pause and rewind. Pause and rewind, like learning every nuanced detail, to the point where I was doing exhibitions and stuff publicly in front of hundreds of people. I was very good at it. At school, I got expelled a few times and got kicked out. I was having fights and stuff. And a teacher called Mrs. Kedge, she saw that I was struggling, and she sent me to an audition 1000s of kids. You know, most of these kids did theater school, which I didn't know what that meant. You know, I had no idea these things existed, but I just taught myself how to do stuff. So I went to the audition, I got the part, and then I got another part in Jungle Book, there's only 12 people, I think, like 2000 3000 people auditioned and I got in. Wow, that was really intense, because we played for like, four months. The rehearsal schedules for those things were, like, every day, like it was really disciplined, yeah, and it was a proper thing. And then we did a touring thing with the National Youth, and then we did some stuff with Alan Rickman, and I ended up acting in National Fair in London. So yeah, all this stuff happened, and I didn't get a part in Toad of Toad Hall. I got the hump and said, it's all political. And
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that's when I got into music. Yeah, I noticed that you used we a lot in that. So tell me if this is accurate or not. I'm hearing that that in the absence of family became like a
container for you to sort of grow within the arts and the axiom and all of those people, was that I automatically used the word we. And I think that's because I sort of saw myself as a collective I had family and stuff, but it's funny, it was like a communal room, so one person would drop in and one person would drop out, and you're the constant. You're like the table in the room. You like this table here. Those people aren't sticking around. Okay, gotcha. They're coming along. They're putting their drinks on it, and then they're leaving. Did you feel taken care of? Did you feel like no, no, I felt taken care of at times, but it was never a constant. And I think for children, a constant is the most important mechanism. As you get older, you think, Well, who do I blame? You can't blame anything, really. It's just it is the way it is, that's we have to go through that process. I think everyone, for everyone, is different, and I think, from my perspective, they just did the best they could, and the best they could wasn't really good enough. Our first house was like a heroin halfway house for homeless people. I was there for a year, but my parents were never together. They had a good time one night, and then I came along nine months later and ruined it, I guess.
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So, yeah, that was it, but they just tried the best. They were very young, very difficult time. Yeah, my mom's family, they came out of poverty, you know, if they grew up in those things as a consequence, patterns repeat. Yeah, they just couldn't cope, because they'd never been given the tools to cope. The tools weren't really available. I wouldn't change a thing about the past, because I couldn't write some of the songs I've written had I had a better 100% and it's one of my reasons. We'll probably come around to this. But why? I've never had therapy, because I don't want that to affect the creative process. It's almost like a weird choice of not being happier
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to sustain creative relationship, and you've got a continual outlet of expression, haven't you? Yeah, and I think that's the thing. I'm lucky in that sense. Yeah, okay. Well, that brings us to the part of this podcast, which we're really hoping is going to become bit of a trademark. And we're asking you, what are the three songs that saved you? But we're going to go one at a time, what would be your song? Number one? Probably music and me by Michael Jackson as a kid, he had such vulnerability and such loneliness in his music that spoke to me and made me realize that I wasn't alone, and the music was such a powerful thing.
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Unfortunately, right now, we haven't been able to clear the license to play this song. When that happens, we'll update the episode to include it. In the meantime, please click on the link in the show notes to hear the song in full.
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Have to confess
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that song's totally passed me by. I've never heard it before
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when I think he's off his first solo album ever, or second or something, yeah, I just looked at 1973 73 Yeah, he was old before his years.
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Michael Jackson was a lot more around than did a lot of the other people in my life at the time. You know, right? But something about growing up in an unusual set of circumstances and feeling that loneliness. You do get old before your time, in a way, you start to mature on a fast forward. That sort of song mirrors that, I guess, but there's a certain hope there. What he's saying is, I'm not alone because I have music. It's probably more sad now than it was then, but that's because I understand emotion more than I understood it. Then I wonder, actually, however, as children, we understand emotion a lot more, primarily, you know, we start to intellectualize it. We have cognitive reasoning. So we start to pull at the string on the jumper, and before we know it, we're surrounded by unraveled string. Yeah, as a small child, you're so.
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Much more in touch. Just accept a jumper when you're a child, yeah, or you could reframe that as you're in touch with your essence as you were born to be. And then there's these layers of conditioning that land on top. And then you start to forget what who you really are. Well, you just start to become so self aware that you start to play a role of who you think you should be, and that whole line, I think therefore I am. I mean, if only we could have exchanged that for I feel therefore I am. Yeah, exactly, yeah. How do I know I'm really here? Because I can feel it. I think when you have a child or you're looking at it through different eyes, everything is abstract. But for me, it was escapism. You know, they just offered a world that was magical. And, yeah, you know, it was mad that wonder was such a big part of being a child, you tend to lose that as you get older. Sadly, it's interesting. Earlier you talked about when you first started playing music and it became a trap door for you, and listening back, it's escapism. This is quite a theme that runs through isn't there with where music takes you? There is, yeah, I had a song called a staircase where I literally talk about that. This song, you were to read it from a literal point of view. It describes a child finding a monster living under the stairs, and then he gets on with a monster. They go out and they they escape, and they go into this forest outside the house, and they build all these amazing things, and they have these amazing times, and then they come back, and then, you know, it's like a secret little friendship He has with this monster. And at the end of the story, you realize that the monster was never real. It was actually just him the whole time. You know, the monster was me. At the end of the song, you find out that me and the monster have the same name. I'm singing it from a child's perspective, so I'm saying, oh, that's strange. We have the same name as a child. I'm not realizing that I've created that monster to be a friend so I'm not alone, so that I can
escape and do all these amazing things, get away from the stuff that's going on in the house. Is a really weird thing because I'm singing it, but I know the listener is an adult, and they understand, okay, this thing isn't real, really. The monster is me, because a child blames themselves for the stuff that goes on. And it's this idea that you've built an escape that no one else knows about. Children are very good at that. They build these mechanisms that give them escape. One of the other things that happened when I was a kid was there was a big house fire. I burned the house down. When I was like, wow. When I was like, two or three, no one died, but it was a big block of flats. I burnt halfing down. Wow. I was just messing about. And, you know, six in the morning and I was just messing around on my own. And my mum used to light the fag off a cigarette. If the people that aren't in England, we had these old 80s kind of heaters, like the metal bar with a fake coal and with the bars. And you like, back in the 80s, you know, was just copying her, thinking, Oh, this is what I do. And then I think she woke up and called me, where was I? And then I just must have thrown it on the sofa and gone to bed. And then when I woke up, this whole thing happened. And I put that into a song called birdsong.
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And in the song called Birdsong, it's also written from a few child's eyes. So it's not a fire, it's a dragon, and there's a dragon in this place that we live in. And from I'm singing it from a child's perspective, from my perspective as a child, but that it wasn't the fire, it was this dragon living in this house. And, you know, we needed to get out of there and break out of this thing and so we could survive and stuff even that, you I could have gone there's a massive fire. We're going to die, but I create this sort of friendly creature of a thing that's there to kind of take us away from this degradation we're living in, and that happens all the time with some of the songs I write. Yeah, you're a two or three year old in that situation, and you develop what I would interpret as coping strategies, because if you were to realize that actually to be put in that situation is, you know, a threat to your safety, to actually to your existence, yeah, that is going to be so painful to a child that they don't have the capacity to acknowledge and absorb that fact. So therefore, what has to happen is they have to turn it in on themselves and say, this is on me. This is about me. This is mine. That's how you feel when you're a kid. A fire is such a it was such like a visual thing. It was so traumatic. Those are the things that therapists have a field day with, because they're like, you know, this is suppressed stuff. And I I'm kind of aware of it being suppressed, and I'm kind of like, okay, well, that is the way it goes. It comes out in songs. There's an extract from a song of mine called in house with no windows where I talk about this stuff. There's a lot about my songs that I'm writing as if I was six or seven. So when you listen to them, you have to think of not me now, but me then. But I'm giving myself a voice when I didn't have a voice then. And the lyrics I'll just recite three verses from this in a house with no father and mother left home. There's a box in the attic where only I go.
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In a house with no memory, there's a noise with no.
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Down. There's a house built on matchsticks want to burn to the ground in a house with no windows, there's a room with no walls. There's a person beneath here that only you saw. Yeah, that's kind of, you know, heavy stuff, because when you're a child and you're
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you're stuck in that stuff, that's one of the most emotional souls to
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sorry. Take a moment and
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give us your hope.
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I'm a house full of dark dogs
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and a skin full love
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jokes in a house with no father
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and mother left home,
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There's a box in the attic
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where only I go.
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Yeah, it's a tricky one, but it is one of those songs that now it's out and it exists. It becomes like a friend, like a strength. And
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it's funny, because as a record, it really isn't a very good record. As a record, it's not done, not finished. I wrote it the night before we recorded it. It hasn't got a chorus that song. It's just a series of verses with a weird, ooey part in the middle. And it annoys me, because I wish it needs to be. It's not finished as a song, but it's because it's not a song. It's an exorcism. I'm getting a sense of it's holding you there. That's why it's not finished, because it's not finished, yeah? And if I gave it a glossy chorus and a bridge and all the right things, it would be a great song, but that isn't really what it's meant to be. It's more of a poem than a song. You do have to learn to accept that some things are never finished, you know, yeah, I guess we're never finished until, you know, until our life's over. That's interesting that, because my experience of you sort of early on, when, when we first met, was that you were striving to get, you know, versions of songs that were absolutely definitive, and yeah, and now, to be able to evolve to a place where you know, you can let something go that your nose not finished. The only thing that's important, really, is that I get these songs recorded, the emotions right the spine of it is right, and then I just get it out and move on my life. There was so much that I creatively had to sort of live with not being correct. You know, when you do that method, you miss more than you hear. You fail more than you succeed. But it doesn't really matter whether you fail or you succeed, at least you did it. I've added to the world. I've created something that matters. And whether commercially, labels and stuff deem that important enough to sort of put in their thing is really out of my control, so I have to let it go. If we don't have money and we don't have time, then we're
spending our time doing something we hate, a job, maybe, or whatever, that makes us feel invisible, that doesn't bring in enough money to pay the rent or whatever, and then you can't create your art. Yeah, and then if you do a really good job, you're doing really well in it, you have no time to create your art. So the point is, if you want to just be an artist, there's a real, reality cost to it that doesn't get talked about at all. I made 12 EPs and free albums on credit cards and loans and overdrafts, then that's just because I had to invest. If I was a carpet cleaner, I would have had to get a business loan and get load of vans and get a carpet cleaning thing and pay a guy to do this. This is just the way it works. There's a reality to stuff that is goes beyond emotion. Yeah, I think that's a really, really important point. I'm sorry my tummy is rumbling. That's going on as well. You should have a tummy rumbling section this week's time.
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But just coming back to that point that you're making again, it's just so important for all of us. You know that money is another energetic exchange, right? It's an issue for so many people like you've got to be able to take care of yourself, and yet, what you're saying and what you're bringing into this conversation is, yeah, that's all true, and at the same time acknowledging what really does have to happen in this lifetime for me to stand up and know that I'm showing up for myself as myself. It's not easy. It's not like there's any concrete answers for people, people that are juggling with three kids and trying to be true to themselves. There isn't an answer for that. It's a challenge. You know, I got a night job the other day just to burn money in the time that the baby was asleep so that I could contribute, and the answer to that was, I crashed my car. Yeah, nearly died. Every mistake I've ever made has been made for desperation, and people are desperate, and when they're desperate, they're right up against the canvas. They can't see the bigger picture. They just can't the idea is that you live your life the way that you feel, that you're supposed to.
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Do, but these systems dictate what time you show up, how much it costs you know, how much time you dedicate to this and that. And stillness is something that people are almost afraid to experience. I certainly was for a very long time, because when you get still, you have to acknowledge all of the stuff that you're feeling, but to not run away from that, but actually have an experience of those feelings is so powerful, because not only do you get space, but there's also an opportunity to let some of it pass through you. I can see that everybody would benefit from a version of that. My opinion of things is that stepping forward is not just standing still and whether it's sitting in a dark room, you're really moving really fast, even though you're sitting still, because you're giving yourself the ability to breathe again, to see the world, and
that's massively important. You know, a friend of mine said recently about therapy, I should be when I consider it, and my answer, he found it really odd, and it's not because I was against therapy, because quite clearly, I'm not against therapy. Not against therapy. I'm very pro it. I know where everything is in the house that I have in my head. I know that over there is trauma from this, or there's a fire here. And I know where all of these things are, but they're my things. You know, they're very important for me as an artist, to not get rid of them. I want to be what I am, if that's full of scars, then, then, so be it. It just has to be honest, it's really the only thing, yeah, and you can hold it, yeah. And if I can do that, then I'd feel like I'm kind of doing half the job. I think the second I feel like I couldn't do that, then I would talk to someone. But problem is that
31:39
this is the flip side to everything. I'm an artist. I sing a songwriter, so I have a massive ego, so I think that I can do a better job than the therapist can do. I would sit there, and it'd be like Good Will Hunting, and I'd just be sat there. You know, the most profound experiences I've had of therapy are the people that actually hand it back to you. Nobody's showing you anything, but they're just letting you know you've got all the answers already. So, you know, talk to me. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Si, that's like so much covered. We're getting through this amazing but we do need to move on to the next song. I think so. Do you have a number two? Yeah, yeah. How are you doing, though? Before we do this, pick a word. Pick a word, how am I feeling? Is positive. Ultimately, it's positive because talking about stuff, you know, for everyone out there, like, a few days ago, I wrote in a book all the negative stuff I was feeling. I've got it somewhere, I think it's in the car, but it was just effectively, I felt lonely, isolated, helpless, you know, it's pointless, what's what's the point and everything. And I think that it just helps coming out, seeing you guys and doing stuff, and it's a kind of a lesson to people, maybe even you that's listening right now is just try and plan to do one thing with other people. Oh, nice, yeah, yeah, totally. It's that simple. Really. It's really important just being in the same room, in the same space as somebody, and feeling like you're connecting and being heard and being a part of a we and not an i, is really important. I've had the same sort of thing, like post pandemic and stuff, where you
33:15
got so used to kind of, you know, being in your own existence. And it's funny, like as human beings, like we went through the crazy thing of covid and being locked down and bored, and we had to sit around doing quizzes with people we have no interest.
33:29
I was depressed then having
33:32
to do a murder mystery with a lot of people.
33:36
It's funny. My point being is we went through something that was insanely difficult, where we're all kind of having to live in a vacuum, where we're just surrounded by ourselves all the time, and we kind of as a human race, or as a public we kind of got through it for the most part, not for obviously, the people that lost people, but we got through it. We're stronger than we know we are.
33:57
There was loads of negative effects to it, but from a polarized point of view on mass, generally speaking, we did just put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. We did that because
34:09
we all had this idea that, you know this will pass, yeah. So give us your number two. Si, what have you got the album I listen to. My favorite album of all time is ambient two by Brian Uno and Harold Budd the plateau of mirror if you want to put your head near the washing machine, it sounds a bit like that. It's just something about it that hugs me.
34:38
Unfortunately, right now, we haven't been able to clear the license to play this song. When that happens, we'll update this episode to include it. In the meantime, please click on the link in the show notes to hear the song in full.
34:57
Listening to stuff like that, this is listening to things like the show.
35:00
Been forecast, you know? Yeah, just, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do some guy from must have been 1848
35:07
talking about some place that can't exist, and what they're saying, I'm not driving a ship. So
35:13
I find something about it. I do like the idea of white static and having that around me. Drop the narrative? Yeah, dropping out it obviously transports me somewhere calm. Yes, this is what we were talking about in terms of finding space. Yeah. And I think it's very fitting that my way to find space is mentally to disappear somewhere that doesn't really exist physically, a little bit like the room under the stairs or the forest I built stuff in. My escape is never physical. You know, I lie actually, because I do a lot of walking. For me, I would go on like 200 mile walks of my mate, coast to coast or whatever. When you're walking, it's not about destination, it's about just the moment you're in. You know, just love that about it. There's no prescription, but if we can just get in touch with what works for us? Yeah, there really is no right or wrong way, and that's the thing. Like, we don't have cracks or gaps because we're less. We have cracks and gaps because we're more how we articulate it and how we deal with it, through methods of making music or art or gardening or walking or just helping other people, or whatever it is, just raising a child, or whatever it be, you know is it's also we're actually here to experience every single emotion, that's sadness, that's anger, that's despair, hopelessness. And I wonder how it would be if we were just leaned into that and rather than resisting those feelings that we can label as bad. What if we just went, Okay, it's one of those days I'm just gonna feel that then, rather than it become, there's something wrong with me,
yeah, that feeling of there's something wrong with me. And I think that social media and the world like that, yeah, it doesn't help that. I guess the shiny, happy people on the screen, yeah, like we're all tending to our shop front and making sure that the shop front is great. Wherever industries we're in, whatever we do we, you know, even just, are we good parents? Are we doing okay by our children? I constantly feel like I'm failing my child because of first parts of the day, she has a big playpen she's playing and I put on like a little cartoon thing that she watches. I think, you know, what am I doing? You know, because I'm just trying to find five seconds where I can breathe. Within the industry I'm in, there is a restriction, and reason I'm bringing it back to that is a lot of people who listen to these things will be creative, people that feel that their creativeness is either hindered by people not noticing they're creating or by their lack of being able to create more stuff because of their personal circumstances. When you get desperate, the room gets smaller. You start to feel like you can't breathe, and you start to feel isolated, lonely. You go inward, rather than outward. You know. You look for Hope anywhere, and all the stuff does pass. Age teaches you that processes, if you trust in the universe and what you're going to do, it will guide you. The more you fight it, the more you struggle. They say, when you're drowning, the best thing to do is not try and flail your arms around. Yeah, so resistance, you have to go with it, and more chance of survival if you do that. And all our ambitions are to try and reach the moon. You know is to try and do something so crazily big to be successful in it, I'm sure. I don't know. Neil Armstrong, we're on the moon. Should we jump out? I'm not feeling it today.
38:29
Can we just do it tomorrow? It's too dark. Are
38:33
there one of the songs that did save me very clearly in 1994
38:38
95 was super grass I should Coco. The song scored. I'd like to know the first song on the album. It hit when I was like 13. It was the one album. It was the one band that opened up the door to me totally. And it's funny, because the music's great. I love the music. It's very unemotional, because it's all about being young and free, and it's that expression, but it wasn't the music at all that did it to me. It was the back cover of this album. And if you can look it up online, is a picture of the band in a dressing room. They're in a black and white dressing room, and the dressing room's got, you know, obviously, after a show, they've just done graffiti on and stuff. And that was a window to a world of escaping something and wanting to get somewhere. And I thought I saw that photo, and I was like, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life, right? Nine years later, I would sign my first publishing deal. I got kicked out of school at 16. By the time I was 21 I'd signed a publishing deal with EMI for like, nearly 100 grand or something, which is insane at the time. And I was just a kid from a tiny town. I got signed to this label that they were assigned to. And when I was in the office with all these suits, you know, so I went to Waterstones and bought a book that says how to make it in the music industry, which I would like a refund on. Frankly. Yeah.
40:00
I'm sat in a big, shiny office. The last shiny office I'd been in only a matter of weeks earlier was a doll office, you know, to clear my doll checks. These big suits are telling me that I'm, you know, the creator of music, and I'm going to be the best thing in the world, which is a spiel they have. They just set out, you know, as you walk in, but they said, Who do you want to make your record? You know? And I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I just said Sam Williams, because he was the only guy I knew because I read him on the back of this album. He produced, I should Coco and then, and then I was in with Sam Williams. And the it was a good session with Sam Williams. The only thing that made me realize that it wasn't really going to work was
40:37
he once showed me how to make scrambled eggs. I was like, This guy is so
40:44
ridiculous,
40:47
scrambled eggs and swarm, it's a real serious thing. So I ended up scrapping that record down the line, and then made another album with with a guy that couldn't make eggs at all, and that didn't work out. I decided to leave that label because I just could see it wasn't working. And got my rights back. And I just was at the keyboard, and I just, you know, when you press like, A or B, or whatever, he like, tells you like, oh, Who you trying to email? And it comes up a whole list of people you've emailed with a, and I did a, and there was nobody I did B, and it was like, and I did see and Chris Potter came up, and I was like, okay,
41:25
and that's how, that's why we're here now. So you just have to, in the darkest moments, you just have to just do something. I'm so glad you haven't shown about to do scrambled eggs. Why scramble them? That's what we say. Let's have a listen to that Supercross. Try do sadly, we're not able to play this song right now due to a delay in the licensing process. We intend to update this episode as soon as possible, but for now, if you can, please pause the episode and click on the link in the show notes to enjoy the tune in full. You
42:04
I hear that again? Yeah, I went to London with my dad when I was, like, 1314,
42:10
and we saw them at The Astoria in London. We went to like Denmark Street and looked through the windows and all guitar shops that were closed, and went to patters Park, where they filmed going out. There's a single off the next album. It's just a magical time, you know, just those things, but, but really, what it was about that record was it was a window into a world that I wanted to be a part of. Then I made sure was a part of it. It gets in your bones. You can't really get rid of it.
I love dressing rooms and I love all that stuff. You know, I can sense that adolescent energy. Yeah, he's got, it's really, there's all sort of kinks, vibe, too, and stuff. I just thought it was great. And there was such a good band, and I was obsessed with them, you know, I was very serious about music, and I saw it as my passport out when you listen to that song. Now, how does it make you feel? Do you feel the same way as you did? Yeah, yes and no. It takes me back to a memory of a memory of a memory. I can't really feel it because I'm now 41 I'm not 13, so I'm trying to get back to something. There's sort of sadness in that, in a way you can't quite get back. You're kind of always looking in, you know, from the outside. What would you want to go back for? Just because of the magic the time, if in fact possible, when you know too much, when you learn too much, you lose your innocence and you realize you learn the terminologies, you learn, the stuff, you learn, the industries. And if you know too much, you know the Wizard of Oz is just a guy with a megaphone behind the curtain. What did that song do for you at that time? How did it help you through difficulties? Yeah, it gave me identity. First and foremost, it was like a belonging, you know, suddenly I went to a show of theirs, and has loads of kids like me. It was with fake sideburns and trying. It gave me identity. And I think identity is a really important thing. And weirdly enough, as you get older, identity is something that becomes more formed, but something that you lose awareness of constantly trying to shape your identity. I mean, all of these songs, all three of them that you've played us, I'm just interested overall in how they've inspired you creatively, and what they've contributed to your music, and how you show up as an artist these days? Yeah, that's a good question. I think, on a practical point, like, They all link up in some way. I always think like, we don't write songs, they write us. You know, when everyone else is gone and the career's gone and it didn't work out, or had did work out, or whatever it is. You get to the end of it and they're still there. They haven't really changed. They don't really ask anything from you a great song, doesn't ask to be a commercial hit, or doesn't ask to move you. It just it is what it is. They're not assign posts of your life, and really, your job is to just try.
45:00
And keep staying true to it and turning up to be able to do that, yeah. How does it make you feel when you're in the creative process of, yeah, a lie totally. I love writing the songs. I love recording the songs, then the release of it is just totally deflating. And this is what no artist really talks about for the most of us. You know, I'm not talking about John Mayer or the big artist you probably are at certain points. Yeah, that goes right through the whole
45:33
does for everyone. It's just a very deflating I not like listening back to it. I love that part, because
that's for you, you know. But like,
45:43
the reaction can never be what you want it to be. It becomes a different game. You become a salesman at that point. You're like a walking sandwich board isn't what you got into it for no, you know. And supergrass would have had to have done the same things. But if I knew that no one was ever going to hear anything, I'd still create it anyway, if you can be happy with what you're creating, and you're in a place where you don't need to sort of
46:08
keep eroding yourself or your life to do it, yeah, then I think it's healthy, think, for someone like myself, if I could be really, really frank and honest about it, it makes me feel invisible and irrelevant, more than It makes me feel like someone, you know, so when I release something and it doesn't get a reaction, or people don't react, or whatever, it's not their fault, it just makes me think, you know, what's the point? They're always listening. What's the point? That is the question we come back to that, what's the point question? And it's like, if we can give ourselves that sense of, I'm enough, the answer to what's the point is that
46:40
I think, therefore I am, I can, therefore I should, and I do, therefore I have done. And my main job is the things I can control, the things in the box I can create and I should create. And to do anything other than that would be dishonest, right to the art, and you can't be dishonest to the art. I'm satisfied with what I've done, just not necessarily satisfied where it's got me yet. But, you know, it's a process, and really, what's to say it should get me anywhere. It's not really about that, fundamentally, humanly, it isn't really about that. Really, all that matters is
47:13
I've created something that wasn't there. What satisfies me is that I have to make art, and it helps me, and it's part of my therapy for myself. It's part of managing my ecosystem, and I will always do it, regardless of whether I distribute it or not. I will always do it. The other side of it is that this is my career, and I want to be successful in life. Because when you come from, you know, not having only a family around you come from, like not having any money, no means a class system that's sort of built to kind of keep you where you are. You're constantly fighting to get to the sunlight like a seed, you know, you're trying to get through the mud and through the weeds, and if you're beaten down all the time, it doesn't stop your instinct to grow and find a new way. Absolutely, I love that analogy, so I'll keep doing it, but it's sadly for me tied up in career. So there was a careerist element, which sounds a little plastic, but it's the reality of it. I don't do what I do because I'm trying to be successful in my career. Very clear, I want to be successful in my career because I believe I'm good at what I do. It's the other way around. None of this other stuff I'm talking about really matters. What matters is, do you have something that you love, and are you investing in that something?
48:27
It's our job, you know, to just be happy and do stuff and and to distill your sad periods and understand them and explore them. Yeah, yeah. I love that experience of like imagining the day after you die, you've gone all the way through your life, no matter how short or long it might have been, but you're able to reflect back and take stock and see where you put your time, where you put yourself, what actually mattered? What are you proud of? What you're happy about, what do you wish you could revisit? We can take stock of that in the day to day that pulls you up short sometimes. Well, it does, because music does have the power to connect with someone as these songs have connected with me, and I'd like to just fuse that into a question, if that's okay, how do you feel? Trauma has affected your relationship with music on the whole it's funny, because music's like a friend that guides you through trauma. It's like an invisible, little kind of friend. But I lived through traumatic situations, but for me, I just was looking at it through kids eyes. So you know, when the house is burning down, you're just trying to get away from the fire. You're not really thinking about about what it feels like to burn or what it feels like to be in pain, or whatever. You just deal with what's in front of you. So music has been and just a very autopilot thing. It says it's so internal to me. It comes out in so many ways. And every single song I write really is about the same stuff. I just find a maze. I find ways of disguising it in different formats. We all come back to those same words in a way, don't we? For me, music keeps me strangely in a you.
50:00
Prolonged state of self analysis. If I didn't write any songs, it would be because I'm very happy and I don't need to write songs. But there's something else giving you a it's giving you something. Yeah, it must do. I don't know what that is. I really don't, because it's just so natural. If you were to cut me open, it's just songs pouring out. My body's still the little boy, you know, in
50:23
the music, if I was content, you know, then I would probably wouldn't need to, I guess. But it's certainly constantly looking in the mirror and analyzing and picking at yourself and looking at your things. And I do have some some traumatic things that happen to me that I can pull and I use as mechanisms, but you do run out there. You only get limited amounts of time you can you can talk about houses burning, I think four or five songs.
50:52
Great answer, though. Sorry, it's a great answer. It really is. Do you sort of agree with the idea that music can make it easier to feel the kind of feelings that you've experiencing. Yeah, it is like an exorcism. So these things build up and build up. Music, most songs are about five or six different things. They're pliable. People can get what they want out of it. I actually find sound checks more emotional than
actually playing the gigs, you know, yeah, because sound checks. I'm really connecting with songs. But any opportunity to sing in front of people monkey about are like, you know,
51:28
you do this because you meant to do this. You need to do it. It's part of your oxygen. And I think if you starve yourself from the oxygen you need,
51:36
you will start to just go inward and what you do matters, and I think we all need someone or something to throw a life raft after us. You know, in this giant ocean, we're flailing around in something that's ours. Yeah, I think that that's what, what any kind of art can do. It can help you. The main thing about it is it's a process. We're all flawed in some way, wherever. We all have issues, and we all kind of cause damage. I think blur had a song recently, and one of the lyrics is, everyone carries trauma, which I thought was really, you know, is true because everyone does. It's just different degrees of it. In reality, we build up two versions of ourself. We build up a version that is the public facing version, and we build up the one that's inside that we don't really show anyone. And the problem is, is that the trauma is affecting both of those versions, but one of them we take on our own shoulders, and the other one we don't show anyone else, because we just, I don't know why. We're sort of afraid to sort of discuss it. We just think when someone asks us how we are. It's just polite to say, Yeah, I'm fine, yeah. Rather than go, Well, you know, I'm not great actually. You know, I've got a little corner shop right by my house. I go in there all the time. It's like, you drink a lot of Coca Cola. I'm like, I'm not here for that, man. This is a holiday for me. I come here because this is two minutes in my day where I'm not doing this or doing that. You know, that's what it's about. There's no conversation to be had if I knew at the start that this wouldn't lead to a life of riches and touring and music and being part of the world I wanted to be in and being realized and being revered and all of those things that apparently we chase and apparently fame doesn't give us anyway. And they say money doesn't buy you happiness. Well, not having money really does make you miserable
53:24
because you're chasing all the time trying to fix your situations. If I'd have known that it was going to be as hard as it was, I'd still done it exactly the same. You know, wouldn't change a thing because, you know, I think ultimately that's a human thing, and we have to just get to a point where we're trying to be honest. And it's really hard to be honest with yourself. It's probably the hardest. Probably the hardest thing you can do. I think if I'm honest, I don't mean anyone who's ever truly that honest with themselves, they try to be. That's all we can do, is try to be. That's been the thread of this entire conversation, I've sensed is just that, who are you really? What do you need? It's like, yeah, exactly. Because I'm a different person now to that I was when I started the conversation you're learning all the time. Yeah. So that's all you can do. You just got to show up and try and if you can create something great that people, other people like, then, then, so be it. But if you create nothing in life, and you just you're loved, and you love and you have people around you, really, that's all that matters anyway. Yeah, yeah. You say that no one ever died wishing they'd bought more stuff. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. So true. Well, thank you so thank you having you here. Thanks a lot. It's, it's been nice to be able to sit and talk about it. It's not something I, you know, I've never had therapy. It's not something that I specifically felt the need to do because I have an outlet, and I can have a mechanism. Like I said, it's absolutely important people know that they're not alone with fears. You know, there's so much that you've shared today that's gonna I touch so many people. I can already feel it. There's just so many messages in there. We can obviously put links to.
55:00
All of your stuff is such a body of work, I'd really strongly suggest everybody checks in and experiences as an artist, the places that people can find you. Where would you want them to head to, anywhere I don't mind it. I give you my name. It comes up stuff. I mean, you know, Spotify Apple music. You know, truth is, I haven't got any money to print any physical music anyway. So right, if you want to CD, just email me and I'll make you one up. You know, that's beautiful. I think that this is the whole point. We're talking about, everyday life. Real life is as an everyday, every man situation. Yeah, absolutely, you know, it's there's a reality to it. There is a whole lot of us out there that can't afford to do stuff. The way I've made these albums is by being totally irresponsible and
55:44
totally going against the wind of what I should have done, but I didn't know. In my defense, I was, didn't know I was gonna have a baby at that point and a ton of in between jobs. Yeah, you know, a million jobs, and there's not really much difference between Capital One and Sony Records nowadays, because I can't get a deal with Sony and I can't get a new credit card, so I'm stuck in the middle. So if you want to hear more music, you have to be patient. By the time this comes out, I'll be on Patreon. Yeah, get onto Patreon for three pound a month. You can less than a cup of coffee. You get a free album that's not released anywhere else. I can't believe that people can access all of that for that amount of money. That's crazy, it is. But you've got a song that we're going to play out with. Would you like to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, I picked a song. It's off my third album called jackals and dogs. It's called, take me back to Graceland. There are some lyrics in that song that kind of sum up this entire thing I've been talking about. I'll quote a few lyrics from these songs. Yeah. Please do Yeah.
Okay. I used to be your energy. I used to be your friend. Guess everybody that I love will leave me in the end building towers. I know it's my fault, still, I fold under your house of cards. So that line there I build in towers is the towers is I build in things that are unachievable, and I know it's my fault that I can't specifically get there, but I'll fold under the house of cards that I've created, if needs be. And one of the lyrics says, I taught myself to build a house from wood and chairs and sheets.
57:11
Shadow faces tricked my eyes and shadow facing streets. I called out for Jackson because he gave me escape. Still, I shake. Shake like your winters. Tell us about that. Yeah,
57:23
that's like a friend, right? I write certain songs to be metaphorical friends that follow me around. You know, I do find loneliness and depression, especially with money. Is like that friend only, you can see it's waiting in the wings all the time talking to you, saying, hey, hearts, I knew you'd fail. Here you are. You know what I love about this song is it's the safe place for me personally. It's paired with things that little signposts in my child, in my life, but these things with my escape, and one of my favorite lines in it is, so give me weights and give me Cohen. I'm not going quiet. It's basically saying that I'm going to do this anyway. Yeah, yeah, to go from a triangle to be in a square, you want that process to be rewarded, and sometimes it is, but you don't hear who's listening. You don't know who's seeing it. The attainment route to Graceland is that it finishes the album. Wow. And I like that. I counted in I say one, two buckle shoe, which I
58:22
just found was funny. I just don't even know I did it at the time. And now I listened back, I was like, what I'm saying? Buckle shoe, nice. And I realize it's because I'm seeing it as a child. Wow, I'm not singing it as an adult. That pretty much sums it all up. Yeah, everything that you've talked about today, it does, though, doesn't it? Yeah, I just want to say, thank you. I can't believe how much we've got from this today. There is purpose. There isn't mainstream. It isn't what we're all chasing, necessarily, but it is so fundamental, yeah. It is yeah, absolutely. Chasing is a different game altogether. Just being is the most important thing, what a beautiful way to sum it up just being is, what is the important part?
59:06
Yeah, well, I cannot tell you how grateful we are. Thank you so much. Si for today, podcast as well, listening to them and loving them all awesome. How you feeling just before we end? Yeah, emptied and re emptying, and it's a great process. It's rewarding to analyze things, and I don't do it too often. It's nice to do I feel very calm, ultimately, beautiful. That's an emotion word. I'll let you have that. I'll give you that. Also. If you do find yourself enjoying any of these episodes, please consider making a small donation to the charities which we're supporting, which are Nordhoff and Robbins music therapy, or youth music UK links are on the show notes, wonderful. Well, we're going to play out with SI's last tune. Thank you. Si, thanks guys.
1:03:36
Okay, here's the legal stuff. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. We are not licensed therapists, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.
1:03:55
See you next time.