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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Archangel
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 11 February 2010
Archangel is the brainchild of west Londoner Nick Webber, who is a true one man band, having spent a year and a half recording “the soundtrack of his life”, and handling the songwriting, production, vocal, guitar, piano, keyboard, synth-bass and percussion in the process.
Drawing influences from sources as wide ranging as Arcade Fire, Kraftwerk, Motown and PJ Harvey, Webber’s sound has been likened to Roxy Music and Bowie. With his new single ‘Loud And Clear’ out this week, we caught up with Nick to ask the Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
With a load of old cushions and some wooden spoons drumming along to Duran Duran records. Not cool but, hey… Nearly all of my family are, if not professional musicians, very musical. So it was always going to play a large part in my life. But I didn’t actually start writing until I was thirteen when I was playing chopsticks badly on the piano and hit a C minor 7 chord – with it came an epiphany. Two minutes later my first song, albeit pants, had been written and I never looked back.
Q2 What inspired your latest single?
‘Loud And Clear’ was inspired by splitting up with someone or something. I find the old ones are still the best in terms of themes. Like most of my lyrics, the words are deliberately quite abstract so it’s not specific to just myself. Egos we all have, but I like the idea of someone hearing something which they can directly place themselves in the middle of, removing the writer. That said, whenever I hear that song, I think of three things that I had ‘lost’ at the time of writing. One of which was the chap who I co-wrote it with. He’s still my best friend and we write from time to time, but it was the end of that era for us. The other two remain private, which is the way it should be.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I go through every process imaginable – from white hot elation to nearly jumping off a bridge – when putting together a track. Normally I write, perform, sing, record and mix the whole thing on my own so it’s a question of hats most of the time. Are you wearing your writer’s hat, producer’s hat, singer’s hat, or all three? As in life, if you wear three hats at once you tend to look like a fool so it’s important to wear one at a time.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Bowie (for misery and madness), Arcade Fire (also for misery and romance), Maurice Ravel (for sheer colour), The Beatles, DJ Shadow, Luke Vibert’s Big Soup, PJ Harvey, Ron Goodwin, William Walton, bits of My Family, early Elton John (‘Benny And The Jets’… seriously), The Police and Steve Reich (early works and ‘Music For 18 Musicians’). Loads, in other words, and more I’ve forgotten. Reads like the thanks page off an album sleeve. Never mind, you get the idea.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Think of your place in the world and whether it has meaning. Think of the person you are with. The person you are without. The good you’ve done. The harm you’ve done. The silly ideas you have. The humour of it all, and if you have any? The guilt you carry and the bags you drop. The fun to be had and the impossibility of having it, sometimes. But, for all that, being you; flawed as humans can be, an idiot as all human beings sometimes are, and knowing that it’s all rather silly if you think about it too much, especially like now, typing what I just did. You get the idea – my music is up, down, left and right.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest single, and for the future?
I’m not sure, to be honest, what my ambitions are. I know and I don’t. Agnostic perhaps! Yes – there you go! It would be fabulous to have a career writing and singing, but in a world where music has had the rug taken from under its feet, I don’t know what sort of career anyone has in this industry anymore. I am no luddite about change, though, and maybe it’s good in some way what’s happened. After all I wouldn’t be doing this Q&A interview if it weren’t for the web! I love to make albums, and will always do so. If enough people like ‘Loud And Clear’ and come to see my shows, then I’ll be able to get this record out and get to work on the next in earnest. I have started writing for it. Short answer: To be able to do what I do now, always, forever.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/archangelmusic
