Boy Keeps Swinging

Galway bound for the Arts Festival this month, Damon Gough pronounces himself fully recovered from the creative crisis of confidence that followed Badly Drawn Boy’s 2006 album Born In the UK. An offer to compose the score for Caroline Aherne’s ITV film The Fattest Man In Britain (based on the life of Jack Taylor) couldn’t have come at a better time. Released last December, the soundtrack heralded something of a period of rejuvenation – now Gough is putting the finishing touches to the first of a planned trilogy of albums before heading out on the road for a few festival dates.

“That soundtrack was a godsend,” he admits. “Last May Caroline Aherne, and Jeff Pope who wrote the script, got in touch. I told them it was really timely for me ‘cos I was struggling with the idea of going in the studio at that point, had been for a year, not really feeling like I had it in me. So that gave me a forced opportunity to have to go in, and it was really liberating. The first day I felt scared to death but quickly got over my nerves and got on a roll with it, and it’s taught me a big lesson. It’s made me realise I need to do this in order to survive.
“Since doing that soundtrack I went straight in to do this next album, which I’ve finished and is coming out in October. It’s called It’s What I’m Thinking Pt 1, and I’ll probably do the second part in the next half of the year. The whole thing has given me a kick up the backside. I think this sort of thing must happen to a lot of artists, especially when you’ve got family and you’re going away all the time, you kind of question whether you should be really doing it or not. You’ve got freedom and you can go out and have a drink after every show and meet people and socialise, a lot of it is fun, and that’s where the guilt factor comes in. That’s why I try to not have as much fun as I can!”
It’s not the first time Gough’s career has benefitted from a foray into film work. Many’s the artist has fallen off the radar following a Mercury Prize win, but Badly Drawn Boy followed the acclaimed debut The Hour Of Bewilderbeast with the soundtrack to Chris and Paul Weitz’s film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel About A Boy. The result thrust Damon blinking into the mainstream, not something he was entirely comfortable with.
“Nick Hornby was quite reassuring about my concerns,” he recalls, “because when I was approached to do About A Boy I was aware it was more mainstream. Even though my first album had won the Mercury Prize and probably elevated me beyond where I should have been at that point as an artist, I was worried about the film alienating what I was doing as a fan base, but he just said, ‘Don’t worry about that – if it’s successful it’s because it’s good.’ He was quite a good person to share that burden with.
“I think because I’m not a band, it’s easier to approach someone like me for a soundtrack. About A Boy proved to people I was capable of adapting to that, and it stretched me as a musician. And it’s taught me that I have to apply that discipline to my own regular albums. It feels like a new period is about to begin for me. It feels like I’ve been through the mire in the last few years, I was almost phobic about going in and expressing myself, and I’ve reached a point where I’ve realised I’ve no choice really, unless I want a less interesting life and settle back and do nothing and rest on my laurels and my past glories, which is not what you want to do as a creative person. It’s about what you want to do next. You have to keep moving.”

Badly Drawn Boy plays the Galway Arts Festival’s Radisson Live Live Lounge Stage on July 17.