Splash Hits
Ireland’s favourite singer-songwriter Tom Baxter is one of the musical highlights of this year’s Sea Sessions festival. Kicking off our in-depth coverage of the event, he tells Peter Murphy what he’s been doing with his time off and speaks about his plans for the future.
Peter Murphy, 18 May 2010
On the other hand, sometimes a deadline is the best thing for the work.
“That’s what I’m at right now, trying to question whether I should start creating a deadline for myself. I’ve been enjoying my floating, but I’ve really got to have something to make me finish off this work.”
Speaking of floating, if you’ll excuse the segue, it’s not that surprising that Baxter would be tempted out of his lair to play a festival as singular as the Sea Sessions.
“I haven’t wanted to do very much in general, if I’m honest,” he admits, “I’ve been playing my two albums worth of music for a long time, so I wanted to have a break from those songs, but now I’ve got some new stuff on the way I’m feeling a bit more like doing the odd festival and feeling things out a bit, and the Sea Sessions sounds like a quite nice one. I live on one of the finest coasts at the moment for going surfing, Devon. There’s a really big surfing community, although I must admit I’m not part of it.
“The only time I’ve really properly surfed was on a stag weekend for my brother, and it’s one of those things – until you’ve done it you can’t really understand why the fuck people would want to go out there in the freezing cold and get knocked over and then go swimming back out there. But I think there’s a bit of an affinity with music, because it’s a natural process in a way, isn’t it? You’re riding the wave of Mother Nature. I suppose in a similar way music disarms people, and it’s always a challenge to see if your music can free people from the mundanities of life and transcend that in some way or another.”
Tom Baxter, Cathy Davey, James Vincent McMorrow, Túcan, O Emperor & One Man Party play the Main Beach Stage on Sunday June 27
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