THE BLAKE DISTRICT

When things finally began to kick off for me, I was
being flown over here from Dublin maybe two or three times a week for a couple of months running just talking to different companies. They d fly me over first class but the only spending money I d have was usually a tenner I d borrowed from a friend. They d put me in the best hotels but somehow forget to pay for a breakfast. I d get up and look at the menu and breakfast would be 20 quid or something, so I d have to go to a Seven-Eleven and get a sandwich to eat in my room. That was hilarious. Staying in a posh hotel, starving and looking at a menu that I couldn t afford anything on. Dying for a drink but not being able to touch anything in the minibar. Still, it was fun, in a way.
Sitting comfortably in a trendy London bistro, the shaven-headed and rather nattily attired Perry Blake smiles wistfully at the memory of his final days as a starving artist. Thankfully, he hasn t had to suffer for his art in quite a while now, at least not in monetary terms. Since signing a major international deal with Polydor nearly three years ago, the Sligo-born singer/songwriter hasn t had to worry too much about his finances. Nowadays his clothes are hand made, rather than second-hand. Before that it was a very different story however. Blake s success was not of the overnight variety. Far from it, in fact.
As it happens, nobody knows this better than moi. Back in the days when he was known as Kieran Gorman, Perry and I used to be in the same broke boat. In the late 80s we worked in the same Salthill nightclub and both rented (damp) rooms on the same floor of a dilapidated old hotel up the road. We hated the job but it paid the rent and gave us enough free time to follow our respective dreams. I wanted to be published, he wanted a record deal. Naturally enough, we both spent far more time talking about our ambitions than actually doing anything about fulfilling them. We were young, pretentious and always late for work.
Kieran spent the first half of the 90s supporting himself with similarly menial jobs and working with different musicians on a number of different musical projects everywhere from Dublin to London, occasionally coming close to signing that elusive recording contract but never quite getting there. We always stayed in contact and, to this day, I still have a sizeable collection of his old demos, charting his slow but steady progression from teenage-angst ridden wannabe pop star to fully fledged, mature songwriter (he went from being Lloyd Cole to Scott Walker, if you like).
At times it looked like his break would never come. I remember him being particularly devastated when a potential deal with Mother fell through in 1994. While I may eventually have had my doubts about his career ever taking off, he never did ( It wasn t just you. At a certain point nobody thought it was going to happen for me! ).
Talent will always out in the end, however, and Polydor eventually signed him in 1995 when one of their A&R men spotted him performing at one of Mr. Pussy s now legendary cabaret shows.
Between then and now, much of his time has been spent recording his eponymous debut (due out next month), flitting around the world filming videos, playing occasional gigs he recently did a series of shows which saw him playing every venue in Soho and generally living the life of a soon-to-be-famous pop star. The rest, as they say, will soon be history.
You still have the old demos! he exclaims, looking somewhat alarmed, when I remind him of such past gems as Afternoon Spank and The Tower Of Spite EP (excellent stuff incidentally, just nothing compared to what he s producing now). Oh shit! How much do you want for them? I can t let those get out!
Once satisfied that I m not going to pass any of his incriminating juvenilia into the wrong hands, he relaxes and smiles. It s funny, he muses. I m nearly 28 now and I left Sligo when I was 17 . . . so it s been a long struggle, really long. Still, I think it s at a stage now where the rewards are justified. But can you imagine if I d been signed when I was 18 or something? It would ve been insane! I ve only really developed as a songwriter in the last few years. You know, I think there were some good things there in the old recordings but there s a real substance to my work now. I think it has a substance that s very obvious, whereas what I was doing when I was a kid . . . (pauses). There s nothing really of relevance about the early stuff, apart from where I was learning grasping and just getting my head around songwriting.
The art of songwriting is of paramount importance to him, something he takes very seriously indeed. It s on a par with very good sex, he smiles, but it s better because of the buzz of creating something that you know will be left long after you re dead, something of beauty. It s also something I have to do. I didn t choose to do it. I think it chose me.
Whether he chose it or whether it chose him is largely irrelevant. The fact remains that if songwriting is his vocation then it s one he s very well suited to ( It s the only thing I could do, he insists. I don t even know how to change a lightbulb! ). His forthcoming album bears testament to that statement. Perry Blake is strikingly different stuff, string saturated and splintered only by the weirdest of rhythms and Perry s often understated vocals. His rather maudlin voice will earn him comparisons with the likes of David Sylvian, Jacques Brel and Brendan Perry. The lyrics will put him up there with Leonard Cohen and Scott Walker. You can probably expect to see the word genius appearing in his reviews with alarming regularity. It ll be deserved as well.
Take a song like album opener Little Boys And Little Girls . On first hearing it, I took it to be a dark and mildly psychotic love song. Then he explained what it was really about (a child serial killer calling a cop, explaining his crimes) and, on second listening, my blood turned to ice. Scary stuff indeed. That particular number s an exception however. Most of the album s tracks are deeply melancholic, songs of stark, almost resigned, wilful loss. So Long , Weeping Tree , Killing Time each and every one will bring tears to your eyes and a lump to your throat. It s not simply that they just don t make albums like this one anymore they never did. Perry Blake is a unique record, a certifiable one-of-a-kind classic that s practically guaranteed to earn him the artistic respect he s craved for so long. It ll probably sell a few copies as well . . .
Yeah, it s considered very melancholic, he affirms. The album is basically a series of dreams. It s of another world, it comes from a very quiet place . . . (pauses) I don t really know why it s so sad. I ve always been attracted to sad music though I m not a particularly sad person. Fuck knows where it comes from but there s obviously some kind of damage in there somewhere. Maybe I m just good at interpreting other people s (makes inverted commas gesture) pain or something.
The mad thing is that I find the songs all deeply uplifting, but perhaps in a different way. You know, you can take some pop songs and they re slightly melancholic but often they re just trying to play with heartstrings, if you like. There s something rich and beautiful about a piece of music that touches you in a way that say a loud and angsty pop song wouldn t. I guess my songs are bubblegum that you can swallow (smiles).
The album was co-produced by Ross Cullum (Tori Amos, Tears For Fears) and was mostly recorded at his River studio in London. Scottish ambient maestro and occasional U2 collaborator Howie B was originally drafted in to produce but artistic difficulties with Blake led to him being removed from the mixing desk after just four days.
It s a little awkward for me to talk much about that because we share the same publishing and record company the same A&R man signed both of us, he says guardedly. But I like Howie, I just couldn t work with him. Yeah, I did stop working with him but there were no theatrics involved. I didn t do a little pirouette in the studio and say You re fired! It wasn t really like that. Having said that, we did both jam the Polydor switchboard at the time, calling each other various things. He called me insane , which I took as a great compliment.
What was the problem exactly?
It just wasn t working out, he sighs. Like, I went to the shop for a sandwich and when I came back he d taken the harpsichords out of two songs. He also went through about five songs in four days really rushed through everything. So it just wasn t happening. I mean, he s a very nice man and I wish him well and all that but . . . (shakes head).
Five songs in four days? Whew! If he was working at that pace, it s no wonder Howie B was not to B. In the end, the album took well over 18 months to record. Although much of this time was spent in studio, the recording team enjoyed two months of summer sunshine when at Blake s request Polydor hired a church on an island in Somerset to record the vocals in. Ambience and all that . . .
The songs were all fully written and fully formed before I went to record, he explains. But I wanted to make sure that the vocals had a genuine depth, that I wasn t just trying to interpret my own work, because that would almost be like doing cover versions of my own songs. I didn t think that was a good idea. And I ve always been drawn to small country churches, particularly little Protestant churches. I ve no interest in any religion but I think the atmosphere of a church gave it a depth of quality. And also, singing to the bats in the belfry was a beautiful experience. A little frightening at times (smiles) but truly amazing.
To date, two singles from the album The Hunchback Of San Francisco and Genevieve (The Pilot Of Your Thighs) have been given limited releases. Both tracks have been amazingly well received by the critics, most particularly on BBC Radio 1 where influential DJ Jo Whiley has now twice awarded Blake the coveted Single Of The Week accolade. The French have also gone wild for him, with Les Inrockuptibles and Magique (the French equivalents of Rolling Stone and Select respectively) tipping the artist as a major one to watch in 1998. Last month, the HMV store in Paris sold their entire stock of 300 imported copies of Hunchback in a single afternoon.
I m getting a lot of press there, he admits. Which is nice, it s good. You know, I was quite nervous about the album coming out for a while. I m still a little nervous about it, but the French reaction has calmed me a lot. I mean, I don t really buy into the fame thing I don t need to be on the front cover of every magazine, I don t need all of that. But certainly in France, it s already kicked off to the point where the record company are telling me to brace myself. You know, they re going (adopts rather dodgy French accent) Perry, you are going to be very famous very soon.
It s all very strange. I ve been to Paris five or six times but I don t actually speak the language. And I m reading these articles sorry, that s looking at the pictures, other people translate them for me! (laughs) about the singles that are just raving about them. So I think the album will do very well in Europe. Ultimately though, I d be quite happy with more of a cultish kind of fame. I d like to be in a similar position to Tindersticks or Nick Cave, where you just do what you do and you re respected for doing quality work but not really bothered by people. It s a very privileged life, if you can get it. Having people appreciate your work for what it is . . . it s a fine thing, you know. It s great! How many people do jobs that nobody gives a shit about? If I was fitting a fridge in your kitchen then you wouldn t be sitting here interviewing me, the truth of it is.
With fame and fortune just around the corner, Blake is wary of becoming what he describes as contaminated by the music industry. Protecting his muse is all-important.
Well, while I m not pro or against drugs I do try to live a reasonably moderate lifestyle, he says. I m edgy enough as it is without indulging too much in, eh, extra-curricular activities. If you get into the whole megalomaniac side of it then you re probably going to burn out quickly in a pool of your own fucking puke or something. That whole hedonistic thing is not my buzz really. Sure, there are little opportunities that come your way, and occasionally an attractive woman that one suspects wouldn t have urinated on you if you were in flames a couple of years ago will do her damnedest to sit on your knee. But otherwise I m planning on taking it reasonably easy.
He s not cashing in on any pre-existing genre either.
I ve always felt like a bit of an outsider. I don t feel in touch with any culture really, but I don t feel out of touch with it either. I mean, what I do isn t of the street and I d be lying if I said it was. But I m not a fusty or a tweedy in any way. I m interested in reinvention. That s what attracted me to people like Bowie, their constant reinvention of themselves. I think what has kept Bowie looking the way he has is the fact that artistically I d imagine he s quite happy. In terms of his personal life, I have no idea. But I d be very happy if I had produced a body of work that generally was first class. And he s still producing work that s very worthy.
As are you . . .
Well, I m intact as an artist right now, he shrugs. We ll see how it turns out. Maybe in a year or two I ll have turned into a bumbling fucking idiot and start buying into the throwaway culture. But . . . we ll see. So far, so good.
Personally I hope he sells a million records. If only to get that tenner back! n
Perry Blake will be released on Polydor in April. Genevieve (The Pilot Of Your Thighs) is available now.