Three Times A Charm

We like Ben McAuley, the main songwriter from Three Tales, round these parts. We like that he shamelessly lifts lines from great Northern poets. And that he writes tunes which sound ideal for chucking out time at a humdinging wake. Then there’s the work he’s doing behind the desk with some of our most singular talents (he’s been in the studio recently with Desert Hearts and is currently producing the new Robyn G Shiels album): we like that too. Most of all, however, we like his clear-eyed take on the whole ambition thing. We like his priorities.

“I love writing, and it’s something that I hope I’ll always do. And I love the recording process, love being in a studio, trying things out. But releasing them? I don’t give a shit. Most bands have a career trajectory in mind – getting signed to a label and all that – but I realised pretty early on that the kind of songs I write don’t really have a mass appeal, so decided it wasn’t a thing I’d try chasing. I wasn’t being obtuse or wilfully obscure. It’s just my preferred way of going about things.”
When Three Tales last turned up on this page, they were chatting about their first EP – an intriguing but resolutely on-message distillation of the monochrome, sad-core aesthetic. Vocals were murmured, chords droned in interminable slow motion, and the pervading tone expertly conjured up images of a drizzly, mid-week excursion to mid-Ulster.
Fine, if that’s your bag, but I must admit that, two years on, the prospect of sitting through an album’s worth of similar material did little to raise my pulse rate.
What a surprise, then, to find that in the interim the band had loosened up, broadened their horizons, and added a few primary colours to their palette. Their self-titled debut album, far from being a slog, is quite possibly the most bracing, self-contained, witty and companionable local record since Hotsy Totsy Negasaki.
“We wanted to have fun,” explains Ben. “There’s nothing particularly sad there, mainly because we’re not particularly unhappy people. We like writing songs that are a bit off-kilter, that are open to a sense of danger. We’re certainly not miserable wet blankets.”
So, we get some strange intra-Ulster travelogues (“Drove to the Silent Valley/But it was closed”), a few boisterous stabs at drunken balladry, a cover of an Alasdair Roberts track (“I went to see him at The Limelight, and everyone who was with me thought he was dogshite, but I loved him. He was playing songs from his album, The Crook Of My Arm, which are all about murder and death, and I connected with the folk aspect of it, the darkness.”), and even the laying out of a manifesto, borrowed from one of the North’s poetic greats.
“There’s a line in ‘Snow’ by Louis MacNeice where he talks of “the drunkenness of things being various”. I’ve always loved that, so I pinched it for ‘Variation’. In all honesty, though, that’s what everything I write is trying to achieve. I want to write great, joyful songs. I don’t want it to come across as a crowd of boys getting drunk and roaring songs. I don’t drink that much. But I love people sitting round and having fun. Being joyful, celebratory. That’s what I want our songs to be like.”
Three Tales’ debut is not a record that will come knocking on everybody’s door, but should you, instead, decide to call on it, and devote a bit of time getting to know the thing properly, trust me, you’ll find yourself with a true friend for the summer.
“You need to listen to it,” says Ben. “Lots of people see us as being pretty plodding. I don’t really sing, just talk in a different way, really. I can hold the odd note, but not many. People associate excitement with loud guitars and jumping around like an idiot. But I don’t find that exciting at all. So, I think lots of folk will just dismiss us. But anyone who listens properly might be in for a surprise.”

Three Tales by Three Tales is out now on Furious Tradesmen