April 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Hello Hello. Here is a very quick Midnight Chats update, and something of a bonus conversation I (Stu) had with Patrick Wolf for my new Loud And Quiet Podcast.
For part 2 and to follow this new show, just search for The Loud And Quiet Podcast wherever you get your shows. And find more info on what that is at loudandquiet.substack.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening to all of you. Midnight Chats were Wolves.
It's been a little while, hasn't it. Stue here with
a little bit of an update on the podcast, something
that's a bit of a bonus and something that I
hope will will intrigue you with something else that I'm
doing right now. Midnight Chats is still on hold for
(00:21):
the time being. No sign of it coming back just yet,
but it's not the end of the world because there's
so many episodes of it that I'm sure there's ones
that you've missed, for better or worse, so please do
keep listening to those, and whenever we have more information
on bringing back Midnight Chats as it was, I'll let
(00:41):
you know here on this feed. But there is a
new podcast that I've been making simply called the Loud
and Quiet Podcast, and I wanted to share one episode
of it here in the hope that you like it
and then you give it a follow wherever you're listening
to this. By just putting in the Loud and Quiet
(01:03):
Podcast and giving that show a follow, it's not a
million miles away from Midnight Chats. It's often a conversation
with a musical artist, this one that I'm about to
play you is with Patrick Wolf. It's part one. Part
two is also out today, but I won't drop that
here in the Midnight Chats Feed. We're going to keep
this the Midnight Chats Feed, but if you want to
(01:25):
listen to part one you can do that here. But
Part two and Part one and some other stuff is
on the Loud and Quiet podcast Feed. Please do check
it out. You can subscribe, as I say, wherever you're
listening to this on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening
to your podcasts, or you can also subscribe to it
on the Loud and Quiet substack, which is just Loud
(01:47):
and Quiet dot substack dot com. But for now, here
is an very interesting conversation I had with Patrick Wolf
as you're here. It's it's like a good old fashioned
midnights in many ways, lots to get into with Patrick Wolf,
and I won't tee it up now because I'm about
to tee it up in two seconds time on this recording.
(02:10):
I hope you've all been doing well. I hope twenty
twenty fives going to plan so far, it's been an
absolute dustbin fire for me so far, and Greg's faring
much better. It was his birthday at the weekend, his fortieth,
and that wasn't even enough to dampen his spirits. Meanwhile,
my life is on fire. Please do enjoy Patrick Wolf
(02:33):
here on the Midnight Chats feed and then give us
a follow. Keep following Midnight Chats, but give us a
follow on the Loud and Quiet podcast wherever you get
your podcasts. This is the Loud and Quiet Podcast. I'm
(02:59):
Stuart Stubbs and today I'm joined by Patrick Wolf. Patrick
is currently aged forty one years old. He was born
and grew up in Southwest London, and in two thousand
and three released his debut Albumlyanthropy. Since then, he has
(03:19):
released five more albums and a few EPs. His music
usually consists of violin, piano, keyboards, ukulele, accordion, mandolin, guitar
and bass, giving a baroque pop fill, but it also
features elements of what became known in the mid two
thousands as folktronica. Patrick sings in a very deep croon
(03:40):
and I have been a fan of his since the beginning.
Really two thousand and five is when I started doing
Loud and Quiet in its original form as a printed fanzine,
and around that time, we had him on the cover
of one of our very early fanzines, something that I
took to him when we recorded this interview and presented
(04:03):
to him, so stay tuned to hear his reactions. I
think he took it quite well. In two thousand and
seven Patrick had some major label success with his third record,
The Magic Position, and in the same year he also
modeled for Birbury. But over the last ten years Patrick
has experienced some of the most traumatic and dramatic things
(04:23):
that anyone can go through, including addiction, grief, financial and
legal troubles, and serious injury. I had a great idea
for us to do this, walking along the Kent coast
with the sea dropping away to our side, beautiful sunshine,
seagulls in the air. But on the day of recording,
(04:44):
when I got to our meeting place a little earlier,
just to see what conditions were like, it was clear
that that was a terrible idea. So I carried on
driving to Patrick's house where in his garden he has
got the most incredible garden studio that I've certainly ever seen.
It's in a converted double garage and in this one
(05:05):
room he has four corners as most rooms have, but
each corner has been set up with a different station.
He's got a writing area and a library. He's got
a TV studio that he uses for his Patreon concerts.
He's got his recording studio of all of his instruments
(05:26):
in one corner, and then in this final corner where
we're going to start this conversation, he's got all of
his clothes and his stage costumes and the sewing machine
that he makes them on.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
In the other corner is the recent edition. I got
rid of my bicycle because I've never cycled since I
moved down. There are too many cliffs and hills and
it's my costume making area. So I realized how much
I was making, especially for the album artwork. I you know,
(06:01):
I don't have any of the connections I used to
living in London, and I kind of don't want them.
So in terms of, you know, stylists or calling up
designers for pieces, I can't call Alexander McQueen's studio anymore
because I think they probably think I'm dead, you know.
So I decided to get back to what I.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Used to do, was make all my own clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, are you enjoying that? You enjoying getting back in time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm really enjoying.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
It feels very If I'm furious about something then although
the sewing machine is not the place to take your
anger up because it registers it and everything goes wrong,
but there's something about I think I have to calm
down in order to be productive there. It's a very
very holistic area for me. Yeah, very pragmatic. Sure, it's
either gardening or sewing gets me into get some of
(06:47):
the rage out of me of the modern world.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So it's like the perfect perfect space. I think, like
you've got these four zones. It's a beautiful garden. It's
a lovely day. We're in rams Gay. How long have
you been here?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
So it's coming out to like five years?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I was thinking about it when I got When I
got sober was in June twenty twenty, and then I
was here by May May the first, the year after,
and then I moved into this house on Halloween.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Kent as an area, I know it's because Kent, Kent.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I'm very specifical.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, Yeah, why is that?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well, you know, like Middle Kent is like Tunbridge Wells,
North Kent is getting I like Medway I'm not saying
I don't like these places. I just feel an affinity
with something about you know, East Kent goes I don't know.
I don't know that even like the local folklore changes
(07:49):
when you get to East Kent. There are some very
specific things about the border land of East Kent, of
seeing France on the other side of the cliffs of
the of the the rhythm here. It's not Tunbridge Wells. Yeah, yeah,
it is very different than Tumbridge and and Medway has
(08:10):
that slight dystopian paradise about it.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's interesting actually because I'm from Essex. I'm from South
End in Essex. And you know, people talk about Essex
probably in a similar way to the way they talk
about Kent and by lumping it all together. But you're
dead right. You don't actually have to travel far within
a county like Kent or Essex to realize how different
places are. Like the north of Essex is completely unrecognizable
(08:42):
to where I grew up. I know this place is
has become really special to you, But what what made
what drew you to? What made you move here?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So like I live between Ramsgate and broad Stairs. So
actually the name of the place where in between. It's
quite unfortunate has the word dump in it, so so
I live in the dump right So, but but Broadstairs.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I saw a.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Clip of it on.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
The Alan Bennett film Lady in the Van. There's a
bit where she gets in the van and she she
vanishes and he finds her on Broadstairs and and I
just loved there was something about the about about the bay,
and I just was like, I need to find where
that is and I need I need to go. So
my partner and I then we we would make it
(09:32):
our escape out of London because so it was only
felt like an hour and a half and it just
became like a romantic place to come to.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And then and then.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The the week that I was declared bankrupt by by
the court, then I am I was pretty shell shocked
and and my partner took me down to Broadstairs and
there was just a sense of like a feeling of
like this is where I start again. I don't know,
(10:03):
I don't know what I felt, but I just remember
staying up all night and watching two seagulls fight.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Over like a bottle of beer or something like outside
and just watching that and watching it was it was.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
A January January, and it was on January February really
really bleak, and I just felt at home. I just
felt like in this out of season. And the strange
thing is like on Wind and the Wires, my second album,
I had imagined I had a lover down in who
had a family in Penzance and Hail, and the whole
(10:41):
mythology of Wind and the Wires was based around this.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Really, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I'd say it was too hardcore for Thomas Hardy, but
it was like this very tragic romantic relationship in set
in this area. But that set off my imagination to
into out of season. And I say imagination because it
was i'd grow I grew up in Wandsworth, but I
(11:11):
started to I think I was using the imaginary the
places I saw on the train trips down there, like Tigemouth,
the ferris wheel on the but I don't even know if.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
There was a firest wheel, but I was.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I was sketching out this how I felt, but using
out of low season England to tell that story. And
then when I and I think it was like that
always felt like home wherever that was where I was describing,
and then it wasn't until I did my first winter
here that I realized there's a song called This Weather
(11:47):
and it basically like like prophetically describes what it is
to do a winter here. And I just was like,
I think I kind of wrote about this place, and
I'd like to say it was a prophecy. Yeah, do
the wise that was I was describing where I needed
to to I was going to live one day.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, and now you found it. Was it just that
you were sort of bored of London? Did you just
need to change it up? Did you want to quieter,
quieter existence?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
No, I was, you know, I was very ill and
am tired of London. I I guess in a way,
I felt like I had spated me out and and
(12:36):
strange like luckily I always lived in central London, so
like I lived in Southwark opposite the Tate Modern, like
in this very you know, like very bougie penthouse apartment,
and then moved to this little mewse house and I
lived like a really like I lived in central London
and I lived in Bloomsbury for like four years and
(12:59):
and yeah, I know, but like for a flat that
was eight hundred pounds a month, like rent like old.
It was like it was an old Art Deco building
that was for that was built for single it was
like a feminist architect who built it for single women.
And and for some reason, the rent had just stayed
(13:19):
really low. So I stayed there on about about eight
hundred pounds a month during the period that I was
bankrupt as well, so you know, And and then my
mother died and sorry, that's just some some great, great
positive moments in my life, just to draw a dump
on everybody, but the yeah, but basically I was like
(13:44):
I had when she died. I had a lump sum
of money and I was like, well, I'm going to
try to stay in London, which led me to buying
like the literally the cheapest flat you could could in
London on right move. I was just like, okay, because
it's it's my last last chance of holding on here
(14:05):
financially if I can stay, And it was just the
it was like it was I really spiraled there mentally.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And where was that flat in.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Perry Vale? And you might you might Lewisham, you said you're.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
From, I'm living in Lewisham. Now yeah, where right?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So it's like between sydonym and Catford, and it's like
it's like a small area in between there, but it
was and it was like I moved in there three
months before the pandemic hit, on an eighth floor of
the of a tower block. And and the thing, like
(14:45):
romantically I I all I saw was this view over.
I could see across the whole of London from a distance,
and on the other side I could see in my head.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
It was like this liminal world where I could like
wander and wonder. And and.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
When I actually started exploring, like in so there was
London that side, I was like, okay, I've lived here.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I'm like, how old am I now? I'm like thirty five.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But in the distance, I was still looking for one.
I was looking for something that would inspire me to
work and to come back to life and come back
to what, come back to writing. And I thought I
would find it there, but you know, I would just
wander and I couldn't get and keep on walking and
walking for like hours and I just end up in
Bromley or Beckenham or and I just felt like completely
(15:36):
trapped by this city. It just was like endless and
just got and I was like, well, how do I
get inspired by this area or research people that you
used that lived or made stuff here. And so I
ended up discovering like the Bromley contingent and listening to
Susie the Banchies for the first time and like really
getting into that.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
But it really didn't help.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It just it just made me feel it, like to
get darker and more anxious and like, you know, it
was like the most inspiring thing I could find was
Sir Chiselhurst Caves, you know, And I said, oh, I'm
going to make an album in the caves and I
got permission to.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Do it, and and.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The pandemic happened, and I realized I was had gone
from getting clean in twenty sixteen to becoming a full
blown alcoholic. Like what do they say some people use
the word functioning, like but whatever, the opposite of functioning is,
you know, so deathly and when.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You weren't funk, you weren't functioning.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
No, like malfunctioning.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, and and and very ill, and the whole the
whole building just became possessed in that in that way
before me and London just felt like I had reached
completely not the end of the road, but I've been
kicked off the road, you know, And and I just thought,
there's no way back there, and and I don't want
(16:58):
to go back, and and and I knew that if
I was going to be sober, then I needed to
be I needed to every day have something that I
didn't put in my body that gave me a sense
of wonder. And for me, that was an element bigger
(17:20):
than me. So for me that's always been the center
of a city can feel like bigger than you. That's exciting,
you know, being in the desert, being up a mountain,
being in a huge forest, lost, having something as a
human being, it's really important to have to not.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Feel like you're on top.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Of it, like you're bigger than everything, or you're too
big for this space. To have something that completely makes
you feel small. So I needed to be by the sea.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I realized that, as Patrick's already alluded to, there's been
a long gap between his last album and what is
going to be a new album that comes out later
this year in June twenty twenty five. It's been thirteen
years since he released Sun Dark, River Lights in twenty twelve,
which was an album that celebrated his first decade in
(18:08):
music by reimagining old songs. It was sort of a
best of that boiled some of his songs from previous
albums back down to more traditional folk songs. But between
its release and where we are now in spring of
twenty twenty five, this man has experienced one tragedy after another.
(18:30):
It includes addiction to alcohol and hard drugs. In twenty eighteen,
his mother died, he was involved in a hit and
run accident where he was a pedestrian whilst in Italy,
and in twenty seventeen he was declared bankrupt after it
turned out his manager and accountant had been failing to
pay his taxes.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I have a theory that chaos begets chaos, you know,
so if you are you know, at the at the
heart of.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
All of this stuff is is somebody without any self control,
without any healing of any raw nerve, all the all
the nerve endings like like you've you've wider plug and
put the earth in the but all the different colors
(19:27):
in the wrong places. And and there is a sense
of responsibility that that I take for all of those.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Things that happened.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I the bankruptcy came through financial abuse through a management
system and accountant.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
For eight years of my life.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I you know, at the end of the day, the
only person that could ever have found that out was
somebody that that decided to take a little bit of
responsibility for their financeing and investigate these things. But of
course they should never have done those things in the
first place. But at the end of the day, it
didn't stop until I.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Wised up a bit.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I'm sorry those things happened to me in one way,
but I also believe that things got that those things
stopped happening when I decided to to change my behavior.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, yeah, I do know.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
You know, there is there's a pattern of people entering
rock bottom that It's not just that they can't stop
drinking or they can't stop using. It's that they're losing
their relationships, their house, they're breaking their mobile phone every week,
they've lost their ten passports like me, like they like
I used to go through a phone every month, you know,
(20:47):
and I kin't and I.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Am from from what from just drop.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Drop, dropping it, running it over, putting it in the bath,
just like you. You know, I went ten passports. I
had the government people warning me up saying you're not
allowed another one. We think you might be committing fraud,
you know, like I haven't lost a passport since I've
got since I've got sober, I haven't. I still had
the same phone, you know, there's and and if you
look at that on a macro scale, of course, it
(21:12):
were most likely that I would get run over or
or you know.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So even even that, even like being hit by a
car in Italy, you take a certain amount of responsibilief.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I take it as a big warning sign that you
know as well. But you know, I had to romanticize
it because like on one side at the end of
that road was where Byrons it was a beach in
Lago del Puccini in Via Reggio, was where Byron's body
was washed up on the shore. You know, some like
(21:47):
romanticizing it at the time, you know, and still like
and it's like, yeah, you know, it's like near it was.
It was all quite like, you know, kind of glamorous
and felt like part of ye know, I didn't take it.
I just didn't take it very seriously for another few years, basically,
but I saw it that that I do take it.
(22:08):
I do take it as a one of the many
things that happened because I was a bit of a
vortex really, Yeah, as a black hole.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Way back when that last YEW came out, we actually
spoke on the phone for an interview for the magazine,
and I think, I don't know if you were just there,
you just happened to be there. But were you living
in LA at that point and you spoke to me
from LA?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
That would have been terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, yeah, that's not a great place for me.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Was that it was? But you were there at that
point around that time they're releasing that record? What was
the sort of plan? Obviously it's you know, thirteen years
between records, obviously very long time. It's a lot's happened.
But when you think back to that time of twenty twelve,
was the plan to put out that record, tour it,
promote it, and then make another record within you know,
(22:58):
as you normally, you know, as an art as normally
would within two or three four years. Can you remember
what you what? What was the plan back then? Or
was there not one?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I do remember because I had started to work out
that there was something very dark sided happening with my
management and perhaps with my accounts and I and I
needed to get out of that situation, and because I
(23:32):
didn't really know any other alternative, I was like, well,
I just need I just need all this to stop
so I can work out what's going on. And so
I decided I.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Started to.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Make I started to sew to to sew seeds in
my management's management's head, saying that I was going to
this is going to be my last album for a while.
I was going to go and learn sculpture, and that
I was going to and I was basically looking like
trying to say to everybody, like you can't make.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Money out of me anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I'm going to this is my last record for a
long time. And I was kind of putting it like
kind of I'm kind of use that word manifest.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, that's a clay to use that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
No, I guess, like you know, manifest what manifests, like,
you know, we manifest everything apparently these days. So but
I was, you know, without without really going into the
grotesquery of of of of what was happening at that time,
I was setting up a period of a break as
(24:42):
a test to to the people around me to see
how they react about me not making money for them anymore.
But also because and but in order to do that,
I realized that I was going to have to.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
To physically take time.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
And when I was and I was starting to realize
at the end of Sun Dark and Riverlight, and I
was also just a feeling of like I did, I
just felt like a sense of a chapter of work ending.
And I'm talking about not like the recent album, but
the thing, the thing I started at eighteen, I felt
like was coming to a natural end. I don't like
(25:17):
in this studio, I've got two albums I'm preparing to
come after this album. I've always had another project on
the go. When I was making the Chan three, I
was demoing some songs for the Magic Position. When I
was doing Wind in the Wires, some of the songs
set up on the batch. There's always like kind of
(25:38):
a two album, like there's always a long distance element
to what I was doing. And there was just nothing
coming to me at all, And.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It was like, so yeah, I was. I remember, I felt.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Like it was the ending of something. I didn't realize
how how long it would be, but you know, you
can't like it was. It was really when my voicelessness
took over and I lost my voice to quite a
furious addiction for the next four or five years.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, has there ever been a point within that period
of time where you sort of told yourself, I don't
think I'm going to make another record. I don't got
it in me.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I mean exactly that. And it was when.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I was assigned a psychotherapist by the NHS. I'd gone
to them about some you know, things that were troubling
them my behavior, and they they wanted to diagnose me
with with with something. They wanted to work out what
was wrong with me. And I was given a psychiatrist,
so it's a clinical psychotherapist. And the first thing he
(26:50):
did it was like, you haven't worked for for.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Like eight years.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's not usual for somebody in that, you know, you
haven't whatever it's like if you were because I wasn't unemployed,
because I still receiving royalties for like the magic position,
and from you know, like it wasn't like what he
realized was like, the first thing we're going to do
is work out why you why you can't function with
the thing that you're meant to be doing in your life.
(27:15):
And then and it was it was like that was
I didn't realize it was like a clinically diagnosed that
like I hadn't worked for like eight years, I hadn't
finished anything, and we went about.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Were you aware of it, Like, was that like being
told that number. Was that like a sudden realization or
were you constantly aware of the fact that, like, shit,
I've not made something again.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well, I always always used to feel that the New
Year's Eve of like, oh my god, Patrick, another year
has gone.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
By and you haven't Year's I.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Mean literally, like the thing is I was still doing.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
That.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I mean that the the synchronicity of this whole period,
you know, is really blessed because despite all this malevolence
going on, there were people really lifting me and carrying
me for so like that weekend where I played there
(28:20):
was like this like about a month basically where I'd
already been playing a fiddle with Patty Smith in her
band at the end of Lupekalia and into Sundarken River
Light during this so twenty ten to twenty twelve, I
had met Patty at Land Festival.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And then she.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And then I had fired my management, which meant I
also had to lose my booking agent, my accountant, like
I lost basically all contacts to the music industry very
very rapidly. And so the weekend that I lost my
booking agent, I did a show with Patti at World
Festival Hall for like the Yoko own know, the Double
(29:01):
Fantasy album, So I had to sing three Yoko and
John Lennon songs and did a song with Patty. We
did Beautiful Boy anyway, so that was already magical. But
she then her booking agent was in the room and
she said, Andy, look after Patrick. He hasn't got a
booking agent. And then and then basically he put me
(29:22):
on tour because then I had all these I had
all these legal problems with because I'd fire the management.
But then I had to get a lump sum in
order to get my uh to get my rights back
off them of my my early work, so that it
wasn't like so anyway I had to I had to
come up with this huge amount of money to to
(29:44):
get that back, and then he put me on the
road to do that. And in the meantime, over those years,
I was playing with Patty every three months or quite
a lot of shows. Even if I was in La
I'd do a show over there. But so I was
still like functioning as a musician. I was still doing things.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
You were doing enough to not realize, not realize and
to not necessarily need to because you sort of had.
I guess you had while I'm doing this and I'm
still I'm working musician, I'm just not making a record
right now. And that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I was.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
I was very I was very aware and the you know,
the the the addiction was, it's just you know, and
the way, the type of addiction it was is a
swallower of people's voices and souls, you know, And and
i'd noticed that we are. I was going down that
path quite quite quickly. And I think when I started
to realize the co morbidity of it all it was
(30:38):
just because I was a a songwriter who hadn't released,
who hadn't finished the song in ages.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
It was because I was an addict, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Co morbidity of it all was was when I realized
I had a very very big problem on top of that.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
If you think.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Without management, without booking agent, with that record label, without
all of those things, like, how do you even begin
to work your way back into any of those situations too?
To release to release anything again? I mean, now I
have all this all those things. It wasn't easy to
(31:17):
come by and to build that all up again. And
it's quite a huge infrastructure that goes into releasing a
song or like in this the way that we're doing it,
you know, or putting a tour together, like you need.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
There's a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I didn't have one person I had. I had my
booking agent, but that was on a very like the
other artists that he represented were people that didn't need
those things anymore, like Lou Read and marrying faithful Patti Smith.
You know, I was like the youngest person in all
this group of people. But yeah, that that part is
(31:52):
we really don't underestimate that that side. It just it
just felt like I was just completely not in the
music industry anymore at all.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think that's quite interesting because I think people would
listening would maybe just presume, but you're Patrick Wolf and
you're you're like, you're a tried and tested name, you've
been signed to like a major, you've been you've done
things yourself, you've done things independently. I think people would
just presume that, yeah, you'd been away for a lot
of time, but you can still call some be like, yeah,
(32:22):
I'm ready to go. No, I need a man. You know,
you can call a manager and get a manager. You
can call a booker and get a booker.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
But and let me let me tell you this, Like that,
when I was ready to go back to work, because
of the amount of time that I had taken away
the I had to prove every step of the way
that I still had an audience. So I knew I
hadn't still had an audience. I knew what kind of
venues I could sell out, but working with a new
booking agent, I had to slam my fist down on
(32:53):
the table and say, book me in this city, book
me in this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Town, book me in this venue.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Even when I first when I finished my EP that
the people putting it out didn't think that I would.
They thought, oh, would just to go straight to digital
because we don't know if Patrick they're enough people that
are interested in buying vinyl anymore. So I said, I
dare you to press up a thousand copies. And we
sold out the first one thousand in the first month,
(33:19):
actually the first week, first two weeks, we sold out
the first to London. We sold out the first London
show in two hours. I had to for like eight years,
and during that lost period, I had lost all my
self confidence and faith in myself and possibilities. So I
had to like when suddenly I got back to work
and people were doubting that I could be successful whatever
(33:42):
that means. But successful in terms of just functioning as
an artist. Putting out a thousand copies of record, doing
a four hundred and fifty capacity venue, small things in
terms of what I've done in the past. But like
I felt like I was being punished for taking that
time away. There was no that apart from my management,
there wasn't there was no faith in the fact that
(34:03):
like it's like the music industry says, take take time,
take you know, your mental health and stuff, but it's like,
but not too long, because then we don't you're useless
to us.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So it was a lot of that, and even last
year I had to really prove that there was an
audience still in Berlin. There's an audience still in all
the major cities that I worked really hard for since
I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I realize now as we get to the end of
this episode that I'm really making you wait for it.
But there are happier times coming for Patrick. Wolfe. I've
chopped this episode into part one and part two because
we did spend a lot of time talking and there
was just a lot to get into. As we've already heard,
it's been a thirteen year hiatus and it's not been
(34:49):
the easiest thirteen years. But in part two of my
chat with Patrick Wolfe, which I'll put out next week,
is talk of the Haye of the major labels and
the amount of money he spent audaciously.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I thought should be on a major label. I was like, well,
why isn't this on a major? Why isn't it got
the same treatment as Girls Allowed? I end up on
the same label as like Girls Allowed, you know, and
it's like, I didn't know if you looked at it
from the outside, if I looked at it at him, like
what are you doing there?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
But it was it was a fun game to play
in it, and I don't think actually I lost.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And of course where he is now. There's a new
album coming in June of this year called Crying the Neck.
We get into what that is about, how some of
the songs on there, how he feels about it, and
how he's adapting to being a musician again in a
world that is very different to the one that he
left twenty twelve. Things were not asked of musicians that
(35:47):
are being asked of them today with promotion and social
media and content creation. Luckily for Patrick Wolfe, he's got
a lot of that in his locker because he's always
been a very industrious person. And there's something very unique
about Patrick wolf in the sense that he is a
(36:07):
man who has done it both ways. He's done extremely
DIY records where he's done everything himself. He's done big
major label records where he's had huge budgets to work with.
So we talk a lot about that and get into it.
It's not all sad. Thank you to Patrick for taking
the time. We spoke for a long time, which is
(36:29):
why it is in two and as you've already heard,
he's very honest and open, so hopefully you've enjoyed part
one to come back for part two. The best thing
to do is if you just subscribe wherever you're listening
to this, then you will know exactly when it arrives,
or give us a follow on substack land quiet dot
(36:52):
substack dot com and you'll receive an email as soon
as this is ready to go. Thank you for listening.
Thank you to Patrick, and thank you to me.
Good evening to all of you. Midnight Chats were Wolves.
It's been a little while, hasn't it. Stue here with
a little bit of an update on the podcast, something
that's a bit of a bonus and something that I
hope will will intrigue you with something else that I'm
doing right now. Midnight Chats is still on hold for
(00:21):
the time being. No sign of it coming back just yet,
but it's not the end of the world because there's
so many episodes of it that I'm sure there's ones
that you've missed, for better or worse, so please do
keep listening to those, and whenever we have more information
on bringing back Midnight Chats as it was, I'll let
(00:41):
you know here on this feed. But there is a
new podcast that I've been making simply called the Loud
and Quiet Podcast, and I wanted to share one episode
of it here in the hope that you like it
and then you give it a follow wherever you're listening
to this. By just putting in the Loud and Quiet
(01:03):
Podcast and giving that show a follow, it's not a
million miles away from Midnight Chats. It's often a conversation
with a musical artist, this one that I'm about to
play you is with Patrick Wolf. It's part one. Part
two is also out today, but I won't drop that
here in the Midnight Chats Feed. We're going to keep
this the Midnight Chats Feed, but if you want to
(01:25):
listen to part one you can do that here. But
Part two and Part one and some other stuff is
on the Loud and Quiet podcast Feed. Please do check
it out. You can subscribe, as I say, wherever you're
listening to this on Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening
to your podcasts, or you can also subscribe to it
on the Loud and Quiet substack, which is just Loud
(01:47):
and Quiet dot substack dot com. But for now, here
is an very interesting conversation I had with Patrick Wolf
as you're here. It's it's like a good old fashioned
midnights in many ways, lots to get into with Patrick Wolf,
and I won't tee it up now because I'm about
to tee it up in two seconds time on this recording.
(02:10):
I hope you've all been doing well. I hope twenty
twenty fives going to plan so far, it's been an
absolute dustbin fire for me so far, and Greg's faring
much better. It was his birthday at the weekend, his fortieth,
and that wasn't even enough to dampen his spirits. Meanwhile,
my life is on fire. Please do enjoy Patrick Wolf
(02:33):
here on the Midnight Chats feed and then give us
a follow. Keep following Midnight Chats, but give us a
follow on the Loud and Quiet podcast wherever you get
your podcasts. This is the Loud and Quiet Podcast. I'm
(02:59):
Stuart Stubbs and today I'm joined by Patrick Wolf. Patrick
is currently aged forty one years old. He was born
and grew up in Southwest London, and in two thousand
and three released his debut Albumlyanthropy. Since then, he has
(03:19):
released five more albums and a few EPs. His music
usually consists of violin, piano, keyboards, ukulele, accordion, mandolin, guitar
and bass, giving a baroque pop fill, but it also
features elements of what became known in the mid two
thousands as folktronica. Patrick sings in a very deep croon
(03:40):
and I have been a fan of his since the beginning.
Really two thousand and five is when I started doing
Loud and Quiet in its original form as a printed fanzine,
and around that time, we had him on the cover
of one of our very early fanzines, something that I
took to him when we recorded this interview and presented
(04:03):
to him, so stay tuned to hear his reactions. I
think he took it quite well. In two thousand and
seven Patrick had some major label success with his third record,
The Magic Position, and in the same year he also
modeled for Birbury. But over the last ten years Patrick
has experienced some of the most traumatic and dramatic things
(04:23):
that anyone can go through, including addiction, grief, financial and
legal troubles, and serious injury. I had a great idea
for us to do this, walking along the Kent coast
with the sea dropping away to our side, beautiful sunshine,
seagulls in the air. But on the day of recording,
(04:44):
when I got to our meeting place a little earlier,
just to see what conditions were like, it was clear
that that was a terrible idea. So I carried on
driving to Patrick's house where in his garden he has
got the most incredible garden studio that I've certainly ever seen.
It's in a converted double garage and in this one
(05:05):
room he has four corners as most rooms have, but
each corner has been set up with a different station.
He's got a writing area and a library. He's got
a TV studio that he uses for his Patreon concerts.
He's got his recording studio of all of his instruments
(05:26):
in one corner, and then in this final corner where
we're going to start this conversation, he's got all of
his clothes and his stage costumes and the sewing machine
that he makes them on.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
In the other corner is the recent edition. I got
rid of my bicycle because I've never cycled since I
moved down. There are too many cliffs and hills and
it's my costume making area. So I realized how much
I was making, especially for the album artwork. I you know,
(06:01):
I don't have any of the connections I used to
living in London, and I kind of don't want them.
So in terms of, you know, stylists or calling up
designers for pieces, I can't call Alexander McQueen's studio anymore
because I think they probably think I'm dead, you know.
So I decided to get back to what I.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Used to do, was make all my own clothes.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, are you enjoying that? You enjoying getting back in time.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm really enjoying.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
It feels very If I'm furious about something then although
the sewing machine is not the place to take your
anger up because it registers it and everything goes wrong,
but there's something about I think I have to calm
down in order to be productive there. It's a very
very holistic area for me. Yeah, very pragmatic. Sure, it's
either gardening or sewing gets me into get some of
(06:47):
the rage out of me of the modern world.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So it's like the perfect perfect space. I think, like
you've got these four zones. It's a beautiful garden. It's
a lovely day. We're in rams Gay. How long have
you been here?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
So it's coming out to like five years?
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I was thinking about it when I got When I
got sober was in June twenty twenty, and then I
was here by May May the first, the year after,
and then I moved into this house on Halloween.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Kent as an area, I know it's because Kent, Kent.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I'm very specifical.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, Yeah, why is that?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well, you know, like Middle Kent is like Tunbridge Wells,
North Kent is getting I like Medway I'm not saying
I don't like these places. I just feel an affinity
with something about you know, East Kent goes I don't know.
I don't know that even like the local folklore changes
(07:49):
when you get to East Kent. There are some very
specific things about the border land of East Kent, of
seeing France on the other side of the cliffs of
the of the the rhythm here. It's not Tunbridge Wells. Yeah, yeah,
it is very different than Tumbridge and and Medway has
(08:10):
that slight dystopian paradise about it.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's interesting actually because I'm from Essex. I'm from South
End in Essex. And you know, people talk about Essex
probably in a similar way to the way they talk
about Kent and by lumping it all together. But you're
dead right. You don't actually have to travel far within
a county like Kent or Essex to realize how different
places are. Like the north of Essex is completely unrecognizable
(08:42):
to where I grew up. I know this place is
has become really special to you, But what what made
what drew you to? What made you move here?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
So like I live between Ramsgate and broad Stairs. So
actually the name of the place where in between. It's
quite unfortunate has the word dump in it, so so
I live in the dump right So, but but Broadstairs.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I saw a.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Clip of it on.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
The Alan Bennett film Lady in the Van. There's a
bit where she gets in the van and she she
vanishes and he finds her on Broadstairs and and I
just loved there was something about the about about the bay,
and I just was like, I need to find where
that is and I need I need to go. So
my partner and I then we we would make it
(09:32):
our escape out of London because so it was only
felt like an hour and a half and it just
became like a romantic place to come to.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And then and then.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
The the week that I was declared bankrupt by by
the court, then I am I was pretty shell shocked
and and my partner took me down to Broadstairs and
there was just a sense of like a feeling of
like this is where I start again. I don't know,
(10:03):
I don't know what I felt, but I just remember
staying up all night and watching two seagulls fight.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Over like a bottle of beer or something like outside
and just watching that and watching it was it was.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
A January January, and it was on January February really
really bleak, and I just felt at home. I just
felt like in this out of season. And the strange
thing is like on Wind and the Wires, my second album,
I had imagined I had a lover down in who
had a family in Penzance and Hail, and the whole
(10:41):
mythology of Wind and the Wires was based around this.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Really, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I'd say it was too hardcore for Thomas Hardy, but
it was like this very tragic romantic relationship in set
in this area. But that set off my imagination to
into out of season. And I say imagination because it
was i'd grow I grew up in Wandsworth, but I
(11:11):
started to I think I was using the imaginary the
places I saw on the train trips down there, like Tigemouth,
the ferris wheel on the but I don't even know if.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
There was a firest wheel, but I was.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
I was sketching out this how I felt, but using
out of low season England to tell that story. And
then when I and I think it was like that
always felt like home wherever that was where I was describing,
and then it wasn't until I did my first winter
here that I realized there's a song called This Weather
(11:47):
and it basically like like prophetically describes what it is
to do a winter here. And I just was like,
I think I kind of wrote about this place, and
I'd like to say it was a prophecy. Yeah, do
the wise that was I was describing where I needed
to to I was going to live one day.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, and now you found it. Was it just that
you were sort of bored of London? Did you just
need to change it up? Did you want to quieter,
quieter existence?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
No, I was, you know, I was very ill and
am tired of London. I I guess in a way,
I felt like I had spated me out and and
(12:36):
strange like luckily I always lived in central London, so
like I lived in Southwark opposite the Tate Modern, like
in this very you know, like very bougie penthouse apartment,
and then moved to this little mewse house and I
lived like a really like I lived in central London
and I lived in Bloomsbury for like four years and
(12:59):
and yeah, I know, but like for a flat that
was eight hundred pounds a month, like rent like old.
It was like it was an old Art Deco building
that was for that was built for single it was
like a feminist architect who built it for single women.
And and for some reason, the rent had just stayed
(13:19):
really low. So I stayed there on about about eight
hundred pounds a month during the period that I was
bankrupt as well, so you know, And and then my
mother died and sorry, that's just some some great, great
positive moments in my life, just to draw a dump
on everybody, but the yeah, but basically I was like
(13:44):
I had when she died. I had a lump sum
of money and I was like, well, I'm going to
try to stay in London, which led me to buying
like the literally the cheapest flat you could could in
London on right move. I was just like, okay, because
it's it's my last last chance of holding on here
(14:05):
financially if I can stay, And it was just the
it was like it was I really spiraled there mentally.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
And where was that flat in.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Perry Vale? And you might you might Lewisham, you said you're.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
From, I'm living in Lewisham. Now yeah, where right?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So it's like between sydonym and Catford, and it's like
it's like a small area in between there, but it
was and it was like I moved in there three
months before the pandemic hit, on an eighth floor of
the of a tower block. And and the thing, like
(14:45):
romantically I I all I saw was this view over.
I could see across the whole of London from a distance,
and on the other side I could see in my head.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
It was like this liminal world where I could like
wander and wonder. And and.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
When I actually started exploring, like in so there was
London that side, I was like, okay, I've lived here.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I'm like, how old am I now? I'm like thirty five.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But in the distance, I was still looking for one.
I was looking for something that would inspire me to
work and to come back to life and come back
to what, come back to writing. And I thought I
would find it there, but you know, I would just
wander and I couldn't get and keep on walking and
walking for like hours and I just end up in
Bromley or Beckenham or and I just felt like completely
(15:36):
trapped by this city. It just was like endless and
just got and I was like, well, how do I
get inspired by this area or research people that you
used that lived or made stuff here. And so I
ended up discovering like the Bromley contingent and listening to
Susie the Banchies for the first time and like really
getting into that.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
But it really didn't help.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It just it just made me feel it, like to
get darker and more anxious and like, you know, it
was like the most inspiring thing I could find was
Sir Chiselhurst Caves, you know, And I said, oh, I'm
going to make an album in the caves and I
got permission to.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Do it, and and.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
The pandemic happened, and I realized I was had gone
from getting clean in twenty sixteen to becoming a full
blown alcoholic. Like what do they say some people use
the word functioning, like but whatever, the opposite of functioning is,
you know, so deathly and when.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
You weren't funk, you weren't functioning.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
No, like malfunctioning.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah, and and and very ill, and the whole the
whole building just became possessed in that in that way
before me and London just felt like I had reached
completely not the end of the road, but I've been
kicked off the road, you know, And and I just thought,
there's no way back there, and and I don't want
(16:58):
to go back, and and and I knew that if
I was going to be sober, then I needed to
be I needed to every day have something that I
didn't put in my body that gave me a sense
of wonder. And for me, that was an element bigger
(17:20):
than me. So for me that's always been the center
of a city can feel like bigger than you. That's exciting,
you know, being in the desert, being up a mountain,
being in a huge forest, lost, having something as a
human being, it's really important to have to not.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Feel like you're on top.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Of it, like you're bigger than everything, or you're too
big for this space. To have something that completely makes
you feel small. So I needed to be by the sea.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
I realized that, as Patrick's already alluded to, there's been
a long gap between his last album and what is
going to be a new album that comes out later
this year in June twenty twenty five. It's been thirteen
years since he released Sun Dark, River Lights in twenty twelve,
which was an album that celebrated his first decade in
(18:08):
music by reimagining old songs. It was sort of a
best of that boiled some of his songs from previous
albums back down to more traditional folk songs. But between
its release and where we are now in spring of
twenty twenty five, this man has experienced one tragedy after another.
(18:30):
It includes addiction to alcohol and hard drugs. In twenty eighteen,
his mother died, he was involved in a hit and
run accident where he was a pedestrian whilst in Italy,
and in twenty seventeen he was declared bankrupt after it
turned out his manager and accountant had been failing to
pay his taxes.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I have a theory that chaos begets chaos, you know,
so if you are you know, at the at the
heart of.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
All of this stuff is is somebody without any self control,
without any healing of any raw nerve, all the all
the nerve endings like like you've you've wider plug and
put the earth in the but all the different colors
(19:27):
in the wrong places. And and there is a sense
of responsibility that that I take for all of those.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Things that happened.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I the bankruptcy came through financial abuse through a management
system and accountant.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
For eight years of my life.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I you know, at the end of the day, the
only person that could ever have found that out was
somebody that that decided to take a little bit of
responsibility for their financeing and investigate these things. But of
course they should never have done those things in the
first place. But at the end of the day, it
didn't stop until I.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Wised up a bit.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I'm sorry those things happened to me in one way,
but I also believe that things got that those things
stopped happening when I decided to to change my behavior.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
You know, yeah, I do know.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
You know, there is there's a pattern of people entering
rock bottom that It's not just that they can't stop
drinking or they can't stop using. It's that they're losing
their relationships, their house, they're breaking their mobile phone every week,
they've lost their ten passports like me, like they like
I used to go through a phone every month, you know,
(20:47):
and I kin't and I.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Am from from what from just drop.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Drop, dropping it, running it over, putting it in the bath,
just like you. You know, I went ten passports. I
had the government people warning me up saying you're not
allowed another one. We think you might be committing fraud,
you know, like I haven't lost a passport since I've
got since I've got sober, I haven't. I still had
the same phone, you know, there's and and if you
look at that on a macro scale, of course, it
(21:12):
were most likely that I would get run over or
or you know.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So even even that, even like being hit by a
car in Italy, you take a certain amount of responsibilief.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I take it as a big warning sign that you
know as well. But you know, I had to romanticize
it because like on one side at the end of
that road was where Byrons it was a beach in
Lago del Puccini in Via Reggio, was where Byron's body
was washed up on the shore. You know, some like
(21:47):
romanticizing it at the time, you know, and still like
and it's like, yeah, you know, it's like near it was.
It was all quite like, you know, kind of glamorous
and felt like part of ye know, I didn't take it.
I just didn't take it very seriously for another few years, basically,
but I saw it that that I do take it.
(22:08):
I do take it as a one of the many
things that happened because I was a bit of a
vortex really, Yeah, as a black hole.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Way back when that last YEW came out, we actually
spoke on the phone for an interview for the magazine,
and I think, I don't know if you were just there,
you just happened to be there. But were you living
in LA at that point and you spoke to me
from LA?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
That would have been terrifying.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, yeah, that's not a great place for me.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Was that it was? But you were there at that
point around that time they're releasing that record? What was
the sort of plan? Obviously it's you know, thirteen years
between records, obviously very long time. It's a lot's happened.
But when you think back to that time of twenty twelve,
was the plan to put out that record, tour it,
promote it, and then make another record within you know,
(22:58):
as you normally, you know, as an art as normally
would within two or three four years. Can you remember
what you what? What was the plan back then? Or
was there not one?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
I do remember because I had started to work out
that there was something very dark sided happening with my
management and perhaps with my accounts and I and I
needed to get out of that situation, and because I
(23:32):
didn't really know any other alternative, I was like, well,
I just need I just need all this to stop
so I can work out what's going on. And so
I decided I.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Started to.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Make I started to sew to to sew seeds in
my management's management's head, saying that I was going to
this is going to be my last album for a while.
I was going to go and learn sculpture, and that
I was going to and I was basically looking like
trying to say to everybody, like you can't make.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Money out of me anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I'm going to this is my last record for a
long time. And I was kind of putting it like
kind of I'm kind of use that word manifest.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, that's a clay to use that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
No, I guess, like you know, manifest what manifests, like,
you know, we manifest everything apparently these days. So but
I was, you know, without without really going into the
grotesquery of of of of what was happening at that time,
I was setting up a period of a break as
(24:42):
a test to to the people around me to see
how they react about me not making money for them anymore.
But also because and but in order to do that,
I realized that I was going to have to.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
To physically take time.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
And when I was and I was starting to realize
at the end of Sun Dark and Riverlight, and I
was also just a feeling of like I did, I
just felt like a sense of a chapter of work ending.
And I'm talking about not like the recent album, but
the thing, the thing I started at eighteen, I felt
like was coming to a natural end. I don't like
(25:17):
in this studio, I've got two albums I'm preparing to
come after this album. I've always had another project on
the go. When I was making the Chan three, I
was demoing some songs for the Magic Position. When I
was doing Wind in the Wires, some of the songs
set up on the batch. There's always like kind of
(25:38):
a two album, like there's always a long distance element
to what I was doing. And there was just nothing
coming to me at all, And.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It was like, so yeah, I was. I remember, I felt.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Like it was the ending of something. I didn't realize
how how long it would be, but you know, you
can't like it was. It was really when my voicelessness
took over and I lost my voice to quite a
furious addiction for the next four or five years.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, has there ever been a point within that period
of time where you sort of told yourself, I don't
think I'm going to make another record. I don't got
it in me.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I mean exactly that. And it was when.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
I was assigned a psychotherapist by the NHS. I'd gone
to them about some you know, things that were troubling
them my behavior, and they they wanted to diagnose me
with with with something. They wanted to work out what
was wrong with me. And I was given a psychiatrist,
so it's a clinical psychotherapist. And the first thing he
(26:50):
did it was like, you haven't worked for for.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Like eight years.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's not usual for somebody in that, you know, you
haven't whatever it's like if you were because I wasn't unemployed,
because I still receiving royalties for like the magic position,
and from you know, like it wasn't like what he
realized was like, the first thing we're going to do
is work out why you why you can't function with
the thing that you're meant to be doing in your life.
(27:15):
And then and it was it was like that was
I didn't realize it was like a clinically diagnosed that
like I hadn't worked for like eight years, I hadn't
finished anything, and we went about.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Were you aware of it, Like, was that like being
told that number. Was that like a sudden realization or
were you constantly aware of the fact that, like, shit,
I've not made something again.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well, I always always used to feel that the New
Year's Eve of like, oh my god, Patrick, another year
has gone.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
By and you haven't Year's I.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Mean literally, like the thing is I was still doing.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
That.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I mean that the the synchronicity of this whole period,
you know, is really blessed because despite all this malevolence
going on, there were people really lifting me and carrying
me for so like that weekend where I played there
(28:20):
was like this like about a month basically where I'd
already been playing a fiddle with Patty Smith in her
band at the end of Lupekalia and into Sundarken River
Light during this so twenty ten to twenty twelve, I
had met Patty at Land Festival.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And then she.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And then I had fired my management, which meant I
also had to lose my booking agent, my accountant, like
I lost basically all contacts to the music industry very
very rapidly. And so the weekend that I lost my
booking agent, I did a show with Patti at World
Festival Hall for like the Yoko own know, the Double
(29:01):
Fantasy album, So I had to sing three Yoko and
John Lennon songs and did a song with Patty. We
did Beautiful Boy anyway, so that was already magical. But
she then her booking agent was in the room and
she said, Andy, look after Patrick. He hasn't got a
booking agent. And then and then basically he put me
(29:22):
on tour because then I had all these I had
all these legal problems with because I'd fire the management.
But then I had to get a lump sum in
order to get my uh to get my rights back
off them of my my early work, so that it
wasn't like so anyway I had to I had to
come up with this huge amount of money to to
(29:44):
get that back, and then he put me on the
road to do that. And in the meantime, over those years,
I was playing with Patty every three months or quite
a lot of shows. Even if I was in La
I'd do a show over there. But so I was
still like functioning as a musician. I was still doing things.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
You were doing enough to not realize, not realize and
to not necessarily need to because you sort of had.
I guess you had while I'm doing this and I'm
still I'm working musician, I'm just not making a record
right now. And that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I was.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
I was very I was very aware and the you know,
the the the addiction was, it's just you know, and
the way, the type of addiction it was is a
swallower of people's voices and souls, you know, And and
i'd noticed that we are. I was going down that
path quite quite quickly. And I think when I started
to realize the co morbidity of it all it was
(30:38):
just because I was a a songwriter who hadn't released,
who hadn't finished the song in ages.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
It was because I was an addict, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Co morbidity of it all was was when I realized
I had a very very big problem on top of that.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
If you think.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Without management, without booking agent, with that record label, without
all of those things, like, how do you even begin
to work your way back into any of those situations too?
To release to release anything again? I mean, now I
have all this all those things. It wasn't easy to
(31:17):
come by and to build that all up again. And
it's quite a huge infrastructure that goes into releasing a
song or like in this the way that we're doing it,
you know, or putting a tour together, like you need.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
There's a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I didn't have one person I had. I had my
booking agent, but that was on a very like the
other artists that he represented were people that didn't need
those things anymore, like Lou Read and marrying faithful Patti Smith.
You know, I was like the youngest person in all
this group of people. But yeah, that that part is
(31:52):
we really don't underestimate that that side. It just it
just felt like I was just completely not in the
music industry anymore at all.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think that's quite interesting because I think people would
listening would maybe just presume, but you're Patrick Wolf and
you're you're like, you're a tried and tested name, you've
been signed to like a major, you've been you've done
things yourself, you've done things independently. I think people would
just presume that, yeah, you'd been away for a lot
of time, but you can still call some be like, yeah,
(32:22):
I'm ready to go. No, I need a man. You know,
you can call a manager and get a manager. You
can call a booker and get a booker.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
But and let me let me tell you this, Like that,
when I was ready to go back to work, because
of the amount of time that I had taken away
the I had to prove every step of the way
that I still had an audience. So I knew I
hadn't still had an audience. I knew what kind of
venues I could sell out, but working with a new
booking agent, I had to slam my fist down on
(32:53):
the table and say, book me in this city, book
me in this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Town, book me in this venue.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Even when I first when I finished my EP that
the people putting it out didn't think that I would.
They thought, oh, would just to go straight to digital
because we don't know if Patrick they're enough people that
are interested in buying vinyl anymore. So I said, I
dare you to press up a thousand copies. And we
sold out the first one thousand in the first month,
(33:19):
actually the first week, first two weeks, we sold out
the first to London. We sold out the first London
show in two hours. I had to for like eight years,
and during that lost period, I had lost all my
self confidence and faith in myself and possibilities. So I
had to like when suddenly I got back to work
and people were doubting that I could be successful whatever
(33:42):
that means. But successful in terms of just functioning as
an artist. Putting out a thousand copies of record, doing
a four hundred and fifty capacity venue, small things in
terms of what I've done in the past. But like
I felt like I was being punished for taking that
time away. There was no that apart from my management,
there wasn't there was no faith in the fact that
(34:03):
like it's like the music industry says, take take time,
take you know, your mental health and stuff, but it's like,
but not too long, because then we don't you're useless
to us.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
So it was a lot of that, and even last
year I had to really prove that there was an
audience still in Berlin. There's an audience still in all
the major cities that I worked really hard for since
I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
I realize now as we get to the end of
this episode that I'm really making you wait for it.
But there are happier times coming for Patrick. Wolfe. I've
chopped this episode into part one and part two because
we did spend a lot of time talking and there
was just a lot to get into. As we've already heard,
it's been a thirteen year hiatus and it's not been
(34:49):
the easiest thirteen years. But in part two of my
chat with Patrick Wolfe, which I'll put out next week,
is talk of the Haye of the major labels and
the amount of money he spent audaciously.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I thought should be on a major label. I was like, well,
why isn't this on a major? Why isn't it got
the same treatment as Girls Allowed? I end up on
the same label as like Girls Allowed, you know, and
it's like, I didn't know if you looked at it
from the outside, if I looked at it at him, like
what are you doing there?
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Like?
Speaker 2 (35:20):
But it was it was a fun game to play
in it, and I don't think actually I lost.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And of course where he is now. There's a new
album coming in June of this year called Crying the Neck.
We get into what that is about, how some of
the songs on there, how he feels about it, and
how he's adapting to being a musician again in a
world that is very different to the one that he
left twenty twelve. Things were not asked of musicians that
(35:47):
are being asked of them today with promotion and social
media and content creation. Luckily for Patrick Wolfe, he's got
a lot of that in his locker because he's always
been a very industrious person. And there's something very unique
about Patrick wolf in the sense that he is a
(36:07):
man who has done it both ways. He's done extremely
DIY records where he's done everything himself. He's done big
major label records where he's had huge budgets to work with.
So we talk a lot about that and get into it.
It's not all sad. Thank you to Patrick for taking
the time. We spoke for a long time, which is
(36:29):
why it is in two and as you've already heard,
he's very honest and open, so hopefully you've enjoyed part
one to come back for part two. The best thing
to do is if you just subscribe wherever you're listening
to this, then you will know exactly when it arrives,
or give us a follow on substack land quiet dot
(36:52):
substack dot com and you'll receive an email as soon
as this is ready to go. Thank you for listening.
Thank you to Patrick, and thank you to me.
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