Ciara’s Country (CC):
I have the pleasure of talking to Callum Morgan from Morganway ahead of their
sets at C2C London. Callum, thank you so much for chatting with me
today.
Callum Morgan (CM): Thanks for having me.
CC: So, we’re
catching up ahead of C2C – what can music lovers expect from
Morganway?
CM: What a question! Morganway is the true sense of being in
a band, I think what’s special about a band is that it’s a bunch of different
personalities that come together and create something bigger than themselves.
When I used to go see bands I would always be in awe of the different
personalities at play and what they create together, so that’s really what
Morganway is doing. Morganway is creating the Morganway sound. It’s something
quite unselfconscious – we’re not trying to fit into any genre and it’s
wonderful that the country music scene has been so welcoming to us. I think
it’s such an open-minded music scene. So what people can expect is Morganway, really!
CC: Well one of the
great things about country is that it’s so broad. No matter what elements of
different genres you pick from, somehow they all manage to fit into country
anyway.
CM: I think so too. Some people have this kind of
misconception that country is banjos and tractors and stuff, and yeah, there
are songs that have that to them, but I think as you say it’s quite a broad
genre. There’s a lot of different interests at play, and you wouldn’t
necessarily think that someone like the late great Tom Petty is a country
singer. Traditionally maybe he’s not, but certainly some of the music that
inspired Tom Petty would have come from what you might call more traditional
examples of country music like Hank Williams.
CC: Exactly, there
are so many areas to draw from! For you as well, having a six piece band must
mean you have so many different influences and ideas thrown around all the
time. How do you make sure everyone’s voices are heard throughout the creative
process?
CM: I saw an interview with Tom DeLong after he left Blink
182, and he said that being in a band is a beautiful compromise, and often you
have one person’s vision that wants to go one way and another person’s vision
that wants to go another way, and sometimes they meet in the middle. That might
sound that neither vision is satisfied, but it sometimes makes the best music.
We all have strong opinions. The band was formed by my brother and I so I guess
we’re sort of the band leaders but it’s important in a band that everyone is
empowered and everyone has their voice heard because otherwise it doesn’t work.
CC: I bet sometimes
the clashes end up creating a better piece of music than you would have started
with.
CM: Definitely. We’re always challenging each other. There
are some different personalities. Matt, our keyboard player, is very chilled
out and I think it’s important to have someone like that in the band because
he’s an incredible musician but is good at going with the flow and offering his
ideas but in quite a gentle way. I can be quite the opposite really! We all
work together even though we are very different.
CC: One of the things
we definitely love in country music is great songwriting, and I really liked
how you’d put together your latest single Frozen
In Our Time – can you tell me a bit about how that came together?
CM: Yeah, definitely. It was a song that we were playing
live for a few years. It was originally a song we had with our previous singer
Yves Mary B, and we worked on it as a band until it developed into something
quite long and progressive, and even quite dark actually. It’s definitely a
darker side to the Morganway sound. It was always leaving a really strong
impression at gigs so we thought it needed to be on the album. It was never
going to be a three and a half minute pop song. We don’t really apply that
self-conciousness to when we write songs, we’re not trying to write something
just to fit a certain kind of criteria. This one just felt like the longer it
was, the more it was getting into the core of what the song really needed to
be. I like the idea of Frozen In Our Time
because I think art is, be it music or paintings, it’s all frozen in its time.
Sometimes it transcends into other peoples eras, it’s timeless. The singer
Jackson Brown said he still calls albums a record because it’s a record of
events, so I think time is so integral to all of those ideas. So that’s what Frozen In Our Time is all about.
CC: Speaking of
records and albums, what sneak peeks can you give us about the album?
CM: One thing it definitely isn’t is eleven versions of the
same song. There are songs on the album that are long progressive builds like Frozen and then there are three minute
poppier tracks, there’s bluesy-rocky tracks, there’s folk tracks. It’s all
quite high-octane and reflective of our live shows right now. I think as well,
what you were saying about the different personalities throughout the six of us
and how we agree on things, I think this album is a good reflection of all the
different influences going into it. It’s definitely not eleven versions of the
same song, but it all sounds like us – it is all Morganway.
CC: It’s interesting
that you commented on the fact that Frozen
In Our Time is quite dark but you
also have very different songs on the album. Was that a conscious move from
your previous works and also ensuring you have that variety on the album?
CM: Honestly, and I don’t mean this as a lazy answer, none
of this is really self-conscious. If it was as simple as ‘I’d really like to
write a dark song today’, I’d probably end up writing a two minute major key
pop song! That’s the weird thing about song writing. There was no decision that
said ‘we need a dark song here’, ‘we need an upbeat song here’, we were just
working on songs that felt right to us at the time. Then when you go into the
studio it becomes a different beast and you discover things about the song that
you hadn’t discovered before. I like to think we weren’t consciously trying to
tick boxes or anything.
CC: I know some other
artists say ‘my album needs a love song’ or ‘my album needs a poppy upbeat
song’ but that definitely wasn’t necessarily what you were going for.
CM: Exactly, we were just looking to capture the essence of
Morganway. I think what people like about us when they see us live is that we
are just being ourselves, whatever that is. That process did not change going
into the studio, we wanted to just capture who we were as Morganway. We didn’t
really talk about necessarily having a love song here or whatever. I think the
messages we’re trying to convey are like the genre, quite broad things really.
One of the great things about performing to people is making a connection.
Words are so important to me, I’d grown up listening to Leonard Cohen and Bob
Dylan, really phenomenal lyricists, and I think that when you get that perfect
harmony between lyrics and music that just connects with people, it just works.
I like the idea that in something as simple as a song, you’re putting something
out there that can be interpreted in so many ways. There She Goes doesn’t have to be about heroin, but it might be for
some people, it might not be for others. That’s why I don’t necessarily like to
talk about what a song is about, because I think that’s more up to the
listener.
CC: Definitely. I’m
looking forward to seeing how people respond to your sets this weekend!
Festivals like this are such great opportunities to discover up-and-coming
artists – are there any artists out there you think people should really start
listening to?
CM: Yeah, for sure! We’re really happy because Kenny Foster
is playing, who we’ve played with before. We played Country On The Clyde with
him in Glasgow last year. I really recommend people to check out Kenny Foster,
he has such sincere songwriting and is just a great guy as well. And Ashley
McBryde too! I’ve been really impressed by her songwriting.
CC: What a great
example of someone who’s gone really far sticking with just making great songs
with meaningful lyrics.
CM: Definitely. As I said, genre is never really something
that has ever interested me – I really like songwriting and I think there’s so
much good songwriting out there. I’ve never been to C2C before either so
that’ll be good!
CC: You certainly
have a lot to look forward to! Last question for you: what’s one question
you’ve never been asked in an interview but would love to be?
CM: Wow. Let me think… What do you think is the greatest use
of a song in a TV show that you love?
CC: I’ve not heard
that one before!
CM: Mainly because I think it’s an opportunity to plug a
show I think more people should watch. It’s an HBO show called The Leftovers, but it’s honestly
slightly changed my life. I know that it’s boring when people go on about a
great television show, but there’s this one scene, a very violent scene that
features the song God Only Knows by
The Beach Boys. It’s a song that’s been used a lot so it’s not necessarily an original
choice of music but it works so well. I’ve never cried so much watching something.
I don’t know what that says about me.
CC: Well, that kind
of links back to people putting their own interpretations on songs and the different
ways they can be interpreted.
CM: Exactly, and it’s a great show. People should definitely
check it out.
CC: So not only have
we gotten to know more about Morganway and the artists you recommend, but some
TV recommendations too!
CM: For sure. Go to C2C, watch all the lovely music there,
and then afterwards you can start The
Leftovers. Those are my words of wisdom for the day.
CC: Brilliant, thanks
so much Callum!
I hope you enjoyed today's interview! Drop me a comment below if you have any questions or thoughts, and make sure to follow me on Twitter @CiarasCountry for more interviews and reviews coming soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment