Episode 1177 - Johnny Flynn
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it
Marc:You all right?
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
Marc:You keeping it tight?
Marc:You laying low?
Marc:You keeping it in-house?
Marc:Like not people coming into the house?
Marc:It's a weird thing that's happening on all levels in terms of how people seem to understand this virus.
Marc:It seems kind of clear to me that they're figuring out how to treat it a little better, but that doesn't mean it's not a heinous, dangerous situation
Marc:erratic in terms of how it affects each individual bit of toxic viral contagion and it's worse now than it's ever been that's that's the odd thing i mean i think that's indicative of something how's it going are you guys all right i don't want the fucking virus
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Johnny Flynn.
Marc:He played David Bowie in the film that I'm going to be in.
Marc:That's opening soon.
Marc:I believe it opens on Wednesday, if I'm not mistaken.
Marc:Yes, Wednesday, November 25th, in theaters and on demand.
Marc:The film Stardust with me and Johnny Flynn.
Marc:You might know him as a recording artist.
Marc:He's got several records people enjoy.
Marc:And he was in the movie Beast and in the movie Emma.
Marc:He's on a television series called Lovesick.
Marc:And I talked to him today.
Marc:it's an interesting thing about that movie that, uh, this sort of weird, it's, it's amazing to me what people get, how they direct their anger.
Marc:You know, there was this immediate reaction to the initial promotion of this film from, from people who were like Bowie diehard Bowie nerds worked up upset that, uh, they didn't think David wanted a movie about him.
Marc:They didn't think, uh,
Marc:The estate didn't allow the music.
Marc:But I'll tell you one thing about this movie.
Marc:It's not a biopic.
Marc:It's a little window into a period in time in David's life where he wasn't quite sure how he was going to do what he wanted to do or who he was necessarily.
Marc:It's an important crossroads in any creative person's life.
Marc:If they're conscious enough to be to know they're standing there.
Marc:And I don't think any of us really picture David Bowie as being insecure or unsure of himself or not really knowing how to take the next step creatively.
Marc:But we should.
Marc:It's one of those things where if you look at all the different decisions he made about his own character and personas and this and that.
Marc:When did that start?
Marc:How did that start?
Marc:What was the decision-making process?
Marc:This is sort of a very engaged, respectful exploration of that.
Marc:Of that moment where David Bowie didn't know who David Bowie should be or who David Bowie was.
Marc:It's called Stardust.
Marc:It opens Wednesday the 25th.
Marc:This Wednesday in theaters and in streaming.
Marc:So enjoy that.
Marc:And I know a lot of the
Marc:The holdouts, the Bowie loyalists who refuse to believe that somebody who had a 50-year career putting things out into the world, spreading himself out to be judged and criticized and appreciated and celebrated and demanding a certain amount of recognition and admiration and understanding, that anybody should sort of take that up and say, well, I want to understand more.
Marc:I want to explore more.
Marc:David Bowie in a piece of writing, a book, a record, a movie.
Marc:Public people, public artists, especially great ones, are provocative.
Marc:They're provocative to other artists who make stuff.
Marc:This is one of those things.
Marc:This is part of that stuff.
Marc:Stardust is the name of the movie.
Marc:But speaking of the plague and the fact that how things have changed, you remember how terrified we all were when it started and what we were doing?
Marc:Washing boxes, leaving boxes outside, washing vegetables, washing our hands, not going inside places, running in and out of places.
Marc:We learned a few things about the disease, about the spread of it, about whether boxes were safe or how much we should clean things, surfaces and whatnot.
Marc:But we've also learned since then that it's more contagious than we thought it was.
Marc:And that masks certainly helps stop the spread or limit the spread of the contagion.
Marc:But the bottom line is, whatever the case, however we saw it then, it's worse than it's ever been now.
Marc:And people have slacked off because they've learned to live with the reality of it.
Marc:But fortunately, most people have not had to learn to live with the disease itself.
Marc:A great many people have had people in their families die or get the disease.
Marc:But most people have not gotten the disease.
Marc:And that is slowly changing.
Marc:But the attitudes are not.
Marc:I don't know if it's entitlement, self-centeredness, a lack of empathy, or just giving zero fucks.
Marc:But the reality is, you don't know what it's going to do to you when you get it.
Marc:There are people that assume, hey, I'm healthy.
Marc:Doesn't matter, really.
Marc:It may.
Marc:There are people like, well, you know, Trump got treated with it.
Marc:You can't have that treatment.
Marc:But I'm guilty of it.
Marc:This is the fucking problem.
Marc:I'm guilty of it.
Marc:Nobody can guarantee your safety if you're going to do things.
Marc:You have to decide.
Marc:You have to take your calculated risks that help you maintain your sanity.
Marc:You don't want to lose your mind or get suicidal because of the fear of disease.
Marc:But you do want to take care of yourself.
Marc:But my point being is that people want to continue doing things they want to do.
Marc:And they want to at least start doing things they want to do.
Marc:And businesses want to start making their services available to people that want them.
Marc:whether it's a restaurant, whether it's a comedy club, whether it's a movie production,
Marc:They're putting the risk on the individual.
Marc:The people that are providing services, they know that they can't guarantee your safety.
Marc:Nobody can guarantee anybody's safety, really.
Marc:So it's on you to decide.
Marc:So make sure you're straight with your mind and your heart in terms of the decisions you're making.
Marc:And also, you have to remember that it's not all about you.
Marc:That seems to be a very difficult thing for people, not Americans, just people, myself included.
Marc:I'm inconvenienced.
Marc:I'm making a choice to take a risk because I want to be able to do certain things.
Marc:What if that puts a lot of other people at risk?
Marc:But I'm not going to talk to... I'm not going to do that.
Marc:I'm not going to do that.
Marc:That's not who I am.
Marc:But you will if you do this.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But I'm not going to... It's a reality.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:That, I think, is what's at the core of most people's behavior right now and most people's rationalization and justifying.
Marc:You poke at it just enough and you'll get like, I know, I know, I know.
Marc:It's dangerous.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Look, we're all angry, man.
Marc:It's important to take care of yourself, but it's important not to kill people with your lack of concern or irresponsibility.
Marc:I meditated this morning.
Marc:I tried that out.
Marc:You know, it was like it was a sit, you know, guided meditation.
Marc:And I did it.
Marc:I did what they told me.
Marc:So I did it and I'll do it again.
Marc:And I'm going to keep doing it.
Marc:OK, I've made that decision.
Marc:What a great.
Marc:Finally, finally, I've done I'm doing something proactive, something people have told me to do for years that could make a difference in my life.
Marc:Why do I fight that shit?
Marc:also another word about thanksgiving don't look a gift horse in the mouth is that what this is everybody who complains about their fucking families non-stop over the holidays you don't have to go you can just say i can't because i don't want to die or kill you so stop asking me to come you know i shouldn't i know all right then mom
Marc:Just tell dad, look, I love you, but I'm not going to be there.
Marc:And then you hang up that phone and go, oh, my God.
Marc:This is a gift.
Marc:It's a gift.
Marc:So Johnny Flynn is in the movie Stardust with me, plays David Bowie in his...
Marc:Man Who Sold the World, period.
Marc:The movie opens this Wednesday, November 25th, in theaters and on demand.
Marc:And I met him on the set, and this is the first time we've really talked since we've done the movie.
Marc:So this is Johnny Flynn and me talking.
Guest:I see your Instagram posts when you're doing the... The live ones?
Guest:The guitar stuff.
Guest:Oh, the guitar?
Guest:Yes, every now and then when you're just ripping a riff up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that post, it's weird to be there in the flesh.
Marc:Well, I mean, obviously I'm not as good a guitar player as you.
Marc:That's not true.
Marc:I do my bit.
Marc:That's not true.
Marc:I can't...
Marc:It's true.
Marc:I can't finger pick, man.
Marc:I was listening to some of your records yesterday, and I'm just sort of like, fuck, man.
Marc:Why can't I finger pick?
Marc:You could.
Marc:I try.
Marc:You could do it.
Marc:How long does it take?
Marc:You got to practice forever.
Guest:I was lucky.
Guest:I was on like a...
Guest:a theater tour when I was like 22 and there was one guy in the company who had a, who was like a master of the finger thing.
Guest:And I, we were touring all around the world and I was like, this is my, and I was for a year doing two Shakespeare plays and,
Guest:And I was quite bored a lot of the time.
Guest:And I just was like, this is my year.
Guest:I'm going to do it.
Guest:This is my apprenticeship.
Guest:And finger picking.
Guest:Finger style master, yeah.
Guest:And now I'm finger style mediocre.
Guest:But I did that year doing it.
Marc:So you can do your thumb separate from the other fingers?
Guest:I can do that, but what I really wanted to be able to do was flip between the pick.
Guest:So, you know, Richard Thompson has this style and a couple of other people.
Guest:I think Lightning Hopkins did it as well.
Guest:Because the Doc Watson way is this disciplined thumb where you go boom, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:And and if you can do the if you do with a flat pick holding between your thumb and forefinger, what you would do with the thumb and then you move everything down one.
Guest:So you have to use your your little finger, your pinky finger.
Guest:And that's what you did.
Guest:That's what I do, because it means I can tear into, you know, I can go into a into a solo or, you know, when I'm with the band or whatever.
Marc:Right, or you could do big chords, big rhythm with the pick.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can flip back and forth.
Marc:All right, well, I'll get it, I'll get it.
Guest:You could do it.
Marc:You could do it.
Marc:I mean, I'm just, I've gotten, I can do it a little bit and I'm a little better, but not that style.
Guest:When we jammed in wherever that was.
Marc:Hamilton, in Hamilton, Ontario.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were in the studio doing all the car stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was like a refugee bunker.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone could hear us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was really blown away by... I thought, shit, I can't keep up.
Guest:So...
Marc:Oh, come on.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:No, you were great.
Guest:You were great.
Marc:That's why I'm talking about Peter Green.
Marc:It's like spreading the gospel of Peter Green.
Guest:You sowed a seed there.
Guest:I was listening to him today, thinking about you, but that's gone really deep, actually.
Guest:And now I'm like an evangelicalist for tone.
Guest:And he's the tone master, right?
Marc:Oh, that guitar, man.
Marc:That guitar had the weirdest tones.
Marc:I was noticing that, too, when I was listening to the records that at some point, you know, because I had to kind of catch up on what you do.
Marc:But as the records moved on, it seemed like your electric tone got dirtier.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that was before the Peter Green business.
Guest:Yeah, I definitely, I was always into that stuff.
Guest:And to be honest, I think my blues, I was a little bit sniffy about like Chicago blues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was a bit of a, not purist, but like...
Guest:I was so into, like, old country blues.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And that finger stuff.
Guest:And that, you know, like Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, all those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It took me a while to accept that because there's a bit more showmanship to it.
Guest:And actually reading the book that you gave me, The Birth of Loud, I think it's called.
Guest:Oh, that's great, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And thinking about the technology...
Guest:and and seeing like and just it allowed me actually to to go on a journey with that a bit so i've been i've been listening to um more bb king and that kind of stuff and thinking yeah this i can do this now yeah it's a middle-aged thing but the the tone journey you're on the tone journey yeah i bought loads of pedals and everything i'm just yeah oh my god yeah i'd stay away from the pedals just get yourself a vintage fender amp
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I have a Blues Deluxe.
Marc:Yeah, they're the best.
Guest:Yeah, really nice.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:Well, it's good to see you, man.
Marc:You too.
Marc:You too.
Marc:So, what did you think of the movie when you watched the whole movie?
Marc:Our movie, Stardust.
Guest:I really liked it.
Guest:I mean, I thought it was really sweet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's a small film.
Guest:I'm getting so pissed off at the trolls about... Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Marc:with the bowie family didn't want it and this is terrible it's like are you i can't even pay attention to it i feel bad you know just it's just sort of like just shut up and don't see it if you don't want to see it yeah it's not a biopic no it's a movie about this weird little sliver in time it's a dangerous um a dangerous attitude to have as well it's a kind of cancel culture bullshit and
Guest:You know, the movie is journalistic in tone and is an objectivity that I think Gabriel wanted by not being in bed with the estate and not being disrespectful to the subject, but just having that authorial objectivity and being able to tell the story they wanted.
Marc:Right, and it was really...
Marc:It was a movie about, you know, artistic evolving as an artist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And trying to sort of source the kind of impulses that Bowie had and where his creativity came from at an early age.
Marc:It's not some sort of arcing thing.
Marc:And also it's sort of a kind of an interesting buddy film when it comes down to you and me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's sweet.
Guest:I like road movies.
Guest:And we went on that journey.
Guest:We were hanging out there.
Guest:It was cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:We were hanging out in that horrible car, in those horrible places, shooting very quickly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember Nick, the DP?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's 80 now.
Guest:You remember he only has hearing in one ear and he has one vocal cord.
Marc:it was crazy the 80 year old dp running around but he's like the real deal man he shot john lennon and all that stuff yeah he can make it look like the like the real thing which is all of that is i think what makes it good and it's i was surprised how good it looked dude because when you shoot something that quick i'm just sort of like are you sure you got it dude are you are we good yeah are we moving on here
Guest:I know.
Guest:I think Gabriel helped a lot.
Marc:And you did a great job.
Guest:Thanks.
Marc:I was talking to somebody.
Marc:I said, yeah, if I squinted, you know, he looked like Bowie.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:If I squint, it's like everything was there.
Guest:Shelby Bowie.
Guest:I didn't do enough coke.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:How many kids you got now?
Guest:Nine?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Three.
Guest:I was going to apologize.
Guest:You know, it's funny, something that's been bugging me.
Guest:You know, the day they came to set and I don't know if you remember this, but I thought about it afterwards.
Guest:We were having lunch.
Guest:And I was like, you were sat on the table and we were coming into the room to find a place to sit.
Guest:And you were there on your own in the table.
Guest:And I was thinking, Mark's on his lunch bait.
Guest:You know, he doesn't want to be bothered by these screaming.
Guest:I know what they're like when they get going.
Guest:They're like a swarm of locusts, you know.
Guest:And then we sat on a different table.
Guest:And I remember you looking over like...
Guest:oh didn't you want to sit with me and i and i felt and then i said after it's like oh i'm sorry we didn't sit with you and you were like oh it's all right but i knew that actually in that moment i thought oh he would have been okay with it and i wanted to say it was only that i was trying to protect you from my maniac children i am so glad you brought that up because i've been carrying that resentment for months ago
Marc:it's literally every time your name comes up i'm like fuck that guy and his kids yeah i knew i knew i fucked it i knew i fucked it and then no it was fine so like where let's i like i didn't realize until i i kind of did uh a little homework but um
Marc:that you did not only with the musicianship, but it seems to me that the acting, like it's something you always did was both of them, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you grew up in it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, where were you from?
Guest:I'm from, you know, oh, God, it's really complicated.
Guest:I grew up mostly on the south coast in a little village in a county called Hampshire, which is like, you know, pretty but not much happening.
Guest:In England?
Guest:In England, yeah.
Guest:And then when I was about 14, my parents moved to a fishing village in West Wales to this rural, beautiful, yeah, coastal village.
Guest:And I worked on a fishing boat there growing up.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:Where were you born, though?
Guest:Well, I was born in South Africa.
Guest:My dad was an actor.
Yeah.
Guest:He was on tour with a play, and my mom, whose parents had gone out to South Africa to be teachers, was living in South Africa, and she met my dad.
Guest:They got married.
Guest:They had me.
Marc:So your dad was on a tour in South Africa?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was touring a play.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So was he a big actor?
Guest:Well, he was kind of big in England at the time, in the UK.
Guest:A stage actor?
Guest:Stage and a bit of... He played Ivanhoe in a BBC thing of Ivanhoe.
Guest:He was in Disney, Doctor Sin, 60s.
Guest:He did a lot of B-movies and he did some Hammer movies and stuff.
Guest:But he was like an RSC...
Guest:guy you know like a stage um and he sang he sang and wrote songs so he he had a similar dynamic to me and he he he often was in musicals and stuff in the days when musicals were kind of credit credible so your mom is south african yeah i mean she's born there yeah her parents uh were sort of british by descent but she was yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your dad lived there for a while when she was pregnant with you or he moved there?
Guest:Yeah, he moved there.
Guest:He just dropped everything.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He must have really loved her.
Guest:I think he did.
Guest:He did.
Guest:Yeah, he had a family.
Guest:He had three kids, the youngest of which was 16.
Guest:So it was no small thing.
Guest:He left, you know, he went out.
Guest:So he was married when he fell for your mom?
Guest:he was but they were sort of my understanding is that they were sort of separated that they okay they kind of gone their own way and she met somebody the first wife met somebody at the same time who was actually my dad's friend and we and i'm very i'm very close with them so my dad's not around anymore but my the first wife and and and her partner they come to see me in plays and they you know i go and visit them they we had christmas together it's really and you've got a bunch of half brothers
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:They're two half-brothers and a half-sister, and the brothers are both actors as well.
Guest:I looked up one of them.
Guest:One of them looked familiar.
Guest:He looked scary.
Guest:Yeah, that one.
Guest:The scary one's more recently in Game of Thrones.
Guest:But he was in the 90s.
Guest:He also weirdly had a kind of pop career in the 90s in the UK, accidental one, because he sang a song in a show that he was in, and then he got offered money to put it out as a record record.
Guest:What's that guy's name?
Guest:Jerome Flynn.
Guest:My brother.
Guest:Jerome Flynn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're all a bunch of actor, singer guys.
Guest:Yeah, kind of, but very, you know, we don't talk about it.
Guest:And we're very different from each other.
Guest:And then my sister is also an actor.
Guest:I never know whether to say actor or actress.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she sings, and she's in my band, so she's on all the records and stuff and tours with me, and she has a great voice.
Guest:And she's my full sister.
Guest:Full sister, right.
Guest:Yeah, I have a younger sister, yeah.
Marc:Okay, so you're growing up, you're on the fishing boat.
Marc:How old are you on the fishing boat?
Guest:15, 16, till I was about 18.
Guest:So it's not a life decision.
Guest:In the holidays, yeah.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:It wasn't a career choice.
Guest:No, but I still think it was like the best job I ever had.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Lifting lobster pot.
Guest:Yeah, it was amazing.
Guest:I mean, it's something so mystical and beautiful and, you know, simple in that exchange and kind of weird as well.
Guest:You're hauling something up from the, I still have this, I have a fixation with the sea.
Guest:A good one?
Guest:I think so.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No, I mean, I'm terrified of it.
Marc:Like you're about to say you don't know what's going to be in the cage.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, exactly.
Marc:I just assume there's massive monsters under the sea.
Marc:And generally, if I'm in the sea, they're nearby in my mind.
Marc:We're just a few feet away from some giant monster that is going to rebel.
Guest:But wouldn't you rather that they were there than they're not there?
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:It feels like that's... Sure.
Marc:I just don't need to be near them.
Marc:I'm happy the sea can be filled with monsters, which it is.
Marc:I have no problem with that, but I don't need to be swimming near them.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's my feeling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On a boat, I'm okay.
Marc:It's a live and let live.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't need to kill the monster.
Guest:Have you seen My Octopus Teacher on Netflix?
Yeah.
Marc:Not yet.
Marc:I watched a trailer for it.
Marc:I feel like I got the idea.
Guest:I got the idea.
Guest:It is great.
Guest:I think it would crack open your heart.
Marc:It seems sad to me.
Marc:I mean, how much crying do I have to do?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:The guy follows around an octopus and then it dies?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Hole in one.
Guest:You did the trailer, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I hear it's good.
Guest:I'll, I'll watch it eventually.
Guest:Netflix should send you all the, all the shows for you to do the voice on the trailer.
Marc:So when do you, um, so like in this fishing village, is that where you start acting?
Marc:When did you, when does that become part?
Guest:No, I went, I went off to drama school, uh, when I was 18, 19, maybe.
Guest:Um,
Guest:yeah the way you know the the sort of traditional route in this country is if you want to be an actor you might go through university or just kind of get lucky or get spotted or whatever but if you really are going for it you go to drama school and it's like a vocational training like a three-year course and um it's really hard to get in yeah you know there's like you know 5,000 people 10,000 people auditioning for you know 12 places or something and I got into a good one and um
Guest:I was always playing music.
Guest:I was playing in bands at school and stuff.
Guest:And then when I was in London at drama school, I started running a club night with a couple of friends, basically just so we could play, so we could put ourselves on to play.
Guest:And we put on these gigs and we invited all our friends.
Marc:But early on, what was the music, though?
Marc:I mean, were you in a rock band?
Marc:Because it seems like...
Marc:In the first record, you were doing kind of folky shit right away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, was that always a thing or did you start with rock and then move?
Guest:I mean, I grew up listening to a lot of punk music and a lot of like...
Guest:thrashy stuff and um i was always it wasn't that i was yeah i think this is why it's quite difficult i'm often kind of pinioned by the folk circuit and i get invited to play by folk you know festivals and things and then the and then the traditional folk
Guest:musicians often are like who the fuck who the fuck are you kind of thing because i don't know all those hundreds of that still goes on oh yeah big that still happens they're still in this country it's huge really yeah it's it's big and it's coming back in a big big way what the folk is but folk into kind of mainstreamy sort of
Guest:I mean, there's a few, there's a few, I, I find it, I find it really, I always hated being called folk because I, it had this connotation of like, um, I don't know, just something kind of really naff.
Guest:And, uh, I, I liked people like Billy Bragg who, who, who had that energy and, and they knew that the folk, um,
Guest:Idiom was just a way of raging at the political system.
Marc:So you're listening to punk rock, and then the first bands you're in, what's the angle?
Marc:More Billy Braggish?
Guest:Well, what happened was around that time in 2004...
Guest:2005 when I first started playing out live.
Marc:When you're in drama school?
Guest:Yeah, coming out of drama school, yeah.
Marc:So you're playing, you're in drama school, but you're also playing guitar at that point.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you've got guys you play with and you start to run a night where you guys can jam.
Marc:What are you guys mostly playing?
Marc:i mean it's more like rock band stuff then it's like kind of jam band right jam band yeah good so so then you're going to drama school and now in drama school in drama school what do you do like what's the program you learning shakespeare is that what you do yeah like this is like uh it's basically high school correct or no no it's college it's college yeah it's after high school yeah it's university college yeah and um and the training is mostly shakespeare
Guest:You have a Shakespeare class, you do a lot of Shakespeare plays, but you do movement and it's kind of a bit wanky.
Guest:It's a bit up itself because everybody takes themselves very seriously.
Guest:There's this whole kind of concept of...
Guest:there's a, there's a cliche about breaking you down and, and, uh, you do acting exercises where you stare into a mirror for 10 hours and, you know, you, you did trust exercises and all this kind of stuff.
Marc:Oh, you do that kind of stuff along with the classical stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, and then classical stuff.
Guest:And I think the English sort of theater sensibility is that that stuff is intertwined.
Guest:and if you're really rebellious and you're reading books i was reading um interviews with stella adler and and like that's you know sure that's kind of even though that's like 50 years ago that's avant-garde in in like english drama schools and they're not they're they don't do the they're not method they're not they're more classical
Guest:Not so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're quite proud of that as well.
Guest:They think that that's the route generally.
Guest:But we also had some interesting directors who'd come in.
Guest:They would expose us to these kind of individual minds and creatives who would just do their thing.
Guest:And that was cool.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a way of becoming people-proof.
Guest:You're like in a theatre company where every week you're doing a different play and rap kind of thing at the end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was running the club nights and I was busking sometimes on the South Bank in London, just going down on my guitar.
Guest:I was running everywhere with a guitar on my back and going from somebody's house to play this jam, to do this thing.
Marc:Was it always the plan, though?
Marc:Both of them kind of ran equal with you, music and acting.
Marc:It wasn't like you were doing the acting, but you wanted to do more music.
Marc:They were just sort of both what you did, because it seems that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At that point, I didn't really believe that I would make it in either thing.
Guest:So it was like working really hard for both.
Yeah.
Guest:I really wanted to take acting seriously because I'd been a music scholar at school, which meant that I'd been playing a lot of classical music.
Guest:So I had a good sort of took good chops for like theory and I played violin and stuff like that.
Marc:Oh, you can read music and play violin?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that you playing the violin on those early records?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's some wild, weird violin.
Guest:Oh, and there's some cello as well that's quite out there as well.
Guest:That's not me.
Guest:The cello's not me.
Guest:That's my fun cello.
Marc:Some out-there cello.
Marc:Where'd you pull the out-there cello from?
Guest:Like John Cale?
Guest:John Cale was an inspiration for that stuff.
Guest:And like Warren Ellis, the way Warren Ellis plays with the bads, you know...
Guest:I wanted to have... Anyway, you don't want to get to that first sound yet, but I wanted to mix loads of things together, basically.
Marc:I wanted to have... Well, that's the thing that I noticed, is that I'm kind of curious about the folk, real folk, fake folk war, because out of nowhere, like a few months ago...
Marc:I got turned on to the Incredible String Band.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I didn't know their shit.
Marc:I didn't know anything about them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I was going through this book of, like, the 100 essential rock records, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I have most of them.
Marc:And the ones I don't have, I don't like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was the Incredible String Band.
Marc:I'm like, I know nothing about these guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I bought one record.
Marc:Uh, you know, I got, it wasn't even the, the farmer's daughter, the hangman's daughter record.
Marc:It was, um, maybe the first record I got their first album.
Guest:The circle is unbroken or something.
Marc:The very first one.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I was like, it might, it might be self-titled.
Marc:And I was like, holy shit, what the fuck is this?
Marc:And then I got the second record, the 5,000 layers of the whatever.
Marc:Yeah, of Daniel.
Marc:I think that's the best one.
Marc:Yeah, that's great.
Marc:The Hangman's Daughter is good, but I think that the layers of whatever.
Guest:That's my favorite.
Guest:So in answer to your question, I discovered that stuff, like sort of early 60s,
Guest:I suddenly discovered like Fairport Convention and the incredible string band and a lot of those early island record things and the stuff.
Guest:Pentangle.
Guest:Pentangle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, this is really cool.
Guest:It's got such a thing and it's so rooted in my own tradition.
Guest:You know, my.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Gaelic roots.
Guest:This is my inheritance.
Guest:You know, this is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And.
Guest:I read this interview with Fairport Convention because I loved Richard Thompson.
Guest:I love this album.
Guest:He's insane.
Marc:I know that guy.
Marc:He's so good.
Guest:He's amazing, yeah.
Marc:I interviewed him and then by coincidence, he was playing the night before I played in Dublin.
Marc:And I got there and I was all jet lagged and turned inside out.
Marc:But I went down to the venue because he was playing there and I just interviewed him a few weeks before.
Marc:So he actually knew me.
Marc:He had a frame for me.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:And I was able to hang out with him backstage, but I'd never seen him live before.
Marc:And man, he can turn a guitar inside out, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's his picking style that I copied.
Guest:That's what I went for.
Guest:And that album... Leige and Leaf?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, Legion, that was huge for me.
Guest:But the stuff he did with his now ex-wife, with Linda.
Marc:Oh, the Richard and Linda albums?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're the best, man.
Guest:They're so good.
Guest:And I know that stuff's all quite spread out, but hearing that stuff, you go, this is rooted in something that I...
Guest:have a right to play you know these songs are influenced by um uh certain scales that are in my idiom you know they're just in my bones through my you know where i'm from and and i grew up playing where where but where exactly britain or ireland or what
Guest:Yeah, my dad was sort of Irish, but my mom's dad was Scottish, my mom was Welsh, and my dad's mom was a Cockney, like a proper kind of Londoner.
Marc:So you just, you felt like it was, you know, it was historically appropriate in that, you know, you lived and breathed this stuff somewhere through your genetics.
Guest:I was looking for some authenticity, some sense of belonging.
Guest:And I'd been, the big thing, I said I listened to a lot of punk and stuff growing up, but the big thing for me was Dylan, like huge.
Guest:Like, I'm still, he's, I'm a disciple of Dylan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everything that that led me to, you know, whether it's like the Paul Busfield blues band or... He's a Jew from Minnesota, but okay.
Guest:No, that's what I mean.
Guest:But I'm like, I want to go as deep as that, but I can't just rip off Dylan, so I have to be who I am.
Guest:And then I found that... He ripped off everybody.
Guest:If you ripped off Dylan, you'd be ripping off everybody.
Guest:I've since figured that out, but...
Guest:But isn't that beautiful?
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:It's cool.
Guest:And Bowie was the same.
Guest:He just smashed all these things together and it became its own unique thing.
Guest:And that's the story that we told, which is cool.
Guest:Just to round back to that.
Marc:To bring it back.
Marc:So it was really, it was the kind of those kind of psych folk and rock folk bands of the mid to late 60s that kind of blew you away.
Marc:I could see that, man, because I had never heard...
Marc:You know, I just got a Pentangle record and I found them, I thought they would be a little boring, but I just got my first Pentangle record after getting all of the fucking Incredible String Band records.
Marc:And they're equally as interesting because the way that, the thing I liked about the Incredible String Band is that they were using bizarro instruments, you know, international instruments, but they weren't showcasing them.
Marc:They were just integrating them.
Marc:Everything sort of had balance.
Marc:It wasn't like,
Marc:Look, it's not like Brian Jones on the sitar.
Marc:It was like they honored the sound and integrated it into something that felt very loose, but had a lot of space to it, but hung together so beautifully.
Marc:It was almost like each one of those records is some sort of, you know, kind of miracle of unity.
Marc:I don't know how they do it, but it doesn't feel like they it sounded a lot of times like they were really playing all at once and there wasn't much separation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:When I first heard the... I've had, like, spiritual experiences listening to The Incredible String Band.
Guest:It feels like an acid trip without taking acid.
Guest:It feels like... What you just said, it's the looseness, and they're just... Yeah.
Guest:It's like their hearts are, like, searching for something together.
Guest:It's, like, so... It's exquisite.
Guest:It's crazy, man.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, not just that.
Guest:Oh, you have to read this book, White Bicycles.
Guest:Joe Boyd, who produced them.
Guest:I have it.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:But it tells the story of when he discovered them and recorded Nick Drake and all those guys.
Guest:And his first job was he was the tour manager.
Guest:When he was like 20, he took Reverend Gary Davis and Rosetta Tharp and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee all around Europe.
Guest:as the manager of this blues train tour, and he can't keep them together, and they're all, like, fighting, and it's really cool.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I've got to read it.
Marc:It's been sitting on my bed table forever.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:All right, so now you've put together this.
Marc:This is what you've decided your legacy is.
Marc:You know, you've mashed up your brain with Fairport and Thompson and Pentangle and Incredible String Band and Dylan, and then you...
Marc:But what sort of comes first for you?
Marc:I mean, how do you decide?
Marc:Because it seems like you started doing some television before the records, right?
Guest:There was a point early on where I was really passionate about being an actor and I wanted to work in like new writing theater.
Guest:I wanted to work at the Royal Court Theater, which is like a political, it's a writer's theater.
Guest:They just have the writer's name in the headlights and stuff.
Guest:And I worked.
Guest:In fact, I was an usher at this place called The Bush, which was a room above a pub.
Guest:And I saw these amazing little studio plays.
Guest:It's a bit like the old days of Steppenwolf.
Marc:A little black box?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:theater that you feel is changing the world you know one one mind at a time kind of thing changing the world with an audience of seven yeah at a time yeah yeah not even sometimes tuesday nights just three yeah um but you know i got out of college and of course you know and i got an agent and
Guest:They're very sweet, but I was being sent up for these things that I would get on a TV show or something and realize that this isn't where my heart is.
Guest:This isn't what I want to do.
Guest:And I couldn't get a job in those places that I wanted to work.
Guest:And then I put more into the music because it was... And I would use... I would get a TV job and I would use the money to pay my band so that I could just do the music.
Guest:Well, it's interesting.
Marc:It seems fortunate that, you know, because you're you know, you're 20 years younger than me.
Marc:So, you know, and you're liking a lot of the things that I liked, which was, you know, before my time as well.
Marc:Even the 60s was before my time that we all are sort of in lost in this wave of all that stuff that was done before us.
Marc:But.
Marc:But you're lucky that you romanticize this stuff because it seems that whether or not that theater that you wanted to be part of was actually changing minds or not.
Marc:And I had the same thing.
Marc:You're like, this stuff is deep.
Marc:It's making a difference.
Marc:But just whether it was or it wasn't or whether or not that sort of sentiment has repeated itself with young performers, it did enable you to have...
Marc:some sense of personal integrity around knowing what you didn't want to do and kind of compelled you out of, you know, like I'll do the TV gig, but I'll funnel the money into something that I have complete control over in terms of my expressing my creativity.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I still believe...
Guest:And I think, you know, look at the Velvet Underground, you know, that's the one that everyone quotes, like, you know, the band that only 100 people bought records from and then, you know, and now every band, you know, and it all bleeds down.
Guest:I think when you really invest in stuff with integrity, it pays dividends on a global scale, even if you only play that show for three people or whatever.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think if you apply that to everything.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I've definitely done my share of shows for nobody.
Marc:I think, if anything, it does harden your resolve around what you're doing and make you better.
Marc:And then, you know, there's always going to be like one or two people that are like, do you remember that night when you performed for four people and that one guy threw something at you?
Marc:I'm like, oh, fuck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's like, that was the best show I ever saw.
Marc:Like, well, glad you were one of the four that saw it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But when you're going back and doing the music, I mean, you decide, were you writing songs just on the guitar and then, you know, kind of building them out?
Yeah.
Guest:it's hard to describe what, what I was doing.
Guest:I was like, I was just kind of doodling all the time.
Guest:I was, I was, a lot of what I did was, was lyrically based, you know, I was, I started, I started, um, I had lots of notebooks and, uh,
Guest:All those years of being a student and being in London and being broke and being on tour and stuff.
Guest:It was my way of processing things.
Guest:I never kept a diary, but I would get on the... We've got a tube line.
Guest:It doesn't actually go in a circle anymore, but you used to be able to go on the tube and go in a circle and just stay on the line.
Guest:And I would get on in the morning...
Guest:And I would get off at four in the afternoon and just go round and round.
Guest:And I just was a way of processing, you know, seeing faces and I was scribbling my notebook if I didn't have anything to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think I have ADD and I think that kind of thing suits me very well.
Guest:Just I digest the world and it comes out in lyrics and in little melodies and stuff.
Guest:I've been walking around, you know, when you're, I don't know, just always humming little tunes and...
Guest:I'd have to run home and, you know, it's before like iPhones and stuff.
Guest:So I'd have to, to find, and then I would find, go through, I had hundreds of notebooks.
Guest:I'd go through the notebooks and match the right lyric to the right melody.
Guest:And it was like a jigsaw puzzle for me.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And I was listening to so much music and collecting music because it was all still kind of CDs and stuff, you know, almost.
Guest:It was that verge of, I really hated when the digital thing came in because I was so proud of these boxes of CDs that I would carry around.
Guest:I spent years.
Marc:And now you don't even know where they are.
Marc:I got a fucking, I got hundreds of CDs.
Marc:I'm not even sure where they are.
Marc:But now I got the record thing going, which is out of fucking control.
Guest:I like my records, yeah.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been buying old Fleetwood Mac records.
Guest:I wrote off Fleetwood Mac.
Guest:I was just like, oh, they're the, you know, it's the Stevie Nicks thing.
Guest:And I fucking changed your mind.
Guest:You were the gospel, the gospel of Mark.
Guest:So now you got all those Peter Green records.
Guest:I do.
Guest:And they sound so good on the vinyl.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know that song?
Marc:I think I played it for you, man.
Marc:Have you listened to that?
Guest:Jumping in Shadows.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I listened to the original one.
Marc:Did you know the guy who wrote it?
Marc:was kind of a British, kind of an odd British performer.
Marc:And I just now, I forget the guy's name now.
Marc:Do you know it?
Marc:No.
Marc:Hold on, hold on.
Marc:Because he's kind of his own weirdo.
Guest:But there's a live version that's really amazing.
Marc:That's the best.
Marc:That's the only one there is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the guy's name is Duster Bennett.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And I went out and got a Duster Bennett record.
Guest:I'm going to write that down.
Marc:He's kind of like this dude.
Marc:He's almost like a one-man band guy.
Marc:And the weird thing about him, I think John Mayall produced him.
Marc:Let's see.
Marc:Yeah, he was a virtuosic chord.
Marc:He's like a one-man band.
Marc:And he plays guitar, drums, and harmonica.
Marc:And it's his song, dude.
Marc:And if you listen to this, it's one of those moments you're going to listen to it and you're like, oh my God, Peter Green fucking lifted this guy's vocal styling.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I don't know what this guy was or what place he had in the world.
Guest:Sounds like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Marc:Right, but it was like, you'll see it.
Marc:You're like, who is this weirdo?
Marc:And I don't know much about him, but I know that Jimmy Vivino said it's a Duster Bennett song.
Marc:And then I went and got some Duster Bennett music and he's like totally his own thing, but you can completely hear his total influence on Peter Green.
Guest:Okay, cool.
Guest:I'm going to check it out.
Guest:Duster Bennett, dude.
Guest:You're going to be like, oh my God.
Guest:You changed my life again.
Marc:Well, I just found it, man.
Marc:I don't know why it took me so long to check it out, because I just love the song.
Marc:So I wanted to hear what the original thing sounded like.
Marc:I don't think... There is no studio version of that, of Fleetwood Mac doing it.
Guest:Is there?
Guest:I haven't found one.
Guest:No, it's only the live one that I'm... Right.
Guest:That guitar solo, man.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he's great.
Guest:And B.B.
Guest:King said he's the only one, the only white guy... Yeah, that made him weep.
Guest:Yeah, that made him cry.
Yeah.
Marc:So, like, how do you feel about Shakespeare?
Marc:Are you good with it?
Marc:I mean, like, did you do a lot of Shakespeare?
Guest:I love Shakespeare, yeah.
Guest:I did a lot.
Guest:I did... Yeah, early on I did that tour when I was kind of writing the first album.
Guest:The finger-picking tour.
Guest:Yeah, the finger-picking tour.
Guest:And I... I loved it because I...
Guest:i say i was bored i was never really bored it was it was like i was the youngest one it was all male done not you know kind of modern dress but like we were like a traveling troop in in the manner of an old uh elizabethan all male troop and uh we went all around the world we were in new york and the old vic and london hong kong australia and we were like
Guest:And they were wild, these guys.
Guest:They were like the wildest bunch of guys I've ever met.
Guest:And really fun.
Guest:Yeah, it was really fun.
Guest:Theater rogues.
Guest:And nearly died.
Guest:But it was... I loved... How'd you nearly die?
Guest:From boozing?
Guest:Yeah, they just...
Guest:Yeah, I won't go into details.
Guest:They played hard, and they worked hard.
Guest:They were putting you through your paces.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They were like, let's see what this kid's made out of.
Guest:I found some pictures of that tour recently, and I thought, fuck, if anyone sees these.
Guest:They're just like, it was really, it was quite debauched, but like, not in a morally bankrupt way, just, you know.
Guest:No, I get it.
Marc:The funny thing is, you could have ended up one of them and you didn't.
Guest:No, but I know some of them still.
Guest:Anyway, I can't.
Marc:I'm not saying they're bad guys, Johnny, but you know what I'm saying.
Marc:It's like you get taken through the paces and either you're going to get a monkey on your back or you're not.
Guest:You had higher ambitions, my friend.
Guest:Well, they, yeah, the boozing in the English theater thing is quite a, you know, they go hand in hand.
Guest:They have bar, in the old rep companies, they have bars in the side of the stage.
Guest:You used to be able to go get a pint while you wait for your cue or whatever.
Guest:Anyway, they were straight out of that.
Guest:canon um and then i at the end of that tour i got i got a record deal i was in new york i got this call and um universal uh wanted to sign me for a five album deal to mercury
Guest:Which is the same label I just realized.
Guest:That I worked for in the movie.
Guest:Yeah, that you worked for.
Guest:So I was signed to Mercury for one album.
Guest:And then they promised me the world and then they took it away.
Guest:And they were really cowardly, actually.
Marc:So you did the first album with them, Alarum?
Guest:Yeah, I did that album.
Guest:I think they were a bit shocked at how much I went into the oldie folky thing.
Guest:They were like, where's the drums and the radio hits?
Guest:Where's the pop song?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also it was the 2008 crash and...
Guest:uh the the downloads was killing the industry and and also razor light was the big out band on the on the label and they bombed their last album bombed so they were like having said you know you're a you're a career artist you could do whatever you want they said okay now
Guest:give us five radio hits uh here's you know five thousand pounds you have to demo five radio surefire you know a class bangers otherwise you're you're out and i and i i think i just handed in like the sound of like dogs farting like on purpose i just got out of the deal rebel fuck you man i'm not playing your game
Guest:It didn't suit me.
Guest:And I just I just was like very happy.
Guest:It was a very uncomfortable thing for me, actually.
Guest:I mean, you know me.
Guest:I'm kind of shy.
Guest:And I and I felt like they were pushing something that I wasn't happy with.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:I don't know what they wanted from me.
Guest:I just, anyway.
Guest:But how did that record do the first record?
Guest:Well, it sold considering there were no record sales at the time.
Guest:It sold like, I don't know what the sales are now, but in that first year, it did like 50,000 or something.
Guest:It was pretty good.
Guest:And I was the only Brit signed to Lost Highway in the States, which is Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and everything.
Guest:That was a big kick for me.
Guest:coming to nashville for the first time and um going into those offices and and um but anyway i always felt like a bit of a an imposter not an imposter just like what am i doing you know like i should just be playing the small club you know just i don't know like i was always being pushed too hard um and i and i think i said yes you became very popular right
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Guest:I think if I was popular, I think it was because I was honest or trying to be honest all the time.
Guest:And that was what mattered to me.
Guest:I didn't want to sell any bullshit.
Guest:And ironically, if you're popular because of that...
Guest:then, you know, pretty soon you're going to be having, you know, you can't see the people that you're trying to be honest to.
Guest:And then, you know, there's nothing else to do but to sell bullshit.
Guest:So it becomes vacuous.
Guest:You know, if you go out and play, if you're that person and you want to play in clubs for 20 people, but you get put on a support tour for 50,000 people or whatever, it's not right.
Guest:You know, not necessarily.
Yeah.
Marc:But you didn't do that?
Marc:You didn't go out as a support pack?
Guest:We did a little bit.
Guest:We did a bit of that.
Guest:And some of our friends were being picked up.
Guest:With like Mumford & Sons and people like that.
Marc:Because it feels to me that that was like the world that enabled...
Marc:you know, the type of music you were doing to find some sort of public following was that there was that kind of like folky singer-songwriter-y, many people on stage with many different country instruments.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doing things.
Guest:When we started doing it, I know this is...
Guest:Sounds like I'm trying to claim it or something.
Guest:But there wasn't anyone doing it.
Guest:Weirdly, it was the way to go because it was rebellious to... Yeah, the existing pop music.
Guest:Yeah, it was the end of what they called the new rock revolution, like the strokes and the highs and all that stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And me and my friends were putting on these club nights and we felt like, I don't know, we wanted to be original.
Guest:And so the way to be original was to get your acoustic guitar and go that way.
Guest:Go back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, Mumford and those guys are really sweet.
Guest:But the first time we came to America, they were supporting me and Laura Marling.
Guest:And then because of the formula of their music and just how it connects to people, it went huge.
Guest:And then they would invite us on tours.
Guest:So people always affiliated us.
Guest:But actually, their record came out around the time our second record came out kind of thing.
Guest:The Mumford record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who are the other ones?
Marc:Aren't there the Lubinaires?
Marc:Are they another one of that type of thing?
Guest:I've seen... They're American.
Guest:They're... In fact, the guy... I think they're later.
Guest:The guy who produced our first record did that big hit for them.
Guest:That we did.
Guest:We made... Yeah.
Guest:We made our first record in Seattle and our second record with an American producer.
Guest:Because I was...
Guest:I think, you know, I wanted some of the energy of that, like grunge thing, you know, the purity of that.
Guest:And like, I was in love with the Pixies and their melodies and the chord changes.
Guest:I wanted to see what would happen if you put that in the voice of a cello and a guitar and a thing.
Marc:Well, it seems like between Shakespeare and Fairport Convention and Incredible String Band and the Pixies and Bob Dylan, you're sort of hyper aware of what you dig.
Marc:But I noticed that there was sort of an evolution of production and sound going on throughout the four or five records.
Marc:You know, as they evolved, you kept to the core.
Marc:You kept to the core of who you are in terms of writing and some of the instruments.
Marc:But there was definitely a shift in, you know, guitar tone and the number of instruments.
Marc:And certainly the the production became more defined as you went on.
Marc:Were there were there were there hits?
Guest:Um, no, I mean, we're not a hit, but, you know, that's just not something that I'm striving for, but I, it's weird.
Marc:I mean, sometimes it happens, pal, you know?
Guest:Well, we have, I, yeah, we've, we've, I've had, I suppose, oh, I get a bit like awkward talking about it, but we, you know, that certain songs have become like radio favorites.
Guest:Like every, the other day I was in the kitchen and so I wrote, I wrote a song which was used for the theme tune for a show, which was popular here called the Detectorists.
Guest:And I wrote this song and it's played on the radio like all the time.
Guest:And maybe once or twice a week, somebody will come up to me or tap me on the shoulder or write to me online and say, we're getting married in a week.
Guest:You know, can you come and sing the song or we're going to play the song?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:anyway how often do you go to get to a wedding and do the song never never i feel like that's a floodgate i don't want to yeah but you i want to you you also said something that stuck with me when we were working together which was i was like i was a bit washed up with playing live at the time and i was telling you about it and you were like
Guest:It's really simple.
Guest:Just do something new every time.
Guest:Do you remember that?
Guest:You said do something that scares you.
Guest:And you said that every time you're working, you're doing a movie in a different town or whatever, you book into the local comedy store and you do a bit.
Guest:And since then...
Guest:I've always, you know, on whatever it is, I just, and also I say yes to things that I know will fucking terrifying.
Guest:I was scared to come on this, by the way, because I'm a fan of the show and, you know, but I just, I'm now into doing shit that scares me and it's because of you.
Guest:So that's cool.
Guest:And how is it working for you?
Guest:It's brilliant.
Guest:My parameter, you know, I'm living on a different scale of, you know, I know that the worst that can happen is I freak out and it's not so bad.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, and also it puts you into a sort of present.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like, you know, you can there's a response you get to stuff that you've polished that's like rewarding.
Marc:But to sort of step out there, you know, and being the type of guy you are with the sort of desire for authenticity, that there are those moments where you take those kind of chances.
Marc:And it's a much different experience in terms of how you connect.
Marc:And how it connects to you.
Marc:Well, good, man.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:You're riffing.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Thanks for that.
Marc:But alongside, I mean, it seems to me that you are known as a pretty significant actor as well.
Marc:I mean, it seems like my manager...
Marc:One of my managers, Kelly, she's a huge fan of your music.
Marc:And I hadn't even, when I took the gig for Stardust, I didn't know you or your music.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And she's like a huge fan.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:And I didn't even know that existed.
Marc:So, but it just means that you have a very, you know, a large and dedicated fan base that isn't, it's completely based on the sort of authenticity of your output, not because you're some sort of weird overproduced hit machine, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it also seems that, you know, as an actor, you get a lot of credit as well.
Marc:So that's sort of in terms of evolving that alongside of the music.
Marc:I mean, how are you conscious of that process?
Marc:How did you reengage and, you know, transcend the sort of ennui or anger towards commercial acting gigs?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um what happened was i went off and did that you know when when when i got offered the record deal after the theater tour and i'd done a couple of yeah you know tv you know felt i did a movie and i think none of it was um particularly satisfying for my soul um
Guest:And then, and, and, and I got the deal.
Guest:And then I was like, right, this is what I'm doing.
Guest:And I, and I, I tried to kind of resign as an actor.
Guest:I wrote to my agents.
Guest:I was like, I'm, I'm being, I'm being a musician now.
Guest:I'm out.
Guest:I'm out.
Guest:And then, cause I, I just, I can't do it with any distraction or I'm giving it everything.
Guest:I want to be right.
Guest:I want my, you know, the music bleeding fingers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I did it for like four years or five, you know, we did two records and I was like on tour solidly and making the records.
Guest:And we went all over the world and we had an amazing time.
Guest:And my band, it felt like, you know, you have to work so fucking hard as a band starting out.
Guest:You know, we were in a bus together driving ourselves.
Guest:Sometimes when we went to America, we'd all be in like one car, you know, with the drums like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And driving coast to coast.
Guest:We did that like eight times, you know.
Guest:And then it was amazing, but I was so exhausted.
Guest:And I needed... I was like, I miss...
Guest:I still had that inclination to tell really good stories, you know, and I loved doing theater especially.
Guest:And then out of the blue, I got a- And also you had a family, right?
Marc:By this point, didn't you want to stay home?
Guest:No, I was about to have a kid.
Guest:I didn't have a kid yet.
Guest:I was on and off with my now wife.
Guest:you know being you know mid-20s and then and then i got an offer from the royal court which is this theater that i was telling you about that i wanted to work at and it's the only place i ever wanted to work and they they they gave me a great job um in a play with juliet stevenson uh called the heretic and and i and then and then my wife got pregnant and
Guest:and it's such a small theater that there's no understudies and they were like you know the baby's the baby was due in the last week and you have to sign this contract so you're on stage every night no matter what and um so i had to agree with her that that i would potentially miss the birth of the baby anyway i did the job and i didn't miss the baby you made it for the birth i made it for the birth
Marc:But then, OK, so the stage.
Marc:So the shift to the acting was primarily, you know, you started a family.
Marc:You were exhausted from, you know, touring too much.
Marc:And you got a great opportunity with a theater that you respected.
Marc:And from there, it just kind of grew out, I guess.
Marc:Kept going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at that point, I was, I guess, you know, being offered the kind of jobs that I always wanted to do.
Guest:And it was a lucky, it was a lucky thing.
Guest:I got to a place where I was like, well, it's either going to happen or it's not.
Guest:And it kept happening.
Guest:And
Marc:So you got opportunities to do to do more Shakespeare and then the movies and I guess that movie Beast is the one that really was huge like that film I think it was because yeah, I don't know it was Jesse was amazing.
Guest:He was in it with me and it was this director Michael Pierce He'd spent about 10 years developing the story and anyway, yeah stuff shit like that that was this is what I dreamt of all along I think
Guest:It's because I looked too young when I was 24 to play anything interesting.
Guest:I looked like a 15-year-old, so I had to look like a 25-year-old as a 30-year-old, and then it got... Well, it seems like you're aging well.
Marc:You've got a nice family going.
Marc:I was excited to do the movie with you.
Marc:I'm glad that...
Marc:I'm glad that it's coming out.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I'm glad that the fucking, the trolls have, they're all watching the election now.
Guest:They stopped.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:It's like, it doesn't matter.
Marc:You know, it was, it ultimately, and you know, I got to be honest with you, a lot of them will see it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's just, they're not going to be able to help themselves.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So fuck them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, exactly.
Guest:But I also, I just, the thing I want is, because the trailer and maybe the name started, I don't want the people to have the wrong impression.
Guest:Like the trailer sets it up like it's this big bombastic, you know, accompaniment.
Guest:It's a bad trailer.
Guest:And, and the music, none of that, that music's not in our movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also like, it's just that people are missing the idea that it's just, it's a small story about a guy wrestling with some demons, you know, afraid of becoming like his, his mentally ill brother and, and trying to sort of figure out who he is.
Marc:I mean, it's really, that's what it's about.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's not like some big Bowie biopic.
Marc:But look, once it gets reviewed and once people see it, that word will get out.
Marc:And I'll try to make that clear tonight when I do Fallon.
Marc:Cool, man.
Guest:Yeah, nice one.
Guest:Oh, it's really good to see you.
Guest:Great to see you too, man.
Guest:Yeah, keep in touch.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:I'll talk to you soon.
Guest:I'm going to send you some of the new stuff I've been doing.
Guest:It's completely different.
Guest:It's not the oldie, folky stuff.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:More tone?
Marc:Is this the new tone freak?
Guest:Loads of tone.
Guest:Johnny Foyne?
Guest:Loads of tone.
Guest:Okay, buddy.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:Talk to you later.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:Bye.
Marc:all right there you go that was johnny johnny who texted me after that he said he he didn't like his interview he thought he was waffly waffly maybe he was i don't know but i think that's just the way he is and also uh the movie that johnny and i are in stardust opens this wednesday november 25th i would see it even if you're a bowie fan people are liking it and now i will play a
Marc:Beautifully distorted, slower, instrumental version of a song that I wrote and I played for you last week, but it's a work in progress.
Marc:I'm done in this.
Marc:I'm just trying to evolve it and maybe I'll get into a get in the studio with it when I write a couple other songs.
Marc:But whatever.
Marc:This is just a different approach to it.
Marc:No singing.
Marc:Just the slow, grumbly tube sustain of a couple of P90s.
Guest:guitar solo
Guest:guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Monkey!
Marc:La Fonda!