Two hours before Teddy Thompson stepped on stage for the first night of his new tour, Vanessa Monaghan caught up with him to chat about his new album ‘Bella’ and about growing up in a musical family.
Being brought backstage to meet an artist can be awkward, it can feel like you are threading on their turf. No such feelings with Teddy Thompson though. A perfect gent, he even sorted out a nice seat for your intrepid reporter. We settle down and get stuck into the questions.
Your first album hit the shelves over ten years ago, now on his fifth album how different are they?
‘I feel like they change a lot every time, I mean, I’m one of those people who is unhappy with everything I do as soon as I’ve done it. And the longer that goes by, the harder it is for me to look at it and be pleased at all. So, even they one before this, I listen to it and I go ‘Ooh I didn’t get that quite right, This one’s much better.‘
So it that a sign of being a perfectionist or striving for something more each time?
‘Yeah, It’s being a perfectionist. For a long time I thought being a perfectionist meant that you did things perfectly (laughs). Then I found out that that’s not what being a perfectionist is at all, it’s somebody that’s just unhappy with what they’ve done and wants to get it perfect but often, most of the time, feels like the don’t get close. But it can work that way too, it makes you strive for something better each time, so it’s a useful thing. I think the longer you go, like it’s ten years now, I can listen to my first record and not be unhappy, be kind of embarrassed but I can find good moments in it because it seems like so long ago.’
It was your first album, so there was probably a bit of excitement about it? Stroking his chin, thoughtfully, Thompson replies
‘I don’t think I’ve ever sounded too excited. It’s not some adjective that’s used to describe me too much.’
The musically inclined public tend to have associations with songs, where they were when they heard them, who they were with. When you listen back to your own five albums worth of material does that happen to you or do you view the whole process when listening to an album?
‘Aahh, For me, I usually associate my different records with times in my life but usually the time I was making it and not writing it. So if I hear a song from the last album, I think of being in London, that studio and that coffee shop I went to, the people who came in and out and the fun that we had. Songwise, it’s only a few songs where I really think of the time that I wrote them that really stands out.’
Thompson is just starting his tour in Dublin and has a full schedule, gigging and promo, for the tour in support of his new album ‘Bella’. Is it quite daunting, if you haven’t been on the road for a while? Plus you’re going to have to put up with people like me asking questions.
‘It’s a combination of excitement and dread, depending on how you’re feeling that day.‘
Thompson never rushes his answers and takes his time before continuing.
‘I do feel, more and more quite privileged just to be doing it, as the music business has got worse and worse and smaller and smaller, less and less money in it and less money able to make records and tour at a decent level.’
When speaking about this Thompson is so intense. He genuinely means what he is saying, it’s etched over his face.
‘I feel quite grateful just to be here‘ (he chuckles), ‘That’s on a good day, on a bad day I’m miserable cos it’s cold and my throat hurts.’
And you’re on a tour bus somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
‘Tour bus? I wish! Tourvan‘,he smiles.
Teddy Thompson has worked with some amazing producers during his career including Marius De Vries (Moulin Rouge, Elbow, Pet Shop Boys) and David Kahne (The Bangles, Paul McCartney) who worked on ‘Bella’. How does the process work, do you adjust to how they work or vice versa?
‘Hmm, It’s a fine balance, like having a relationship with somebody for a short time, a couple of months. So it’s interesting. Personality is a huge part of it. Marius was someone I knew beforehand and got on with. That made the whole thing a lot easier. There’s a certain amount of both, give and take, certain amount of his style and sound he imposes and a certain amount of my will that I impose. With David, it was very different because I didn’t know him at all. So really the first day when we went in there was, we’d met obviously, it was all new. We actually had some fractious moments, for the first time we have some like, mini fights.‘
Thompson smiles,
‘Not so much fights, I’m too English for them. I’d get quiet and storm out. It’s interesting, I mean, there’s a lot of chemistry involved, like any relationship and I think that, you know, really good records tend to be some kind of energy, even though some people make great records where they fought the whole way through but that made the energy. Some people make great records because they know each other inside out and they get on really well. It’s a nebulous thing to figure out but I’m trying to do it.’
Thompson comes from musical royalty, his parents, Richard and Linda Thompson recorded as a folk duo in the seventies. Richard himself was a member of Fairport Convention.Teddy has also played in his Dad’s band and went on tour with Roseanne Cash between the release of his first and second album. Did this give a good grounding for a solo career?
‘Ah, it definitely helps, it’s funny to look back on things you’ve done and try to extract when you really learn from that experience. It takes some sort of great self-awareness which I’m not sure that I have. Touring with my Dad was a long time ago, when I was first starting out and that was definitely useful musically. Learning how to play with the band and fit in and how to sing backing vocals and to blend. It was a steep learning curve. Roseanne was, that was just more fun, just a bit more.. I knew what I was doing then and we just sounded great together. You pick up something from every experience and it definitely helps. It’s like anything, the more you do it, the better you’re going to get it.’
With this musical background was there ever any doubt that music wasn’t for him?
‘Oh yeah, my childhood, contrary to what you might think, wasn’t that musical. My parents were divorced by the time I was six so whatever music I heard them playing in the house was just a childhood memory. Not even childhood memory, I was too young to take it in. After that we (Teddy and his sisters) lived with my Mum and she wasn’t really making any music. So I didn’t grow up in a house full of, you know, sing-alongs and all that stuff. It wasn’t like that at all.‘
Pausing for thought, Teddy then continues.
‘My Mum obviously loved music and turned me on so some good music, a guitar wasn’t with my hand or I was sat at the piano so I didn’t have that, you know, ‘I’m definitely going to go into music’. I came to it a bit later and on my own really. If I had been good at something else I might have given it a good but I didn’t have any other discernible skills’.
Did their music influence Teddy at all or was there ever a chance of him being a total rocker and rebel?
‘Nah, I don’t know, I have this sort of, no I never had that. I never wanted to make a lot of noise and play crazy guitar or play the drums. I was more enamored of acoustic music especially harmony music.. What I really loved was the Everly Brothers and the Louvin Brothers, that kind of stuff. You know, very melodic, lots of vocals and a lot of the time not even drums. The most rock n roll I ever got into was Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry and that kind of thing, which I still think is better than other kinds of rock n roll’, he says with a chuckle. ‘I never wanted to rebel, get my nose pierced and get into punk, I just didn’t like the music that much.’
Teddy’s Mum, Linda, released an album in 2002. ‘Fashionably Late’ to which not only contributed tracks but also produced and coaxed her into recording again. Not many people get a chance to do that for their Mum, what did that feel like?
‘Well, I get a bit too much credit for that’, says Teddy. ‘She has a really great producer whose name is Ed Haber who put in all the hard work and had the patience to work with someone who was kinda on and off about the whole thing and didn’t know if she wanted to do it, so it took a long time. It was more a case of my Mum seeing me getting into music and her thinking ‘Maybe I could give that a go again, maybe I could do it for fun’. I think she saw some sort of joy that I was getting and missed it. It wasn’t that I pulled her in, it was that she saw me and jumped back in.’
Teddy’s parents hadn’t performed together in nearly thirty years until a couple of years ago. ‘We did a Thompson family Christmas show at The Royal Festival Hall‘. As a son looking at his divorced parent, did he ever think he would see them perform together again?
‘No I had a complete breakout actually, to be honest. It was, um, they’re friendly, they’ve been friendly for ages but my Mum doesn’t really like to sing live. She finds she gets very nervous plus having my Dad around brought back a lot of.. memories. I was trying to get her to sing a song, she didn’t want to do it, then she did it in the end. I had a little kind of melt down at the side of the stage, you know, crying. It was very emotional.’
Looking at Thompson you can see him remembering this as he speaks about it, his speech becomes slower and his voice lower.
‘It was a lovely thing, you know it’s great. They only really sang one song together. Then at the Kate McGarrigle tribute we did it as well. You know, It’s an emotional thing to watch. I can’t pretend I don’t listen to their music in a different way to anybody else, it’s my Mum and Dad so try to imagine.. .’
The Thompson and McGarrigle families have always been close and with Teddy, Rufus and Martha Wainwright (children of Kate McGarrigle) they all shared common ground being a second generation of a musical family. As a youngster, did having such close friends in a similar situation help ?
‘Yeah a bit, not so much in direct moments, Rufus and Martha and a few others. I met a lot of people, Chris Stills, is a friend, a lovely guy. Leonard Cohen’s kids as well. Not so much in specific moments. It’s nice to be friends with people who have a shared background or similar ideas, obviously it shapes who you are. There’s a certain understanding, without being to specific about moments’
Teddy has collaborated on record and live with Rufus and Martha Wainwright, does their friendship mean that they influence each other?
‘I should think a little bit, I mean, Rufus and Martha are very individual sounding artists I think. Rufus, in particular, has sounded like he does since he first opened his mouth I think. Certainly since I first heard him. Before he even made his first record, we sat down and he played me a song in a hotel room and he still sounds the same. He was kind of, fully formed, before his first record which is, an amazing thing. So I can’t imagine that I’ve influenced him too much.’
Thompson chuckles again,
‘Maybe I have, I would like to think that I have. He’s certainly influenced me. He was further along than I was when we met, already had a record deal, was making a record and was very confident. Fully formed within himself, I was still figuring out what I was doing and he certainly helped me. And Martha, I just find generally inspiring, especially when you see her live. She’s a reminder of how to give it all on stage when you’re feeling a bit safe or lazy or something. Then you see Martha play.’
So what can people expect on this tour from Teddy Thompson?
‘I have a band so we’ll be playing all the new record over the course of the set and a few older songs but mostly I’m going to play some of the older material solo. There’ll be a little solo acoustic set in the middle, just to change it up from tour to tour and have a rethink. It’s nice for the audience and for us to do it a bit differently. So rather than retread the old ground, I though it do it differently. We also have a girl in the band for the first time which (whispering) is a bit scary.’
So once the tour is over and the promo is done, what’s next? Has Teddy thought about the next album yet or will he give himself a break?
‘No, I think about it all the time, I don’t have any songs but its the same thing as unhappy. As soon as I finish something its like, ‘Ah I should have done it differently’ or its ‘I can’t wait to do something completely different’.
‘I said this after the last one, that I was just going to make an acoustic record, then I went ahead and made another pop record, with lots of arrangements. SO that’s where I am, back to that. At the moment I’m thinking I just want to make a really simple acoustic record. I’ll change my mind one hundred times but there you go.’
‘Bella’ is out on February 4th in Ireland and 7th in UK
Check out Teddy’s website: www.teddythompson.com