Badly Drawn Boy (a.k.a. Damon Gough) Interview

Overnight acclaim can be kryptonite to an artist - especially one who wasn't ready for it.  Enter Damon Gough who plays under the Badly Drawn Boy moniker.  After being thrust into the American spotlight with the seemingly sudden love-affair with his hit work for the movie About A Boy and it's soundtrack, Gough found himself in the precarious position of either creating music for the fans or music for the label.  With the seemingly antagonistic burden, he buried himself in his work in order to create something he was proud of - regardless of the pressures.  He would dabble in pop and stray from the proven acoustic formula - much to the demise of critics and some of his fanbase.  Three albums later, Gough still makes music for himself but always trying to please everyone at the same time - which while recording Born in the UK caused him to hit a pressure point.  A companionate man, his current tour for the Born in the UK album donates all proceeds to charity and he was a key figure in the 2004 Tsunami Relief Cardiff for the Indian Ocean earthquake that devastated thousands.  We were fortunate enough to speak with Gough about his influences and of course, soccer.

You had a hard time recording Born in the UK, didn't you?

It was an accumulation of circumstances really. Somehow some of it was self inflicted.  I could backtrack three or four years.  There was a sequence of events that put pressure on this record. The last album, One Plus One, was a much quieter release really even though it was one of my favorites - but it didn't have the big push.  It was time for me to take a break, make a record, and do a little touring.  But there was only one single on it and I was disappointed so I parted from XL.  I signed with EMI and they advanced me some money to live on for two years, and I felt like I owed them something. During that time I made a record that I didn't put out.  Then by the time I got to Born in the UK it had been three years or more and there was a lot of pressure to get it right this time.  And I suppose I put myself under a daft kind of pressure thinking that that this could be the moment - the album that really hits home and establishes me further.  If it goes well then I can relax for ever more and do the music when I feel like it. It hasn't really happened.  I mean, it's not shit, but it's not like U2 or Coldplay that gets me noticed worldwide.  Now that I'm over it and I don't think I'll ever put that kind of pressure on myself again.  I'll just get on with it and do what I feel.

Born in the UK is so miraculously different than One Plus One.  What was your approach when you sat down to write UK?

I wanted to make a record that people would talk about.  Bewilderbeast and About A Boy get talked about a lot still. But One Plus One and Fed The Fish are not talked about as much - each album is its own flavor.  I suppose I wanted to make a more grown up album, songs that would resonate further with people and songs that would become classics. 

It's less meandering.  Each song was written in less than five minutes and I ended up with hundreds of them after a few months.  The songs were written without much thinking, which I'm proud of really because I didn't sit down and think too much about it. I guess I was disappointed in my first failure in my career by making a record that didn't get released so I was showing off which set the tone for the new record.

You are quite the soccer fan - you once tried out for Manchester United, didn't you?

Manchester United aren't my team really.  I respect them. They are doing well this year.  You can hear the crowd from where I live.

So you're a Manchester City boy then, aren't you?

Yeah, I've got season tickets.  I haven't been too much this year though since I've been busy with the new album and they aren't doing so well.  When I was seventeen I was captain of my soccer team in school and a lot of my friends went pro.  I wasn't really that serious about it.  But for four weeks I attempted the Manchester trials.  It was kinda too strict - like the army.  You have to watch what you do, what you eat.  It wasn't for me.

What's up with the wooly caps?

When I first started gigging it was a way of not worrying about a bad hair day so it kinda stuck.  I wear one all the time.  Initially it was kind of a way to not have an image so it's funny that it became part of my image.

Born in the UK is about growing up in Manchester. Did you always see yourself as a musician, apart from the soccer stint?

I'm still amused by the fact that I still do this.  I've been doing it for ten years but I still can't believe it.  I never had planned on doing this and I had no ambition to do this.  I was a fan of music just like any other kid.

The album pays tributes to all the weird things that shape who who you are.  Initially, the first one, where you are born; it's bestowed upon you.  You don't have a choice.  In a weird way that makes us all the same so why do we fight?  So why do we end up with an identity?  So that was the first thought for the album. 

But what made me was 1984 when I heard Bruce Springsteen play 'Thunder Road'.  I was watching television and initially flipped past it and then came back and the song was playing from a Madison Square Garden performance in 1979.  I grabbed a tape and recorded it and must have watched it a thousand times.  Then I went out and bought the record and several bootleg versions of the song and I discovered that in each version he mentioned a different girl: "Chrissie's dress", "Angelina's dress", "Mary's dress".  It made me think, 'Shit - why does an artist do that?'.  So I became a sound engineer.  Then by accident really I was in the studio every day and there was a guitar around so I taught myself how to play.  I bought myself a 4 track recorder - a Tiak 144.  I then spent eight years in my bedroom making demos and finally thought I might as well put an album out.  I took them to a local shop and they sold ten copies in two days and I was like, 'No way, who bought it? What did they look like?'  The shops started ordering fifty more and in a month I had sold hundreds of singles. And that's when the labels called me up and that was that. So I thought, 'Shit, this was what was meant to be'.  I guess that's kinda why the albums have all come out in such quick succession.  I feel like I have so much to give and I started late so I have to make up for lost time.  My career is one big mistake is how I think about it.  I still find it quite crazy really.

You are a huge Pixies fan...

In the late eighties I went to indie disco clubs and fortunately it was one of those sounds that was played each week.  A lot of American bands were played; Dinosaur Jr., Nirvana... I remember when I first heard Nirvana's Nevermind and I thought to myself 'Oh that's just a fuckin' rip off of the Pixies.  Nobody agreed with me. And then I read in an interview with Curt Cobain that he was a big Pixies fan so it made sense to me. 

I use to work with my brother in a print shop our parents owned.  I remember going to work one day and telling him I had heard this song - it was the best song I had heard.  Then he said he had heard a song that was even better.  It turns out we were both talking about the Pixies song 'Debaser'. It was quite funny how I remember that moment.