While on sabbatical from The Beautiful South, Dave Rotheray teamed up with Sam Brown for an album of folksy songs. Now they are on their second, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
What does an established musician/songwriter/singer do when they have time on their hands between tours? What makes the creative juices continue to flow beyond the call of duty? And what is it, we'd really like to know, that keeps a band like Homespun on the straight and narrow? You might not have heard of Homespun before, but that's because they're relatively new. You'd have heard of the two core members, though, because they're not brand new at all: Dave Rotheray (from The Beautiful South) and Sam Brown (daughter of 1950s/1960s rocker Joe Brown, and a successful vocalist/backing singer in her own right).
Separately, neither is a celebrity because they have better things to be doing with their lives. And neither is a megastar because it just didn't work out that way (Rotheray will never be a megastar, of course, because he's from Hull). Each, however, are cautiously optimistic that their full time positions (Rotheray as co-songwriter with Paul Heaton in The Beautiful South; Brown as helper outer with Jools Holland and others) will remain so for some time to come. And in the meantime? Well, they're keeping themselves busy by writing songs (Rotheray) and singing them (Brown).
Rotheray, in typically Hull-like down-to-earth demeanour, says The Beautiful South isn't exactly the hardest working band in showbusiness, hence he has the spare time for writing the kind of songs that simply wouldn't fit into a respectable pop band format.
"I've always written songs at home for myself," he says; he sounds a dour type, but it's just the way he speaks. Behind the droll tone are a sharp wit and a genial character. "They're a private stash, to so speak, and not intended for public consumption. I was quite happy doing that, to be honest, because I can't sing. So I thought I'd keep them in a notebook and never really do anything with them. But I became friends with Sam - I've known her down through the years; we'd meet up in various television studios, and she stuck in my mind as a person who I liked and got on with, even though I didn't know her very well. Meeting her off and on gave me the idea of doing my songs with someone who could actually sing."
"I can sing in tune," claims Rotheray, feebly, amiably defensive, "but my voice doesn't sound nice; perhaps it's a genetic defect. Also, I've never had a friend who I would have played the songs to, because they're quite personal."
THE SONGS, HE says, are simplistic vignettes of personal and family life, hellos and goodbyes to lovers and friends, distant and close ("they're almost folk music in that you just perceive the shape or outline of the song without anything added on top"); it's the kind of music that doesn't have to have anything grandiose said about it. Homespun by name and nature, the band released their self-titled début album last year; a swift follow-up, Effortless Cool, is released next week.
The songs for each record were accumulated slowly, initially in quite a disorganised manner but latterly in a more systematic way. Basic musical sketches would be made during spare moments in hotel bedrooms, to be completed once Hull was reached. But once a Beautiful South tour had finished, says Rotheray, his guitar would be locked away and the pipe 'n' slippers would be retrieved from underneath the stairs. Yet the lure of songwriting always refused to go away.
"When I was at home for a few days I'd unlock the guitar case; I'd have a notebook, a pen and the guitar beside me, so that at some point every day - when there wasn't much on the telly - I'd get bored and write or play something."
It helps, he says, that a woman is singing the songs. "The songs are quite sentimental, and it would have seemed a bit weird with another bloke singing them; I'm sure I would have got a bit jealous. With a woman doing it, the perspective is swapped over to the effect that it's almost another life being observed or documented. It puts a distance on the emotions. Having a female sing the songs ultimately meant that I was divorced from them, which also meant I wasn't thinking about specifics."
It isn't all Homespun work for Rotheray, however, as The Beautiful South get in gear for another tour (including Ireland in early March). By now very much a fixture in UK popular music, the South no longer worry about record sales.
ROTHERAY SAYS HOMESPUN is not a replacement for The Beautiful South, but rather an adjunct. In The Beautiful South, Heaton and Rotheray (lest we forget one of the most successful UK songwriting partnerships of the past 20 years, and certainly up there with the likes of Lennon/McCartney and Squeeze's Difford/Tilbrook) write the songs together. With Homespun, Rotheray can write all the songs the way he wants to write them.
"When you write together, it's a compromise, the results of which are part of what makes it good. With Homespun, I just wanted to write totally on my own and see what happened. I can't imagine Paul and I will stop any time soon, however - if we haven't torn each other's throats out by now I can't see it happening at all. I don't think it would work if Paul and I wrote songs separately. Homespun is completely separate, and I intend to continue with it."
A début tour commences quite soon, with Ireland getting an opportunity to find out what all the muted fuss is about. Rotheray isn't expecting to be mobbed, however, or to have rowdy Beautiful South fans shouting out for "the hits".
"I expect the reaction to be civilised," he says, somewhat circumspectly. "We're playing in small venues, so we'll be able to see the audience and talk to them, which makes a change. I imagine it'll be interactive, pleasant, conversational." Because they're a far more successful act, The Beautiful South play larger venues, and Rotheray misses the eyeball-to-eyeball contact. Every time band and management meet up to discuss a forthcoming tour, Rotheray suggests they play smaller venues - "but I'm always shouted down because it's logistically unfeasible. I wish we could, though. The reason why lots of bands struggle on the fourth and fifth albums is because they've forgotten how good fun it was making the first."
Homespun play Dolans Warehouse, Limerick on Saturdaym January 29th; The Village, Dublin, Sunday, January 30th, and the Errigle Inn, Belfast, on Monday Jan 31st. Special guest is Eleanor McEvoy. Homespun's album, Effortless Cool, is released on Monday on Homespun Recordings www.homespunrecordings.com