Before the flood

Call it kismet, luck or fate, but sometimes, for a brief, magical period, the planets align in a way that swerves all your shots goalwards and gallops your outsiders first past the post. Right now, creatively speaking, Iain Archer must be enjoying the sky at night. Thus far 2004 has proven to be a providential year for the Bangor lad. Not only has he been heavily involved in the creation of Hello, My Captor, the fine debut album by The Amazing Pilots, but as co-author of ‘Run’, he has also had greater reason than most to enjoy the against-the-odds success of old sparring-partners Snow Patrol.

And now, to top things off, comes Flood The Tanks – his inventive and beguiling solo LP – which sees Iain leave behind the comfort of the in-label credits to move proudly onto the front of the sleeve.
The less charitable amongst you may be wondering what exactly he’s done to earn these kinds of rewards; rest assured, though, Iain Archer has paid his karmic dues.
He has extensive previous. Back in the mid-’90s, his first two records (Playing Dead and Crazy Bird) made the likes of Mojo salivate. Great things were assumed to be beckoning. However, wary of becoming trapped in “the singer-songwriter cul-de-sac” and distrustful of the new material he was writing, Iain decided to take a backwards step and reassess the direction that both his vocation and life appeared to be taking.
“I think as you get older you just realise that there is a life beyond being disappointed because your music career isn’t going well,” he explains. “A lot of the album was written at a point when I’d walked away from a pretty comfortable publishing deal with Universal. I’d been drained – all my enthusiasm and confidence had gone – and I just couldn’t see any reason for keeping it going. That was a hard decision because at the time it felt like that was my last remaining support line gone. I was space-walking again.”
Inspired by the example of a few friends, he took a job in London at a hostel for homeless young people - trying to write in his spare time, but finding that a difficult ask.
“It’s a cliché but it does make you re-evaluate your priorities,” he reflects. “I found it really rewarding but it was incredibly hard, exhausting work. It made me really examine why I wanted to be a musician. What were the things that made me enthusiastic and passionate? Because to continue on being creative when you’re working, it’s hard, it hurts. Maybe I don’t need to do this, maybe my life would be easier without it.”
It was around this time that Snow Patrol drummer, and long-time pal, Johnny Quinn got in touch, wondering if Iain would like to play guitar for the band during an upcoming tour. It proved to be a fortuitous moment. Any doubts Iain may have had in regard to throwing his creative hat in the ring once more were swept away, not only by the ensuing series of gigs (“just a great, fun, stimulating time”) but also by a subsequent stint hanging out with the Lightbody-established Hiberno indie collective, The Reindeer Section.
“These were all really talented, inspiring people,” he says. “I was intimidated at the start. I just wanted to keep my head down but they were all really receptive to any ideas I had. I just found the whole thing to be totally inspiring, just watching how they all worked.”
Out of this – and while nursing obsessions with the solo work of Jim O’Rourke and Jimmy McDonough’s barnstorming biography of Neil Young, Shakey – came the impetus to write Flood The Tanks. Iain talks enthusiastically about recording on a laptop, getting drunk on absinthe and jamming with Rough Trade’s Jacob Golden, “pulling the songs apart and putting them back together again”.
“It was a very creative, mind-blowing time,” he says. “I really wanted to challenge myself and try to write a record that didn’t just fall back on all those stereotypes that you automatically associate with singer-songwriters.”
In those terms, he has succeeded. Flood The Tanks buzzes with sharp ideas and hard-earned sentiment. It’s a driving, ambitious, comfortably contemporary record, one that confidently announces the (re)arrival of a gifted, inquisitive, talent.
“I’m really chuffed by how it’s turned out,” he concludes. “With The Patrol and The Pilots, you can see what happens when you try to make music that’s just really honest. Hopefully people will get what I’m trying to do. I couldn’t be happier.”

Flood The Tanks is available now on Bright Star