Solar Power

'Please listen in the light’. On an album full of enigmatic moments, the last line of the sleevenotes on Goodtime John’s second album, I’ll Sing ‘Til The Sun Turns Cold, is the one that catches the eye rather than the ear. With John Cowhie himself on the other end of the phone line, it seems as good a place as any to start.

“It’s kind of a nod to Brian Wilson, in my own way,” he explains. “The Beach Boys did an album called Holland without him and when it came out he had done this little story that came out on 7” with the album and on the inside, written really small, it said ‘please listen in the dark’.”
Does he think that there’s a tendency for the lo-fi end of the musical spectrum to have a darker side to it?
“I think people assume that because something is quiet and slow it has to be dark, or that if something’s upbeat it can’t be serious. I try and mix it up that way. I think there’s a kind of humour in some of it but maybe you have to listen a bit closer to get it.”
“I don’t think you’d get it on the first listen, even production wise, especially if you were listening to it on a stereo. You’d get a lot more if you were listening to it on headphones.”
It’s a common trend amongst many of the new wave of Irish bands, this attention to detail. John certainly has his own studied approach to the recording process. “It was all about putting layers on top of layers, finding different ways to mic stuff to make it sound a bit different on top of each other,” he says. “I knew what the main instrumentation would be when I was writing the songs, then it was just a question of adding little things to make different.”
He’s talked in the past about a Phil Spector influence, is that where it comes in?
“Certainly the use of layers and the little ideas that he used to have. It can be really interesting what ends up on tape when you just try things. I’d been listening a lot to him and reading a really good biography so I had ideas on how he used to do things.”
John has his own definite ideas too, one of which was making sure that this wasn’t a totally solo project by bringing in his regular band as well as various guests.
“There’s a connection between me and the lads who play in the band,” he observes. “They know what to do without me having to describe it to them too much. I knew I wanted them on it. With other people, I had instruments in my head and thought who played what and just rang them up.”
He also set about the recording process in a unique way, favouring his attic and an old sixteen track analogue tape machine to any state of the art studio.
“I like the music to be loose and free and I feel that if I was in a studio it would be too much. I like to work at my own pace and I don’t think that if I was in a studio that freedom would have come out.
“The other thing is that I hate computers and pro-tools and all that. It would have been hard to go straight down to tape. I’d rather leave in mistakes and have the songs sound natural than cut it up and overdub it to make it all perfect.”

I’ll Sing ’Til The Sun Turns Cold is out now on Volta Sounds