Mar 23, 2007

'Boy' grows into songwriter

Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

England's Badly Drawn Boy has painted a musical masterpiece. The new CD "Born in the U.K." (Astralwerks) is breathtakingly rich in textures, tones, layers and colors.

Badly Drawn Boy is, in fact, Damon Gough. His latest work filters a classic pop kaleidoscope through his distinctively Mancunian perspective. You may find relationships to compositions of Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, Todd Rundgren, Ron Sexmith, Harry Nilsson and, yes, Bruce Springsteen. But Gough displays a completely unique manner of communicating warm, wonderful, sophisticated melodies, perfectly arranged and matched with compelling, heartfelt lyrics.

"I used to be somebody who just dabbled in music," Gough said. "My personal feeling on this album is that I've actually turned into a songwriter. I'm pretty prolific when it comes to just doing the music. Lyrically, I'm quite slow."

Gough tries to let the tune write itself. "For me, if you don't capture the essence of the song in the first few seconds, it can be very hard to go back to it and find out what it was meant to be," he said. "I tend to find the melody, chord structure and arrangements almost instantaneously. It just happens."

But crafting lyrics is more challenging.

"You have to find words that fit the shape of the melody and suit the tone of the song. It's quite a strange process, topsy-turvy, really," he said. "I think I'm getting better at it, because I do more of it."

For "Born in the U.K.," Gough wrote a ton of songs. "I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted this album to be," he said. After making a record that didn't fully materialize and was never released, Gough had to recoup from his failed foray.

"On this album, I pushed myself to write stupid amounts of material. I was almost showing off to myself, to prove that I wasn't a failure," he said. "I thought, 'Right, I'll write a song a day.' Then it turned into two or three a day. It was very rewarding for me to know I could do it."

The melody for the title track came within minutes. Gough recorded demos on which he just sang the melody with noises and random words.

"There was one demo where it sounded like I was saying, 'Born in the U.K.' at the end. So I followed that. I had to figure out what to write to lead up to that line," he said. "It took six months to decide what to write about."

Gough isn't easily pleased with his own material. "You've got to feel that you've achieved something with the song that you haven't quite done before."

Gough didn't envision a life as a songwriter/performer. "That's kind of what the album encompasses as an idea, really - why on Earth did this happen to me?" he said. "Your sense of identity is important."

Gough continued, "I'm lucky enough to have parents who are alive and well. You see TV programs where people are trying to find their parents or research their past. They don't know who they are. I can relate to how sad, how difficult it would be to have that strange hole inside. So on this album, I was investigating identity, why a chain of events have made me be this person I am, in my mid- to late-30s, all based on small decisions and little chance moments."

One chance moment came when his parents purchased a video recorder in the '80s. Gough happened to notice Springsteen's "Thunder Road" playing in a documentary, and he taped it.

"I watched it a hundred times over a couple of days and became infatuated with it. If I hadn't heard that song I'm not sure I would have gone on the journey I went on."

Gough discovered numerous versions of the song, which led to a fascination with the recording process. "It didn't make me want to be a rock 'n' roll star. I wanted to be a sound engineer."

He came across a four-track recorder, a model referenced in the sleeve notes to Springsteen's "Nebraska." He started toying with original songs.

"I still didn't take myself seriously as a writer. But I spent seven years in my bedroom, making songs - I had breaks, don't get me wrong," he quipped.

By chance, Gough met like-minded DJ Andy Votel in Manchester's Generation X bar and they founded the Twisted Nerve record label, which released acclaimed Badly Drawn Boy EPs.

"There was an accumulation of all these little events. By accident, I became the person on the stage, as opposed to the guy at the side of the stage or in the studio."

And serendipity continued to dance with Gough. "I met Claire (girlfriend and mother of his children) at a nightclub neither of us had ever gone to before or since. That was a strange thing," he said.

"As a writer, you tend to read into these things more than most people do. Everybody has these moments, but, for me, it's an opportunity to romanticize reality in song. It's all basic, simple stuff that goes unnoticed by a lot of people. But I'm making small things big by immortalizing them in songs."

Gough often thinks, "What if?" "If I hadn't found songwriting, if I hadn't dropped out of school when I was 16, because I hated studying, I wouldn't have gone on a certain path. Perhaps if I'd gone to university at 16, and decided to study animation - something I was interested in - I might have become a great animator and never have been aware that I could write a song.

"I'm lucky. There might be a million people on the planet who could be the best songwriters, but they don't do it, because they didn't discover it. That fascinates me, as well."

Fortunately, Gough discovered that his musical ability matched his passion. "Suddenly you turn around and there's a body of work there. When a gig's going well and I'm playing a set of 20 songs or more and they all get a great reaction, I'm like, 'S---! I wrote all those. That's amazing!' If I thought about what I'd done in the last six or seven years, I'd probably collapse.

"It's been quite an explosion in my life. I've had two kids, bought my first house, made five records, toured the world 10 times over. I've had quite a lot of hardship, as well. A lot of friends passed away. On the last two albums, there are mentions of those people and references to mortality.

"I'd like to think, 10 years from now, I'll have made 10 records that are all different from each other and as good as each other. But who knows? I've been through phases recently where I'm not sure I can even make another record. I have to accept the possibility of that, as well. While the songs are coming, I feel grateful."