Luke Owain Boult speaks with the man behind The Divine Comedy, Neil Hannon, about his latest album, threats to the music industry and his strategies behind writing music.
“I wrote the song Foreverland, and I didn’t really think too hard about what I was singing about, it just popped into my head about the place,” replied Neil Hannon when asked about the name behind his eleventh studio album Foreverland. “It’s like a metaphor really about life… and stuff.” He pauses and laughs. “It’s about trying to get somewhere; everybody’s trying to get somewhere, and essentially where they’re trying to get to is vague and emotional.” The Northern Irish singer and songwriter has written an astounding amount of songs, from crooning soulful ballads, to the theme tunes of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, and of course My Lovely Horse.
His work covers a wide range of topics, and his latest record is no exception, each accompanied with a hook that reels the listener in. “The song Catherine the Great is 50% about Catherine the Great and 50% about my girlfriend Cathy. I like to mess things up and blur the lines really. All the way through the 90s, I was an accidental pop star. I was really good at making the albums I wanted to make, and I was never thinking too deeply about the chart hits. Well I mean, that will be a lie actually; because I loved to get on Top of the Pops, and I loved having hits it was great fun. But I never seemed to be ahead of whatever artist trade there might be at the time that was the most important thing for me. When it got to the next decade, and perhaps we weren’t flavour of the month anymore, I just kept doing what I was doing really. At least I completely disregarded the way the world was going, and I did my own thing which I have always done anyway. The most important stable way to be relevant is actually to try not to be relevant, because the moment you try to cling onto the way things go, then it just sounds like you’re kind of like trying too hard. So I decided to cling onto my thing, and do that as best I could.”
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I then ask him about the album’s striking cover art. “I had this calendar, I bought it years and years ago somewhere in America I think, and it was a series of ballets and opera posters at the time they had been written. The cover is actually one of those pictures, a very little one of an Italian ballet called Excelsior. I was staring at it the whole time I was making the album and I think it kind of infused the album with a certain something. So I thought it was really the only thing I could put on the front cover.”
With a career spanning from the early 90s, has his writing style changed over the years? “A better world for it is evolved really, and when you’ve written as many songs as me you’re going to have to evolve really. Otherwise, what the hell are you doing? It’s another balance, as you don’t want to try too hard to be desperately original or groundbreaking, otherwise you’d just disappear into experimental land. Which is not really my favourite place to be. I love pop music and I love great song writing, but I’d never want the sound world to overtake the words.”
We then start to talk about how technological developments have affected the music industry. “Everything’s changed since I’ve started. When I went into the studio for the first time, we were recording everything onto tape. The streaming thing is actually hilarious. If anyone thinks a musician could actually make a living from that is laughable. I did well enough over the years to be able to survive. But I really can’t understand how modern things like the internet can really help to sell records. So it’s a little worrying for music in general, and I would advise people out there to value music more. If they like a band, find a way of paying them.”
The Divine Comedy, Tramshed, Cardiff, Sat 8 Oct. Tickets: £30. Info: www.tramshedcardiff.com; Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Fri 7 Oct. Tickets: £30. Info: www.aberystwythartscentre.com