Miles Kane
Miles Kane has always been an anomaly of an artist, one that has always exuded flamboyancy when in the spotlight, albeit one that has always been pushed behind the shadows of others, as Sophie Williams finds out.
Both forms have always been prevalent, particularly in the midst of his side project, The Last Shadow Puppets, a venture that cinematically captured the zeitgeist of the swinging Sixties across two subsequent albums with his partner (and crooner) in crime, Alex Turner. For the naysayers, there has often been no clear blue water between Miles Kane: the solo artist and Miles Kane: The Last Shadow Puppet, an antiquated notion that Kane is looking to diminish with his third solo effort, Coup De Grace, due for release this summer.
Choc-a-block full of “fast, punky songs”, Coup De Grace is Kane’s most comprehensive collection thus far, radiating hues of punk and psychedelia but still peppered with the personality that gave him the title ‘Wirral Riddler’, simultaneously an ode to his hometown and his hubris. You only have to listen to 30 seconds of the lead single, Loaded, before Kane drops the line “funky like a monkey” with all the cocksure sincerity of an established solo artist, a title that he possesses and now, is finally starting to parade.
It was the input and intuition of the juggernaut that is Jamie T, that emboldened him to pen a body of work that he believes “couldn’t be more honest and to the point, both stylistically and lyrically.” The pair worked together last year, and Miles cites the collaboration as something that was “good for the mind”, essentially, the catalyst to get him “in the groove and back on track”.
His sense of affability shines through when talking about his contemporary, “I can’t speak highly enough of him. That whole process helped me, everything we did was from scratch. We’d just get in the room and jam on guitars, we’d be just playing the guitars aggressively and having a great time, he’d put a little drum beat up and within four hours we’d almost have a song finished”. This was a procedure that the two learned by rote, building from the foundations of Kane’s preoccupation with post-punk pioneers, such as The Fall.
Bonafide perfectionist, it seems, is another title he upholds. Towards the end of our telephone interview, he stops mid-sentence – “there’s building work going on next door”, he laughs, “can you hear that bloody drill!”. He decides to move downstairs to get away from the noise, not that it was even audible down the other end of the line in the first place. I don’t tell him that, though, he makes it evident that he is a man of precision through his words, subconsciously ensuring that his anecdotal nature of speech can be heard clearly. This isn’t the first time of late that Kane has indulged in such rigour; his desire for utmost excellence seeps into both his working and everyday normalities.
This disposition caused the process of creating Coup De Grace to become “too frantic” at first; following the demise of The Last Shadow Puppets, he found himself trapped in a lull. Discussing this predicament, he admits, “I think I tried to go into it too quickly. There was a moment that I found hard, finishing one thing and starting another. You get this slight panic, like, ‘what do you do now?’ You question yourself a lot, you go back to the day job that you haven’t done for years and then you’re like, ‘I can’t even play the guitar now!’”. He catches his breath before he transpires further, “it took me a minute to get my mojo back.” He tries to laugh that statement off, almost transcending his own secluded sense of self-awareness. From the outside, his response to this remark may seem surprising; after all, there are three certainties in life – death, taxes and Miles Kane’s mojo.
Miles Kane, Tramshed, Cardiff, Fri 29 Jun. Tickets: £20 Info: 029 2023 5555 / tramshedcardiff.com