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 Tom Baxter, London based singer-songwriter and stage man extraordinaire is a very passionate individual.
Passion being a recurring theme in our conversation, he believes that it’s a driving force that can make anything happen and he will compare a good live performance to sex, [or a good fuck to be more precise].
James Blunt, he is not and I meet Tom after an informal performance, for a cup of tea and a tête-à-tête that will get us talking about anything from success to the environment, his forthcoming second album, live Ep and did I mention passion?
Florence: Your first Lp ‘Feather And Stone’ released in 2004 was extremely successful and critically acclaimed...
People are now expecting the follow up, but with such a great debut how much pressure are you under to produce something equally good, if not better?
Tom: My first record encompassed that period of time in my life and I did it as well as I could and if I die tomorrow I would be very proud to leave that behind but for the next album I am exploring different things.
There was a period when I find it difficult writing because when a record is successful people want to hear more of the same thing, but I realised that I couldn’t do that, my creativity was going to continuously change and I had to accept that.
My work is going to get better and better but I also acknowledge that it’s going to be hard work. It can’t just appear from nowhere, you have to draw it out.
Florence: You said of ‘Feather and Stone’ , “the album is a kind of document of a young man’s struggle into adulthood”.
So where are you going now?
 Tom: I want to translate a different sort of passion and a different stage in my life.
With my first album I was trying to show that if you’re a human being then you probably feel the same way I feel and there are feelings that you can’t express very well but maybe these songs did manage to express them and you can identify with the songs.
The whole album was about being in your 20s and trying to become an adult which is very difficult.
It also dealt with falling in love and lost love but also depression and how to come out of that dark place where you don’t know who you are anymore and you can lose yourself.
Now I’ve got different things that are going on, different challenges.
Florence: I’ve heard some of the new material and you’ve also change direction musically...
Tom: Yes, I’m using a lot of Spanish guitars because I like that style.
It really moves me, passionately.
Also I wanted to get together with Jazz musicians because I wanted to experience how they would hear my songs. I wanted to not work with people who have an idea of what a pop song is!!
Often traditional session players have a very structured way of looking at music.
It’s pretty much, “are you gonna be successful, how much money are you gonna pay me and is that a hit or not?”.
I didn’t want to work with people like that because it’s just too dull.
On the other hand Jazz musicians are just too free spirited to think like that.
Also, I love albums like Astral Weeks by Van Morrison where he works in a totally different way.
I wanted to work with strings and also incorporate my guitar playing which allows me to explore that instrument and show people that singer-songwriters don’t just play two chords, you can actually be very inventive.
But that said I understand the value of very complex music and simple music!
I really love simple songs as well and some of mine are just that, with just a few chords and some are much more complex.
In my live sets I try to throw in different types of songs so that you keep moving with the artist but there is still a sound of passion.
For me it has to be passionate, always, and it should be seductive...just like sex.
Music can make people feel loved, liberated and relaxed...just like laughter or talking to someone you are totally comfortable with.
If you feel seduced by a piece of music you will become freer and the freer you become the more passionate the whole experience will be, and somehow people almost become emotional.
During a gig there should be a feeling of freedom, a magical sense that it’s out of control...
Before a gig I always tell myself that people have come over to be entertained and seduced and to be made to feel that life is beautiful.
Florence: Apart from working on your second album, you are also bringing out a live Ep in October.
That Ep doesn’t exist yet as it will be recorded over three live gigs taking place end of September.
You’re showing a lot of confidence in yourself, your band and your audience...
 Tom: It’s so difficult to know but I’ve always been nervous about everything I’ve done or written.
I’m always nervous wondering whether people will listen to it or whether it’s gonna transfer as I wished but it always works somehow, and when it doesn’t, if there is value in it you will rework it and make it work!
The live shows are the same thing. If you give yourself a challenge and some pressure, something is happening and you will rise to the challenge somehow.
As far as the live Ep is concerned, the audience will be made aware that they are part of the recordings and hopefully they will feel involved and it will be more special for them.
Florence: I love the way your audience is so wide ranging, background and generation wise.
Tom: I think that the best music is music that transcends fashions and generations. I always find it so cool when older people approach me and tell me that they really enjoyed my music. It means that it’s alive and not just fashionable. I really like that!
Florence: Is this Ep a sort of gift to your fans and to help them wait until the next Lp is released?
Tom: Yes it’s a gesture...the people at my record label have ‘commercial values’ at heart all the time and they’re not involved in this at all.
I am releasing this myself to let people know that I’m still here, I’m still making music and writing new songs.
Florence: You’ve also been doing a lot of small, free gigs.
Is that to stay connected to your fan base ?
Tom: When people pay £10 /15 to see you live you have to give your very best. Right now I’ve got some new guys in the band, still trying to find their feet and because of that I don’t want the pressure of knowing that people have paid. I’d rather give a free gig and try out some new stuff on the audience. As a band we’re still trying to get to know each other. I need to know how they feel the music and what’s working or not.
Florence: As a successful singer songwriter what advice would you give to other artists?
Tom: From my own experience, I know that If you do something you are passionate about you can make it work but you have to work hard.
You can make it happen but you must also be ready for it not to happen!
It will happen but you just don’t know when.
Every passionate person I have met, has always succeeded.
You need to be passionate enough to make compromises.
When my friends ask me why I haven’t released the next record yet, I always answer that time is not important, what is important is the value of the work you release.
If you spend four years to make a record but when you’ve made that record it’s very valuable then that’s cool!
I can tell you the story of this older lady called Vashti Bunyan, a cult singer-songwriter who recorded one album when she was about 21- 22.
The album is all about her. She had a horse and Gypsy caravan and she travelled from London all the way to Scotland, came back to London, made her record and went back to Scotland.
Only a thousand copy of the album were produced and nothing happened with it, but a couple of years ago she re-released it and it really kicked off, even being used for a Vodafone advert.
More importantly, she told me that when she did the record she was very proud of it and then let it go. But she was passionate and eventually she succeeded.
Florence: Real passion is all consuming. Painful and destructive at times...
Tom: For me to get to where I was getting signed to a major label like Sony BMG, I had to make so many sacrifices.
I sacrificed relationships, earning money...
Even today, I still want to make it happen because I also think of it as a game. I’ve already proved to myself that I can do it so I don’t doubt it now, but I also know that you can’t force success, sometimes you’re just not feeling it.
If you know that you can make it happen then you know that it will happen but not necessarily right now.
Also you need to constantly fight off fear because it’s always there.
Florence: Someone told me once that people don’t even try to realise their dreams not because of a fear of failure but a fear of success.
Tom: But now I also know that the concept of success is so futile, so fickle. Success is like a toy.
People like the idea of being associated with something or someone that is successful but there are people as well who like to be associated with something they think is great, and it’s two very different things.
Success is seductive to the masses because most people are like sheep and don’t really know what to think so they like to follow a celebrity who will say “this is cool”.
When you experience celebrity world you see that you can be addicted to success, you are continually empty trying to fill up your life with the idea of being successful.
But what is success?
It varies with every person and I find that quite interesting but I find very distasteful the way people change and feel that they have become more important than other people.
Florence: Earlier you mentioned listening to Pj Harvey and Placebo...what else?
Tom: I like so many different types of music.
Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan, always Dylan because he’s great!
But also a lot of classical music, people like Arvo Part, Keith Jarrett and Maria Callas because I like her.
The first French music I ever heard was Edith Piaf live. I liked how it was so dramatic, with a passionate orchestration. And I’m also a very big fan of Jacques Brel.
Florence: I also heard you refer to Serge Gainsbourg...
Tom: I love Gainsbourg but I’m more into Brel.
I think that they’re equally excellent but I just love the way Jacques Brel uses his words. Obviously I can’t understand everything, but from the bits I’ve worked out I just love the playfulness of the words.
Florence: If you are talking about the way the words are manipulated and put together to mean something else than first intended then Gainsbourg is a lot more talented, without a shadow of a doubt.
Relating to his 70s and 80s song writing, Gainsbourg’s songs can be very surreal and idiosyncratic often referring to bucolic settings.
Songs very rarely containing a swear word that you would gladly let your children listen to but it’s all about sex, hard core porn!
‘Je t’Aime Moi Non Plus’ was banned, yet that was the child’s lullaby of the Gainsbourg’s catalogue.
Jacques Brel is more of a Dylan and in French schools we study his lyrics.
Tom: I also love Roberta Flack and people should get her album, ‘First Take’.
That’s a brilliant Lp recorded by the same guy who recorded Nora Jones and Aretha Franklin...
There are so many good artists that it’s hard to pinpoint really....
Elvis Presley...he was my first inspiration.
As a kid I watched all the Elvis’ movies and ‘G.I Blues’ was the first record I bought, then I really got into him, later set up a Rockabilly band with double bass, my older brother on drums and I played one of those big Rockabilly guitars and we had quiffs...don’t laugh... we did it for years and the first live band I went to see was The Stray Cats and they totally blew me away.
Florence: Tell me about a song you wish you had written.
Tom: I wish I’d written all of ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ by Bob Dylan...
Florence: That’s pure greed!
Tom: All right then!
‘Just Like A Woman’. I really love it because from a male’s perspective it really resonates and just one more...’I’m Not In Love’ by 10CC.
I love the way someone is trying to deny that he’s in love.
Florence: What would be your message to the world?
Tom: Go watch the movie ‘The Inconvenient Truth’.
It’s fucking brilliant and it’s trying to make people think more consciously about the environment and the world we live in. We are so selfish and wrapped up in our own world that we don’t put pressure on our government to recycle, to look at renewable energy sources and it goes on and on...
Things like illnesses, the tsunami and hurricane Katrina are only gonna get worst.
This film is the best way to explain to people what the problem is.
Words: Florence ACHERYPhotos: Jake AINLEY
www.tombaxter.co.uk
www.myspace.com/tombaxter |
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