The creator of one in every of Uncut’s finest albums of 2022 on his magical Mersey adventures with The Pale Fountains, Shack, Arthur Lee and Lee Mavers, within the newest subject of Uncut journal – in UK retailers from Thursday, November 10 and in the stores from our on-line retailer.
It’s the morning after Liverpool’s pulsating victory over Manchester Metropolis at Anfield, and Mick Head is understandably buzzing. “It feels good. I used to be listening on the radio and I heard a few pundits speaking in regards to the ambiance and saying they’d by no means heard something prefer it – and this was earlier than the sport!” Head has additional trigger for celebration when knowledgeable that his newest album with the Pink Elastic Band, the triumphant Expensive Scott, has been named one in every of Uncut’s finest albums of 2022. “That’s wonderful,” he beams. “It’s simply recognition for what everybody’s put into it. We’re all actually happy with it.” Earlier this 12 months, the album turned his first ever Prime 10 file in an extended profession of heroic near-misses. “We had been on tour when the album acquired launched and that was good. It was like being in the Paleys once more: we’re all excited at the back of the van, listening to the charts. An actual spotlight.”
Is that this the happiest he’s been? “Yeah. The world’s fucking mad, however creatively, when you put all the pieces on the desk and look down on it from above, then yeah. Possibly it’s ’cos I’ve acquired lucidity. I’m feeling good bodily – surprisingly! Nonetheless functioning emotionally. And that has an impression on the songs. There’s no higher feeling than when somebody tells you what a specific tune means to them. Someone as soon as informed me they walked down the aisle to “As Lengthy As I’ve Obtained You” and that blew me away. However that’s what songs are for. Music can do issues. It’ll catch on.”
The brand new album sounds so contemporary. Is songwriting getting simpler the older you get – or more durable? – Peter Livesey, Salford
I believe it will get simpler. A number of it’s all the way down to the mindset. Clearly I’ve loved songwriting all my life, ’cos it’s what I do. However I do discover it’s getting simpler as I become old, as a result of I’m having fun with it extra.
How did the collaboration with Invoice Ryder-Jones for Expensive Scott come about? – Tom Newton, by way of e mail
Everyone knows Invoice very well – Liverpool’s fairly a small village, musically. Nat [Cummings] from the Pink Elastic Band had been working in Invoice’s studio in West Kirby and when he stated, ‘What do you concentrate on this as an concept?’ I bit his hand off. As a result of I’d met Invoice at gigs, I beloved The Coral, and I knew how proficient he was. Invoice has talked about that he was into the Paleys and Shack rising up, which is at all times refreshing to listen to. And it confirmed once we had been recording as a result of he kinda is aware of the place I’m going. I had a beautiful dialog with Invoice final week, and I believe we’ve acquired some [studio] time pencilled in early subsequent 12 months. There’s six, seven, eight songs that we wanna put down. It was a pleasure to work on the final album, so hold it easy. You don’t change a successful crew!
Except for a trip on “The Ten”, what different locations to take a look at would you advocate for somebody visiting Kensington in Liverpool? – Nick Cullen, by way of Twitter
There’s a necropolis on the nook of West Derby Street, the place we used to play soccer. Within the nineteenth century it was overflowing with lifeless our bodies after the Napoleonic wars, so we constructed this wonderful necropolis. You’ve acquired the Olympia the place we performed a few months in the past. And Buffalo Invoice and his travelling circus got here down West Derby Street within the 1900s. However saying that, as soon as you bought there, you’d assume, ‘What the fuck’s Mick Head on about?’ There’s not a lot there now, however it’s steeped in historical past.
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