Lewis Watson

The one-time teenage troubadour has cast-off the commercial cuffs, channeling his liberation from a major label into second album Midnight

For many songwriters, Lewis Watson has lived the dream. Inspired by his hero Dallas Green, he picked up a guitar, posted some videos to YouTube and quickly gained a following. After the independent release of his 2012 debut EP, It’s Got Four Sad Songs On It BTW, he was scooped up by a major label and whisked through a whirl of touring, production and writing sessions, which culminated in 2014’s debut album The Morning. However, all was not as well...

“I was signed from my first EP, which I released independently [aged 19] and it had four of the first six songs I had ever written,” explains Lewis, now 24. “I was a baby in the industry. I said ‘yes’ to a lot of things and I should have started saying ‘no’ earlier. But I had this great opportunity and I didn’t want to ruin it. We had conflict over the direction that I wanted to go. I didn’t want to be this bubblegum pop artist. I wanted to be a guitar-wielding musician.”

Conscious of appearing the “spoilt kid” Lewis resolved to carry on, but by the time his debut was released and toured throughout 2015, the litany of writing sessions meant his creative cartridge was spent. “I’d learnt to really despise the songwriting process,” confesses Lewis. “And because of that I wasn’t coming up with anything good and I was getting really frustrated with myself, so it was a conscious decision I made to take a step back. Fortunately, during that time I was touring my first album was out, so I was being productive.”

Ultimately, it was to be the break – from songwriting, from his first label and from the weight of expectation – that proved Lewis’s salvation and the impetus for his 2017 album Midnight. “You could ask any musicians, I’m sure, and they wouldn’t want to be dropped or walk away from a major label deal,” he acknowledges. “But I think that was something that helped me to get my creative juices flowing again. The album was born from that conflict, but also the relief of walking away and cutting all the strings attaching me to that.”

Whereas TheMorning took an impressive two-and-a-half years, eight studios and six producers, Midnight was recorded with Lewis’ own band in two and a half weeks, with Anthony West and Josephine Van Der Gucht of London alt-pop duo Oh Wonder manning the desk and on co-writing duties.

“I went over to their studio and we wrote seven songs in a weekend,” recalls Lewis. “So I got back onto the horse and, for that period after the time off from writing it was very intense, but I enjoyed it. I wanted to get inspired again and, the next time I picked the guitar up, to have 20 ideas!”

Unlike his first record, so much of the album appears to achieve Lewis’ aims with focus. For example, there are only two acoustics on the record: a custom-made Patrick James Eggle Linville and a Martin 00-15M. “The Linville is 100 percent mahogany with a rosewood neck and it has a really rich low-end to it,” explains Lewis. “Then the Martin, again it’s mahogany, but thinner in depth, so it cuts through more. So on Forever, that song was recorded with the Martin, because it really cut through the drums and the piano and the bass, whereas on

Slumber that’s the Eggle recorded in two takes and then hard-panned left and right to create this much wider spectrum to the acoustic guitar and added a boost to those mid tones. But those are the only two acoustic guitars on the record; they both serve their own purpose.” This sense of liberation and clarity is palpable on Midnight. MaybeWe’reHome opens with a crusty, distorted, electric tone – an evolutionary line in the sand for the predominantly acoustic artist, Slumber, allfingerpickedself-doubt,waswrittenwith guest star Lucy Rose specifically in mind, while Run’s solitary strumming sounds like the wise elder sibling of his earliest songs. It is very clear that Lewis is a happier, more self-assured being. He might be lacking the major label apparatus, but stepping away seems to have allowed him to come to terms with his own work. “The first thing that I took on from The

Morning was that whatever happens with the second album, I need to enjoy it,” reflects Lewis. “I get to do what I love and I’m one of the very few that get to say that so it’s wrong for me to not enjoy that experience 100 percent – I’m really glad I made that decision.” Lewis Watson’s latest album Midnight is out now on Cooking Vinyl. He tours the UK and Ireland in September