INTERVIEW Joe Chester
Chester bridges six-year recording gap to produce what is his most uncompromising album
It’s been a long time coming but February 24 sees the release of The Easter Vigil, the most uncompromising album songwriter Joe Chester has ever written. The inspiration came at a time of change for the singer who previously released four criticallyacclaimed records of his own before embarking on countless production and musician stints for others.
But now holed up in the sunny south of France, after almost six years without his own release, Joe is back in, well, not business exactly.
Joe said: “I don’t believe there is any such thing as a music industry any more – certainly not for an artist like me.
“If there ever was, there certainly isn’t now. I don’t have to make a record and in terms of a career or anything like that, that’s not where my head is at.”
So making this album wasn’t for the fame or the big bucks?
“I don’t think in that way,” Joe said. “It is a purely artistic expression. When I am producing records with other people sometimes I see that where people are thinking about their career more than their art or their artistic expression.
“And that makes me want to run a mile because I think you are on a hiding to nothing then.
“No good can come of that artistically.”
“So how do I keep faith in the music industry? The truth is, I don’t.”
Working in a different way has paid off for Chester as the songs on The Easter Vigil are among his strongest to date – which is saying something.
Joe explained: “I used to feel like if I am a songwriter then I have to do it every day and justify calling yourself a songwriter – like going to work and doing it every day.
“But I don’t do that now because for me I think that was born out of a kind of insecurity about what I did. I realised that actually you write a lot of good songs when you do that but you won’t write many great songs.
“So now I am much more relaxed about that and I only write songs when I have something to write which might not be all the time.
“I don’t feel compelled to do it and it’s certainly not a commercial thing.
“But I am always doing something.”
Thankfully for us Joe felt he had “something to say creatively and artistically” and so The Easter Vigil was born.
Joe explained: “It’s different from anything I have done before because the album as you hear it is only six days of recording.
“It came together very fast but what I did do was I spent about a year writing the lyrics for it so a couple of years work went into it before I started recording.
“It wasn’t intended to be like that – it is quite a minimalist record in a way – but once I had the songs written I went in and did a day of piano and vocals, recording the songs at the piano just live, and a day recording the guitar and vocals.
“I took away those rough recordings as a reference for myself. The intention was to do overdubs drums and bass but when I played those tracks to Julie my wife she just said: “That’s the album.”
“And when I listened to it I thought maybe she was onto something.”
So apart from cellist Vyvienne Long, Steve Wickham from the Waterboys and Julie on drums on one song, there’s very little added apart from Joe himself.
Change is a great catalyst for creativity and for Joe, feeling unsettled in Dublin inspired more of the record than his move to Nice. He said: “The big move to France had been on the cards for a long time – longer than it had been for Julie.
“For a good few years now I was feeling less and less at home in Dublin and Nice feels like home now even though we have only been here for a year and a half.
“I don’t know why but the way things had gone I felt more and more marginalised.
“We were renting a place in Dublin and we were getting by as it was but we were looking at a rent increase and life was becoming impossible for those reasons and others.
“We felt we had to up sticks and get the f**k out.”
And as such, one of the tracks on the album
Valley Of Tears, was inspired by Ireland but only after Joe had left.
He said: “I wrote most of the album in
Dublin and a couple of the songs in Nice – one song I wrote is Valley Of Tears. I have never written a song like that
before it is on the surface about the Aran Islands. “I would never have written a song like that when I lived in Ireland. “But it’s like that famous James Joyce quote, the quickest way to Tara is via Holyhead. “I didn’t think that I had emigrated for ages really – months and months but then suddenly it dawned on me.
“Maybe moving away focuses your thoughts about where you have left.”
The Easter Vigil is being released on Bohemia Records, the first album Chester has not put out himself and a lot of the change is down to Julie, his wife who is also a musician and drummer.
Joe said: “Julie plays on the record but her main influence really was as an encourager.
“I might not have finished the record if it hadn’t been for Julie
“She really helped a lot with persuading me to finish the record and in terms of finding a label to do things properly.
“I think it’s normal to go through periods of self doubt so it’s great to have someone like Julie to help you through those times.
“The biggest contribution
Julie made is that this is the purest creative expression and the most uncompromising record I have ever made.
“I couldn’t be happier if it just goes out there and people hear it that’s the ultimate.”
lthe Easter Vigil is released on Bohemia Records on February 24 and Joe Chester will play an instore on February 25 in Tower Records Dublin at 1pm. He will also play The Workman’s Club on March 11 with August Wells.