Music
Last year’s Silver Scroll winner is in a soul frame of mind on his new album.
Silver Scroll winner
Welcome to the multiple personalities of Thomas Oliver. The world-class Weissenborn lap steel-slide guitarist has fronted his own Ben Harper-esque bluescentric band, found international acclaim with an instrumental album that includes a version of the theme to Jurassic Park, is an in-demand vocalist for drum and bass producers around the world and a Silver Scroll-winning songwriter, thanks to last year’s R&B pop hit If I Moved to Mars.
And if the soul-drenched singles Losin’ and Shine Like the Sun that have already appeared ahead of this month’s new solo album, Floating in the Darkness, are anything to go by, we’re about to hear a whole new side to this versatile Wellingtonian.
He now sees 2013’s Return to the Weissenborn instrumental album as going “down a rabbit hole”. He’s happy to be back with his own songs.
“This is a return to what’s closest to my heart – even if sonically and stylistically it definitely ventures into territory I haven’t explored before,” he says.
“There’s definitely more soul influence and one or two songs that have pop appeal, obviously If I Moved to Mars being one of them. But that wasn’t intentional and I certainly didn’t set out to write a Silver Scroll award-winning song.
“Sometimes the words and music just appear from the ether and it’s your job to follow or decode them and allow them to find their place – but the factors that determine what it feels like are so complex: some are based on your emotional position and your recent musical inspiration, and some go back to the first album you listened to when you were three.”
Is that why Oliver is constantly changing styles and genres?
“I love it and wouldn’t have it any other way. I recognise that it can be confusing for some of my fans who know me as a drum and bass vocalist and those who know me as an instrumental Weissenborn player and those who know me as a singer-songwriter – sometimes they’re surprised to find these other facets of me. I understand that can be to my detriment. But I listen to so much music that it’s just pursuing what’s natural to me.”
Perhaps the biggest change on Floating in the Darkness is his decision to produce the album himself – something the self-confessed perfectionist admits was a double-edged sword, as it took between two and three years and strained his “intimate relationships”.
“I was waking at 3am and thinking,
‘The snare needs to come down one decibel at 200Hz on the chorus,’ and because I had that control, I’d get out of bed and do it.”
Having already found solo success in Europe and worked with contacts in LA and Nashville, Oliver is keen to see where Floating in the Darkness takes him. The title is derived in equal parts from an interest in astronomy and a desire to show how he can see both the potential lightness and grimness in life – which comes naturally to someone so deep in the music industry.
“That’s why it’s such an honour to have that Silver Scroll award – I have it in my studio even now. Because in music you often feel like you’re out on your own, and you can watch the musicians in your crew dropping like flies because it’s too much of an endeavour.
“The Silver Scroll is something to reassure you that you’re on the right path and the music is reaching people and it does matter to them. You can have millions of views and plays but still feel like you’re out on your own, so it’s important to feel that your music is reaching other people’s hearts.”
Floating in the Darkness is released on April 28. Thomas Oliver is on tour from May 5.