“I feel liberated…”
Danny Eccleston talks to Peter Perrett.
Where and when did this album start? “It was around the four gigs my wife Xena booked in summer 2015. She’s always been the person who’s pushed me into doing things. Without her I’d have just vegetated. I don’t have a work ethic. But faced with these gigs I had to start rehearsing. And because I was playing every day I was waking in the morning and picking a guitar up. And once I pick up a guitar I write songs.”
The record has an immediacy. You’ve de-cluttered… “With The Only Ones, every one of us was always going for it. We’d go to town on the reverb, effects and stuff. But I’ve worked so hard to get my voice back in shape I wanted it to be upfront. I wanted it to be more naked.”
Your vocals and your writing voice are confident. “I like writing. And I’m much more self-critical now. In the ’70s, I’d write a song and I thought the way it came out was perfect. Now I take time crafting stuff. These days, in conversation, my brain sometimes refuses to co-operate – I don’t know if it’s payback for the way I treated it over the years. But to say what I want to say, I can only do it in songs really.”
There are love songs, political songs, songs about addiction; but all have a very strong point of view… “You either write songs from experience or observation, and even my observation songs are usually about people I know. I’m not very good at fiction. I suffered for my art in a foolish way but hopefully I’m mature enough to be reflective about stuff. I’m going to write songs with the benefit of my experience; even if it was not a very fruitful experience, it’s an experience and it’s unique to me.”
Your lads [Jamie and Peter Jr] play a blinder… “Lots of people say, ‘How did your kids turn out so great?’ Because it was quite dysfunctional; like growing up in a cross between a crack house and 18th century Bedlam. Peter doesn’t talk about it at all. But Jamie remembers things we’ve forgotten, and when he talks about them they’re funny in a tragic-funny way. When things are extreme you need a sense of humour to survive.”
Something In My Brain is the most extraordinary song about temptation and survival. “But there’s no temptations any longer. It’s a song of redemption. I feel liberated. I was in a similar place for a couple of years in the ’90s, but my subconscious wasn’t. Now my subconscious is on board. We both know that there’s no going back, because survival is everything.”
What are your hopes for How The West Was Won? “I’ve got no expectations at all. I’m quite prepared for it to be a total anachronism. Since I’ve come back to the world I have no idea what’s fashionable, or what an audience is looking for. You have to be true to yourself.”