Don’t hold back
How lockdown transformed Chris Cleverley
CHRIS Cleverley is setting off on his spring tour in May, which will see him playing in London, Birmingham, Devon, and Windsor in anticipation of his fourth album.
After the lockdowns, Chris was keen to get out and on stage again.
“It makes such a difference,” he says, “being able to share art in the way that it’s meant to be, with person- to-person interaction.”
He feels that this is especially true of his particular genre, which he describes as alternative folk.
“It’s solo acoustic, it tends to be in kind of more intimate venues, maybe like 50 to 100 capacity, often intently listening and really connecting with the lyrical content and the story behind it.”
“You’re not necessarily having a two way conversation with people, but there’s this subtle kind of interaction between you and the audience, and you really feed off that.”
Chris admits that this was lost a little during the pandemic, saying: “It was a make or break moment.
“It’s pretty bleak in terms of the prospects for your musical career – at times I thought I could either pack it in or double down.”
Despite choosing to double down, he says the online gigging may not be the way to go for him.
“It was great at that moment in time, it served a purpose, but you can’t cut really tap into the true nature of the performance unless you’re right there in front of the artist.”
He notes that online performances still have a place in music.
“Hybrid performances, which are really cool for people in a more vulnerable position who aren’t able to make it to a show, it’s great for them to have that option, So suddenly, you’ve got this whole new audience to draw on and a whole new way of spreading art and creativity.”
Instead of focussing on online performance, Chris worked on his third album, Live from the Glass Isle.
The album is a live recording of a set performed on Glastonbury Tor, and something of a departure from his previous two albums.
“I’ve always recorded with a band before, but as a first solo acoustic thing, and it was a live album for for that age of imprisonment.”
The setting for the album became more influential than it first seemed.
“I’d read about this rite of passage where they’d would take a spiral path at Glastonbury Tor, at dawn on the the first of August, the festival of Lughnasadh.
“It symbolised facing this uncertain period with kind of hope and conviction, so I stayed there overnight, got up at dawn, and took some time there.”
This experience led Chris to create much of the material on his third album, which he performed at foot of the hill.
“I guess most of the songs on the new album have been written pretty much from that point,
“So clearly it enabled some kind of headspace for me to tap into and get that creativity out, which wasn’t always the case during that period.”
He says it changed the way he creates.
“I would say it’s probably the most expressive, uninhibited writing I’ve done so far
“In terms of the music, it’s branching out into some new genres, different instrumentation, and developing the sound,
He says that it has changed his approach to lyrics, too.
“There’s a lot more challenging themes, things like the displacement of people, the climate emergency, the pervasive nature of artificial intelligence,
“I wanted to say what I was feeling about these things and not hold back, not worry about how it might be perceived.”
“Every word should count, every note should count.”
Chris’ spring tour will be the first time he is performing much of the material on his upcoming album, set for release in November.
He will be performing at
The Hope, Windsor, on Thursday, May 26.