We will be interviewing an unsigned artist every week from now on.  The idea is that they are people that YOU like, so if you've got someone you'd like to do a feature on, please get in touch....




Tom Rosenthal and I have been on the phone for at least twenty minutes, and we’ve covered all sorts- what we would like to call our kids and where we’d like to bring them up, what we thought about the University experience (he didn't like it), how I had misjudged both his age and location (I thought he was thirty-ish and lived in the country, turns out he’s 23 and lives in North-West London), how he is above the comedian Tom Rosenthal on Google (it turns out that they have met after a mutual friend decided they should really meet each other).  Babbling on like a couple of grannies getting their colour put in, it’s all very pleasant and it is only when we discuss people’s motives for playing music and Tom says that ‘78% of men learn music as a means to make love more’ which as someone who is currently learning the guitar I cannot disagree with, I remember that I am supposed to be interviewing him.  

Tom’s a chatty inquisitive fella see, something that should have perhaps been expected upon listening to his songs which contain pithy observations of such ordinary day things as Jeremy Kyle, the evils of Tesco and how he doesn’t like goats cheese.   It’s not all this quirky sort of thing, mind, and he has a penchant for weepers; simple songs where his voice cracks, strains and ruminates on the matters of more global appeal , usually accompanied by little more than a gently tinkling piano . With such an idiosyncratic repertoire it’s hard to compare him to anyone; indeed he says himself that, whilst he is aware that every band ever says the same thing, he believes the music he makes is individual and he tries his ‘best not to sound like someone else’.  And it’s hard to argue.  Essentially its folk, but certainly cannot be compared to the bevy of  ‘Big’ folkies doing so well at the moment.  It’s lo-fi (all recorded in his room) but it’s also definitely not Bon Iver; there’s bundles of melancholy but that’s often more to do with the delivery than the content, and much of it even sounds like nursery rhymes for adults. I tell him that perhaps the closest well-known artist to him, more because of attitude than anything else, is Devendra Banhart which he seems fairly happy with.  So, what does influence him?

‘Voices.  Voices are the most amazing thing, they can make anything amazing.’  He highlights Blue Roses as an example of this.  He also, somewhat surprisingly given the rest of the artists he references (Woodpigeon, The Boy Least Likely To), says that The xx have great voices, ‘a beautiful mish-mash’.  Of course he does then go on to say that he thinks they are one of ‘the most over-hyped bands’ of recent times which, though I love The xx, leads us off on another tangent on the perils of industry ‘buzz’.  

Despite gigging, recording songs since 2006 and seemingly having a  fairly devoted fanbase, he himself has no form of representation and is relying on his music to create the buzz.  Is this not something he wants though?  ‘I’ve talked to a few different labels, but they want to take over and do what they want.’  Teasingly, he does say he has earmarked one he’s hoping to link up with in the future, though won’t expand on who that is and instead prefers to talk about how he is in the process of writing and recording his first album in his home studio which he is confident is ‘gonna be brilliant.’ 

His website has about 40 songs on it which you can stream or buy.  Some of these, not least ‘Heaven Will Be Boring’ (which has even been covered on youtube ), would seem ready to go on an album already? ‘No, no, they’re all new.  I try not to revisit songs that I’ve done.’  He then goes on to passionately decree that ‘songs tell the story of a moment’ and he wants the album to be the story of him at this time.  And at this moment, it must be said he seems very chipper indeed.  Up until ‘four or five months ago’ he was doing a lot of things including trying to run his own label, but has now decided that he is going to concentrate on getting the album finished.  He’s determined to make it a success, as determined as he is to introduce more complex instrumentation to the final product, and if you listen to newer songs like ‘Evoll’ (which was produced by FrYars) and the stunning ‘The Snow’ you can hear this. In the long run, he says he wants to be ‘a pioneer fusing the worlds of art and music together’.  A heady ambition it seems, but one he is already pursuing by taking part in an art installation at The Barbican in March wherein he will have to write, compose and perform a new song every hour for its duration.

So it’s been over an hour now and, though the conversation is still rattling along nicely, I’m very late for something else.  I can’t finish without asking him about ‘Dilys’ though, a song shot through with an almost unbearable amount of  melancholy. Written about an encounter with an elderly woman- Dilys- on the train, it details their conversation about her life meandering its way towards its conclusion, and how he promised he'd write a song about her:

You said your husband died four years ago,
and for the most part you’re alone,
Your many teddy bears they don’t keep you warm at night,
And you don’t believe in a God

We later go on to learn her husband was a prisoner of war, and that she has no children.  It’s unbelievably simple, sad, and representative of all our fears of getting old.  It transpires it is a true story, and that Tom ‘likes talking to people on trains.  I don’t really believe in the concept of strangers.’ He then proclaims it to actually be his favourite song, ‘because it’s the truth.  That’s what I’m always trying to do.  [It’s like] 95% of the times people write songs about love, they’re not true, not actually motivated by truth.’  Has Dilys ever heard her song? ‘I don’t think so.’ Do you know where she lives? ‘Well I know it was Hertfordshire, a town beginning with T I think.  Maybe I should try and find her.  She’d probably love it’.

I’m pretty sure she would.






http://www.myspace.com/tomrosenthal


http://www.tomrosenthal.co.uk/

Posted In Interview Unsigned, Jan 20 2010. Words - David