Nick Garrie

The long path of Nick Garrie
SleepTalKing

You know. I do listen to a lot of music. From R. Stevie Moore to Icy Demons, and every new discovery it’s pure joy in sound. Not talking ’bout the oldies but goldies. I never got tired of The Beatles and Elvis Costello and it’s really hard I would on the next 30 years. And yet sometimes magic happens, and you fall in love with a new band or musicians in a way other novelty didn’t manage to effect, and you wanna do nothing but listening to your new heroes songs all over again leaving space for nothing else. This particoular time it happened for two completely different artists: the american 90’s band “Model Rockets” and the British song-writer Nick Garrie, with his very strange popularity course. I was so unbelievably lucky to get him for an interview (and how gentle of him to reply to some questions)

Mark Zonda: Dear Nick, how did your love for music began, and how it lead you to record The Nightmare of JB Stanislas?
Nick: Started mumbling songs into my pillow at 6 before being shoved off to boarding school. School chapel choir was my
biggest influence.

Mark Zonda: Paul McCartney did too! What do your think about his solo career?
Nick: Not so much although i do sing “Baby,s request” from “Back to the egg”

Mark Zonda: You singing “Baby’s Request”?!?! A MUST! Can you send it to me?
Nick: Mybe I’llsing it down the phone to you one day...

Mark Zonda: What is like coming back to life having a sophomore album and gigs after more than 30 years?
Nick: I’ve kept singing all these years, up mountains and by the sea and now with kids at school. i just never knew that some
people had actually liked my own stuff all along.

Mark Zonda: Are you a music teacher? Do you usually rehearsal with them for annual competitions and stuff just like in “School of Rock” or The Langley Schools Music Project?
Nick: French, sport and singing, primary, no competitions.

Mark Zonda: Have you ever met L. Cohen?
Nick: Toured with Cohen in the 80s as support on the spanish leg of his world tour. He was charming and helpful to me.

Mark Zonda: What about Cohen the man? Any funny memory of the tour? Favourite Cohen song?
Nick: Lovely man. I like “Thats no way to say goodbye”.

Mark Zonda: How did it take to you to collect new stuff?
Nick: Last 5or 6 years, really...

Mark Zonda: How did you got in touch with Duglas T. Stewart and Norman Blake ?
Nick: Signed with joe foster on revola records who introduced me to ally kerr, who got me to record new stuff, duglas and
norman just sort of turned up and joined in and now douglas pretty much coproduces with me. great guys all of them.

Mark Zonda: I can’t definetly pick one! Which is your your favourite song, and what’s behind its writing process?
Nick: Deeper tones of blue and bungles on Stanislas and Twilight and the clock maker on Arlington gardens.
I just sort of shove in whats going on in my life at the time, quite visual.,i write a lot on trains and usually mix up the sequence of events. Can I ask how you know my stuff?

Mark Zonda: AH!AH!AH! I got a file on you! You’re my best big thing since La’s! Trains got some kind of spellbound on me.
Taking a train is like stepping right in a film. Has any of your songs been taken for a soundtrack? If not. which kind of movie do you think you’d fit?
Nick: Lovers and love in my eyes, cowritten with Francis Lai, were both sound tracks for Korean films.
now a bit of info for you that not a lot of people know. Stanislas was recorded 40 years ago this september and Elephant are
rereleasing it along with 6 original tracks which never made it onto the album rerecored next month up in glasgow. The set will include a short memoir “I’ll read the book” which answers most of your questions.

 

Nick Garrie [Sleep walking]
picture: Archivo Elefant



Nick Garrie [Sleep walking]
picture: Archivo Elefant

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