4/30/2023 0 Comments Wilko johnson interview![]() ![]() ![]() “In my frail dotage, I’ve gone from teetotal to getting too much out of it. With Norman Watt-Roy’s health scare from last year and Johnson’s triumphant yet medication heavy recovery from a terminal diagnosis, I ask about what adjustments the pair have had to make. Although it sounds rather jollier than that”. Basically, it’s about sitting at home waiting for the end. “After my cancer diagnosis, I wrote some songs. Despite its upbeat feel, this first single from the new album is anything but light. Some nights, sitting at home alone, I think it’s sensible to get stoned”. It (marijuana) was just used to get stoned. When I enquire if this ode to THC was themed around his pain management programme while battling pancreatic cancer, the guitarist explains that his cancer was beyond treatment. One notable exception to the off the cuff approach featured during the recording of Blow Your Mind is the lyrically dark and introspective Marijuana. And they’d jokingly have a go at me by asking ‘Why don’t you write lyrics for THIS one?’ We’d record until midnight every night and then I’d go back to my room to work on new lyrics”. I had two songs in my head that I was writing lyrics for while we were working on a third one. “Sometimes I was panicking a bit and sometimes they realised it. When asked if the rest of the team knew about his anxiousness, Wilko stressed that he was generally trying to give the impression that everything was completely under control. When we were driving along to the studio, I was in a bit of a panic thinking I’ve only got two songs”. ![]() “Far and away the best band I’ve had for that. Surprisingly, much of the new album was written on the fly and born out of improvisation. Playing with Dylan and Norman – it’s like we’re one instrument”. ![]() “It’s been great doing this album because the band is so good. The Telecaster wielding frontman is also happy to extoll the virtues of his partners in crime on the new release. It was the three of us with Mick Talbot (keyboards) and West Weston (harmonica) joining us on a few tracks in the studio”. The 70-year old frontman details the process, “we were live in the studio. Twelve songs were tackled in a swift thirteen days. It takes a lot of money to hire a studio like this and you realise people have invested some serious dough”.ĭespite this famous Welsh studio being the location where many a famous yet over-produced album has been realised, Johnson and his long-standing band comprising of Norman Watt-Roy (bass) and Dylan Howe (drums) recorded quickly and very much as a live unit. It’s been decades since there’s been a record company giving me this kind of backing. Wilko reminisces, “we went to Rockfield Studios to record. Bolstered by the chart success of his collaboration with Roger Daltry (2014’s Going Back Home), the Game of Thrones star subsequently signed to Chess Records and enjoyed the comforts of a plush residential recording studio for the new album. Future disappearance into Low Country obscurity is thankfully not a remote possibility with his latest offering – Blow Your Mind. But for a long time the records I’ve released have been small independent things that have disappeared somewhere in Belgium”. But why the dearth of fresh songs? Wilko laughs and explains, “this thirty year business is not quite true. Feelgood, new material has been three decades in the waiting. Wilko Johnson chats with Louder Than War’s Andy Duke about Marijuana and his latest album of new material in 30 years – Blow Your Mind.Īlthough Wilko Johnson has remained a mainstay on the international live circuit since his days in Dr. ![]()
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