Badly Drawn Boy Interview - November 2006

BADLY DRAWN BOY

by Craig Ablitt

Badly Drawn Boy aka Damon Gough seems like a very hard man to please. After scooping the Mercury Music Award in 2000 for debut album Hour of the Bewilderbeast and subsequently releasing four more acclaimed records, all has not gone to plan according to him. “The plan was just to keep moving forward but I’m not so sure I’ve always achieved that,” he remarks. “Career wise I can’t complain because I’ve made five records that people have appreciated, but I don’t think I’ve had the success I’ve deserved.”

These sorts of statements are typical of Gough. He accomplishes big, sets out higher, yet fails to meet his own personal demands. It all sounds like the symptoms of a perfectionist surely? “I couldn’t give a fucking shit about perfection. If something sounds good and feels good then that’s all that matters,” he snaps. “If I sought perfection, that means everything would have to be fundamentally right and I like everything to be fundamentally wrong. I do things that I know people might not want to hear and hate things being too clean and normal. Saying that I don’t think I’ve made an album I could have bettered, yet I know I’m still to make my best record.”

Never easy to convince, his UK tour sold out in typically easy fashion to promote his latest album Born In The UK, yet he doesn’t seem particularly upbeat about how it has gone so far. “Some nights I walk offstage and think that the gig was shit, but the rest of the band come off going ‘ah that was amazing’. It feels like I’m at a different gig some nights even though we’ve always left the stage to standing ovations,” he explains.

It is evident talking to Gough he couldn’t care less what other people think about him or his music as long as it pleases himself. Although for Gough, this album has been the most difficult for him to record. “I suppose every album has been difficult for whatever reason, but on this one I piled more pressure on myself than ever before to prove that I could make a record that was worthwhile,” he points out. Personal pressure is one thing, but what of record company pressure? “Nobody puts pressure on me because if they did I’d tell them to fuck off because I couldn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks,” he says angrily. “If a record is shit or not up to scratch it’s not up to anyone else except me.” That’s the world told.

So high were his expectations for releasing an album that pleased him, he also scrapped an albums worth of material along the way, which he claimed was the right thing to do at the time. “The album I scrapped took eight months out of my life and £200,000 to record. I took up a lot of people’s time. I wasn’t trying to be clever or cool, it just wasn’t the right album for me to release at that time.”

One person the stubborn Gough did listen to on recording Born In The UK was producer Nick Franglen (of Lemon Jelly) who constantly badgered Gough to persist with the tracks he felt weren’t up to scratch on the record. “I just thought that every vocal, every guitar part and every piano bit sounded shit. Nick kept on telling me it was good enough and it sounded great,” he says. “He bounced loads of ideas around in the studio and had the enthusiasm and expertise to help me make the record I wanted to make.”

With many Badly Drawn Boy fans citing the now classic Hour Of The Bewilderbeast as his best work to date, Gough typically disagrees and believes his least commercially successful album is his best yet, with Born In The UK being too new to judge. “I’m bored of hearing about how good Bewilderbeast is,” he fires off. “That was just a record I made that came off the top of my head. One Plus One is One is my best album so far, although judging from sales everyone else disagrees. But like I say, I don’t really give a fuck about what anyone else thinks because my soul goes into each record. Born In The UK, I’ve not even listened to since I recorded it. I always find it hard to listen to my records after release.”

As Gough constantly strives to better himself, we wonder what it is that would make him truly content with a piece of his own work. “I know it sounds crap, but I think having that number one record would be great,” he says. But we thought he didn’t care what other people thought? “I don’t, but as an artist you always want your work to be appreciated by the listener. People say I’m silly for wanting to a number one record, but I want that iconic record which is held in high regard for years to come,” he states. “All I ever wanted to do with my life is leave my mark on the world, which the track ‘Without A Kiss’ on this album talks about. I hope that happens if it hasn’t already because fulfilment and contentment are the most important things in life.”

So there you have it. Buy Born In The UK, send it to number one and help make Badly Drawn Boy satisfied, finally!