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Since his launch to fame with beloved album Hand Built by Robots, Newton Faulkner has built a 20-year career characterised by percussive acoustic guitar. Now bringing his new album OCTOPUS to Avalon Beach RSL on Saturday 11 April, he'll be showcasing something delightfully different with electronic elements.
In your single 'What Took You so Long', who is the person you're talking to, and what's the feeling behind the song?
With 'What Took You so Long', I wrote that initial verse, melody and kind of the beginnings of the lyrics a really long time ago, and when I played it to people they looked at me like I was insane. So I shelved it for a bit, but eventually, everything went round from me making absolutely no sense to anyone, to suddenly people being like, "Oh this is exactly what we need!"
With the lyrics, there was almost a decade between the beginning of the verse and the chorus. I wanted it to work for relationships, but there was an element, on a professional level, about people who've just discovered my music. I've been doing this for twenty-something years, but there are people who come across me like, "Oh there's this new guy!" I'm like "No, I'm not a new guy!" I didn't want that to be the overriding sense, but it was a fun angle to play with.
A lot of your music is quite uplifting, encouraging people to dream and smile more. Is that the angle you're going for with this album too?
It's a bit grittier than I've gone before. The whole thought process behind this album was to not get in the way of it, really. What's happened in the past is that I've had ideas that were kind of over there, and then I've played it to some people and they've gone, "That's cool, but don't go too far, because then you'll turn people off over here." Then, I tuned it back towards the middle a bit more. But with this record, I didn't want to do that at all; there was no second-guessing what people would want me to do or what they'd expect if they'd listened to all my other stuff. It was very much like, "Okay, what is this wanting to do?" and just letting it do that. Lyrically as well as production-wise, I decided to let all the tracks go wherever they wanted, so they ended up pulling in all directions.
I am naturally quite a positive writer. I'm not a very morose person; I want my work to have depth, but trying to do something that is happy and has depth, when talking to other writers, is what people find the hardest to do. I think that's why I gravitate towards it, because whatever is the biggest challenge will make me say, "Okay, let's do that, that sounds fun." It's why I've ended up building MIDI shoes and all sorts of other stuff.
You've had some witty album titles like Hand Built by Robots and later Rebuilt by Humans. What's the reasoning behind the title OCTOPUS?
There's a completely true story, and the story I might have adapted after the first interview. So the true story is, I saw the album cover in my head: I wanted it to be white, I wanted an animal in the middle, I wanted the name of the album to be the name of the animal, and I wanted my name smaller than the name of the album, because the album feels like it's more important than me as an artist; it feels like its own thing, so I wanted to give it that space. Then I spent three or four days scrolling through endless pictures of animals. It was quite hard convincing people that I was working while I was doing that. And I went from albatross to otter, kind of looking at everything, until eventually I came across a picture of an octopus and was like, "That's it. That's exactly what I want." That shape in the middle, with the tentacles, and the word looked awesome written down.
And then, in the very first interview I did, which I wasn't very prepared for, I was massively inarticulate about the album because, to be honest I hadn't really had a chance to think about it. The guy interviewing me very casually went, "So Octopus, I would assume that's because it's your eighth album?" And I paused for a second and went "...Yeah!" I had to pretend that I knew it was my eighth album because it looks bad if you don't know what number album you're on. Ever since then, I've been retrofitting: on the one hand, it is the eighth album and it's like the eighth tentacle, but I think sonically it is about reaching out in all directions. Each track is an independent arm reaching off to a different place to the track before. It was probably the easiest tracklist I've ever done because there are tracks that you literally can't put next to each other because they just don't work, so it was quite easy to put together because there were only three options that made any sense at all.
What do you think has driven this experimentation?
I change constantly and once I've done something I think I'm like "Tick, done! What's next?" I love experimental acoustic and there is an element of that, but it does take a backseat to writing and production this time around. There are entire albums I've done in the past, like Studio Zoo which is so intricate and so detailed, but I didn't want to do just that again, I wanted to plant my flag somewhere else. The analogy I've always used is "I got into the right room, but I came in through the wrong door, so I've spent years doing a weird shuffle across the floor." But where I'm most comfortable is standing next to this album now. I've got gigs coming up where I've basically banned all technology, because I can get pretty freaky with MIDI guitars and MIDI shoes, but obviously that sometimes draws away from the purist playing mentality, which I do love, and I love challenging myself in that area as well.
How has your life changed since the busking days?
I don't think I miss busking at all. It's quite hard. I didn't do loads of it; I was kind of sneaking out of school and setting myself up in Covent Garden and I met some fascinating people. There was a guitarist that was a million times better than me, and a classical pianist who learnt electric guitar on his lap and he just poked it and did these beautiful arrangements. And there was a day where, at the end of a day's busking, he walked up and said, "I'm going to give you all my takings from today," and I was like "Why would you do that?" It was very nice but I didn't understand. He said "I feel like today you were slowing them down enough to stop at me." And I thought that was the noblest outlook on life I've ever come across.
At that point I really was just starting. I don't think I could really sing to any reasonable standard. My playing was okay but I was playing electric guitar through a tiny little amp. I wasn't a busker with a big crowd, so it wasn't really where the career side of things started.
What do you get up to when you're not performing?
I've got two kids and two dogs and they kind of keep me out of trouble, to be honest. But my main hobby is learning. Today, I watched an interview with the guy who mixed Nevermind, and it was absolutely fascinating. I spend a lot of time researching production techniques, and I've just bought a course on compression. I learn about all kinds of things, really. I love all the summarised books you can get now. There's a visual one called Imprint which I do whenever my son's asleep in the bed and I can't listen to anything. It's a visual learning app and I love that. I did an entire course in Daoism, which I loved.
Thanks Newton! If a night of fresh music from a familiar, friendly face sounds like a dream, catch him at Avalon Beach RSL Club on Saturday 11 April. Book tickets at avalonrsl.com.au.
@newtonfaulkner | newtonfaulkner.com
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