FEATURED BAND
“I used to live in a flat above an antique shop in Meeting House Lane, which had a tarmac roof with a few broken tiles and plant pots. It was coming up for summer and I was sorting it out, having a garden day. I liked the way ‘garden day’ sounded – your garden day seemed a nice little way to describe life. Everyone has their own garden day.” Robin’s love of nature is evident in the band’s styling – note the flowers, natural prints and ever-increasing number of garden gnomes that join the boys on stage. Last year’s tour saw enough time planned for woodland walks and sea swims to break up the time on the road. While the official EP launch gig took place in the church, Robin unveiled his songs to a select group a few days earlier, playing through the EP in his back garden.
feature
KAYE SARAH INGLIS
yourgardenday is the musical project of Brighton singer, pianist and all-round good egg Robin Coward. Well-known on the acoustic and open mic scene, Robin has been playing under this name for several years and the band has gone through a few line-ups. Currently it comprises Robin on piano/vocals and Samuel Declan Kelly on guitar/backing vocals, with Paul Blackburn joining on bass for local live shows. At time of writing the position of drummer is vacant, although the latest EP features the considerable stickwielding talent of Peter Rowley.
The yourgardenday sound is tricky to categorize. The band themselves use the alliterative ‘playful piano prog pop’ tag, and there is certainly a heavy dose of symphonic prog attitude in the songs, as Robin’s classical piano roots are blended with an unplugged pop sound, plus a liberal dash of saloon bar raw energy for good measure. The heavy reliance on natural acoustics and minimal amplification also makes the band popular on the folk circuit – perhaps the term ‘anarchic acoustic’ suits them better. In August 2013 yourgardenday released the five-track flat stream EP with a launch gig at St. Andrew’s Church, Hove, followed by a tour of unique venues across the South of England that culminated in a show at the Union Chapel. The tour and EP was fanfunded through a Pledge Music campaign. Big things are planned for yourgardenday in 2014 with more ambitious tours and festival appearances. Often to be found purposefully spoonerising himself as a “magician, erm, musician”, there is no denying that there is something magical about yourgardenday’s live performances. We caught up with Robin to see what he has up his wizardly sleeve.
8
The first thing most people ask about yourgardenday is where the name comes from. Nature-lover Robin explains,
“For all that we spend a lot of time indoors I love getting outside, going for walks, seeing nature slip into cities,” says Robin. “Quite often I get distracted by a dove or flummoxed by a fox during a conversation.” Take a look at the yourgardenday back catalogue and you could be forgiven for thinking Robin has spent the best part of seven years stopping to sniff the flowers along the way. Even in terms of huge rock groups, the hiatus in recordings since the release of the last EP, ‘Journeys in my House’ (which is well worth a listen along with the first, ‘Little Boy There’, released in 2003 and with a more of a traditional prog rock sound) is considerable. So what’s the reason for such a long gap? “It seems strange that it would take me so long to do more recordings,” Robin readily admits. “But I’ve always wanted to get it right. yourgardenday has been through lineup changes, I was travelling, then being full-time self-employed as a musician means work gets in the way. I have far more songs floating around than are recorded – this EP is a stepping stone to get a whole album done professionally, with more instrumentation.” There’s something of the perfectionist in Robin, which meant finding the right people to work with was also important. And it’s a slur to say he’s been lazy in those seven years – running up to three open mics a week and numerous acoustic showcase nights, including the now-sadly-departed Ali Cats, gigging with a covers band and working as a session musician for Passenger, Martin Rossiter and Bo Bruce has kept him busy. Indeed, it was the mic nights and the work with Bo that were to prove crucial to flat stream’s realisation. “I met producer Fleet doing session work for Bo Bruce (runner-up on series 1 of The Voice),” Robin explains. “I was coming up to a point when my work was sustaining itself so I had time to spend on my music.”