4 minute read
I’M ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL
from TAG 2021
by Jason Hollis
2021 UK TOUR DATES
OCTOBER Sun 17 BRIGHTON Brighton Centre Mon 18 DUBLIN Olympia Theatre Tue 19 BELFAST Waterfront Hall Thu 21 LEEDS O2 Academy Fri 22 BRISTOL O2 Academy Sat 23 BOURNEMOUTH, O2 Academy Mon 25 GLASGOW O2 Academy Thu 28 PLYMOUTH Pavilions Fri 29 MANCHESTER O2 Apollo Sun 31 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy Birmingham
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NOVEMBER Wed 3 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy Sat 6 LONDON Eventim Apollo
‘Life By Misadventure’ Album out now Columbia Records
I'M ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL
RAG'N'BONE MAN ON HIS NEW ALBUM, FATHERHOOD AND TOURING AGAIN
He’s back! Sussex’s favourite son, Rag‘n’Bone Man has returned with his new album, Life By Misadventure. After his brilliant debut album Human, which has received 600+ million streams on Spotify, he took a break from the music industry. Now he is back with his new album and returned in style with his breathtaking performance with P!nk at the 2021 Brit Awards. On behalf of Tag
‘21, Jenny Entwistle caught up with Rag‘n’Bone Man to discuss the process of producing his new work and life after becoming a father.
Tag: The new album is a step apart from Human sonically, but it feels like a natural progression – are you excited to finally get the music out there as you’ve been sitting on it for about a year?
R’n’BM: Yeah, it sort of feels like I’m starting afresh almost, because it is so different to the last project. [...] It feels good and it does feel like the right time to be releasing it, you know I can’t sit on it forever. The worry was that it would just get put off and put off and put off until ‘everything’s back to normal’. But, you know, I think I really needed this, to be honest.
Tag: You recorded the majority of the album when things were sort of normal back in Nashville, USA. What was it about the city that particularly attracted you to record the majority of the release there?
R’n’BM: It wasn’t really the city, it was more the people, to be honest. It’s hard to explain, Nashville itself and the downtown part of Nashville is like country music
Disney. Then when you step outside of that part, then you kind of start to get to know the other parts and it’s really, it’s really beautiful and it’s…. there’s so many great venues and it’s not just country music either, there’s so much more than that. [...]
Nashville, I’ve been there before and I kind of knew a few people.
I’d spoken to Foy Vance about Natalie Hemby, and it would be amazing if I worked with her, so I did some writing with her. I also wrote with Allen Shamblin and Mike Reid – the guys that wrote, “I can’t make you love me” (Bonnie Raitt) which is like, in my top five songs of all time. Tag: Returning from Nashville you finished the album at home in Brighton. Brighton is also the first date of the UK tour – do you think it’s going to be quite like an emotional gig? R’n’BM: I’m gonna cry! 100%. It’ll be well emotional because I haven’t sung most of the songs in public before properly. Apart from a couple... and so I don’t really know how they’re Jenny Entwistle, Jacob Cullip going to make me feel. That’s always the worry that when you Design: Curtis Kenwright
write the songs and you’re in the moment when you write them it’s great, but then when you have to play them in front of people and you have to look people in the face when you’re saying these things, the worry is that it’ll be too emotional. But I’m ready for it. Tag: What’s the song that you’re most looking forward to people hearing? R’n’BM: I wrote this song called Alone. It sort of feels a bit 90s, in a way I feel, as [I] listened to a lot of Radiohead at the time, and Oasis and stuff like that. The sonic of it is very much like that, that era of music, but then the subject is really different. It was a conversation I’d have with someone years ago, about the possibility of becoming a parent, and how not everybody wants that. And it’s okay to not want that. As men we don’t really get stick from our families about “Oh, when 'I THINK YOU you’re going to have to settle down” [...] but women do really get that and it made me think...that must be horrible, being constantly pressured. So that’s what the BECOME LESS song’s about, the pressure from people to have a family when maybe that’s not what they want. It’s an interesting subject SELFISH AS A to talk about, it’s kind of sad and it’s kind of a really archaic way of looking at things. Tag: Then talking about life
PERSON' milestones, since the release of Human you’ve welcomed your son. How do you think your outlook has changed towards your music and your style since becoming a father? R’n’BM: I think you just become less selfish as a person. It definitely broadens your thought process, but it also makes me a lot more worried about the future so I’ve talked a lot about that on the album. Like, what have I done bringing a child into this world because it’s crazy at the moment. It’s definitely made me a lot more open and a lot more honest. I feel like this record is the most honest I’ve ever been on anything. It’s also made me not so scared of being honest as well.
