Continuing our series of written interviews with unsigned and independent acts, we had the opportunity to submit questions to Kevin Hewick.
How did you start in music?
I saw The Beatles on TV in 1963, I was 6 then. I remember getting close to the television and looking at John Lennon in particular with his guitar. That did it for me. Trouble when I got one for Christmas that year I thought the neck was just for holding the guitar up and I was disillusioned with my ‘playing’ so I gave the guitar away to my cousin.. and she smashed it…
At 12 I was loving White Album Beatles and Cream so with parental help I got another guitar for 12 guineas and had a couple of lessons with a lovely guy who my dad worked with called Rob who seemed so cool, 19, double cutaway
But at 14 getting to the progressive Countesthorpe College everything accelerated with me and I found myself with an electric Les Paul copy jamming with Led Zeppelin 4 very badly and joining a band at 15, we called it Life.
We weren’t that popular and our confused desire to be a cross between Focus and Rod Stewart and The Faces led to ‘musical differences’ and I got a Yamaha acoustic guitar at 16 and went ‘solo’ and wanted to be the next Roy Harper.
Maybe I still do want to be the next Roy Harper.
I somehow got into the negative mentality that it was pretty impossible to reach the heights of established artists. Things like Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Stones seemed in the pantheon of the greats, Pink Floyd were surely insurmountable, prog from the giants like Yes and ELP and brilliant cult acts like King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator all but unreachable in their grasp of the form.
In pop I adored Abba, I could hear and feel so much in their magical world, still do!
Punk realigned so much and I embraced The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Slits, The Damned and Buzzcocks etc avidly though it was the arty end with Patti Smith, Television , Pere Ubu, Wire that grabbed me the most and then came Joy Division and for a few of us Doll By Doll and The Sound, and with them a greater acessablity, I was destined to gig and record with the latter three.
Inspired by the wave I spent couple of years of erratic bedroom taping alone and with bedroom bands and sending out tapes that got rejected until Tony Wilson invited me to be on Factory.
Factory was both genius and insanity, I am eternally thankful for great times with Tony, Alan Erasmus, Martin Hannett and Section 25, A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column.. it really was part blessing part curse..
As I lost my novelty with Tony I jumped ship to Cherry Red in London but my single, debut album and EP with Adrian Borland and The Sound made no great inroads commercially and they had to let me go.
My black hole period was tough, I never thought I’d write or perform ever again for years but here I am, the slowest comeback in music history,
How would you describe your music?
A huge mix of things, a timeless blend of folk/ singer-songwriter/ rock/ lblues/ psychedelia/ avant-garde/ experimental and traditional influences.
My age can go against me but also for me, I’ve lived through and taken in just about every development in music of the last 60 odd years.
I’m go very deep in my songs, I try to be honest and truthful and to convey something powerful and moving to any listener and to share universal experiences.
To be creative is everything to me. To go into zones, to convey emotion, drama, the soul of experience.
A few chords on a guitar and voice can do all that, that’s what I try to do.
What inspires you to write songs?
I have personal songs, inspired by incidents or images or epiphanies, I am a great believer in epiphanies, as they’ve happened to me i’ve thought this will be a song..It’s as much being like a poet, a novelist, a film director, wanting to show and reveal things to other people and hit that note that moves them – and me. It’s what they reflect back, the unique moment we share.
I have political songs, I am openly left wing and hoping for a kinder, fairer more compassionate world. I don’t write slogan songs for the sake of it, Jeremy Corbyn asked me to write one called ‘For The Many, Not The Few’ but it was too literal an idea for me, i’m not a Poundland Billy Bragg.
In fact some of the songs are ambiguous.. ‘Imaginary Victory’ is about Brexit but it’s not clear who ‘wins’ and division damages the land for everyone.
I have recurring themes… Marilyn Monroe,
Tell us about your latest release
My next album is virtually ‘in the can’ and is the third one in a trilogy, it’s called ‘Never Give Up On A Song’ and the previous two were ‘Touching Stones, Tasting Rain’ and ‘Driven By Love, Driven By Hate’.
There’s a lot in them about finding salvation and reconciliation through music, through song.
The last one ‘Driven..’ had four distinct sides like a vinyl double or 4 EPs. The new one ‘Never Give Up..’ has urban and pastoral themes. A section on war. A section on peace. From don’t fall for fascism (again) to don’t cut down the trees.. and there’s some
What are your gigs like?
A celebration of the indomitable human spirit I hope.
I prefer to play long sets so I can truly unfold and present the diverse material I have.
I like talking with – not to – the audience. Intimate ventues are the best and not being time stressed. Yes there’s a lot to be said for concise statements but I like stretching out. It sometimes feels like that stretching out thing is not there in so much music, it’s a straight account lacking tangents and surprises. Patti Smith can go anywhere, from rock n’roll, from poetry and literature or there’s Van Morrison’s streams of consciousness.
There’s no stretching out or mystical message in big mainstream acts like Sheehan and Ezra. They’re not exactly Lou Reed or Neil Young are they? So literal.
I see myself as a cross between Reed and Young, Patti and Van, and Tim and Jeff Buckley, and Hendrix, and Bowie, all that and with my own stuff mixed in.
And also there’s my working class roots and the wish to fly and mind expand and taste the universe, all of that is therein.
Health permitting I hope to keep going for another couple of decades. Health not permitting I’ll find some way of doing something. As Van Morrison said ‘It’s Too Late To Stop Now’.
Being classic and being new, reinventing forever as if you can live forever. I go for that and all the madness and joy with it.