INTERVIEW: Hamish Hawk

Image by Dawn Storey

If you’re yet to witness the spectacle of a Hamish Hawk gig, February’s tour is the time to rectify that. Their critically acclaimed third album, A Firmer Hand, reached number 22 in September and the Edinburgh five-piece never disappoint. Their electric energy and Hawk’s inimitable dancing are intoxicating, and it was a pleasure to sit down for a chat with him while he and his band were in the North East to support Travis.

“We first went on tour with them on the continent in September,” says Hamish. “We had such a blast and it was genuinely one of my favourite tours ever. They are the most charming and welcoming people. There’s certainly a friendship, but there’s almost a sort of mentorship that’s established itself as well which is really, really nice. Travis are just Scottish legends, you know, so I’ve really, really enjoyed it. I hope we’re picking up fans. It seems that we are. We’ve been making a point of asking at the merch table ‘Is this the first time you’ve seen us?’ and it seems that, across the board, it’s wholly new audiences.”

This tour has given the band the chance to consider how they might combine older tracks with those from A Firmer Hand for their upcoming headline tour, which stops off at Newcastle’s Digital on Wednesday 12^th February.

“It’s difficult,” says Hamish. “Songs change beyond belief as soon as you start performing them. It’s been quite eye-opening seeing not only how the new songs go down, but how they interact with older songs, although all I have to base it on when I’m on the stage is what people are saying with their eyes. They don’t actually give away as much as you might think.” Known for his intense stares and facial expressions as he performs, he laughs as he adds, “Especially when I’m glaring at them!”

Alongside the enforced eye contact, a song like Big Cat Tattoos also grabs attention thanks to its lyrical side-eyes and the way in which Hawk voices its mischievous conversational asides.

I really relish in writing lyrics and playing with words, but some of that pleasure is derived from the singing, not just the writing of the words

“Big Cat Tattoos was a thrilling song to write. Once or twice in each album cycle a song will present itself that comprises the promise of so many new images and symbols, and Big Cat Tattoos was the song for A Firmer Hand. So it was the crystalware and the kink and the signet ring and the shoegaze, and all these images just arrived on the page. I was suddenly struck with, ‘Oh, this is the sort of treasure trove song that I needed for this album to start building things’. Money was like that, Calls To Tiree was like that. And I get very excited when I write those songs because it feels like I’ve tapped at a sort of spring. So it tends to be in those excitable songs that I end up playing around with little performative moments – ‘Is this a bad time?’ or ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’, or even just things like exhalations and aspirations – all that Jarvis-y stuff. I really relish in writing lyrics and playing with words, but some of that pleasure is derived from the singing, not just the writing of the words. It’s from the performance of them as well.”

As a lover of language who enjoys scrutinising Hawk’s lyrics, it’s a delight to discover that he’s just as careful at wording responses to questions. Endearingly appreciative of those he considers to be good ones, his replies are thoughtful – he often restarts or rephrases them to convey precisely what he wants to say – all of which make his songwriter status seem more of a vocation than a choice.

“It’s absolutely a calling,” he affirms. “When I was a teenager, I knew that what I wanted to do with my life would involve a creative pursuit. I didn’t necessarily know exactly what that would be. I was keen to act, and at school it was all the arts. All my teachers were saying, ‘You should really do some sciences or something’ but that’s not how my brain works. I was playing the guitar and writing songs when I was in my teens, albeit terrible songs, but I was doing that all the way throughout my 20s. And then everything else just sort of dwindled in comparison and music swallowed up the whole of my life and that’s how it’s remained, I suppose. Songwriting is the thing that I do in spite of absolutely everything else – or despite everything else. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with my notebook beside the bed and I’ll write because something in my sleeping brain has said, ‘There’s an idea here. You need to wake up and do this.’ When that inspiration strikes it’s the be all and end all really – I could be really late for a social engagement or something. I suppose it’s a self-centred way of working, but it’s the thing in my life that not only stimulates me and satisfies me and satiates me most, but I don’t really understand it. Songwriting is of utmost importance to me to actually work through stuff and make sense of my life. It’s a sort of therapising tool. So when it comes to the reason we’re doing this – me and Andrew and Stefan and Ollie and John – the reason we’re in this – and I don’t want to sound faux sophisticated – is for the craft of it. We love writing songs, we love performing in front of people, we love giving people that thing because we ourselves love getting it from other musicians. That’s what we spend our time thinking about.”

Hamish Hawk play Digital, Newcastle on Wednesday 12^th February.