Interview: Andrew Johnson

Teesside artist Andrew Johnson releases his 21st solo album Exercise In Style, a collection of punk-leaning pop songs recorded at home and built around circular chord patterns, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and unconventional arrangements. Thematically, the album reflects his relationship with art itself, with lyrics that circle ideas of inspiration, creation and interpretation. There’s a deliberate opaqueness to the writing, leaving space for the listener’s own reading.

Sonically, Andrew moves confidently between styles to craft a 12-track album that feels cohesive and considered—from the early ’90s indie feel of the title track, to the scattered, dancey rhythms of Pepper Spray, the cinematic, sixties lounge stylings of Inertia, the Trent Reznor-tinged electro-rock of Atomic Mushrooms, and the soft, stripped-back charm of Paths of Desire. Holding it all together is Andrew’s smooth, soulful, and self-assured vocal tone, paired with a warm, intimate mix that draws the listener into an engaging musical exploration.

We caught up with Andrew to find out more…

Teesside has a rich heritage of DIY music makers and scenes. How has the local community shaped you as an artist?
I’m not sure it has had any real effect on what I do. I don’t play live very often so I’m not really involved that much other than supporting and helping others where I can. It’s nice to know someone has listened though and great if people do share or engage but, in reality, it’s a tiny amount for me and, sadly, a lot of people think transactionally when it comes to supporting others. I just crack on and plough my own furrow. I do enjoy working and writing with others though. It’s something I’m always up for.

With 21 solo albums and countless releases under different guises, what keeps the process fresh for you each time?  
I’ve always said that every song comes from a different place and is triggered in a different way and I wasn’t even sure myself if that could be possible but I recently came to the realisation that it’s because you’re a slightly different person every time you start something new. If that makes any sense? 

I do, also, like to try different processes in terms of jumping off points or setting constraints on arrangements etc. The new album was written, almost entirely, using titles and phrases I’d collected in my phone notes as stimuli.

What are some of your biggest artistic achievements to date?
Number one would be getting that first solo album finished and released. It felt like a real hurdle had been jumped. I’d always written and recorded at home through the late 80s and right through the 90s but it was, really, the advent of the internet and being able to burn CDs that made creating a decent physical product possible and getting music online to share with others. The other one would be that I just haven’t stopped. I’ve built up a massive body of work that is, essentially, the story of my adult life and it reflects all aspects of my personality from the introspective to the political and the comedic. 

Looking back at your debut in 2003, how has your relationship with songwriting and self-recording changed over the years?  
I’ve come full circle I think in recent years. I definitely went through a phase of worrying too much about how something might be received and beating myself up when it, inevitably, landed like a wet fart. I now know, of course, that making music and marketing music are two entirely different things. I made an album called Reset which I totally self-sabotaged and thought it would be the last thing I would put out because I figured no one cared anyway. I mixed it wearing earplugs so it’s really abrasive. It’s got some of my best songs on but I gave them all the same sonic treatment instead of my usual approach which is to treat each song as its own entity. I got my head back together, ironically, after my dad died ten years ago and I think I’ve made most of my best music since then because I just do it to please myself now. I’ve got “better” at songwriting and recording through sheer hours spent doing it though. I can realise ideas much more easily. 

Do you ever revisit older material or ideas, or is each album a clean slate?
With the exception of some of the work I’ve done under different guises, which often inhabits a particular musical world that an be revisited, I’d say every album is a clean slate. They do tend to come in blocks too. I won’t sit and try to write songs or an album but once the ideas start to come I get into a zone of creativity. 

How do you stay creatively motivated when working on solo projects?  
Once I’m in that zone I don’t need to worry about motivation. I get pure tunnel vision and go into a kind of fevered, hyper-focussed state until a song or album is done. I’m not a perfectionist by any stretch, more of an impressionist, so getting the feel right is all I’m bothered about then I move on. 

How has your sound evolved in Exercise In Style?
It wasn’t a massively conscious thing but the album does feel pretty cohesive, I think, despite having a few outliers. For once I was writing songs individually, rather than feeling I was writing an album but I tended to use the same template that I’d set up for the first song that came – Soul Storm – so the drums and guitars share a lot of sonic similarities. I wrote using circular chord sequences, for the most part, and the lyrics tended to come later. It’s quite a propulsive album and maybe my most forthright, vocally. 

You’ve mentioned unusual arrangements. How do you decide when a song needs to break convention? Were there any moments during the writing or recording where the album surprised you or took an unexpected turn?
Inertia is the obvious one here. I had an idea with a melody and a handful of lyrics that related to something I was thinking a lot about. I posted a snippet of that first idea to Tik Tok and someone said it could be a good James Bond theme which had never crossed my mind. I think there’s one chord change from minor to major that maybe triggered the thought. I ran with the idea and leaned into that style, slowing the tempo down and also changed some of the lyrics to be a little bit more ambiguous and it was finished surprisingly quickly. Ironically, of all the songs on an album called Exercise In Style, it’s the only one that you could argue is that. 

As far as the other songs go I was wary of not repeating myself and falling into habits of how they were arranged so I did take a bit of time and experimented to give each track a unique flavour.

Do you ever think about how listeners interpret your more opaque lyrics, or is ambiguity part of the appeal?
Some of the songs are deliberately opaque and I do tend to write using metaphors. Inertia is, again, a good example. If I revealed who and what that is actually about there might be lawyers at the door. With this album I did write a lot of stream-of-consciousness lyrics or tried to decipher my mumbled voicenotes into something approaching English and it’s interesting, to me at least, to return to them and figure out what they’re about, if anything. There are a couple of recurring characters and themes for sure though. I was definitely working through stuff, sub-consciously 

What do you hope listeners take away from the album?
I’m now 54. I’ve surprised myself that I can still produce something that I think is pretty decent and relatively forward thinking and that I haven’t sat still over the years. It’s understandable that the music industry wants fresh, young blood to suck on but there is also plenty of music of worth made by older people that comes from another perspective. The title track is pretty much about that. I think. 

What’s next for Andrew Johnson?
I don’t have any really clear plan but I do have this little scratch I need to itch which is to make a film of some sort. I love writing scripts or directing improvised work and editing. I think I’m pretty good at both but I don’t really have “the idea” yet of what that film might be. It’ll be very DIY no doubt though. Oh and I’ve written a 90,000 word memoir of sorts but I’m not sure what’s going to happen with that yet. There’ll be more music too I can almost guarantee.