Six Of The Best: Chintzy Stetson

Picture By Lauren Luxemberg

Newcastle-based artist and one of BBC North-Easts top-tips for 2022, Chintzy Stetson releases his latest single, Final Words. The song, with its driving piano, wandering bass and groovy, engaging chorus, is full of charm and Americana flavours, with afternotes of artists such as Beck, The Bees and Savoy Brown. 

Here, Chintzy Stetson talks about his influences with a six of the best…

Randy Newman
Beyond the Toy Story songs there’s a man with a deep deep understanding for the human condition. His lyrics paint worlds and feelings beyond normal realms and his playing and songwriting is masterful. I channelled him when playing that first piano riff on final words and then the song just fell out.

Scotland
I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where I’ve felt such an affinity with a place than Scotland. Every experience seems to show me something a little different. I see myself in its landscape. I’d just returned from a beautiful and terrifying experience there before writing Final Words. You can go up there and lose your mind for a few days and it becomes harder and harder to leave every time. Shoutout to Kenmore and Loch Tay.

My Grandmother
My grandmother died in February of 2019 very suddenly of COVID. It still hurts me now that I didn’t get any time with her nor did my mother or family. She taught me a lot. Some of which I understood at the time but more fascinating than that is what I had no idea she could teach me. I can always hark back to her and wonder what she’d do in a situation or what advice she’d give me. That’s legacy. I think final words plays with that and our reflections and ruminations we may have about our life. I’m sure she’d have something to say here.

Kids
My niece being born changed my world more than I ever thought it could.
Having a child is a huge responsibility of course, but that responsibility is getting wider as the world becomes a harder place to exist in. There’s similitude in creating life and hurting the planet in which life exists in that rings an alarm in my head that the universe is winking, and we aren’t getting the hint. The world is ever-changing, and the future of humankind looks murkier and murkier. Bringing someone into this world and helping them understand life and how to navigate through its many obstacles is a huge task. Many of my friends have families now and I’ve met plenty of babies, and I can’t help but think that we must do better. You can see it in a baby’s eyes. We just have to do better. And we will.

Dennis Wilson
Dennis was the drummer for The Beach Boys. His story is tragic but heartfelt and the way he died was tragic.

He died on Christmas Eve in Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles diving drunk off a friend’s boat. He kept pulling artifacts from the bed of the marina and went down one last time and never came back up. The artifacts turned out to be some of the memorabilia he’d dumped there after his last marriage. I think he was hanging onto so much emotional baggage he just couldn’t find the light out of there.

It was a last-ditch attempt to get back what he had lost. Final Words covers this in its theme of inebriating yourself to float through the low stuff and waking up on the other side burdened with something heavier and more catastrophic than before. His album Pacific Ocean blue floors me every time.

Night Walks
I used to put on this funk playlist and walk around the craziest parts of wherever I was staying at the time. I’d have a few drinks and just watch people do things they’d never do in daylight. I’d then get bored and join in. But the observing was always fascinating to me. You can understand a lot about a city by sitting in the murky water for a little while.