Newton's Lore
Million-sellng singer songwriter NEWTON FAULKNER on why he sleeps better on the tour bus than in his own home, and why it’s not a good idea to ask 6,000 people to boo your songs.
Colm O Hare, 01 Nov 2010
ne of many highlights at The Music Show this year is certain to be a rare master-class and public audience with singer-songwriter and ace acoustic guitar player, Newton Faulkner. Since the release of his superb 2007 debut album Hand Built By Robots, a UK No.1, the dreadlocked Surrey native has been on a permanent roll. That album went on to sell over a million copies, also scoring a Brit-Award nomination, while the follow-up Rebuilt By Humans was greeted with equal acclaim. A tireless live performer, he has described his life over the past few years as “running around the world like a lunatic”. He has played Glastonbury several times and is no stranger to this country, having appeared at Cois Fharraige in Kilkee, Co Clare and at this year’s Oxegen.
However, he says his appearance at The Music Show will be a whole new experience for him – one that he will relish. “When I heard that I was doing a master-class I thought, what? Me? Are you sure? But now that I’ve thought about it, I’m really looking forward to it. It’s not often that I get the chance to slow down and actually analyse and talk about the way I play and write.”
Faulkner’s wonderful, distinctive acoustic guitar style – a combination of fast-paced finger-picking and rhythmic tapping on the body of the guitar – is, he says, partly down to the fact that he once played bass in a Green Day covers band! “I think that style of rhythmic playing becomes ingrained into your guitar style. A lot of bass players end up doing melodies and that’s what I did. I just transferred that style to the six-string. It’s probably why I work with alternate tunings too, but I don’t really think about it in a completely structured way. I suppose the way you play just becomes instinctive.”
His songs – the lovely cover of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ being a prime example – have a natural, highly melodic, easy-going feel about them. But his approach to songwriting is, he says, anything but disciplined. “I work in a lot of different ways and I don’t have a system that I stick to rigidly. I really like being a bit lost and fumbling around in the dark when writing. When you have an idea, you have to get as much going as possible and you can end up in strange places. It gets less creative once you’ve had that initial spark; sometimes you have to be quite rigid to finish it.
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