wristy business
It’s nearly a year since the virtuoso guitarist broke his wrist and dislocated his entire right-hand while on holiday in France but today, Newton Faulkner sounds (and looks) like one of the healthiest people I’ve ever met. “I’m just really, really, really, really glad to be back on the road,” he beams.
Celina Murphy, 19 Jan 2010
It would have been a pretty serious injury for anyone, but for musical Energizer Bunny Faulkner, it was potentially life-altering. And not in a good way. Ironically, the accident happened just two feet from the door of his chalet. “It was icy,” he says, “I slipped.”
How’s the wrist now?
“I preferred it before, actually,” he laughs, offering me his arm. “You can feel the plate if you press really hard there. You have to get right in there though. Really go for it!”
The little pink scar is modest, but there is a huge chunk of metal in his arm. Faulkner recalls how French doctors, presumably more used to tending to injured slope-hoppers than gifted guitarists, wanted to swaddle him up in plaster and send him on his way. Luckily, he was able to fly home to see a specialist, who sliced open his wrist like a runner bean and attached the plate with a hand-held crosshead screw driver. Ouch!
“I never really considered not being able to play again,” he shrugs, “not at all. I was in a complete dream world. I only found out exactly how bad it was fairly recently when I went on BBC News with the surgeon. Hearing him talk about it was scary, he was like, ‘Really, this is the worst possible injury a guitarist could ever have. This was a career ending injury, but I managed to save him.’ And I was just standing there like ‘Thanks, mate!’”
Born Sam Newton Battenberg (yes, really) Faulkner some 25 years ago, the Surrey lad’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fingerwork made him a word-of-mouth phenomenon back in 2007, helped in no small part by radio-friendly hits ‘Dream Catch Me’ and ‘I Need Something’.
Now famous for his impromptu cover versions (he’s tackled everyone from the SpongeBob SquarePants pirate to Kate Nash), Faulkner is keen to reminisce with me about an uncharacteristically sunny weekend in Clare this past September, where he headlined day two of the Cois Fharraige surf and music festival.
“I love that little town,” he says of Kilkee. “I even slept outside last time. We had a hotel which I never made it back to, but I remember sleeping on a little patch of grass outside with a duvet for some reason, I don’t know where I got that.”
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