Post by jay on Jun 8, 2009 1:54:59 GMT
here.
It doesn’t work the first time. AU ends up interviewing the Vodafone Voicemail service. It’s alright. Theremins do funny things to Nokias. Take two, the next day, provides a real person, albeit a surprised one. Patrick’s been doing interviews for two days straight, and he wasn’t expecting this one. Sorry. The child of bohemian parents, Wolf’s back-story is now almost myth. Originally named Patrick Apps, he began recording music at 12 and joined Leigh Bowery’s music/performance art collective- Minty- at 14, although at this stage he tires of talking about his “difficult” teenage years. “To tell the truth, I’ve been talking about this since I was 19, so at 25 I’d just rather talk about the present tense, if that’s ok?” The present tense it is.
“I really liked it when I had really long blonde hair extensions, like Britney. I felt the most feminine then.” Currently, his hair is short and suicide blonde, and his outfits more Gareth Pugh than the Pollyanna ribbons of 2007. Wolf’s image changes rapidly, from a 12 year old who built his own theremin and attended the Royal Academy of Music, to the sulky rangy teen on the cover of his debut- ‘Lycanthropy’- culminating in fey flame-haired sprite who sits on a carousel for his previous record-‘The Magic Position’. Does he feel a need to constantly re-invent his image? “I don’t really feel the need to always constantly create. I guess I’m naturally doing that all the time anyway. I think it’s about adding a visual dimension to the work.” Wolf’s visual presence isn’t hard to miss. A former constant member of the young London party scene, his daily life and friendships are chronicled by the paparazzi, from his friendship with Miquita Oliver, to dinners at the Hoxton Bar and Grill. “I feel really irresponsible to just go out of the house in my pyjamas, if there are photographers around. I need to perform as I would on stage. I know it’s a cliché, but all the world’s a stage, and I try and live my life like a work of art. If not I’d feel very boring.” He’s not alone in trying to re-imagine pop music as ‘art’, as it were. Though he recently djed at a Wonky Pop night in Matter in London, Wolf doesn’t recognise the term, and doesn’t see other Wonky Pop artists, such as VV Brown, as his contemporaries. He is, however, a fan of Lady Gaga. The similarities between the two are evident. Both came from a performing arts school background (Wolf studied composition at Trinity College in London, Gaga at the Tisch in New York), and both explore the links between self-expression and pop music. Wolf agrees- “I’m really glad Lady Gaga has come along. I think we really need her in England to shake us out of this boring R’n’B mentality that’s all about fast cars and really boring production and masculine misogyny. I think she’s brilliant. I’ve met her a couple of times and I think she’s a really interesting person.” Like Gaga, Wolf has been compared to similar exuberant, flamboyant male solo artists, most notably Mika. Wolf smartly quashed these comparisons with the swift, though not pithy, denouncement that “Mika is a twat”. Also like Gaga, Wolf has also courted trouble about the amount of skin he shows on stage. After Perez Hilton mocked Wolf for performing a striptease at a gig, Wolf wrote with vitriol on his Myspace blog, citing works of art as his reference, and not public sentiment: “Has nobody seen “Orlando” by Sally Potter? Read the Leigh Bowery biography? Watched “Jubilee” by Derek Jarman? I come from these worlds, these are my heroes, heroines, a naked body does not offend me in any way, it can be used as a communication device, a performance piece. It need not be perfect and there is no such thing as perfection when it comes to the body.”
While Wolf cultivates an image of a sybarite, a free spirit, he’s fundamentally split down the middle- whether he’ll acknowledge it or not. He simultaneously tries to distance himself from his past, while at the same time reconnecting with it. Even in terms of nationality, he sways between Celtic and Anglo-Saxon. ‘Wind in the Wires’ was an effort to embrace his “Cornish roots”, and Wolf explains that “I feel kind of half-English half-Irish. I was born in London and spent a lot of time in Cork, going backwards and forwards between the two during the summer. So, I grew up with a big Irish heritage. My family on my mother’s side is from Clonakilty.” In a way, the new record – ‘The Bachelor’- is a search for a solid ground, a return home. His family play on the record, and the instrumentation nods to his Irish heritage. “My mum plays spoons on the record, and there’s Irish fiddle and Irish whistle on the album. I’ve done so much travelling, in America and Australia. I just needed to make an album where I was re-establishing my roots again.” Detailing Wolf’s time on tour, heartbreak, and “whole thing of party, drugs, drink, silliness”, ‘The Bachelor’ is, without a doubt, quite “a dark album”. There was enough material to make a double album, which was the original plan, but Wolf decided that it would be “too heavy”. Instead, part two “The Conqueror” will be released around January 2010. “‘The Conqueror’ should come out early next year, either January or February. There are so many things that you want to do, that sometimes you have to add 6 months onto it. I don’t know if I’ll tour the two together, I’ll find out when I get there.” Thematically, ‘The Bachelor’ is quite heavy. It’s about domination and submission, about finding a balance. Yet, it doesn’t sound that way. The album is uncluttered by back-story or concept, even though they’re there. ‘The Sun is Often Out’ is a song about the suicide of a friend, but instead of gloom and navel gazing, it’s a lucid Brian Wilson. ‘Vulture’’s depiction of sexy satanic night-time hijinks in LA is immediately followed by ‘Blacknown’, an ode to domesticity and familial fidelity. There’s an over-arching feeling of a search for stability, one for a guiding light. That’s where the White Witch comes in. Guesting on three of the fourteen tracks, actress Tilda Swinton hovers over the record, working as, in Wolf’s own words, “the voice of reason”- “Tilda Swinton is on it because I wanted a narrator on the album. I wanted a voice of hope, because I suppose in a way it’s quite a dark album. I needed somebody to come in and be a maternal influence, a maternal voice. Tilda was just the perfect person.”
Hope is the main theme, in fact; or, if not hope, then ‘propulsion’, a drive towards a constant new, unimagined and yet-to-be-experienced sublime. This isn’t anything new. As long ago as his first album, ‘Lycanthropy’, Wolf faced constantly onward and outward, remoulding himself into who he wanted to become. The liner notes to ‘Lycanthropy’ read: “Lycanthropy for me is a survival instinct. In the face of a full moon, barriers, bullies, intellectuals, boogiemen fear and failure you grow.” Is that statement, made six years ago by a 19 year old, still relevant to the same 25 year old? Yes. “That album was very much about recreating yourself to be less of a victim and more of a hero. That’s an album statement that I’ll stand by.” ‘To the Lighthouse’, one of the tracks from ‘Lycanthropy’ exhibits Wolf’s credo in song form. Detailing Wolf’s relationship to the novel by another Woolf (Virginia, this time), it’s “about going to the lighthouse, going to a place of hope”. Wolf doesn’t identify with the Ramsay family in the novel, close-knit and childish, or Lily Briscoe, the stubborn, uncertain painter. Instead he equates himself with the lighthouse keeper- aloof yet central to the plot, isolated but integral. The book, he explains “got me through a lot when I was younger. I think it’s a message of hope.”
It can’t be easy, surely, to constantly display one’s emotions, like a plumage, to all and sundry. Though Wolf offers the obligatory “you can only really write what you know about” he neatly sidesteps a question about how the other participants in his private life feel about being included in his music. Upon further inquiry, he insists that- “I enjoy exposure, and exposing my emotions. There’s no point really writing songs unless you’re exposing parts of yourself, divulging information from your private life”- but still won’t reveal how the subjects of his songs feel when they hear their own relationships being lauded (if lucky) and deconstructed (if unfortunate). Wolf’s heart has basically been the main font of inspiration for his past two records. Surprisingly, he doesn’t fall in love easily. “Relationships”, says Patrick, “are hard work, but you treat them with respect and you protect them. You work to cherish a bond between two people. I fall into fascination with a lot of things in the world, but love is something that needs to be worked on.” The contrast between “fascination” and “love” neatly sums up the differences between Wolf then, and Wolf now. ‘The Magic Position’ was an outburst of joy, chronicling the first flushes of blossoming infatuation, while ‘The Bachelor’ sings of a new, more mature love. Wolf compares the two by saying ‘The Magic Position’ was a “Boney M kind of love, while this is a Bob Dylan kind of love”. Despite singing of promiscuity and loneliness, and of sitting “in this flat in Kensington looking at my harpsichord and my piano and my instruments and my empire, my farm my pigs, all my albums and the success I’d had in America and realising there was no one to share it with, no one”, Wolf remains uncynical and unjaded. Love remains the most important thing for him. It is the embodiment of hope, the thing he propels himself toward. It is the light that shines from the lighthouse, over the bay, watching each and every participant weave their tangled way homeward. “Of course I believe in true love. Of course. Maybe you meet the right person for you when you’re 14, or maybe when you’re 80. The idea of true love is what makes the world go round. My parents have been together for many years now, and it’s not something that came easily, but true love is a real thing. For sure.” Ailbhe Malone
Patrick on Parenting…
“I think that as a parent it’s very important to allow your child to make their own decisions, and to make their own choices. If I had a child, and they wanted to have a sex change, or they wanted to work in a bank, or they wanted to be a mass murderer, then that’s their choice.”
Patrick on Chart Pop…
“I find both Girls Aloud and Sugababes hilarious. Sugababes are a lot rawer, a lot darker. Girls Aloud are a lot slicker, Sugababes are more like rude girls. I’ve been stuck in a lift with Mutya, before, actually. Her nails were hardcore. I like that first song that they did, and ‘Ugly’ is a good one.”
Patrick on Baking…
“If I was to make a dish that reminded me of being young, I think I’d make bread and butter pudding- that’s the dish I make as my party piece every year. With Bailey’s in it. I’d give Bailey’s to my child, but then I wouldn’t make a good father. It would shut them up anyway.”
Patrick on Major Record Labels…
“Bandstocks is a good way of financing my album, and a good way of not having to work with an A&R person. I get complete creative freedom. It’s good to establish a relationship with my fans again after working with Universal, which was more fragmented. It wasn’t difficult to set up at all. It was really simple. The album was almost finished; I just needed some finances to get it finished and to get on the road and moving. It was the perfect thing to hand at the time.”
It doesn’t work the first time. AU ends up interviewing the Vodafone Voicemail service. It’s alright. Theremins do funny things to Nokias. Take two, the next day, provides a real person, albeit a surprised one. Patrick’s been doing interviews for two days straight, and he wasn’t expecting this one. Sorry. The child of bohemian parents, Wolf’s back-story is now almost myth. Originally named Patrick Apps, he began recording music at 12 and joined Leigh Bowery’s music/performance art collective- Minty- at 14, although at this stage he tires of talking about his “difficult” teenage years. “To tell the truth, I’ve been talking about this since I was 19, so at 25 I’d just rather talk about the present tense, if that’s ok?” The present tense it is.
“I really liked it when I had really long blonde hair extensions, like Britney. I felt the most feminine then.” Currently, his hair is short and suicide blonde, and his outfits more Gareth Pugh than the Pollyanna ribbons of 2007. Wolf’s image changes rapidly, from a 12 year old who built his own theremin and attended the Royal Academy of Music, to the sulky rangy teen on the cover of his debut- ‘Lycanthropy’- culminating in fey flame-haired sprite who sits on a carousel for his previous record-‘The Magic Position’. Does he feel a need to constantly re-invent his image? “I don’t really feel the need to always constantly create. I guess I’m naturally doing that all the time anyway. I think it’s about adding a visual dimension to the work.” Wolf’s visual presence isn’t hard to miss. A former constant member of the young London party scene, his daily life and friendships are chronicled by the paparazzi, from his friendship with Miquita Oliver, to dinners at the Hoxton Bar and Grill. “I feel really irresponsible to just go out of the house in my pyjamas, if there are photographers around. I need to perform as I would on stage. I know it’s a cliché, but all the world’s a stage, and I try and live my life like a work of art. If not I’d feel very boring.” He’s not alone in trying to re-imagine pop music as ‘art’, as it were. Though he recently djed at a Wonky Pop night in Matter in London, Wolf doesn’t recognise the term, and doesn’t see other Wonky Pop artists, such as VV Brown, as his contemporaries. He is, however, a fan of Lady Gaga. The similarities between the two are evident. Both came from a performing arts school background (Wolf studied composition at Trinity College in London, Gaga at the Tisch in New York), and both explore the links between self-expression and pop music. Wolf agrees- “I’m really glad Lady Gaga has come along. I think we really need her in England to shake us out of this boring R’n’B mentality that’s all about fast cars and really boring production and masculine misogyny. I think she’s brilliant. I’ve met her a couple of times and I think she’s a really interesting person.” Like Gaga, Wolf has been compared to similar exuberant, flamboyant male solo artists, most notably Mika. Wolf smartly quashed these comparisons with the swift, though not pithy, denouncement that “Mika is a twat”. Also like Gaga, Wolf has also courted trouble about the amount of skin he shows on stage. After Perez Hilton mocked Wolf for performing a striptease at a gig, Wolf wrote with vitriol on his Myspace blog, citing works of art as his reference, and not public sentiment: “Has nobody seen “Orlando” by Sally Potter? Read the Leigh Bowery biography? Watched “Jubilee” by Derek Jarman? I come from these worlds, these are my heroes, heroines, a naked body does not offend me in any way, it can be used as a communication device, a performance piece. It need not be perfect and there is no such thing as perfection when it comes to the body.”
While Wolf cultivates an image of a sybarite, a free spirit, he’s fundamentally split down the middle- whether he’ll acknowledge it or not. He simultaneously tries to distance himself from his past, while at the same time reconnecting with it. Even in terms of nationality, he sways between Celtic and Anglo-Saxon. ‘Wind in the Wires’ was an effort to embrace his “Cornish roots”, and Wolf explains that “I feel kind of half-English half-Irish. I was born in London and spent a lot of time in Cork, going backwards and forwards between the two during the summer. So, I grew up with a big Irish heritage. My family on my mother’s side is from Clonakilty.” In a way, the new record – ‘The Bachelor’- is a search for a solid ground, a return home. His family play on the record, and the instrumentation nods to his Irish heritage. “My mum plays spoons on the record, and there’s Irish fiddle and Irish whistle on the album. I’ve done so much travelling, in America and Australia. I just needed to make an album where I was re-establishing my roots again.” Detailing Wolf’s time on tour, heartbreak, and “whole thing of party, drugs, drink, silliness”, ‘The Bachelor’ is, without a doubt, quite “a dark album”. There was enough material to make a double album, which was the original plan, but Wolf decided that it would be “too heavy”. Instead, part two “The Conqueror” will be released around January 2010. “‘The Conqueror’ should come out early next year, either January or February. There are so many things that you want to do, that sometimes you have to add 6 months onto it. I don’t know if I’ll tour the two together, I’ll find out when I get there.” Thematically, ‘The Bachelor’ is quite heavy. It’s about domination and submission, about finding a balance. Yet, it doesn’t sound that way. The album is uncluttered by back-story or concept, even though they’re there. ‘The Sun is Often Out’ is a song about the suicide of a friend, but instead of gloom and navel gazing, it’s a lucid Brian Wilson. ‘Vulture’’s depiction of sexy satanic night-time hijinks in LA is immediately followed by ‘Blacknown’, an ode to domesticity and familial fidelity. There’s an over-arching feeling of a search for stability, one for a guiding light. That’s where the White Witch comes in. Guesting on three of the fourteen tracks, actress Tilda Swinton hovers over the record, working as, in Wolf’s own words, “the voice of reason”- “Tilda Swinton is on it because I wanted a narrator on the album. I wanted a voice of hope, because I suppose in a way it’s quite a dark album. I needed somebody to come in and be a maternal influence, a maternal voice. Tilda was just the perfect person.”
Hope is the main theme, in fact; or, if not hope, then ‘propulsion’, a drive towards a constant new, unimagined and yet-to-be-experienced sublime. This isn’t anything new. As long ago as his first album, ‘Lycanthropy’, Wolf faced constantly onward and outward, remoulding himself into who he wanted to become. The liner notes to ‘Lycanthropy’ read: “Lycanthropy for me is a survival instinct. In the face of a full moon, barriers, bullies, intellectuals, boogiemen fear and failure you grow.” Is that statement, made six years ago by a 19 year old, still relevant to the same 25 year old? Yes. “That album was very much about recreating yourself to be less of a victim and more of a hero. That’s an album statement that I’ll stand by.” ‘To the Lighthouse’, one of the tracks from ‘Lycanthropy’ exhibits Wolf’s credo in song form. Detailing Wolf’s relationship to the novel by another Woolf (Virginia, this time), it’s “about going to the lighthouse, going to a place of hope”. Wolf doesn’t identify with the Ramsay family in the novel, close-knit and childish, or Lily Briscoe, the stubborn, uncertain painter. Instead he equates himself with the lighthouse keeper- aloof yet central to the plot, isolated but integral. The book, he explains “got me through a lot when I was younger. I think it’s a message of hope.”
It can’t be easy, surely, to constantly display one’s emotions, like a plumage, to all and sundry. Though Wolf offers the obligatory “you can only really write what you know about” he neatly sidesteps a question about how the other participants in his private life feel about being included in his music. Upon further inquiry, he insists that- “I enjoy exposure, and exposing my emotions. There’s no point really writing songs unless you’re exposing parts of yourself, divulging information from your private life”- but still won’t reveal how the subjects of his songs feel when they hear their own relationships being lauded (if lucky) and deconstructed (if unfortunate). Wolf’s heart has basically been the main font of inspiration for his past two records. Surprisingly, he doesn’t fall in love easily. “Relationships”, says Patrick, “are hard work, but you treat them with respect and you protect them. You work to cherish a bond between two people. I fall into fascination with a lot of things in the world, but love is something that needs to be worked on.” The contrast between “fascination” and “love” neatly sums up the differences between Wolf then, and Wolf now. ‘The Magic Position’ was an outburst of joy, chronicling the first flushes of blossoming infatuation, while ‘The Bachelor’ sings of a new, more mature love. Wolf compares the two by saying ‘The Magic Position’ was a “Boney M kind of love, while this is a Bob Dylan kind of love”. Despite singing of promiscuity and loneliness, and of sitting “in this flat in Kensington looking at my harpsichord and my piano and my instruments and my empire, my farm my pigs, all my albums and the success I’d had in America and realising there was no one to share it with, no one”, Wolf remains uncynical and unjaded. Love remains the most important thing for him. It is the embodiment of hope, the thing he propels himself toward. It is the light that shines from the lighthouse, over the bay, watching each and every participant weave their tangled way homeward. “Of course I believe in true love. Of course. Maybe you meet the right person for you when you’re 14, or maybe when you’re 80. The idea of true love is what makes the world go round. My parents have been together for many years now, and it’s not something that came easily, but true love is a real thing. For sure.” Ailbhe Malone
Patrick on Parenting…
“I think that as a parent it’s very important to allow your child to make their own decisions, and to make their own choices. If I had a child, and they wanted to have a sex change, or they wanted to work in a bank, or they wanted to be a mass murderer, then that’s their choice.”
Patrick on Chart Pop…
“I find both Girls Aloud and Sugababes hilarious. Sugababes are a lot rawer, a lot darker. Girls Aloud are a lot slicker, Sugababes are more like rude girls. I’ve been stuck in a lift with Mutya, before, actually. Her nails were hardcore. I like that first song that they did, and ‘Ugly’ is a good one.”
Patrick on Baking…
“If I was to make a dish that reminded me of being young, I think I’d make bread and butter pudding- that’s the dish I make as my party piece every year. With Bailey’s in it. I’d give Bailey’s to my child, but then I wouldn’t make a good father. It would shut them up anyway.”
Patrick on Major Record Labels…
“Bandstocks is a good way of financing my album, and a good way of not having to work with an A&R person. I get complete creative freedom. It’s good to establish a relationship with my fans again after working with Universal, which was more fragmented. It wasn’t difficult to set up at all. It was really simple. The album was almost finished; I just needed some finances to get it finished and to get on the road and moving. It was the perfect thing to hand at the time.”
