March 5, 2024 • 46 mins
To kick off our month-long celebration of Women's History Month, today we're featuring an interview with Polly Jean Harvey, a.k.a. PJ Harvey, who is without question one of the most gifted songwriters of our time.
Her debut album, Dry, came out in 1992 and was what the LA Times called a near “instant classic.” The same with her sophomore release, Rid of Me—which became an inspiration for Nirvana’s last album: In Utero.
Ten albums later and Polly continues to be not only a remarkable songwriter on her new album “I Inside the Old Year Dying” but...maybe more impressively...continues to find new musical territory and new voices to write from. Keeping her songs and artistry as interesting as it was when she first put music out 30 years ago.
John Parish, who’s been a frequent collaborator of Polly’s since the 1980's produced the new album—along with Flood—and joins Justin Richmond in conversation with Polly to discuss their process of working together, the beauty of Polly’s last few albums and how they bonded long ago over Captain Beefheart.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite PJ Harvey & John Parish songs HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Polly Jeene Harvey, better known as PJ Harvey, is
without question one of my favorite songwriters of all time.
Her debut album Dry came out in ninety three. It
is what the La Times called a near instant classic.
The same with her sophomore release, rid of Me, which
became an inspiration for Navana's last album, in Utero. Ten
(00:39):
albums later, and Polly continues to be not only a
remarkable songwriter on her new album Eye inside the old
You're Dying, but maybe more impressively, continues to find new
musical territory and new voices to write from, keeping her
songs and artistry as interesting as they were when she
first put out music over thirty years ago. John Parrish,
who's been a frequent collaborator of Polly since the eighties,
(01:02):
produced the new album along with Flood, and joins me
in conversation with Polly to discuss their process of working together,
beauty of Polly's last few albums, and how they bonded
a long time ago over Captain b Fire. This is
broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
(01:22):
Here's my conversation with PJ Harvey and John Parrish. I'm
very excited to be able to talk to both of you.
I don't always think about you guys in Unison, so
it was fun to sort of think about how you
guys worked together on these things. But you guys met
in the eighties, which I didn't realize was the case.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We met in the in nineteen eighty seven, I believe.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And it was through your band, John.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes, yeah, it was. It was the guitar player in
my band, Jeremy Hogg, had met Polly at a party
and she'd been singing some songs and he was really
impressed with the only mentioned he mentioned her to May
and then she came to a couple of gigs of
the band and gave me some tapes songs she was.
She was a teenager and her voice already sounded really
(02:13):
great to me back at that time, so I asked
if she wanted to join the band when she left school.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think you did it audition me, sort of sort
of auditioned me first.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It was it was a sham audition because you're definitely what.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I came up to Bristol, didn't I. And we just
we played through some of your band automatic the Meani's
main riffs. I think you were just listening to see
if I could play the riff with feel or not,
because I wasn't a very adept guitar player at that point.
I could play chords, but I wasn't very adept at
(02:54):
anything else, and a lot of John's music was based
more around melodies than chord structures. So I remember playing
through some melodies on the guitar with you. John. I
think you were just trying to see if I could
play with feel or not. In fact, I often talked
about feel, you know, just when I'm talking about music,
because I think the feel that I play with is
(03:15):
what I learned from John, because we often recognize how
similar we'd play. If I've written a part on the
guitar and I'm asking John to play it for live performance,
he plays it just like me. But that's because I
play like him, because he play finding a circle like that.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So you don't think before that audition or that time
you started playing with automatic meaning that you played, your
playing was different before then you think, well, I.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Was just I hadn't been playing guitar for very long,
and so all I could play was chords on the guitar.
I could play saxophone quite well, and I think I'd
got to grade seven on saxophone, but I'd only just
started playing the guitar, and all I knew was chords
that I learned from songbook, and I didn't really pick
(04:03):
out melodies. But then when I met John, I started
learning about fingerpicking melodies, and then I practice with records
at home a lot of those with things that John
had introduced me to, like Captain Beefhart, things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Damn, wow, you were put Captain bee Far.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
It's a lot to ask of like a sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen year old that I'm still trying to crack. Like
I got seen as milk, I can get it as milk,
and then it goes behind that and still breaks my brain.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I had had high expectations, which which she which
she she always met, So it was.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So that must have been the kind of stuff John
that you were Really you're kind of like go to.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I guess Captain beef stuff has been for years and years,
you know, the years obviously an absolute one off in
what he's done, and it's very difficult to get tired
of listening to him because you're always finding something new.
You know, I've been listening to those records for forty
years and there's still ill still think, oh, I suddenly
see how that works. Because a lot of it to
(05:07):
me was just like a a weird puzzle. That was
how I got interested in the first place, because I
didn't understand it, and I thought I understood music. And
when I first said kept in b fhar, I thought,
I don't know what's going on here. I can't figure
out who's saying, why they're doing it. Nothing made sense.
But I was kind of interested enough to keep listening
because I realized it had a physical effect on me,
(05:29):
and I had a physical effect on other people that
were listening to it as well.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So it wasn't just that it was like bizarre that
it was that you didn't understand it, but you could
feel it still.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I felt that there was something there. It was like
hearing a foreign language and you're not not knowing what's
going on, and then you listen to it enough times
and gradually, like there's some words, you think, oh, I
know what that word is, and you know you can
put a couple of sentences together. And it was really
like that. I gradually got to understand it in a
way just by listening to it. And there are still
things that I'm discovering now, So absolutely still go to
(06:01):
May for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That's great. So before trout Mask Replica Parli, like, what
was before that awakening? What was would have been the
things that you were really loving to listen to at
that time.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Oh, I remember loving the Pogues at that time and
the little band that I had, which was only a
three tiny, three piece band. It was me on an
acoustic guitar, a girl on a flute and a penny
whistle friend of mine called Catherine, and this guy called
Gus on the bass, and we used to do a
lot of folk covers. I think when John came to
see me, that's what I was doing in the local pub.
(06:36):
But so I loved things like the Post because I
could hear that it was folk music, which I loved,
but it also had rebellion and spirit and punk. And
then I fell in love with the Pixies as well,
and they were a huge influence on me. I think
John knew. I think you introduced me to Nick Cave
in the Bad Seas because I remember you playing Cabin Fever.
(06:59):
You know what you were just describing about chout Mass Replica.
I remember listening to that going, I don't know what
this is and it made me feel seasick. I just
didn't know what I was listening too. And you played
me from Her to Eternity as well, and then I
really got into Nick Cave in the Bad Seats and
Tom Waits. I don't think I knew weights, and then
(07:20):
John introduced me to that and that was a massive
influence on me. So I had this sort of mixture
of Tom Waits, Nick Cave, the Pixies, Captain b Phart,
and then my mum and dad's collection of records, which
was brilliant, mostly Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. It's
all sort of off sot with that.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I love it. I can. I can hear that feel
and you're playing that there's some stones in there, some
stones in the Pies. You mentioned your sax plane when
you're growing up playing sax in Endorset, like, is it
a jazz ensemble or is it more as part of
like a like a brass ensemble in the classical sense.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, my mum and my dad were always very into music,
so much so that they had a group of friends
that were London based that started introducing them to rhythm
and blues bands from London that my mom started then
bringing those bands down to play in the local village
tools in our village areas. So we'd end up with
(08:21):
these rhythm and blues and boogie woogie bands staying with
us nearly every weekend and some great players. And that's
when I thought, oh, I really loved saxophone. And then
they'd start giving me ad hoc lessons on the saxophone
when they're staying and I started learning at school, so
that's how that happened. And then I joined the local
big band. So I was second tenor in a big
(08:43):
band for quite a few years, which I love because
you play all those big band standards Wow Wellington and
you know, played some amazing songs and I learned a
lot about structure and parts and being one of a
whole from doing the big band work.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Were you interested in big band music?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Not really, No, I wasn't much more into track mass replica,
but playing in a big band because I guess you know,
in the way that I love playing in the current
band we're in. You just learn about listening. You learn
about listening to each other and you learn about playing
off of the feel that you're all creating. Then that
(09:26):
changes all the time. That's what makes it so exciting.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I was listening to I think you're on it too, John,
But you did a Ian Stewart tribute. You guys did
a Lonely Avenue.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
John wasn't on. I was. I did that with my cousin.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You and your cousin that John might have been on.
You said, it's so natural doing that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So my mum's brother's son, my cousin Ben Waters, he's
a boogie with pianist, and he became a boogie we
be peers because he loved seeing Ian Stewart play.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Ian Stewart was often known as the fifth rolling Stone
or sixth sixth rolling Stone, and well he was. He
was always in the background. I mean, rumor has it
that he wasn't in the Stones because he didn't look
right right. But he was always with the Stones and
he ended up being their road manager and he played
on stage with them a lot. You'll often see him
(10:18):
in the background now. He was a great friend of
mom and dads. He influenced my cousin to want to
play boogy boogy piano So now my cousin Ben Waters
is a professional boogie boogie pianist and he put together
this tribute to Ian Stewart and that's how that happened.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So was Ian Stewart around then? Like was he one
of the exactly?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
You know? I said, my mom and dad had a
group of friends from London. I'll try and keep it simple,
but so down here in Dorset where we live, it's
a very very beautiful part of the countryside with rolling
hills and an incredible coastline that's now become like a
World Heritage site. It's called the Jurassic Coast. So people
(11:03):
from London would just come here every weekend. One of
them had a flat in this little cove and all
of the people from London will come here just because
it was so beautiful to escape London. And mom and dad,
who lived down here already met those people. One of
those people that used to come down every weekend was
Ian Stewart. He was the one that introduced mum and
(11:24):
dad to all of these bands from London that ended
up coming down to play. And one of all bands
was Ian's band, which was called Rocket eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Right right, which would I guess would have been based
on that. I turned it song from way back when
growing when you've seen him, did you know he's part
of the Rolling Stone and maybe the founder of the
Stones too.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, yeah we did, and me and my brother and
because Charlie Watts came down and Charlie played in Rocket
eighty eight, you see, So Charlie Charlie ended up coming
and staying in our house. And I remember my brother
and I following him around because we knew that he
was famous, so we just followed him around the house
the entire time, followed Garden, followed him every where.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Did you ever talk to him after following him?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I h I think maybe a little bit. We were
a bit shy because we were quite young. Then.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, that is a crazy experience. I love Charlie Watts.
I was trying to figure out. I feel like the
last decade or so has been a really fruitful I
seem to have read that it was a little difficult maybe,
but a really fruitful run of records from like Let
England Shake to Eye Inside the Old Year of Dying.
(12:38):
I mean, just the three records that have come out
in that time have just been really moving and interesting.
But I was thinking about you guys' earliest work compared
to this, and I mean, how does your guys' creative
relationship work this well over time? I mean, it's just
insane that you guys are sort of still seemingly, to
(12:58):
the listener's point of view, like in lockstep creatively.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's quite rare to
be a good creative relationship for that many years. I
think we're both really appreciative of that. I mean, it's
not something that you can make happen. It's either there
or it's not. And I think that we've been lucky
(13:22):
that we've, for whatever reason, creatively developed along similar lines
or parallel lines for a long time. But we've always
kind of understood what each other's doing, and we know
each other's parameters really well. So it's very easy to
judge things you know for each other and accept judgment
from each other because we understand the parameters. We also
(13:44):
trust each other implicitly, and that's again, it's not something
that you can make happen. It's either there or it's not.
And again, we're really appreciative that we have that because
it just feels like when we're working together in the studio,
and particularly when we're working with Flood as well. He's
obviously been a part of all of those records. It
(14:04):
feels like a very an incredibly strong creative unit. It
creates a situation where people are not afraid to take
chances and not afraid to take risks, and we know
that there will always be somebody there to either support
it or to say, actually that's not working, but maybe
it's a route to something else. And it is afraid.
(14:27):
You know, we're not worried about trying something and not
working and then somebody thinking then they're not really very good.
You know. We know that we have great respect for
each other, the terrific trust, and that's been absolutely foundational
to the work. I think, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Mean I completely agree with John. I think it's having
that level of trust because we've known each other for
a long time and we've been through a lot together, myself,
John arm Flood, and so then you can just be
so open, you can be so risk taking and come
up with crazy ideas and we'll have a go at
them anyway, and then a lot of them fall down
(15:04):
and theyre rubbish and we just laugh about it because
and the other thing is We do laugh a lot.
We have a similar sense of humors. We spend a
lot of time laughing and that really helps. And we
don't have egos in the sense of needing to hold
on to some precious idea. We just let it go
and we try something else. So it makes for a
really wonderful inspirational collaboration. You're just constantly firing ideas off
(15:29):
each other.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
After this break, we'll be back with more of our
conversation with John Parrish and the One and Only PJ. Harvey.
We're back with more from John Parrish and PJ. Harvey.
Speaking of like being open to ideas, the demos to
Let England Shape were really fascinating. There's a lot of
(15:52):
you singing, not even singing, but you writing songs over
samples of things. Yeah, which is a really wild idea.
I've never heard demos that sound that way. How did
you start demoing songs that way for that record?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, that was the first time I'd done that. It
was going back to feel. It was some pieces of
music I loved the feel of, but also the words
were absolutely right for the words and the lyrics I
was creating, so I only used loops of things that
resonated with the subject matter of the song, so that
(16:30):
made for a really strong combination. And then some of
those loops we did use in the eventual recording, and
some of them we didn't, or some of them we
just referenced, but we used parts of on So it
was just a good launching pad for me as I
was trying to find my way into what I was writing.
And you can also hear on the demos I was
(16:51):
mapping out vocal ideas as well, because I knew I
wanted lots of additional singers. But it's very interesting to hear.
How then those demos then moved into the final recordings
and that changed quite a bit. John, I don't know
if you want to say about I think our environment
just being in each church had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, yeah, it did. It was a great session. The
demos were really interesting. We didn't want to use like
whole loops going through all the tracks, you know, and
so we approach in different ways, either sometimes replaying some things,
replaying little bits and pieces of them, or using sort
of segments instead. But it was such a strong body
(17:34):
of songs and lyrically, it was a big departure for Polly.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, and how do you view that as someone who's
worked alongside her for so long?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, I have to say when Police first said
that she was writing an album of songs loosely about war,
I was a little bit nervous as to how she
was going to pull that off, because I think that's
act an incredibly difficult thing to do in an artistically
successful way. As soon as I heard the first three
(18:02):
or four demos, I was like, Okay, these are great.
She's totally going to do it. And it tears a
tremendously press his piece of writing. All the songs on
that record. When we came to record them, it was
the most open that Polly had been in a recording situation.
And I don't know whether that was just the time
of the development as an artist, the development of Polly's
(18:25):
a human being, or the fact that the songs were
very much the third person up until that time. You
could say there was a degree. Well, certainly people would
interpret most of the songs before that as being Polly
writing the first person, even if they weren't, whereas this
group of songs you do absolutely couldn't. I suppose you
could try and glean some kind of idea what she
(18:47):
might think about historical events or current events, and how
she was timed the two together. But for whatever reason,
in that session, Polly was incredibly open to the process.
Maybe it was also to do with being very confident
in the material. The songs came together very very quickly
in a beautiful space. It was a big open space
(19:10):
church where we could all play at the same time,
and literally every day we would start a new song
and we wouldn't really know how it was going to
work out. We wouldn't even know who was going to
play what instrument, you know, whether Mick would be playing
drums or whether I would be playing drums, and then
the other one of us would be playing either guitar
or keepers or Poly might be playing guitar or auto harp.
(19:33):
It was really, this is the song. It's a great song,
let's see where we can take it. And by the
end of each day pretty much the song had really
found its own direction. It was a really tremendous session.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Does that feel true to you probably in terms of
this feeling like this writing being a little bit different
than your other writing before it.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, definitely. I remember after White Chalk I just knew
I needed to find a completely vibrant and exciting new
path for myself, and I didn't know what that was,
and it took quite a lot time to find it.
And anything I write about, I've got to feel very
(20:16):
deeply emotionally connected to it or very moved by it.
And I can remember at that time that England was
involved in the Afghan War and the Iraq War, and
I think I was just watching a program, a documentary
about one soldier who'd been wounded in the war in Afghanistan,
and I just found it so incredibly upsetting. I just
(20:37):
remember this whole night feeling so upset, and I thought,
you should write about that if you're feeling this upset.
I think I was crying, you know, right like that,
right about that, And that's how I thought, how can
I write about that? And that's how it began. How
how do you do that? So that was the starting point,
and I think I learned a lot from that moment,
(20:59):
because I think every album I've done since then, I
have really thought the area that I'm trying to explore
has to have a lot of meaning for me and
has to really move me in order to really write
good work.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That moving from this is what I should write about?
To how do I write about it? To actually then
having written about it before you got anything you felt
was good? Were there are like a lot of failed
attempts to write well.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
LANGL and Shake Again was the first time that I
wrote words firstly alone on a page with no music.
Prior to that, I'd always created songs in tandem, music
and lyrics together. They'd grow with each other, and sometimes
words would grow out of just chanting rhythmically on top
of a riff that I had on the piano or guitar.
(21:52):
But this time, because of what John said, like how
you know it's such a difficult subject, how on earth
you're going to approach that, I knew I had to
get the words right, at least a semblance of them
being right. First is that I couldn't just improvise words
on top of music.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Here.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I had to think really carefully about what I was saying.
It was a very fine line to tread. And there
were a lot of words written. I lot it for,
you know, the songs that made it on the album,
and a lot of them never came to anything. And
that's the other thing that was the first time I
started moving into poetry, and I started taking poetry lessons
(22:32):
that I wouldn't call letting is not poetry their songs.
But it was where my interest in wanting to learn
the craft of poetry began because as a starting point,
I went and read all the First World War poets
and I could see this magical craft that they had,
and I wanted to learn how do you do that?
(22:52):
So that was the first time I really thought, oh,
I can't want to go into this, and then I
moved into it deeper with Hope six and then with
Iro Inside the Old Year.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Were you reading a lot of World War One histories
as well?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yes, yes, and contemporary war the time, like Afghan Iraqi war.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And before this documentary, there was no interest in war,
no personal interest in war.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
No, No, always in you know, very engaged with what
was happening in the world, very upset by current conflicts.
Always fascinated too by the history of Afghanistan, and I
always felt drawn to that and Britain's involvement in both
(23:41):
world wars. So no, I was very interested. It just
never occurred to me that I could possibly write about it.
I just didn't be qualified, you know. But you have to.
I think there's a way in that you don't have
to be qualified, but you can still walk the right
line of speaking in a very naive way. I mean
often think of William Blake's Songs of Innocence Experience, because
(24:04):
that tiny little book is basically how to live, you know,
but it's written like children's nursery rhymes. So I think
you can write in a really naive way but still
say an awful lot.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, absolutely, even just you know, it's funny. The sample
on the demo of let England Shape is stambul not Constantinople,
which was like a kind of a goof of a
song in a way. But even that song is kind
of seen a lot in it's a weird way, you know,
like these histories of countries conquering one another in name
changes and what's in a name and what they mean.
(24:37):
It's I don't know, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, And that's what I love doing, playing off what
the original loop was doing and then laying my words
on top of it, sometimes joining in with those words,
sometimes not. I think it also added a certain level
of humor where it's not too self important. It's got
a lightness to it. Which in having that lightness, it
actually makes it heavier. It makes it mean more and
(25:02):
affect more.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Tell me about that. You guys recorded in a church
and in Dorset. It was at the first time you
got I said, recorded there. How did you guys settle
on that place as a makesift studio.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I think it was Polly didn't want to record in
a studio in a traditional studio setting, and I guess
it made sense to her because it was close to
where she was living at the time, and it was
kind of that simple in a way, like looking for
a space that was close to where Polly lived, this
was available. I think we had some concerns as to
(25:35):
how it would be acoustically, but you know what, we
moved a studio set up in there and it sounded great.
It was a really just really cool space.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
It was quite quite magical as well, I felt, and
I think we all felt that because it's on the
top of the hill that overlooks the sea, and there's
not really any any other buildings around it, and it's
often very windy, so the trees were all bent by
the wind, and the gravestones are still there. So we
were singing these songs about death and war, and it
(26:11):
felt like the wind was kind of blowing the voices
in from the sea and the graves all over us.
I do feel like there was something quite magical happening
in that building, in that that Let England Shake session
recording was one of the most special times of my
life for that reason. It was just absolutely magical and
(26:33):
so inspired and so exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Do either of you feel particularly religious or spiritual or
have any affinity for a connection to at a personal
level churches or a church?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And I'm not religious, but I grew up going to
church as a kid, And you know, obviously there's the
fact that those buildings mean a lot to so many people.
You know, you can't help but notice that and be
infected by it. Yeah, So I have respect for it
without without having faced myself.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, I'm so interested in what different people are drawn to.
I feel the beauty of those beautiful buildings, but also
beauty in the fact that people want to come together
to try and find meaning and try and share and
to give and receive love and places where beautiful music
(27:30):
is created and shared. So I'd keep an open mind,
you know. And I often feel removed when I'm at
places of worship. As I was in Eap Church when
we were making Let England Shake. I did feel that
the beauty of the building and its position helped us
channel a perfect energy for that record.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah. Quite poor. I mean, you know, I just think
about myself. There's a church right down the street from
where I live, assignment particularly beautiful church, but enough that
when I passed it, it makes me feel I'm, like, you know,
feel on some level drawn to it. But at the
same time I can't help but think about you know,
it's the pain that sometimes that's the same beliefs bring
(28:13):
to people, et cetera. And so there's kind of I
don't know, it's just like a lot of there's a
for me, a very contradictory feeling about churches, like a
deep reverence and it's an't their aunt'spiring in a lot
of ways, And I'm very much jealous of these people. Do,
like you say, come together to find some level of
meaning in life.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, Like I said, I the power of people wanting
to come together to try and find meaning. Why this
In Afghanistan, I went to a Sufi It wasn't even
a church, it was just a room, but it was
their Sufi Sunday morning practice together where they'd sit for
four hours chanting together, kneeling down and chanting till they
(28:51):
were rocking back this and fores. It was incredibly moving
in a different way. But again it's just the power
of people coming together. I think to look for something
to share, something to find the power together.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
After this last break, we'll be back with more from
John Parrish and PJ. Harvey. We're back with the rest
of my conversation with John Parrish and PJ. Harvey. You
referenced a trip to Afghanistan. You know, the whole sixth
Demolition project was the record after Let England Shake and
(29:29):
before your Guys's newest one inside the Old Year Dying.
You traveled around with Seamus Murphy, a great photographer, want
to Afghanistan, coast of Ops DC. Were you intending to
make a record based on those travels or was the
travel something completely separate.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I didn't know what it would become. I started working
with Seamus on letting in shiks. He made the beautiful
films that accompanied each song, and he took photographs and
I grew a friendship with Seamus. And you know, Seamus
has spent his whole life as a voter journalist, traveling
all over the world and sometimes into very dangerous war
(30:10):
torn areas, and from the interest I'd added from writing
letting in shake, I still didn't feel close enough, and
I thought, gosh, what if I could actually in instead
of garnering information secondhand or from other people's writings, Well,
if I could actually go somewhere myself. And James and
(30:31):
I talked about that and he did say, well, look,
why don't as a start, why don't you just come
with me to Afghanistan where he goes a lot. And
of course I was very nervous, but I thought, well, yeah,
I feel like I really want to, and so I
had no expectation. I just went with a notepad and
I thought, well, all I'm going to do is just
(30:54):
record what I see. That's all I'm going to do.
And then it grew into going to cross Fow together,
going to Washington, DC together, and I just carried on
doing that same thing. I'm just going to write down
what I see, that's all. I didn't know what it
would become. But at the same time, like I said,
I was growing an interest in poetry. So I ended
(31:15):
up with having an enormous amount of words to play with.
Then thought, okay, can I try and want some poems
out of this? And a poetry book came out of it,
and then an album came out of it, and then
I sort of organically fell into this new way of
sort of writing poems and writing songs, which sits with
(31:35):
me very well at the moment and might not in
ten years time, but right now it does. And I
think that's what happens as an artist. You find different
modes of working work well for you at that time
in your life, and you adopt them, and then later
on down the line, they don't, you do something else.
And right now that's become quite a satisfying way for
me of finding my way through words and music.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's really as a listener, I mean, I really have
enjoyed these last few projects. I didn't one hundred percent
know that you were in a different mode of working,
but the resulting work is just so interesting. You know,
the feel of these records are and I don't know
if that comes from the writing necessarily. It could just
be from you know, the groups of people you guys
are playing with and all you're recording them, But it's
just I really, really really love these projects. I feel
(32:21):
special in an interesting way.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I think it comes about because of all the ingredients.
You know, it's because of the way they're written. But
it's also a huge part of it is coming together
with John and Flood. And I share with John and
Flood all of my workings, all of my writings, all
of the words, the demos, so they're a big part
of the growing of the whole project right from its
(32:44):
very beginning.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I imagine John, you knew about her trip to Afrigat,
I mean that were you worried about that draft?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, I was, well, I was worried. I think it's
incredibly brave to do it. It was obviously it was
very incredibly valuable to the to the writing process, but
it's not something that I personally would have risked. I
think it was the risk, and she was very brave
(33:13):
to do it. And yes, I was worried.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Were you much of a traveler before, Polly, Ah?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
No, but I always wanted to be, and you know,
I had a huge interest in Yeah, I just didn't
wanting to see things firsthand and thought there's only one
way to do that. You just got to go there.
And I think that desire overrode any fear, because the
desire to actually be there and see it was greater
than the fears that I had.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I mean, I imagine that you probably didn't even do
much travel, I mean outside of touring.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Right, No, not really no, I mean a.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Lot of people end up kind of getting hooked to traveling.
Do you did it change you in that sense? Do
you feel like you want to go more places now?
Or was that it was? Are you content having just
gone on that trip?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You know, I'm a I'm a maker, and the thing
that I'm drawn towards making, I will serve in any
way I have to, And so the next thing that
I do will probably be to do with the project
that I'm serving at the time. That's my drive, if
that makes sense. So I don't know, you know, if
(34:24):
the next project's going to mean I need to travel
to source the material better than I will, or if
I need to stay in one place, then I'll stay there.
It really down to that. That is kind of what
I do, and that is my driving force.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You had mentioned before that like that was a very
difficult record to write in hindsight. Does that still feel true?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Yeah, it did feel difficult to write musically more than lyrically.
The poems and the words that I gathered came together
quite easily, but I found it difficult to create the
music I wanted to hear, and it took me quite
a while to get enough material together. I think I
(35:07):
had to write fight a lot of things to really
get to some good things.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Did you hear that from the demos?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
John, Yes, there were definitely a lot more songs that
we had to go through before we found a collection
that we felt was a really strong body of work.
So there was a you know, I don't remember there
being very many demos from the Letting Wind Shake sessions
that didn't make it either onto the album or onto
a B side, whereas there were a lot I think. Yeah,
(35:38):
as Polly said, she had to write a lot of
stuff to come up with the ones that were strong
enough to work on.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
How does having maybe weaker demos or demos that you're
not quite sure how they're going to work? How does
that change the recording approach?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Well, I think that we wouldn't even go into the
studio until we were comfortable that we had all the songs.
So it was more it was more that it took
a long time to get to that stage, but Polly's
always you know that.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
For me, the.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Absolute strongest thing about Polly's work is that it's every
record has been different, and obviously the more records you make,
the harder and harder that becomes. Of course, I know
that she wanted them to be singable songs because they
were again, they were dealing with difficult subjects and she
didn't want to make it. It was a way of making
(36:28):
it not a heavy, mirthless affair. So she wanted singable melodies.
And again, so how do you come up with something
like that that's not you know, something that's singable that
you haven't done before, but it's not asinine as well.
So there was a lot, asking a lot of yourself
to come up with that, and it took a while
to get to that stage.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Is that a standard you feel you hold yourself to
Polly like that? You want every record to have to
feel different, to sound different, to be different in some way?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, it is. I've just always been like that. Even
when I was doing an art foundation course, everything I
did I wanted it to be like nothing I'd ever
done before. And I've been like that my whole life.
I just I'm so interested in learning. I really like learning,
and the only way you learn is to do things
(37:19):
you don't know. It's just doing something you don't know,
and that's so exciting, just always finding out something new,
and that's what keeps me just looking under different songs
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So you find that's true of your relationship to artists
other artists you love. Do you find yourself disappointed when
artists sort of repeat the same thing or return to
a similar place and aren't evolving similarly.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It depends some artists you like on some level when
you don't expect them to be reinventing themselves every time.
Some artists you have a different expectation. I have extremely
high expectations of Polly, and so I feel that she's
not coming out with something new, then it's going to
be disappointing for me, because she's one of the very
(38:05):
select group of artists that I regard as inspirational. And
for those people, you want more than just another good record.
You're looking for something that is going to inspire you.
And that's tough.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah. Personally, I kind of put you parley like with
Neil Young, where it's like, I mean, some people would
say that Neil Young always sounds the same, but to me,
I hear something different all the time. You know, it's
like always changing, and I can hear his focus and
determination and I don't know, it's creative process that I
think comes out on the records, and I feel that
same spirit or sense you know from your records.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
I have great admiration for Neil Young for the reason
you're saying. He's always trying different things, radically different things,
and that's so exciting. I'd much rather hear an artist
doing that and not always hitting the mark, you know,
but even and the fact that you've tried something radically
different is a success in itself, I think in my
(39:05):
book anyway.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
That's why I'm mark. I mean, you put out those
four track demos early. That's why I was like listening
to that collection of songs, and that's why ultimately, when
I finally got around to listening to the new like
the sort of spade of demos, really demo releases that
you put out a couple of years ago, that was
exciting too. I mean, it was so fun to hear
something familiar but not quite there. It's like I can
(39:29):
hear the reach you for what was ultimately what ultimately
got made it to the record, you know, And it's
just fun to hear the attempt.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, yeah, it felt like the right time to show
those I really love hearing those early stages of a song.
You can hear, like you said, you can hear where
it's trying to go. It hasn't quite yet. You can
hear the idea of it, but the idea is not
fully formed yet.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And sometimes it's better, I mean, to be honest, Sometimes
I'm like, oh, I didn't you know, wouldn't have known.
But I liked this demo version a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
They can be enchanting in a different way because they're
still so new. It's like the first time we've ever
it's probably the first or second time I'd ever sung it,
and there's something always going to be lovely about that,
I think, John.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I mean, having listened to the demos, speaking for myself,
I would feel like I was going to fuck up
some really good work. How do you feel when you're
listening to Polly's demos? Do you always feel like, oh,
I can make this better, or we can make this better,
or is it like damn, this is maybe best as is.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Once or twice maybe more, I have thought that we
should do nothing to this. This is absolutely done as
far as I'm concerned. But usually there's something there that
you think, Okay, we can I think because we've been
doing it for so long and working like this for
so long, that we know we can always move things
on from where they work. They already sounded great, but
(40:53):
there's always somewhere better you can take it, and you
always managed, with maybe one or two exceptions, we've always
managed to do that. And you know it's not immediately
apparent what it is that you're going to bring to it,
But there has always been something that has moved those
demos on, even though they were already in a good place.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
At the risk of going somewhere uncomfortable. Is there a
record that either of you agree on that you guys
moved it somewhere different, but maybe not to a place
that was better or as good as the demo.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
There's a song, but a particular song that is a
long time favorite of mine that Paulina, which is a
song called the Garden from is this desire both me
and Flood for when we heard the demo that is done?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
That is just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It didn't stay that way, and I've always been slightly
not upset because then, of course it's come out as
a demo and we've played the demo version. We're playing
the demo version live on the current tour, and it
is absolutely fantastic version. For me, that was really the
only one where I was like, oh my god, that
(42:07):
was the perfect recording already, why have you done it again?
Otherwise I think everything, everything was valid, And we've also
not been afraid to use bits from the demo, so
it's not like the demo is one thing and the
recording that on the records are totally differently. Often there
are elements of the demo that are in the finished recording,
so it's not that it's not either or yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, Do you feel that way about the Guardian I
do now.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
At the time on in total disagreement John, of course
the road opinion said no, I'm doing this fabulous new
recording of it, and now, of course I know he
was right because he usually is. Well, I'm quite happy
to now play the demo version of the Garden that
we're playing live, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Are you tempted to do any more of the demo
versions live or is that the only one that you
guys are really really considered.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
I guess you might. We were talking about bringing in
some more songs for next year and some of those demo.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah we are are, actually there are. Yeah, there are
one or two that were we were thinking about.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I mean, it's a brand new project, so maybe you
don't know, but do you plan on releasing any of
the demos from Eye Inside the Old You're Dying?
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Well, there were no demos really for Iye Inside the
Old Dear Dying. And that was that this that was
a new step again. I decided I did. I wasn't
going to demo because I felt like it it would
be better to just free fall into what the song
was going to become. And so all I did was
(43:42):
sung them into an iPhone. It would just be the
voice and me on the piano or Meal the guitar,
and I sang them into an iPhone and that was
the demo. And I think I was trying not to
get attached to demo recordings, which often happens with me.
And also I felt more and more confident in what
we can just create together. I mean, that's that confidence
(44:06):
has grown. I know how John Flood and I work,
and it's such an inspiring environment that I could take
a scrap of a thing in. And actually I think
it was more conducive because we only had a scrap
of a song. We had the words, and we had
roughly had the chords when but everything else was open
(44:26):
and so all three of us could equally bring as
much creativity to the song and our other player, Cecil
Adam Bartlett, who was in the room with us, so
we were all bringing our creativity along with Rob Crowan
who was recording it. So it was a very collaborative
creative space, and more so because the demos weren't really fixed.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Well, look, thanks so much for doing this. It's really
beautiful work you guys have done with this record for
the last few records and really all of them, So
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Oh, thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah, it's been lovely
to talk to you. Hopefully you can come and see
us play sometime next year.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, we'd love to you. Are you guys coming to
the US.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Yes, yep, we are in September October time.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Okay, great, yeah, yeah, I'll definitely come. Can't wait, right,
Thanks to PJ Harvey and John Parrish for talking about
their long standing creative partnership.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You can hear.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Pj's latest album, I Inside the Old You're Dying along
with our favorite PJ Harvey songs on a playlist at
broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you
can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
(45:47):
Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken
Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
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Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts scriptions, and if
(46:10):
you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and
review us on your podcast app. Our theme Music's back
any beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. Polly Jeene Harvey, better known as PJ Harvey, is
without question one of my favorite songwriters of all time.
Her debut album Dry came out in ninety three. It
is what the La Times called a near instant classic.
The same with her sophomore release, rid of Me, which
became an inspiration for Navana's last album, in Utero. Ten
(00:39):
albums later, and Polly continues to be not only a
remarkable songwriter on her new album Eye inside the old
You're Dying, but maybe more impressively, continues to find new
musical territory and new voices to write from, keeping her
songs and artistry as interesting as they were when she
first put out music over thirty years ago. John Parrish,
who's been a frequent collaborator of Polly since the eighties,
(01:02):
produced the new album along with Flood, and joins me
in conversation with Polly to discuss their process of working together,
beauty of Polly's last few albums, and how they bonded
a long time ago over Captain b Fire. This is
broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
(01:22):
Here's my conversation with PJ Harvey and John Parrish. I'm
very excited to be able to talk to both of you.
I don't always think about you guys in Unison, so
it was fun to sort of think about how you
guys worked together on these things. But you guys met
in the eighties, which I didn't realize was the case.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
We met in the in nineteen eighty seven, I believe.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And it was through your band, John.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes, yeah, it was. It was the guitar player in
my band, Jeremy Hogg, had met Polly at a party
and she'd been singing some songs and he was really
impressed with the only mentioned he mentioned her to May
and then she came to a couple of gigs of
the band and gave me some tapes songs she was.
She was a teenager and her voice already sounded really
(02:13):
great to me back at that time, so I asked
if she wanted to join the band when she left school.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think you did it audition me, sort of sort
of auditioned me first.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It was it was a sham audition because you're definitely what.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I came up to Bristol, didn't I. And we just
we played through some of your band automatic the Meani's
main riffs. I think you were just listening to see
if I could play the riff with feel or not,
because I wasn't a very adept guitar player at that point.
I could play chords, but I wasn't very adept at
(02:54):
anything else, and a lot of John's music was based
more around melodies than chord structures. So I remember playing
through some melodies on the guitar with you. John. I
think you were just trying to see if I could
play with feel or not. In fact, I often talked
about feel, you know, just when I'm talking about music,
because I think the feel that I play with is
(03:15):
what I learned from John, because we often recognize how
similar we'd play. If I've written a part on the
guitar and I'm asking John to play it for live performance,
he plays it just like me. But that's because I
play like him, because he play finding a circle like that.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So you don't think before that audition or that time
you started playing with automatic meaning that you played, your
playing was different before then you think, well, I.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Was just I hadn't been playing guitar for very long,
and so all I could play was chords on the guitar.
I could play saxophone quite well, and I think I'd
got to grade seven on saxophone, but I'd only just
started playing the guitar, and all I knew was chords
that I learned from songbook, and I didn't really pick
(04:03):
out melodies. But then when I met John, I started
learning about fingerpicking melodies, and then I practice with records
at home a lot of those with things that John
had introduced me to, like Captain Beefhart, things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Damn, wow, you were put Captain bee Far.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
It's a lot to ask of like a sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen year old that I'm still trying to crack. Like
I got seen as milk, I can get it as milk,
and then it goes behind that and still breaks my brain.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, I had had high expectations, which which she which
she she always met, So it was.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So that must have been the kind of stuff John
that you were Really you're kind of like go to.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I guess Captain beef stuff has been for years and years,
you know, the years obviously an absolute one off in
what he's done, and it's very difficult to get tired
of listening to him because you're always finding something new.
You know, I've been listening to those records for forty
years and there's still ill still think, oh, I suddenly
see how that works. Because a lot of it to
(05:07):
me was just like a a weird puzzle. That was
how I got interested in the first place, because I
didn't understand it, and I thought I understood music. And
when I first said kept in b fhar, I thought,
I don't know what's going on here. I can't figure
out who's saying, why they're doing it. Nothing made sense.
But I was kind of interested enough to keep listening
because I realized it had a physical effect on me,
(05:29):
and I had a physical effect on other people that
were listening to it as well.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So it wasn't just that it was like bizarre that
it was that you didn't understand it, but you could
feel it still.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I felt that there was something there. It was like
hearing a foreign language and you're not not knowing what's
going on, and then you listen to it enough times
and gradually, like there's some words, you think, oh, I
know what that word is, and you know you can
put a couple of sentences together. And it was really
like that. I gradually got to understand it in a
way just by listening to it. And there are still
things that I'm discovering now, So absolutely still go to
(06:01):
May for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
That's great. So before trout Mask Replica Parli, like, what
was before that awakening? What was would have been the
things that you were really loving to listen to at
that time.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Oh, I remember loving the Pogues at that time and
the little band that I had, which was only a
three tiny, three piece band. It was me on an
acoustic guitar, a girl on a flute and a penny
whistle friend of mine called Catherine, and this guy called
Gus on the bass, and we used to do a
lot of folk covers. I think when John came to
see me, that's what I was doing in the local pub.
(06:36):
But so I loved things like the Post because I
could hear that it was folk music, which I loved,
but it also had rebellion and spirit and punk. And
then I fell in love with the Pixies as well,
and they were a huge influence on me. I think
John knew. I think you introduced me to Nick Cave
in the Bad Seas because I remember you playing Cabin Fever.
(06:59):
You know what you were just describing about chout Mass Replica.
I remember listening to that going, I don't know what
this is and it made me feel seasick. I just
didn't know what I was listening too. And you played
me from Her to Eternity as well, and then I
really got into Nick Cave in the Bad Seats and
Tom Waits. I don't think I knew weights, and then
(07:20):
John introduced me to that and that was a massive
influence on me. So I had this sort of mixture
of Tom Waits, Nick Cave, the Pixies, Captain b Phart,
and then my mum and dad's collection of records, which
was brilliant, mostly Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. It's
all sort of off sot with that.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I love it. I can. I can hear that feel
and you're playing that there's some stones in there, some
stones in the Pies. You mentioned your sax plane when
you're growing up playing sax in Endorset, like, is it
a jazz ensemble or is it more as part of
like a like a brass ensemble in the classical sense.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Well, my mum and my dad were always very into music,
so much so that they had a group of friends
that were London based that started introducing them to rhythm
and blues bands from London that my mom started then
bringing those bands down to play in the local village
tools in our village areas. So we'd end up with
(08:21):
these rhythm and blues and boogie woogie bands staying with
us nearly every weekend and some great players. And that's
when I thought, oh, I really loved saxophone. And then
they'd start giving me ad hoc lessons on the saxophone
when they're staying and I started learning at school, so
that's how that happened. And then I joined the local
big band. So I was second tenor in a big
(08:43):
band for quite a few years, which I love because
you play all those big band standards Wow Wellington and
you know, played some amazing songs and I learned a
lot about structure and parts and being one of a
whole from doing the big band work.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Were you interested in big band music?
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Not really, No, I wasn't much more into track mass replica,
but playing in a big band because I guess you know,
in the way that I love playing in the current
band we're in. You just learn about listening. You learn
about listening to each other and you learn about playing
off of the feel that you're all creating. Then that
(09:26):
changes all the time. That's what makes it so exciting.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I was listening to I think you're on it too, John,
But you did a Ian Stewart tribute. You guys did
a Lonely Avenue.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
John wasn't on. I was. I did that with my cousin.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You and your cousin that John might have been on.
You said, it's so natural doing that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So my mum's brother's son, my cousin Ben Waters, he's
a boogie with pianist, and he became a boogie we
be peers because he loved seeing Ian Stewart play.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Now.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Ian Stewart was often known as the fifth rolling Stone
or sixth sixth rolling Stone, and well he was. He
was always in the background. I mean, rumor has it
that he wasn't in the Stones because he didn't look
right right. But he was always with the Stones and
he ended up being their road manager and he played
on stage with them a lot. You'll often see him
(10:18):
in the background now. He was a great friend of
mom and dads. He influenced my cousin to want to
play boogy boogy piano So now my cousin Ben Waters
is a professional boogie boogie pianist and he put together
this tribute to Ian Stewart and that's how that happened.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
So was Ian Stewart around then? Like was he one
of the exactly?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
You know? I said, my mom and dad had a
group of friends from London. I'll try and keep it simple,
but so down here in Dorset where we live, it's
a very very beautiful part of the countryside with rolling
hills and an incredible coastline that's now become like a
World Heritage site. It's called the Jurassic Coast. So people
(11:03):
from London would just come here every weekend. One of
them had a flat in this little cove and all
of the people from London will come here just because
it was so beautiful to escape London. And mom and dad,
who lived down here already met those people. One of
those people that used to come down every weekend was
Ian Stewart. He was the one that introduced mum and
(11:24):
dad to all of these bands from London that ended
up coming down to play. And one of all bands
was Ian's band, which was called Rocket eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Right right, which would I guess would have been based
on that. I turned it song from way back when
growing when you've seen him, did you know he's part
of the Rolling Stone and maybe the founder of the
Stones too.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, yeah we did, and me and my brother and
because Charlie Watts came down and Charlie played in Rocket
eighty eight, you see, So Charlie Charlie ended up coming
and staying in our house. And I remember my brother
and I following him around because we knew that he
was famous, so we just followed him around the house
the entire time, followed Garden, followed him every where.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Did you ever talk to him after following him?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I h I think maybe a little bit. We were
a bit shy because we were quite young. Then.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, that is a crazy experience. I love Charlie Watts.
I was trying to figure out. I feel like the
last decade or so has been a really fruitful I
seem to have read that it was a little difficult maybe,
but a really fruitful run of records from like Let
England Shake to Eye Inside the Old Year of Dying.
(12:38):
I mean, just the three records that have come out
in that time have just been really moving and interesting.
But I was thinking about you guys' earliest work compared
to this, and I mean, how does your guys' creative
relationship work this well over time? I mean, it's just
insane that you guys are sort of still seemingly, to
(12:58):
the listener's point of view, like in lockstep creatively.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's quite rare to
be a good creative relationship for that many years. I
think we're both really appreciative of that. I mean, it's
not something that you can make happen. It's either there
or it's not. And I think that we've been lucky
(13:22):
that we've, for whatever reason, creatively developed along similar lines
or parallel lines for a long time. But we've always
kind of understood what each other's doing, and we know
each other's parameters really well. So it's very easy to
judge things you know for each other and accept judgment
from each other because we understand the parameters. We also
(13:44):
trust each other implicitly, and that's again, it's not something
that you can make happen. It's either there or it's not.
And again, we're really appreciative that we have that because
it just feels like when we're working together in the studio,
and particularly when we're working with Flood as well. He's
obviously been a part of all of those records. It
(14:04):
feels like a very an incredibly strong creative unit. It
creates a situation where people are not afraid to take
chances and not afraid to take risks, and we know
that there will always be somebody there to either support
it or to say, actually that's not working, but maybe
it's a route to something else. And it is afraid.
(14:27):
You know, we're not worried about trying something and not
working and then somebody thinking then they're not really very good.
You know. We know that we have great respect for
each other, the terrific trust, and that's been absolutely foundational
to the work. I think, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Mean I completely agree with John. I think it's having
that level of trust because we've known each other for
a long time and we've been through a lot together, myself,
John arm Flood, and so then you can just be
so open, you can be so risk taking and come
up with crazy ideas and we'll have a go at
them anyway, and then a lot of them fall down
(15:04):
and theyre rubbish and we just laugh about it because
and the other thing is We do laugh a lot.
We have a similar sense of humors. We spend a
lot of time laughing and that really helps. And we
don't have egos in the sense of needing to hold
on to some precious idea. We just let it go
and we try something else. So it makes for a
really wonderful inspirational collaboration. You're just constantly firing ideas off
(15:29):
each other.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
After this break, we'll be back with more of our
conversation with John Parrish and the One and Only PJ. Harvey.
We're back with more from John Parrish and PJ. Harvey.
Speaking of like being open to ideas, the demos to
Let England Shape were really fascinating. There's a lot of
(15:52):
you singing, not even singing, but you writing songs over
samples of things. Yeah, which is a really wild idea.
I've never heard demos that sound that way. How did
you start demoing songs that way for that record?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, that was the first time I'd done that. It
was going back to feel. It was some pieces of
music I loved the feel of, but also the words
were absolutely right for the words and the lyrics I
was creating, so I only used loops of things that
resonated with the subject matter of the song, so that
(16:30):
made for a really strong combination. And then some of
those loops we did use in the eventual recording, and
some of them we didn't, or some of them we
just referenced, but we used parts of on So it
was just a good launching pad for me as I
was trying to find my way into what I was writing.
And you can also hear on the demos I was
(16:51):
mapping out vocal ideas as well, because I knew I
wanted lots of additional singers. But it's very interesting to hear.
How then those demos then moved into the final recordings
and that changed quite a bit. John, I don't know
if you want to say about I think our environment
just being in each church had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, yeah, it did. It was a great session. The
demos were really interesting. We didn't want to use like
whole loops going through all the tracks, you know, and
so we approach in different ways, either sometimes replaying some things,
replaying little bits and pieces of them, or using sort
of segments instead. But it was such a strong body
(17:34):
of songs and lyrically, it was a big departure for Polly.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Well, and how do you view that as someone who's
worked alongside her for so long?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
You know, I have to say when Police first said
that she was writing an album of songs loosely about war,
I was a little bit nervous as to how she
was going to pull that off, because I think that's
act an incredibly difficult thing to do in an artistically
successful way. As soon as I heard the first three
(18:02):
or four demos, I was like, Okay, these are great.
She's totally going to do it. And it tears a
tremendously press his piece of writing. All the songs on
that record. When we came to record them, it was
the most open that Polly had been in a recording situation.
And I don't know whether that was just the time
of the development as an artist, the development of Polly's
(18:25):
a human being, or the fact that the songs were
very much the third person up until that time. You
could say there was a degree. Well, certainly people would
interpret most of the songs before that as being Polly
writing the first person, even if they weren't, whereas this
group of songs you do absolutely couldn't. I suppose you
could try and glean some kind of idea what she
(18:47):
might think about historical events or current events, and how
she was timed the two together. But for whatever reason,
in that session, Polly was incredibly open to the process.
Maybe it was also to do with being very confident
in the material. The songs came together very very quickly
in a beautiful space. It was a big open space
(19:10):
church where we could all play at the same time,
and literally every day we would start a new song
and we wouldn't really know how it was going to
work out. We wouldn't even know who was going to
play what instrument, you know, whether Mick would be playing
drums or whether I would be playing drums, and then
the other one of us would be playing either guitar
or keepers or Poly might be playing guitar or auto harp.
(19:33):
It was really, this is the song. It's a great song,
let's see where we can take it. And by the
end of each day pretty much the song had really
found its own direction. It was a really tremendous session.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Does that feel true to you probably in terms of
this feeling like this writing being a little bit different
than your other writing before it.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, definitely. I remember after White Chalk I just knew
I needed to find a completely vibrant and exciting new
path for myself, and I didn't know what that was,
and it took quite a lot time to find it.
And anything I write about, I've got to feel very
(20:16):
deeply emotionally connected to it or very moved by it.
And I can remember at that time that England was
involved in the Afghan War and the Iraq War, and
I think I was just watching a program, a documentary
about one soldier who'd been wounded in the war in Afghanistan,
and I just found it so incredibly upsetting. I just
(20:37):
remember this whole night feeling so upset, and I thought,
you should write about that if you're feeling this upset.
I think I was crying, you know, right like that,
right about that, And that's how I thought, how can
I write about that? And that's how it began. How
how do you do that? So that was the starting point,
and I think I learned a lot from that moment,
(20:59):
because I think every album I've done since then, I
have really thought the area that I'm trying to explore
has to have a lot of meaning for me and
has to really move me in order to really write
good work.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That moving from this is what I should write about?
To how do I write about it? To actually then
having written about it before you got anything you felt
was good? Were there are like a lot of failed
attempts to write well.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
LANGL and Shake Again was the first time that I
wrote words firstly alone on a page with no music.
Prior to that, I'd always created songs in tandem, music
and lyrics together. They'd grow with each other, and sometimes
words would grow out of just chanting rhythmically on top
of a riff that I had on the piano or guitar.
(21:52):
But this time, because of what John said, like how
you know it's such a difficult subject, how on earth
you're going to approach that, I knew I had to
get the words right, at least a semblance of them
being right. First is that I couldn't just improvise words
on top of music.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Here.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I had to think really carefully about what I was saying.
It was a very fine line to tread. And there
were a lot of words written. I lot it for,
you know, the songs that made it on the album,
and a lot of them never came to anything. And
that's the other thing that was the first time I
started moving into poetry, and I started taking poetry lessons
(22:32):
that I wouldn't call letting is not poetry their songs.
But it was where my interest in wanting to learn
the craft of poetry began because as a starting point,
I went and read all the First World War poets
and I could see this magical craft that they had,
and I wanted to learn how do you do that?
(22:52):
So that was the first time I really thought, oh,
I can't want to go into this, and then I
moved into it deeper with Hope six and then with
Iro Inside the Old Year.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Were you reading a lot of World War One histories
as well?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yes, yes, and contemporary war the time, like Afghan Iraqi war.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
And before this documentary, there was no interest in war,
no personal interest in war.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
No, No, always in you know, very engaged with what
was happening in the world, very upset by current conflicts.
Always fascinated too by the history of Afghanistan, and I
always felt drawn to that and Britain's involvement in both
(23:41):
world wars. So no, I was very interested. It just
never occurred to me that I could possibly write about it.
I just didn't be qualified, you know. But you have to.
I think there's a way in that you don't have
to be qualified, but you can still walk the right
line of speaking in a very naive way. I mean
often think of William Blake's Songs of Innocence Experience, because
(24:04):
that tiny little book is basically how to live, you know,
but it's written like children's nursery rhymes. So I think
you can write in a really naive way but still
say an awful lot.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, absolutely, even just you know, it's funny. The sample
on the demo of let England Shape is stambul not Constantinople,
which was like a kind of a goof of a
song in a way. But even that song is kind
of seen a lot in it's a weird way, you know,
like these histories of countries conquering one another in name
changes and what's in a name and what they mean.
(24:37):
It's I don't know, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, And that's what I love doing, playing off what
the original loop was doing and then laying my words
on top of it, sometimes joining in with those words,
sometimes not. I think it also added a certain level
of humor where it's not too self important. It's got
a lightness to it. Which in having that lightness, it
actually makes it heavier. It makes it mean more and
(25:02):
affect more.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Tell me about that. You guys recorded in a church
and in Dorset. It was at the first time you
got I said, recorded there. How did you guys settle
on that place as a makesift studio.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I think it was Polly didn't want to record in
a studio in a traditional studio setting, and I guess
it made sense to her because it was close to
where she was living at the time, and it was
kind of that simple in a way, like looking for
a space that was close to where Polly lived, this
was available. I think we had some concerns as to
(25:35):
how it would be acoustically, but you know what, we
moved a studio set up in there and it sounded great.
It was a really just really cool space.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
It was quite quite magical as well, I felt, and
I think we all felt that because it's on the
top of the hill that overlooks the sea, and there's
not really any any other buildings around it, and it's
often very windy, so the trees were all bent by
the wind, and the gravestones are still there. So we
were singing these songs about death and war, and it
(26:11):
felt like the wind was kind of blowing the voices
in from the sea and the graves all over us.
I do feel like there was something quite magical happening
in that building, in that that Let England Shake session
recording was one of the most special times of my
life for that reason. It was just absolutely magical and
(26:33):
so inspired and so exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Do either of you feel particularly religious or spiritual or
have any affinity for a connection to at a personal
level churches or a church?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And I'm not religious, but I grew up going to
church as a kid, And you know, obviously there's the
fact that those buildings mean a lot to so many people.
You know, you can't help but notice that and be
infected by it. Yeah, So I have respect for it
without without having faced myself.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, I'm so interested in what different people are drawn to.
I feel the beauty of those beautiful buildings, but also
beauty in the fact that people want to come together
to try and find meaning and try and share and
to give and receive love and places where beautiful music
(27:30):
is created and shared. So I'd keep an open mind,
you know. And I often feel removed when I'm at
places of worship. As I was in Eap Church when
we were making Let England Shake. I did feel that
the beauty of the building and its position helped us
channel a perfect energy for that record.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah. Quite poor. I mean, you know, I just think
about myself. There's a church right down the street from
where I live, assignment particularly beautiful church, but enough that
when I passed it, it makes me feel I'm, like, you know,
feel on some level drawn to it. But at the
same time I can't help but think about you know,
it's the pain that sometimes that's the same beliefs bring
(28:13):
to people, et cetera. And so there's kind of I
don't know, it's just like a lot of there's a
for me, a very contradictory feeling about churches, like a
deep reverence and it's an't their aunt'spiring in a lot
of ways, And I'm very much jealous of these people. Do,
like you say, come together to find some level of
meaning in life.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Yeah, Like I said, I the power of people wanting
to come together to try and find meaning. Why this
In Afghanistan, I went to a Sufi It wasn't even
a church, it was just a room, but it was
their Sufi Sunday morning practice together where they'd sit for
four hours chanting together, kneeling down and chanting till they
(28:51):
were rocking back this and fores. It was incredibly moving
in a different way. But again it's just the power
of people coming together. I think to look for something
to share, something to find the power together.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
After this last break, we'll be back with more from
John Parrish and PJ. Harvey. We're back with the rest
of my conversation with John Parrish and PJ. Harvey. You
referenced a trip to Afghanistan. You know, the whole sixth
Demolition project was the record after Let England Shake and
(29:29):
before your Guys's newest one inside the Old Year Dying.
You traveled around with Seamus Murphy, a great photographer, want
to Afghanistan, coast of Ops DC. Were you intending to
make a record based on those travels or was the
travel something completely separate.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I didn't know what it would become. I started working
with Seamus on letting in shiks. He made the beautiful
films that accompanied each song, and he took photographs and
I grew a friendship with Seamus. And you know, Seamus
has spent his whole life as a voter journalist, traveling
all over the world and sometimes into very dangerous war
(30:10):
torn areas, and from the interest I'd added from writing
letting in shake, I still didn't feel close enough, and
I thought, gosh, what if I could actually in instead
of garnering information secondhand or from other people's writings, Well,
if I could actually go somewhere myself. And James and
(30:31):
I talked about that and he did say, well, look,
why don't as a start, why don't you just come
with me to Afghanistan where he goes a lot. And
of course I was very nervous, but I thought, well, yeah,
I feel like I really want to, and so I
had no expectation. I just went with a notepad and
I thought, well, all I'm going to do is just
(30:54):
record what I see. That's all I'm going to do.
And then it grew into going to cross Fow together,
going to Washington, DC together, and I just carried on
doing that same thing. I'm just going to write down
what I see, that's all. I didn't know what it
would become. But at the same time, like I said,
I was growing an interest in poetry. So I ended
(31:15):
up with having an enormous amount of words to play with.
Then thought, okay, can I try and want some poems
out of this? And a poetry book came out of it,
and then an album came out of it, and then
I sort of organically fell into this new way of
sort of writing poems and writing songs, which sits with
(31:35):
me very well at the moment and might not in
ten years time, but right now it does. And I
think that's what happens as an artist. You find different
modes of working work well for you at that time
in your life, and you adopt them, and then later
on down the line, they don't, you do something else.
And right now that's become quite a satisfying way for
me of finding my way through words and music.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's really as a listener, I mean, I really have
enjoyed these last few projects. I didn't one hundred percent
know that you were in a different mode of working,
but the resulting work is just so interesting. You know,
the feel of these records are and I don't know
if that comes from the writing necessarily. It could just
be from you know, the groups of people you guys
are playing with and all you're recording them, But it's
just I really, really really love these projects. I feel
(32:21):
special in an interesting way.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
I think it comes about because of all the ingredients.
You know, it's because of the way they're written. But
it's also a huge part of it is coming together
with John and Flood. And I share with John and
Flood all of my workings, all of my writings, all
of the words, the demos, so they're a big part
of the growing of the whole project right from its
(32:44):
very beginning.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And I imagine John, you knew about her trip to Afrigat,
I mean that were you worried about that draft?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yes, I was, well, I was worried. I think it's
incredibly brave to do it. It was obviously it was
very incredibly valuable to the to the writing process, but
it's not something that I personally would have risked. I
think it was the risk, and she was very brave
(33:13):
to do it. And yes, I was worried.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Were you much of a traveler before, Polly, Ah?
Speaker 3 (33:19):
No, but I always wanted to be, and you know,
I had a huge interest in Yeah, I just didn't
wanting to see things firsthand and thought there's only one
way to do that. You just got to go there.
And I think that desire overrode any fear, because the
desire to actually be there and see it was greater
than the fears that I had.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I mean, I imagine that you probably didn't even do
much travel, I mean outside of touring.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Right, No, not really no, I mean a.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Lot of people end up kind of getting hooked to traveling.
Do you did it change you in that sense? Do
you feel like you want to go more places now?
Or was that it was? Are you content having just
gone on that trip?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You know, I'm a I'm a maker, and the thing
that I'm drawn towards making, I will serve in any
way I have to, And so the next thing that
I do will probably be to do with the project
that I'm serving at the time. That's my drive, if
that makes sense. So I don't know, you know, if
(34:24):
the next project's going to mean I need to travel
to source the material better than I will, or if
I need to stay in one place, then I'll stay there.
It really down to that. That is kind of what
I do, and that is my driving force.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You had mentioned before that like that was a very
difficult record to write in hindsight. Does that still feel true?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Yeah, it did feel difficult to write musically more than lyrically.
The poems and the words that I gathered came together
quite easily, but I found it difficult to create the
music I wanted to hear, and it took me quite
a while to get enough material together. I think I
(35:07):
had to write fight a lot of things to really
get to some good things.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Did you hear that from the demos?
Speaker 2 (35:15):
John, Yes, there were definitely a lot more songs that
we had to go through before we found a collection
that we felt was a really strong body of work.
So there was a you know, I don't remember there
being very many demos from the Letting Wind Shake sessions
that didn't make it either onto the album or onto
a B side, whereas there were a lot I think. Yeah,
(35:38):
as Polly said, she had to write a lot of
stuff to come up with the ones that were strong
enough to work on.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
How does having maybe weaker demos or demos that you're
not quite sure how they're going to work? How does
that change the recording approach?
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Well, I think that we wouldn't even go into the
studio until we were comfortable that we had all the songs.
So it was more it was more that it took
a long time to get to that stage, but Polly's
always you know that.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
For me, the.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Absolute strongest thing about Polly's work is that it's every
record has been different, and obviously the more records you make,
the harder and harder that becomes. Of course, I know
that she wanted them to be singable songs because they
were again, they were dealing with difficult subjects and she
didn't want to make it. It was a way of making
(36:28):
it not a heavy, mirthless affair. So she wanted singable melodies.
And again, so how do you come up with something
like that that's not you know, something that's singable that
you haven't done before, but it's not asinine as well.
So there was a lot, asking a lot of yourself
to come up with that, and it took a while
to get to that stage.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Is that a standard you feel you hold yourself to
Polly like that? You want every record to have to
feel different, to sound different, to be different in some way?
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, it is. I've just always been like that. Even
when I was doing an art foundation course, everything I
did I wanted it to be like nothing I'd ever
done before. And I've been like that my whole life.
I just I'm so interested in learning. I really like learning,
and the only way you learn is to do things
(37:19):
you don't know. It's just doing something you don't know,
and that's so exciting, just always finding out something new,
and that's what keeps me just looking under different songs
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
So you find that's true of your relationship to artists
other artists you love. Do you find yourself disappointed when
artists sort of repeat the same thing or return to
a similar place and aren't evolving similarly.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It depends some artists you like on some level when
you don't expect them to be reinventing themselves every time.
Some artists you have a different expectation. I have extremely
high expectations of Polly, and so I feel that she's
not coming out with something new, then it's going to
be disappointing for me, because she's one of the very
(38:05):
select group of artists that I regard as inspirational. And
for those people, you want more than just another good record.
You're looking for something that is going to inspire you.
And that's tough.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah. Personally, I kind of put you parley like with
Neil Young, where it's like, I mean, some people would
say that Neil Young always sounds the same, but to me,
I hear something different all the time. You know, it's
like always changing, and I can hear his focus and
determination and I don't know, it's creative process that I
think comes out on the records, and I feel that
same spirit or sense you know from your records.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
I have great admiration for Neil Young for the reason
you're saying. He's always trying different things, radically different things,
and that's so exciting. I'd much rather hear an artist
doing that and not always hitting the mark, you know,
but even and the fact that you've tried something radically
different is a success in itself, I think in my
(39:05):
book anyway.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
That's why I'm mark. I mean, you put out those
four track demos early. That's why I was like listening
to that collection of songs, and that's why ultimately, when
I finally got around to listening to the new like
the sort of spade of demos, really demo releases that
you put out a couple of years ago, that was
exciting too. I mean, it was so fun to hear
something familiar but not quite there. It's like I can
(39:29):
hear the reach you for what was ultimately what ultimately
got made it to the record, you know, And it's
just fun to hear the attempt.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, yeah, it felt like the right time to show
those I really love hearing those early stages of a song.
You can hear, like you said, you can hear where
it's trying to go. It hasn't quite yet. You can
hear the idea of it, but the idea is not
fully formed yet.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And sometimes it's better, I mean, to be honest, Sometimes
I'm like, oh, I didn't you know, wouldn't have known.
But I liked this demo version a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
They can be enchanting in a different way because they're
still so new. It's like the first time we've ever
it's probably the first or second time I'd ever sung it,
and there's something always going to be lovely about that,
I think, John.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
I mean, having listened to the demos, speaking for myself,
I would feel like I was going to fuck up
some really good work. How do you feel when you're
listening to Polly's demos? Do you always feel like, oh,
I can make this better, or we can make this better,
or is it like damn, this is maybe best as is.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Once or twice maybe more, I have thought that we
should do nothing to this. This is absolutely done as
far as I'm concerned. But usually there's something there that
you think, Okay, we can I think because we've been
doing it for so long and working like this for
so long, that we know we can always move things
on from where they work. They already sounded great, but
(40:53):
there's always somewhere better you can take it, and you
always managed, with maybe one or two exceptions, we've always
managed to do that. And you know it's not immediately
apparent what it is that you're going to bring to it,
But there has always been something that has moved those
demos on, even though they were already in a good place.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
At the risk of going somewhere uncomfortable. Is there a
record that either of you agree on that you guys
moved it somewhere different, but maybe not to a place
that was better or as good as the demo.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
There's a song, but a particular song that is a
long time favorite of mine that Paulina, which is a
song called the Garden from is this desire both me
and Flood for when we heard the demo that is done?
Speaker 1 (41:45):
That is just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It didn't stay that way, and I've always been slightly
not upset because then, of course it's come out as
a demo and we've played the demo version. We're playing
the demo version live on the current tour, and it
is absolutely fantastic version. For me, that was really the
only one where I was like, oh my god, that
(42:07):
was the perfect recording already, why have you done it again?
Otherwise I think everything, everything was valid, And we've also
not been afraid to use bits from the demo, so
it's not like the demo is one thing and the
recording that on the records are totally differently. Often there
are elements of the demo that are in the finished recording,
so it's not that it's not either or yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, Do you feel that way about the Guardian I
do now.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
At the time on in total disagreement John, of course
the road opinion said no, I'm doing this fabulous new
recording of it, and now, of course I know he
was right because he usually is. Well, I'm quite happy
to now play the demo version of the Garden that
we're playing live, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Are you tempted to do any more of the demo
versions live or is that the only one that you
guys are really really considered.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
I guess you might. We were talking about bringing in
some more songs for next year and some of those demo.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah we are are, actually there are. Yeah, there are
one or two that were we were thinking about.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I mean, it's a brand new project, so maybe you
don't know, but do you plan on releasing any of
the demos from Eye Inside the Old You're Dying?
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Well, there were no demos really for Iye Inside the
Old Dear Dying. And that was that this that was
a new step again. I decided I did. I wasn't
going to demo because I felt like it it would
be better to just free fall into what the song
was going to become. And so all I did was
(43:42):
sung them into an iPhone. It would just be the
voice and me on the piano or Meal the guitar,
and I sang them into an iPhone and that was
the demo. And I think I was trying not to
get attached to demo recordings, which often happens with me.
And also I felt more and more confident in what
we can just create together. I mean, that's that confidence
(44:06):
has grown. I know how John Flood and I work,
and it's such an inspiring environment that I could take
a scrap of a thing in. And actually I think
it was more conducive because we only had a scrap
of a song. We had the words, and we had
roughly had the chords when but everything else was open
(44:26):
and so all three of us could equally bring as
much creativity to the song and our other player, Cecil
Adam Bartlett, who was in the room with us, so
we were all bringing our creativity along with Rob Crowan
who was recording it. So it was a very collaborative
creative space, and more so because the demos weren't really fixed.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Well, look, thanks so much for doing this. It's really
beautiful work you guys have done with this record for
the last few records and really all of them, So
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Oh, thank you. Thanks a lot. Yeah, it's been lovely
to talk to you. Hopefully you can come and see
us play sometime next year.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, we'd love to you. Are you guys coming to
the US.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Yes, yep, we are in September October time.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Okay, great, yeah, yeah, I'll definitely come. Can't wait, right,
Thanks to PJ Harvey and John Parrish for talking about
their long standing creative partnership.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
You can hear.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Pj's latest album, I Inside the Old You're Dying along
with our favorite PJ Harvey songs on a playlist at
broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel
at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you
can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric
(45:47):
Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken
Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love
this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month.
Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts scriptions, and if
(46:10):
you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and
review us on your podcast app. Our theme Music's back
any beats. I'm justin Richmond.
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