40 Watt Sun: Behind His Eyes
40 WATT SUN rose as WARNING set, with vocalist and guitarist Patrick Walker turning his talents to a style infused with doom rather than drenched in it. The Inside Room largely followed in the cult band’s footsteps, but Wider Than The Sky offered something different; forefronting Walker’s voice and lyrics against a backdrop of subtle overdrive. The new album Perfect Light navigates the project further away from his heavy musical legacy, and towards an understated, poetic vision of beauty. We spoke to the press-shy singer songwriter as 40 WATT SUN prepare to bring their new music to the stage.
“I don’t really do interviews,” begins Walker, “or at least, I don’t usually like doing them. I find it hard to talk about and unpack my own music, and I’m terrified of coming over as pretentious,” he smiles. “I don’t like the sound of my voice, or even hearing my own words. That’s why it takes me three years to write song lyrics!” Refreshing our glasses, we discuss community cinema and gose beer before our conversation turns to the new album. “At the end of 2017 I found myself without a band anymore,” remembers Walker. “I had lost my drummer and bass player and so I was ready to move on and do something else, but then I realised I didn’t have to. I could continue making songs without a formal band.”
Perfect Light was written and recorded over the next four years, with Walker assembling a different ensemble for each and every track. “A lot of the new album is just myself and an acoustic guitar, and then an assortment of other instruments as accompaniment,” he explains. “There’s always a degree of compromise when you’re playing in a democratic band, usually a large degree, and as a songwriter that can sometimes be a bit unpleasant,” he observes. “I just want to serve the songs, and to give them what they need.” More than Wider Than The Sky, and The Inside Room before that, 40 WATT SUN’s third album benefits greatly from Walker’s autonomous approach and careful restraint. “I’ve always depended on very bare arrangements, and I’m very wary not to over-arrange anything I write. I don’t have a consistent line up anymore,” he concludes, “and I think that’s how I’ll continue to work.”
We trade memories of SAINT VITUS at Desertfest 2017, and an interview Walker gave for an oral history of the band, before we begin to segue back to 40 WATT SUN. “I don’t understand the riff mentality,” Walker declares. “I’ve always liked songs, but I’m not into riffs. I enjoy riff-based music,” he explains, “but I appreciate them as songs, and that carries over into the way that I make music. For me, a song starts with the music and ends with the lyrics: I have to write the words to the music, and that is most of the work.” True to form Perfect Light is a lyrical delight, with Walker’s memories and sentiments delivered through beautifully constructed imagery. “I’m a big reader, and I like language and words. I’m not knowingly influenced by anyone I can think of…” he pauses, “but I certainly enjoy reading a lot. I place a lot of value in language, and I think the writers I like would say the same about themselves, too.”
Read closely and you’ll find 40 WATT SUN’s lyrics are full of the language of ‘sight’ and of ‘seeing’, which is pleasantly anticipated by Perfect Light’s title and artwork. “I’m not a photographer,” Walker insists, “but I do take photos, and I took all the photographs you’ll see on the record. I live in South Devon, and the picture on the front I took from a train window on my way home from London about five years ago. It was around Christmas, and there was heavy flooding,” he remembers, “It was dismal. There was sea mist rolling down the river Ex, and the train passed these two sunken boats. By chance I caught a photo, and years later I rediscovered them. I love the image,” he enthuses, “but I can’t remember which came first, the cover art or the album title. In any case, I felt that they were mutually suited.” Quizzed on the connection between his lyrics and the artwork, Walker is amused. “There’s no deep meaning to these things,” he admits, “because for me it’s just about the songs. The first album The Inside Room has red birds on the front, but someone asked what the meaning of the starfish was,” he laughs. “Honestly, I still can’t see it to this day!”
Always curious to hear about another writer’s process, we turn back to lyrics and writing for the new album. “For me it’s difficult up to the point that you finish that piece of work, when you’ve said everything you want to say, and expressed all you want to express. But then it starts again. You can’t control it, it just sort of happens,” he grins with resignation. “There’s always notebooks involved, and after a new record I start a new one. I keep journals of words and phrases until they become lyrics. I always go back to my first notebook to make sure that there’s nothing left behind; nothing I wanted to keep that hasn’t found its way into a song yet.”
We finish by talking about Perfect Light’s reception in the press, and 40 WATT SUN’s often misunderstood ambitions. “I certainly don’t want to be a misery-monger,” Walker tells us determinedly. “I never want to project that. Any experience is a very complicated one, but I’d rather someone said that my music was hopeful than depressing, because that’s no compliment at all,” he resolves. “I just want to make beautiful music. With Watching From A Distance. I wasn’t trying to make depressing music; I wanted to make beautiful music that feels alive. Experiences that make me want to make songs or make me want to make music aren’t depressing, they’re complex,” he beams. “I don’t know how else to say it.”
Perfect Light is out now via Cappio Records/Svart Records.
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