King of Diamonds

It's been a while since we heard from our chum, Tom McRae so it was awfully nice of him to invite us to join him on tour and find out exactly what he's been up to for the last three years

Wandering straight into the venue and looking around myopically, clearly lost, it still takes a good 30 seconds before anybody questions my presence, and even then it’s a muted “Can I help you?”.

The Hotel Café Tour is a low-key and low-budged affair to say the least; security would clearly constitute an unnecessary excess. Walking round a corner I find Tom McRae sat in the same clothes he will be wearing for the show itself (it’s anyone’s guess how many other shows they’ve also been worn for).

Appropriately enough given his degree in politics and his oft-voiced opinions on Blair and Bush – now embodied in the searing discords of ‘Keep Your Picture Clear’ on his most recent LP, King of Cards – we find McRae engrossed in a newspaper. For a man best known for his bleak lyricism, his immediate smile and relaxed manner are warmly disarming, and he continues chatting as he leads the way downstairs to a place we can talk in some peace. And talk we do for almost an hour, along the way covering McRae’s background, the current tour, his views on the music industry, possibly the most seriously considered response to uk-fusion’s trademark kinky question, and somehow ending up talking about fisting… But let’s start more conventionally – the tour.

What’s the concept of the ‘Hotel Café’ all about, then?
‘The Hotel Café is a tiny little venue in LA, which started off as a very underground singer/songwriter scene, where myself and the guys on this tour met. And we kinda got on, which is very rare, because you usually think you’re in competition or at least you’re schooled to think you’re in competition, (especially in London). We wanted to help each other out so we decided to take Hotel Café on the road and in 2005 we went across the States, and they’ve run the tour every year since. There's a revolving bill of up to about 45-50 artists jumping on and off the tour at various places and I thought I’d try and bring the revolving mini-festival here to UK, which we did in 2006. It’s not all ‘miserabalists’; it’s a very varied bill, and it’s all about trying to present new music at a time when it’s extremely difficult for unknown artists to tour because the record industry is failing, and there’s no money for touring…so, this format could be a way forward, and a way of touring in the future.
The death of the music industry seems to be something on McRae’s mind a lot – in the current model there’s no place for musicians who don’t churn out radio-friendly pop, leaving their creativity out in the cold. If this is the future of the music biz, isn’t he worried about it?
The music industry can’t win back the trust of the audience who – quite rightly, I think – feel incredibly abused by major labels. So now I don’t think anybody (me included) has any qualms about downloading illegally; now that that precedent has been set, the record companies are on the verge of giving away all content. They know they’re fighting a losing battle against digital exchange, so they’re going to find other ways of funding it and that’ll probably come from advertising: mobile phone companies, etc. You’ll probably buy an extra package for your mobile and get unlimited downloads or something. Music is just the ‘software’ with which they’re going to drive the sales of something else now.

That’s going to be great if you’re Coldplay. It’s going to be terrible if you’re Tom McRae or anyone like me. If you haven’t got a multi-million dollar label promoting you, you’re going to fall off the radar totally. In the next few years a lot of people will have a shock and lots of bands are going to go to the wall. There’s not really a place for people who don’t want to make dull, middle-of-the-road music, unless you want to hold down two jobs at the same time.

But rather than complain about that, we should look for positive things to do, look for ways to help each other and look for ways to bring music to an audience who’s constantly being told that they’re the problem – but they’re never the problem, they’re the people you need to go to! So you need to say “Great, you came to a show; Great, you bought a t-shirt; Great, maybe you’ll buy the vinyl!” – People want to support you, and you should let them. Nobody wants to give up their free time to help out Westlife or Girls Aloud; they don’t give a fuck. And quite rightly, too. 
Is nobody interested in new music these days? Surely with the likes of Radio 1 taking on the slogan ‘In New Music We Trust’ there’s a growing attitude that at least claims to be seeking out new music. But is Tom McRae too old to be new now that he’s working on album number 5 with no hits to his name?
I’m fairly firmly too old to be new. I think I’ve committed the cardinal sin in this country of being the nearly-man. You get a little bit of profile and success, but if you don’t immediately cross the threshold into super-stardom, you’re just seen as a disappointment. Maybe I could be new in Chile or Mexico or somewhere but not here. I have a fan-base and a following now and I have to look for what ways I can to continue without relying on the industry.
McRae gained his first record deal having been in a band for some 8 years and, after they split, making use of the contacts he had made during that time. He was signed to new start-up DB records, but they were rapidly subsumed within the sprawling mass of Song BMG; from a little Indy start-up, McRae found himself on a major label. But after gaining a Mercury Prize nomination with his eponymous début, he seemed to disappear without a trace – does he feel let down by Sony failing to support him and publicise his music?
Oh, they had a go. I think they did believe in me, but… Well, it’s a common complaint really, that at that level record companies have only one way of operating: if you don’t get on radio, they’re not going to spend money to push you any further. So they’re right behind you all the way up to the moment the CD goes out the door, but if it fails to get on Radio 1’s A List, then they just pull the plug. That happened to me twice with them, and on the third one they just said upfront that I could make the album, but they weren’t going to support it. At least they were honest enough to tell me; they liked my music a lot, but they were never going to spend any money on it.
Having then signed to V2, it was also bought-out by a major almost immediately afterwards – Universal this time, not Sony (he laughs at the irony that would’ve made). Did his experience mean that his following album, King of Cards, was the album he really wanted to make, or was it partly an exercise in widening his appeal? Many fans didn’t know quite what to make of a record with so many major chords in it…
Well, yeah – it was a case of “What can I get away with that I like on the record and what will they promote?”. You hand in a record and they say, “We love it, but we can’t do anything with it”, so you say, “What about it I put this song on it?”; they go “Yeah, we might get that on radio but we need a follow up to it”, so before you know it you’ve had to rewrite the entire album. And this time, given the two years or so I might spend on an album, giving up a sizeable portion of my life recording, writing, touring and so on, I just didn’t want it to come out and have nothing spent on it.
And in retrospect, was that what you should have done?
I actually learned another valuable life lesson: just do what you want all the time, regardless. Because they said they loved the record and they’d put a big push behind it, and the moment I handed it in, the company went bust, so there wasn’t any money to put behind it any more. I just laughed; there’s nothing you can do. It happens to so many people, and what can you do?
Fate doesn’t often smile on Tom McRae, it seems. But he’s holding up pretty well – doesn’t he ever feel like he’s fighting a losing battle?
Eventually, if you play the shows and find ways to get the music out there, things will work out. Time and again someone will be there who introduces you to someone else, asks you to play a gig and so on – everything connects. And not in a hippy-karmic way, but that’s just how the world works. You have to take opportunities; like the show tonight and this whole tour, even if there’s only 150 people in that room tonight (I’d be surprised), every one of them will leave having seen a great show and tell three or four friends, and those friends will come next year.
Having got a little deep into dissecting the nature of the music industry and the ways in which music can be brought to an audience these days, we decided to throw words and phrases at Tom to elicit his immediate reactions…

A Minor.
Ahh. The second saddest chord. I love it. I use it too much.
Hadn’t noticed, honest.
Yes! But I tried substituting all minor chords for major chords for King of Cards and look what happened with that! I think I’ll stick with A Minor a while yet.
Jim Bianco.
Fantastic singer-songwriter. Amazing, amazing performer. One of the key-players in the Hotel Café Tour, he does two things that connect with an audience in a way I think anyone should have the ability to do: he can break your heart and then repair it with a gag or a genuinely felt, shared moment. He’s a lesson to everyone that you can’t just make introspective, dark records indefinitely.
Stalin.
[pauses] Good facial hair. There’s a lot of it on the tour. I’ve never been able to grow a proper beard, yet I’m surrounded by people with epic facial hair. So, he’d have to moderate a few views, but essentially he’d be welcome on the bus – maybe he could be backstage technician for a while.
Tony Blair.
Tony Blair wouldn’t be welcome on the bus unless he apologised to be personally for a whole list of things… and then he still wouldn’t be welcome on the bus because he believes in Magic Jesus, and I can’t be doing with him. Um… He should be on trial in the Hague as a war criminal, but that’ll never happen. But that’s my view, any way. If Henry Kissinger can get the Nobel Peace Prize, then satire and irony are dead; he was a mass murderer too, and it’ll only take a few more years of Gordon Brown for people to feel Blair was a good guy after all and he’ll probably get a state funeral. People are like that – short memories. It’s like when you hear people praising Margaret Thatcher: I’ll be there smashing her grave with a fucking toffee hammer!
Ryan Adams.
Like his music. Think he’s definitely not fantastic journey as an artist. Thinks I’m a bit weird, but hey. I have nothing but praise for him.
Best Song.
That’s tough… I’ve always thought ‘Wichita Lineman’ has to be one of the best songs ever written. There’s a core bunch of songs I always go back to, though, to think “How do you create a perfect gem?”, and how do you kinda steal bits of that [laughs].
Take alternate chords and stick A Minor between them?
Yeah – A Minor everywhere, and capo around the third fret; sing high and sad, and it’s a hit!
Best Singer.
Chet Baker. Obviously I’m a fan of male voices that are slightly higher, but he has a way of getting all the grit and grain out of a song, and you know he means it because that’s how he lived and died; it’s heartbreaking and beautiful. And the key thing about that, and all my favourite singers, is that they’re not necessarily ‘good’ singers. They’re not going to be classically trained or have masterful control, but they’re doing the best with what they’ve got, and that gives it the character.
Hearing the bum-notes can make it all the more immediate, don’t you think?
That’s why I think Damon Albarn’s got such a great voice – he’s flat all over the place, but it’s brilliant. And Ella Fitzgerald was flat all the time, but that’s why it sounds great. Singing is uniquely subjective, and no one is simply a good or bad singer. I wish everyone sang – I wish everyone at school was bad to sing first thing in the morning; vote which pop song you want to sing, and just get it all out. That’s why karaoke is just brilliant.
Sheepishly admitting to owning all the Singstar games, Tom smiles and says he thinks they’re great, too, though they don’t let you muck around with the song. Looks like Sony doesn’t think much of him again, this time via the PS2.
China.
Shenanigans, shenanigans. I would have a problem with anyone pointing the finger at China about anything, when in a country where I normally live [Britain] the leader chose to start a war that is still killing thousands of people every year. I’m not even going to say to Robert Mugabe “Sort out your shit” when we have an unelected leader, I’m sorry. There’s problems everywhere, and if I can make a change I’d start by sorting out my own house before everyone else’s. Regardless of the hypocrisy we show on the world stage, I stand by the idea that if you can do one thing, do one thing. If you can give a kid in Africa a biscuit which saves them for one day more, then do it. If you break everything down to a single human being situation then it’s not just doable but eminently practicable.
The Constant Gardener approach of Tom McRae, then?
Absolutely – spot on.
Favourite Haribo sweet.
It would’ve been the cherries, but I can’t eat those things anymore. My system just shuts down… They’re made of crack cocaine – once you start, you just can’t stop.
Belgium.
Love Belgium and I won’t hear a word against it. Some of the most beautiful cities in such a small country, with amazing people and culture. And in a very European way, too often sneered at by the rest of us. I’ve got a very loyal following there; love it.
Fisting.
Wow. (Jonathan?! - Ed) Erm… that’s what we call doing radio sessions: it’s like fisting yourself. Every day there’s always one or two things that happen which, if you took yourself too seriously, you would die. We call those variously “getting kicked in the balls” – “No toilets in the venue? Oh, that’s fine, we’ll just shit in the street, whatever”. “Sound guy hasn’t turned up? Oh that’s OK, we don’t need a sound check, fine” – and fisting. Self-fisting is playing the industry game and being treated like a moron by morons.
TV talent shows.
Oh, I’m aware of them. What about them? Do you want me to have an opinion on them? [laughs]
Go on! Have an opinion…
Weirdly I think it’s OK not to have an opinion, the older I get. I genuinely don’t care. I don’t care it makes a superhero out of a plumber for a week – everyone should have that trip. I don’t care that Simon Cowell makes billions, or that people want to watch that on a Friday night. It’s all self-sealed, and I’d only have opinion if I was made to watch it. But I have a choice: I can walk away and listen to good music, and so I do. I don’t want to be part of that world.

I do think, though, that if you give people a choice they will choose the thing that’s worst for them. It’s human nature. Are you going to read a Jane Austen book, or this Jeffrey Archer book? Oh… well, you’re an idiot. The only way is to find the tools to educate people to allow them to make better choices for themselves. And the general public haven’t been given those tools yet, I think.

Eddie Izzard.

Love him. Seen him countless times and even met him once, and he’s marshalled his career brilliantly – avoiding TV, moving via the stage to movies. But ultimately going back to stand-up where he’s brilliant. I wish he could act, but that’s not why I like him.

Love Actually.

I think it’s utter utter dross. And I love it. I see it every Christmas, and I seem to end up with a glass in my hand  telling someone how I hate this movie, and proceed to watch it all the way through. I really like the Colin Firth story – it’s worth it just for that.

My God – definitive proof that Tom McRae isn’t depressed and jaded to the bone!

Don’t worry – I have tastes from the gutter!

What’s only kinky the first time?

[Long pause and distracted look] I have no idea… I suppose, the whole thing about something being kinky or not – I hope everything retains an element of that, because you wouldn’t want the crazy and debauched to become everyday. If something kinky happens, then I want something about it to always feel that way.

Enough of the random shots, then… What about McRae’s background?

Not very exciting really. Left school at 18, went to a very low-rent Polytechnic and got a degree in politics; another postgraduate year of study. Entirely average.

So what do his family think of the far from average lifestyle now? At 39 years old, McRae’s still living close to the wire in order to keep making music.

I don’t think my parents took it seriously when I started, but since then they’ve been to some bigger shows, and maybe thought there was some money in it after all. Now I just get a phonecall if my name gets mentioned on Radio 4 [laughs]. But like all parents it comes back to wondering if you’re coming to them for money, you’re feeding yourself and so on. Apart from that I don’t think they pay any attention to what I’m doing, but I don’t pay attention to their careers either, so hey.

As a looming figure makes it clear that Tom has to leave, there’s just time to ask about Tom’s most recent album, King of Cards. Clearly favoured on this website, in my personal opinion it’s also perhaps his best album…

That’s interesting, because a lot of people who liked the older stuff really don’t like King of Cards, but then people who’ve come in later on like it a lot. It all depends on where you come in, I guess. But most people listen to music on iPods now anyway, and it all comes up under ‘Tom McRae’ – it doesn’t matter what album it’s on anymore. I think I work more towards having a good body of music, because that’s how most people will encounter it anyway. Not every album will be great, but there might be three or four really good songs there to make it worth it – like some artists I’ve been following for years. 20 years down the line and I’m still buying REM records  ’cause maybe there’ll be one good song on there.

I’m still buying Van Morrison records…

Of course, yeah. Someone’s still got to support that fat grumpy bastard.

At least he’s consistently grumpy…

Well yeah, he doesn’t fake it in any way – right across the board he’s an arsehole, so I hear. But, who cares? He makes brilliant music.

And so does Tom McRae… but with the added bonus that he’s definitely not a grumpy bastard. The songs may be introspective, but partly in response to the nature of the music industry today, partly because this is a man who respects his audience, his approach to playing those songs – and of course the songs of other struggling artists – is extrovert, welcoming and beguilingly optimistic. And hey, we’d all love to experience a world free from self-fisting.

Tom McRae's takes Hotel Cafe on the road in Europe until 16th May, ending in Paris.  For more details, visit www.tommcrae.com.

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Read uk-fusion's first interview with Tom McRae