An interview with Phillip Hartley 5.5.09 by HolleyHall, 12 Apr 2009 04:40 PM

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Phillip Hartley

EZ folk Profle Page: http://ezfolk.com/audio/Phillip_Hartley/

Radio Station: http://ezfolk.com/audio/index.php?mode=player&type=radio&id=806

I met Phillip a couple years ago here on EZfolk. He is from the UK and has a wonderful variety of Folk and Contemporary music posted here on EZfolk.com. He started out with traditional songs and later began to post more of his own original works. He has since put together 1 CD ans is in pricess of completing another!

He has also recently been noted as artist of the month at the AF collect Acoustic Network in the UK  website: http://afcollective.ning.com/. Although I really enjoy all his music some notable songs are: "The Game", a very funny fun song called "Folk Club Prima Donna". He plays all the instruments and orchestrates all the instrumentals in these recordings. He is also very clever writer and one awesome vocalist! He has also been very kind and encouraging to many artists here on EZfolk!

Thank you Phil for this honor of this interview and the friendship. The recognition is certainly well deserved and you have also have encouraged me to really work towards finishing the songs I have posted here. (which I am slowly working on!)

HOLLEY: What is your music background? (Who are you and your bandmembers? Tell your story.)

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I didn't start to play music at all until I was in my mid-twenties. My first instrument was a Casio CZ1000 synthesizer. I've still got it. I bought it way back in 1986. It was, I think one of the first affordable digital synths. I was, at the time into electronica and such, you know, Kraftwerk, Numan, Ultravox, Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis etc. It wasn't until maybe three years later that I picked up a guitar.

I grew up in a house where there was music. My older brother played guitar and sang. He was into Elvis, Rock'n'Roll, Roxy

Music (so am I) and, yes, Gordon Lightfoot! He brought home the album "If You Could Read My Mind" way back in 1970. I was about nine at the time, but I loved the sound of it instantly. There was other fok music in the house too, records (yes, in those days they were records, black shiny things with labels on) The Dubliners The Spinners and others of a similar ilk. But really it was Gordon Lightfoor that captured my imagination. And so the only reason I picked up a guitar was to learn to play "If You Could Read My Mind", still my all time favourite song.

In the early '90s someone started runnuing a Folk Session in my local pub. I went down and, after some encouragement, I borrowed a guitar and sang my first song in public, I can still remember it too. It was "The Jovial Collier" a song I'd heard on an Ian Campbell Folk Group album (I've still got that LP too). Shy though I am, I was hooked. I only knew about thrfee or four songs at the time, but that soon changed. Pretty soon I joned the band as Lead Vocalist and Guitarist. It was aroundthis time that I started to play the Mandolin, then soon after the Mandola.

I stayed with the band until late in 2007. Things were no longer working for me on many levels. I was tired of playing the same songs over and over, so I decided to leave. Having dropped most of the old repertoir from my set, it was a case of starting afresh. So, in the past couple of years I stated to write, record and perform my own songs. I've never looked back.

HOLLEY HALL:  Do you prefer to play music as a profession or a hobby?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I'd love to do it professionally, but I know that's never going to happen. I left it too late I think. At the age of 48, I've only just found my real voice.

HOLLEY: With the web as a medium to get your music out to the world, it can possibly open doors to many collaboration

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I'm always open to suggestions on along those lines. I've only done one collaboration so far. I did "Chiarosuro" with my good friend Jasmine Tea. It's still an area I'm not very familiar with. I'm sure there are better ways to do it than the way I did it. But yes given that I have the time I'd love to.

HOLLEY: When and how did you first become interested in music? How long have you been playing music? What instruments do you play?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I think I've always been interested in music on one level or another. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I discovered that I could hold a tune - vocally that is. I'm a self-taught musician. I can't read or write music. I play, in no particular order; 6and 12 string Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Mandola, Mandolin, Keyboards and percussion.

HOLLEY: Does anyone in your family play music?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: My Older brother was the first of us to play anything. He bought a guitar around, I think, 1974, possibly a couple of years earlier. He's been writing songs for a long time. I think to some degree that held me back a little, because I thought he was so good that I just couldn't compete at that level. Sad I know. He never taught me how to lay though, so I had to do that for myself.

My Dad plays a little too. He just got a new guitar at the age of 82! He didn't start playing until he was in his 60s. My younger brother makes music too, but his is all put together from loops and samples.

HOLLEY: What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?)

PHILLIP HARTLEY: My songs are mostly about emotions. I'm a shy person at heart, so I often put into songs the thing I find hard to say otherwise. I tend to use metafore quite a bit too. That way I can say things in a way that, unless people really close to me take a deep analytical look at my lyrics I can often convey feelings about certain things in such a manner that they probably won't reallize that I'm singing about them. For instance, "A Long Way" is actually about how much I hate my job and how it can make me feel used and under-valued, but it can also be read as someone wanting to make a break from a ealtionship that has soured.

HOLLEY: Do you write your own songs? Do you have any particular songs you consider your favorites?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I've never really analysed my song writing process. I work in diferent ways at different times. Sometimes as in "My Town", "Digging" and "Just Another Song", I composed the lyrics in my head over several days, mostly while doing my day job. Hance thje line in "Words And Music": "I should be working right now but instead, I'm makling words rhyme in my head." Other songs, for instance, "The Game" grew out of a guitar riff. The same thing happened to me only today. I found a great riff, but a the time of this interview, I don't have a single word for it. Then there are songs like "Folk Club Prima Donna", that song grew out of a gig I did last year at a folk club in Sheffield. I'd been booked to do a solo night, all the publicity was out there with my name on it. However, when I got there, I was put on as support for someone else who was more well known to the folk club regulars. While they were very nice people, I thought that they were remarkably boring. They talked for about five minutes between every song, always some rambling anecdoite or other and all the songs were covers. It was this and several other local "characters" that gave birth to the idea of the Folk Club Prima Donna. The funniest thing, to me, about this song though is that the first time I did it live, one of the people I'd mostly based the song on actually entered the room just as I started singing it. Afterwards several people came to me and said, "You were singing about him weren't you?" So I'd have to say that this song is curently my favourite. Closely followed by "Just Another Song" on this track, I actually get the song to sound exactly as I'd heard it in my head before I'd picked up the guitar to start on the music.

HOLLEY: Who are your musical influences?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: Well, there's no getting away from it is there? I'd have to say Gordon Lightfoot or I'd be lying. "A Long Way" is in way of an homage to him musically. Other influences though would be Nick Drake, Charlie Dore, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, though I only realsied that recently. It's always the same when asked this question, mind goes blank. I have so many influences that I can't really say. I listen to so much music of so many different styled and I can't help these day from trying to figure out how they're put together. Which parts fit and how? Can I try to do something in similar vain and still sound like me? I think that's why I use so many different rhythms and tempos in my songs. What can I say? I'm just a musical tart really!

HOLLEY: What live performance experience have you had?

PHILLIP HARTLEY: I've played lots of different places since the early 90s. No big shows though. Strictly local stuff. I'm looking forward to poaying at the Spratton Folk Festival in Northampton in July though. That should be fun. I'm appearing as part of the AFCollective contingent.