The Beat Surrender

It’s frightening just how many bands and artists are sneaking under the radar, yet are doing something different to the majority of people out there, have more talent in their little finger than the whole of the X-Factor contestants put together, sometimes life isn’t fair and we hand success on a plate to the wrong people.

Fitting in to the above but with a work ethic and vision that suggests that their time will come, Robert George Saull & The Purgatory Players are a group that have ideals and aren’t likely to fritter those away just fopr a taste of quick success.

I caught up with Robert for a chat recently, starting with how things were going in Sheffield at the moment.

The Sheffield music scene has had some ups and downs over the years, how do you feel things are now?

Sheffield is a fairly interesting place for music, where folklore and iconography seem to be more valued than being part of some kind of scene, and as such it has been difficult for scenes to develop. Since the electronic and post-punk scene in the 1980s, most of the artists in Sheffield that have been valued in the “outside world” have become so on their own merits, not by being part of a scene, which is something fairly unique in this city. In fact the best bands currently playing in the city are pleasingly idiosyncratic.

They are more willing to plough their own furrow and spurn the cogs of the industry. Of course this is advantageous as well as disadvantageous, and many great bands that have been creating forward thinking and powerful music have been neglected by the outside world because they don’t want to play its games. Not necessarily a bad thing of course! Smokers Die Younger, Urgent Talk, Champion Kickboxer… All great bands, but not particularly known outside Sheffield.

It is starting to change with artists like Screaming Maldini, who makes weird orchestral prog-pop, and we were fortunate enough to have producing our E.P. He’s received a fair bit of national airplay, and signed with a national label. Hopefully other bands will follow him into showing the world what Sheffield has to offer.

Have any Sheffield acts had any influence on you in particular?

Richard Hawley has always been a hero of mine. There are few artists in the whole world who have more of a connection with the heart of songs, and with the heart of humanity. His songs are deeply personal, yet far reaching, and he is an incredible vocalist. Profoundly simple yet stunning vocal delivery. There is also an incredible instrumental group who are starting to get more well known called the Big Eyes Family Players who create these fantastic folk soundscapes that feel like they have been ripped out of the very landscape of England. They recently did an album of traditional songs with James Yorkston that was one of my favourite albums last year.

Your sound has been likened to people like Scott Walker, Nick Cave and Arcade Fire as flattering as that is, does it give you added pressure or even more drive to succeed?

There is no doubt an influence from the acts you mention in my songwriting and arrangement, but the point about influence is that it is impossible to try and compare yourself to them. Both Walker and Cave themselves unashamedly wear their influences on their sleeve. Cave namechecks writers in his songs regularly, and Walker recorded a huge amount of covers of his hero, Jacques Brel. What is also important to note is that they both took from their heroes, yet made the message their own. I would hope to be able to do this myself.

In terms of what influences me from those acts, it might be one line, or one chord progression, or one vocal. I live in a world surrounded by art, as anyone does, and take much from all of that. As such I don’t really feel any pressure to be like them. I am appreciative of what they have given me, but I am not trying to be like them. In terms of drive to succeed, I don’t ever really feel like I need drive. If I “succeed” (whatever that means), then great, but if not, at least I had fun and was able to communicate my thoughts.

Your set up seems quite interchangeable with various people from other bands joining you from time to time, how have those collaborations come about?

I have simply been very fortunate to have met lots of people who enjoy the music I make, and want to join in. I was in another band in Sheffield a few years ago, and just through playing lots of gigs got to meet people from other bands who became my friends. Nearly everyone that I have played with has been my friend first, and then we have decided to make music together. Keeping a fluid lineup also allows for constant progression in the arrangements, always bringing in new ideas, which is something very important to me.

I am always looking for new instrumentation ideas, and while I now have a core of a band that will not change, I think there will always be new collaborations and ideas floating around. I want the band to be inclusive and for people to feel like they can join in. In fact, in the past when I used to solo gigs I used to ask anyone who wanted to bring along percussion to join in. I want to create a sort of “community of song” where everyone feels like they are part of the experience, not just observing it.

A lot of up and coming bands go down the route of doing gig swaps with bands from other cities have you made any tie ups or friendships with any bands from other cities or towns?

Grammatics have always been really supportive of us and are good friends, and at one point we were planning to do a gig with them but we were unfortunately unable to do it. There are a few other bands in Leeds that we get on well with as well, but I’d rather see the relationship as a friendship one than a business arrangement.

What’s more important to me is that we play for the people watching, rather than for the bands that we know. I feel there is a considerable problem in many “indie scenes” at the moment where everyone is in a band, and most of the people you end up playing too are just thinking “how can my band benefit from my being here”. Many of them are not really there to enjoy the music, but more to be seen there, which I think is incredibly cynical.

You have a new EP coming out soon, can you tell us a bit more about the release and the tracks that will feature on it.

The e.p. touches on a variety of philosophical, religious, and political themes. It has quite a lot of variety on it, which is part of the reason why I chose to call it “Gardens”. And like in a garden, there is also a heavy impetus on the link between sex and all of these things. In many ways the e.p. is a deconstruction of the importance of sex on a philosophical level. The first track, The Answers is about whether sex can really answer the great existential question of why we are here. It is a song about questioning that does not provide any answers. Perhaps that will be seen as a cop out, I don’t know, but that’s kind of the point. If we forget how to question we forget how to attempt to answer.

The next song, Joanna was written about a friend of mine who helped me out at a low point in my life. I wanted to be able to show how important her friendship is to me, without me being in love with her. It’s kind of like love, but in a platonic sense. I’m fairly sure she still doesn’t know that the song exists, and I’m not sure she’ll be happy when she hears it, but I really hope she will be! The third track is perhaps the most direct nod to another artist, namely Jacques Brel. It’s about a very old tree seeing everything the world go past it. Love, death, sex, and finally myself. This song is a lot more personal than any of the others, but I don’t think that’s a problem.

The final track was the first track we ever worked on as a band. It’s called “Fer Elsass” which means “For Alsace” in the dialect of the Alsace region in North-Eastern France, where I lived for a while. While I was there I had a conversation with my old French landlady, a countrywoman of over seventy years old, about how she had seen the valley in which she lived die thanks to local artisans being put out of business by advances in machinery. It seemed to me like there is a real battle between giving people jobs and increasing efficiency in industry.

It’s a heartbreaking state of affairs that people who have worked on one skill for the whole of their lives now feel useless next to a soulless piece of metal and plastic. Fer Elsass is my ode to the dispossessed and heartbroken of the world. It is a metaphorical tale about an invasion of robots into a countryside valley, and the apocalyspe that follows. For this song more than others I took a lot of influence from artists from other fields like filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and novelist Mikhail Bulgakov.

Continue