The last time Say It With Garage Flowers spoke to UK soul, blues and R ‘n’ B singer-songwriter and guitarist, PM Warson, it was for the release of his second album – 2022’s Dig Deep Repeat, which he recorded in an industrial storage unit in Stoke Newington, north-east London, during the pandemic.
One of our favourite albums of that year, it was much harder and more raw than his debut, True Story, and was in thrall to the classic soul of Ray Charles and Booker T. & the M.G’s, but also paid homage to his love of ‘60s pop music and girl-group sounds, like Phil Spector, as well as vintage garage-rock and the surf instrumentals of Dick Dale, Link Wray and Duane Eddy.
For this year’s follow up, A Little More Time, Warson has explored those ‘60s pop inspirations, er, a little more…
“That’s always been there, but on this record I let the wider influences just come in a little bit,” he says, talking to Say It With Garage Flowers over a coffee in a café in the Marylebone area of London, one morning in mid-July this year.
There’s still plenty of blues and R ‘n’B on the album, though, but, as he explains: “It’s a lot more straight up, with some really wild electric guitar playing – those tracks are a lot rawer, alongside some more polished, songwriting-led productions.”
Warson chose to make the new record at Lightship 95, a floating analogue and digital studio moored on the Thames.
“The live room has a very distinctive sound and I think you can hear it at the heart of the recording – it’s quite a ‘roomy’ production,” he says. “It’s a great place to work – it’s like a mid-century spaceship.
“After doing the last album, I realised that I needed the room sound [in Lightship 95] for the stuff I was trying to do – I wouldn’t have got that in the other place. I was very specific with the engineer, Giles Barrett, that I worked with, about what I wanted and he really got it. I think you can hear that immediately on the opening track.
“We listened to a load of early ’60s pop records and Wish Someone Would Care by Irma Thomas, which was done at Capitol – it’s a big-room recording. It was a bit of that flavour… You’re not going to do it exactly like they did it, but part of this record was about letting go of the, ‘Well, in 1961, they would’ve done it like this…’
‘Part of this record was about letting go of the, ‘Well, in 1961, they would’ve done it like this…’ I just did it the way that worked for me now, but with some of that influence’
“I just did it the way that worked for me now, but with some of that influence on the process. I’ve always been someone who tries to let the process inform the sound, rather than the other way round, but sometimes it’s good to do it the other way round: ‘How are we going to get there? This is a good way of doing it.’ “
He adds: “The room in Lightship 95 isn’t massive, but it has got a high ceiling, and because it’s the hull of a ship, it has artificial walls. I wonder if that’s quite comparable to some of the buildings in the States that studios were housed in? It definitely has a similar resonance.”
To lay down the album, Warson was joined by his regular rhythm section, Billy Stookes (drums) and Pete Thomas (upright and electric bass), plus guests, including Stephen Large (organ and electric piano), Martin Kaye (piano), Jack McGaughey (organ), Ollie Seymour-Marsh (guitars) and Grant Olding (harmonica), as well as backing singers and a horn section.
Q&A
Ahead of the album, you released a seven-inch single, Right Here, Last Night, which came out on FYND…
PM Warson: That’s my label. It was distributed by Acid Jazz and we had an arrangement with Légère Recordings, who are the rights holder and have done the album with me – they cleared the way for me to do the seven-inch. It was a reset for me, and that track was quite an interesting one to lead with because it’s not typical of the album – it’s more like some of my previous output. It’s late-night R ‘n’ B with a bit of a jazz sound.
I think it sounds quite Northern Soul, too…
PMW: Yeah.
And it has a moody edge…
PMW: Especially in the middle – it has a muted trumpet on it, which is very evocative. We did it on a whim – muted trumpet can be a bit naff, but we tried it out and it really worked.
The title track of the album, A Little More Time, is the opener, and it was released as a single digitally. It’s a dramatic, ‘60s-style, Phil Spectoresque pop song…
PMW: Definitely. It’s a sound I’ve had in my head for a very long time, and it was the first track we laid down in the first session, so it set the tone for the record. There’s acoustic guitar going all the way through it, and a nylon string guitar, and real, Al Kooper, mid-’60s Bob Dylan organ, which seemed to fit perfectly with the horns.
There were some tracks on the last album that had a Spector feel, like Game of Chance (By Another Name) and Out of Mind…
PMW: They did, yes. but they were a bit darker. There are ten tracks on this album – for the musicians out there, you’ll notice that nine of them are in major keys. That’s a big shift – the last album didn’t have a single track in a major key on it. The tracks were all quite dark and in minor keys.
‘There are ten tracks on this album – for the musicians out there, you’ll notice that nine of them are in major keys. That’s a big shift’
So, does that mean you’ve cheered up for this record?
PMW: Yeah, but if you can find a melancholy in a major key, that’s when you’re really winning, so that’s what I’ve been trying to find a little more.
Over & Over, which is the second track on the record, has a late-night, bluesy feel…
PMW: It’s quite a bold move to have that second – it was influenced by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the ‘60s blues scene in West London, as well as southern soul and Irma Thomas. It has my mate, Ollie, playing some very aggressive lead guitar on it.
One of my favourite songs on the record is Another City Night, which is very atmospheric. It reminds me of Under The Boardwalk by The Drifters and Spanish Harlem by Ben E. King…
PMW: Exactly – those New York records that the British acts were emulating. It’s also got pedal steel guitar on it by CJ Hillman – he’s incredible. We’d been meaning to do something together for ages… Pedal steel is such a distinctive sound and evocative, but it’s often just shoehorned in. A lot of people want to put pedal steel on something because it’s cool… That’s fine, but I wanted to wait for exactly the right thing and it felt right. I sent CJ a message saying, ‘Now’s the time’, and he was game – he was very generous with his time
‘I’m a really big Dylan fan but I’m quite careful with how I approach his influence’
There’s a great twangy guitar break on that song too…
PMW: That was me – we overdubbed my Telecaster, which is my main guitar, because I was playing acoustic on that track. It was quite influenced by Little Barrie (Barrie Cadogan) – like a lot of guitarists, I’m really into him. He does those kind of bluesy but slightly cinematic things – they’re modal jazz and I’ve tried to tap into that in my own way, with a little bit of fuzz on the way in.
Closing Time really stands out on the album for me, because it has a West Coast, ’60s rock/pop feel – it’s slightly psychedelic…
PMW: Definitely. I’m really into Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, pre-the San Francisco hippy thing, and Dylan and The Velvet Underground. I’m a really big Dylan fan but I’m quite careful with how I approach his influence. I’d had the jangly riff for ages but it didn’t really fit in with what I was doing before, which was more jazz-soul-R ‘n’ B. Since it’s become more rock-pop-R ‘n’ B, it seemed to work, and I just reeled off a lyric which was just a load of nonsense really, depending on how you take it. I think that was the second track we put down.
I could imagine The Charlatans doing it…
PMW: Yeah… I kind of let these things in… if I had something, I would throw it into the melting point. There was brief period with this album where I got a little bit lost because I had late-night R ‘n’ B, the slightly psychedelic thing, the ’60s pop, the country… It was starting to get a bit confused, but when I did the last session, which was Another City Night and I Saw You In A Dream, it all made sense.
I Saw You In A Dream is my favourite song on the record – it’s a big, dramatic and cinematic ballad, with a ’50s, Roy Orbison-like feel…
PMW: Yeah – I’ve been influenced by that stuff since I was a young teenager. It wouldn’t have gone on a previous record because it didn’t feel right.
There’s a twangy, melodic, Duane Eddy-style guitar solo on it…
PMW: It sounds like it’s a baritone, but it’s in E on my Telecaster – right at the bottom. The piano is also distinctive – it’s a ’60s Wurlitzer, plodding along and doing almost a Beatles thing. It’s a bit unusual for me. We put a phase-shifter on the Wurlitzer, which gives it a throbbing quality.
The song, I Need A Reason, from the album, came out under another name, Every Day (Every Night), in 2022. It’s like a bridge between the last album and this one…
PMW: Yeah – I changed the title. It’s basically a live cut – not entirely, but fundamentally. We started doing the arrangement that’s on the album live.
The album finishes with In The Heights, which is one of the darker tracks, with a late-night / early-morning-in-the-city vibe…
PMW: Definitely – it’s more in keeping with some of my previous stuff, but it fitted well on this record. That track, Another City Night and I Saw You In A Dream tie-in with each other – they have a similar mood and imagery.
So, are you pleased with the album?
PMW: I am. It feels like a massive step forward – both the production and the songwriting, as well as the playing and singing ensemble.
We do a lot of stuff from the last album live and I was very pleased with it, considering the circumstances in which it was made, but with this one I decided I wanted to do it properly and be less precious about other things. It’s the closest I’ve got to the vision for it. It’s not just emulating a sound – it’s a bit more infused with different things, and sonically it’s really close to the kind of stuff I like. I also like the package – the album cover.
Was the artwork inspired by a Willie Nelson record?
PMW: Yeah – it was. Kerstin Holzwarth, who did the layout, has a knack of doing something that’s very classic, but doesn’t look like it’s sending something up. It’s always a risk, but she got it perfectly. It doesn’t look like the Willie Nelson record, but it feels like it has the same vocabulary. It’s important – the combination of the songs, the sound and the package… I’m really careful about album covers – I’m fussy and I take a lot of time on it.
A little more time?
PMW: Exactly.
A Little More Time is released on September 6 (Légère Recordings) on vinyl and digital.
https://pmwarson.bandcamp.com/album/a-little-more-time
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