americana

‘This was the hardest record I’ve ever made…’

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Peter Bruntnell

UK Americana singer-songwriter Peter Bruntnell’s latest album, Houdini and the Sucker Punch, is his twelfth – and it’s also one of his best. 

After 2021’s stripped-back, pandemic-era Journey To The Sun, which was surprisingly inspired by Eno and Bowie’s more electronic and experimental moments – it even had vintage synths on it – his new record was made with a full band, and it’s a return to Bruntnell’s Americana roots, but with nods to classic British bands including The Smiths and The Beatles, as well as US acts like The Byrds and Pavement / Stephen Malkmus.

The superb title track, which opens the album, is classic Bruntnell – irresistible and melodic alt-country with a plaintive undercurrent.

It’s followed by recent single, the sublime and jangly The Flying Monk, with guitars firmly on ‘Johnny Marr setting’, while Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is soaked in Revolver-era psych, Mellotron and Fab Four vocal harmonies.

Let There Be A Scar adds a touch of Everly Brothers, but with Neil Young’s ‘90s grungy stadium rock, and even the pop sensibilities of Deacon Blue.

Guitar gunslinger, James Walbourne (The Pretenders, The Rails and His Lordship),  fires off some ace twanging on the playful and galloping Wild West adventure that is Yellow Gold – Bruntnell is on bouzouki duties – while things are taken down a notch with the yearning ballad, Sharks, which has a lovely melancholy feel thanks to Laura Anstee’s mournful cello.

No Place Like Home is upbeat and jangly Americana – the Byrdsy guitars ring out like The Bells of Rhymney – and the pedal steel-laced, moody and haunting R.E.M-esque ballad, Stamps of the World, evokes Country Feedback from Out of Time.

Say It With Garage Flowers spoke to Bruntnell over a couple of beers in a pub near London’s South Bank one evening in late summer to find out about the writing and recording of the new record.

“I didn’t think this album was Americana, but maybe it is,” he tells us, confusingly…

Q&A

When we last spoke, it was to promote your 2021 album, Journey To The Sun – a sparse, stripped-down solo record that was made during the time of the pandemic, when you’d bought a synth, a drum machine and a bouzouki. You told me you’d been listening to Another Green World by Brian Eno and Bowie’s Low, which influenced the sound of the record.

When I asked you what kind of album you might make after Journey To The Sun, you said it could be another ‘electro record’, but you haven’t done that – Houdini and the Sucker Punch is a full-band Americana album. You’ve gone back to your roots…

Peter Bruntnell: I didn’t think it was Americana, but maybe it is – one song is a rip-off of The Byrds!

That’s No Place Like Home, which has a jangly Americana feel…

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah.

You’ve got pedal steel on the album too, which gives it that Americana sound… Was this record a deliberate reaction to the last one, or was it more organic than that?

Peter Bruntnell: I didn’t really think about it – it was just how the songs came out. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision to write songs that would translate better with a band or whether it was just how it came out. I’m not sure.

Do you write songs on acoustic or electric guitar?

Peter Bruntnell: I write on both.

Are you a prolific songwriter?

Peter Bruntnell: No, I’m not. I had about 13 songs [for this album] but three fell by the wayside and I ended up doing Stamps of the World because I liked the song, and it hadn’t been on an official release.

It was on Ringo Woz Ere, which isn’t see as one of your official albums…

Peter Bruntnell: I didn’t think it was a good enough album to call it an album… I didn’t think a record company would be interested in it.

Stamps of the World is a great song – it stands out on Houdini and the Sucker Punch because it’s the darkest and moodiest song on the record…

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – I guess so…

It reminds me of Country Feedback by R.E.M…

Peter Bruntnell: I don’t know that one.

It’s from Out of Time and it’s my favourite R.E.M song…

Peter Bruntnell: Oh, really.

You’ve got some of your long-term collaborators on the album: Mick Clews (drums), Dave Little (electric guitar) and Peter Noone (bass), plus some special guests: pedal steel player, Eric Heywood; Son Volt/ Uncle Tupelo’s Jay Farrar on piano; cellist Laura Anstee, and Mark Spencer (Son Volt) on Hammond organ and piano. You toured with the States with Son Volt recently, didn’t you?

Peter Bruntnell: Last year. While I was out on tour with them, I was talking to Mark, and I asked him if he’d play on the new record. He was like, ‘Yeah – of course.’  So, then I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll ask Jay if he would play piano…’ He said, ‘Yeah –I ’ll give it a go…’ So, that was cool.

Son Volt have always been a big influence on you, haven’t they?

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – very much.

‘I didn’t think this album was Americana, but maybe it is – one song is a rip-off of The Byrds!’

What about the other guests?

Peter Bruntnell: Eric Heywood is one of my favourite pedal steel players – I messaged him to see if he had a studio at home and he said he would love to do it and that he could do it at home. That was a game-changer – Eric’s great.

Peter Linnane also plays Hammond organ and synth on the record…

Peter Bruntnell: He’s the guy that masters my records. He’s in Massachusetts. With technology being what it is, you can get your favourite players on the album and you can stay at home.

We recorded the drums and the bass in Wargrave, Berkshire, with a mate of mine called Jim Lowe, who has engineered quite a few of my records – he works for the Stereophonics mostly and he has a studio in his garden. His wife is Laura [Anstee], who plays cello on the album.

The cello sounds great – very mournful and melancholy….

Peter Bruntnell: It’s amazing.

‘With technology being what it is, you can get your favourite players on the album and you can stay at home’

James Walbourne, who has played with Son Volt, and is in The Pretenders, His Lordship and The Rails, is also on the album – he plays guitar on Yellow Gold…

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – he did that at his place.

That song is a Wild West adventure, with twangy guitar…

Peter Bruntnell: It’s perfect for James. I wrote it on a bouzouki. After touring with Son Volt last year, me and my girlfriend drove from Colorado to Montana – we drove through Colorado and Wyoming, and, if you haven’t seen that part of America, it’s mind-blowing. There’s nothing – no settlements or farms – it’s mental. You can feel the buffalo and the Indians there. By the time we got to Montana, I was in a bookshop buying a book about trappers and the gold rush.

When I came back, I listened to a load of podcasts about it and one of them was about a guy who blows a hole in the side of a mountain – it falls on him and he’s trapped under the rocks. He smells some smoke coming from a campfire, so he starts shouting and a cowboy hears him and saves him, but by the time he gets him to the hospital, which is fucking a week’s ride away, he’s dead.

But, before he dies, he tells him there’s a load of gold in the hole, and the cowboy spends the rest of his life trying to find where he rescued the bloke, but he never finds it. It’s mental, but that’s not in the song… The song was inspired by the podcast, but I made the guy a Welsh bloke from the valleys, because I’m Welsh. I was born in New Zealand, but I’m Welsh.

Let’s talk about some of the other songs on the album. The title track opens the record and it has an Americana feel, with Hammond organ and pedal steel. One of the traits of your music is that you combine a great melody with a melancholy undercurrent…

Peter Bruntnell: Maybe.

You can write a great pop tune that has a sadness to it – that’s one of the reasons I like your music. What can you tell me about the title track, which has lyrics by your long-term songwriting partner, Bill Ritchie?

Peter Bruntnell: I thought of the title and then said to Bill: ‘We’ve got to write a song called Houdini and the Sucker Punch…’

It was a co-write lyrically, but when I wrote it, it had a different tune – it was around the time of King of Madrid [2019 album], but I didn’t like the tune enough. Then I found a tune that I’d recorded on my Dictaphone – I went through it looking for anything that might be useful or usable, and that melody was on there, so I adapted the lyrics.

 

The Flying Monk is my favourite song on the album – the guitars have the feel of The Smiths / Johnny Marr, and there’s a nod to Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others in the lyrics, when you sing: ‘Saint Joseph told the rebel as he emptied a yard of ale…’

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – of course. The Smiths are one of my favourite bands.

So, you deliberately wanted The Flying Monk to sound like them?

Peter Bruntnell: I was trying to make it sound like Superman by R.E.M, with those harmonies – so, it was a bit of that and a bit of The Smiths, but the riff is more Syd Barrett – the first two notes are like Lucifer Sam [Pink Floyd]. The riff came really late – we’d already recorded the rhythm tracks… I was in the studio, and I needed a riff.

Lyrically, the song was inspired by an 11th century Benedictine monk called Eilmer of Malmesbury, who tried to fly using wings… There’s also a brewery named The Flying Monk…

Peter Bruntnell: It’s a good little story – he broke both his arms and both his legs. I didn’t know the story until the Christmas before last… I was in Gloucestershire, and I wrote the song in-between Christmas and the New Year.

Sharks is another of my favourite songs on the album – it’s a love song, but, lyrically, when you mention surfing in it, as part of a metaphor, was that inspired by an experience with your first record company when you were in a band in the early days? 

Peter Bruntnell: Part of it was. The band was the Peter Bruntnell Combination – we had an album called Cannibal. My record company learnt that I was trying to surf, and they went, ‘Great – he’s a surfer, so let’s send him down to Cornwall.’

That was their angle – they paid for me and my band to go to Cornwall every weekend. I was an acoustic guitar player only at that time – I was slowly learning how to play electric… My guitar player,  who was in his wetsuit, said [puts on a camp, theatrical voice]: ‘This grey rubber suit is driving me mad…’

He actually said that to me, so, it’s always been in my head – it’s quite comical. Sharks is a kind of love song….

It’s a beautiful song…

Peter Bruntnell: Ahh – thanks, mate.

So, from surfing to dancing… Let’s talk about the video for the first single, Out of the Pines, which made me smile…

Peter Bruntnell: It’s pretty amateurish, but it’s sincere. We filmed it on the Isle of Bute – it’s very remote. I went there to go fishing and found a fallen-down chapel, so we filmed a video there – I knew I was going to be dancing, but I didn’t know it was going to be a one-take thing… It was mildly embarrassing, but I don’t care anymore…

I love the opening lines of that song: ‘I’ve never been much good at getting up in the morning – singing after dark has been my tomb…’

Peter Bruntnell: That’s autobiographical… I wanted to write a song that was a bit like Ron Sexsmith – it’s me trying to be him.

In the press material for the album, you describe Let There Be A Scar as having “a very vibey feel…” It has Everly Brothers-style harmonies and is a bit like Neil Young’s ‘90s grungy stadium rock…

Peter Bruntnell: It’s almost Nirvana for me, and the melody is almost Let It Be Me by the Everly Brothers. I also really love Acetone, so the quiet bits are very Acetone, guitar-wise.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is very Revolver-era Beatles, with psychedelic backwards guitar…

Peter Bruntnell: That was the initial idea – I wanted to write a song like Rain. There’s a place in Canada called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump – Bill [Ritchie] has always gone about it… When I was driving through Wyoming, with the Rocky Mountains on my left, as I was going north… That was another song that was inspired by the plains and Wyoming, but the idea is that there’s a bloke on the Tube feeling like he’s just jumped off the cliff at Buffalo and landed on his head. It’s also inspired by a story that’s in the podcast I mentioned earlier: Dr. History’s Tales of the Old West – there’s a story about an Indian kid who used to run buffalo off a cliff. The kid got a bit too keen and ended up at the bottom… I used it as a metaphor for someone going into London on the Tube…

You’ve certainly nailed that Revolver feel… Is that a Mellotron sound on it?

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – that’s Pete Linnane. He sent me four of five keyboard parts to choose from.

Revolver is my favourite album of all time…

Peter Bruntnell: I like that one – I was listening to it yesterday, driving back from Devon. Taxman is insane…

‘I like the fact that this album is quite up and the songs are fast’

The last song on the new album is Jimmy Mac, which is one of the more subdued moments  – the cello gives it an autumnal feel, and the outro reminds me of Wichita Lineman…

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – we were going for that kind of thing. That was Dave [Little] – he only plays on two songs on the record, because he didn’t have a set-up at his place in Devon, and I made the record in London. So, it was geography… he was four hours away and I couldn’t send him stuff… I was trying to get it done and also do a full-time job…

So, how was it making this album?

Peter Bruntnell: It was the hardest record I’ve ever made – I was mixing it, doing overdubs, and going to fucking work, and I produced it…

Are you pleased with it?

Peter Bruntnell: I am.

‘I was fed up with protesting. I wanted this album to be more pastoral and to try another angle’

I think it’s one of your best…

Peter Bruntnell: That’s cool. I like the fact that it’s quite up and the songs are fast.

It’s 10 tracks – five on each side on the vinyl. Bang! Too many albums are too long nowadays…

Peter Bruntnell: I agree.  

Some of your previous songs have dealt with political issues – Mr. Sunshine was about Trump. This time around, you haven’t tackled politics…

Peter Bruntnell: I was just fed up with protesting. I wanted this album to be more pastoral and to try another angle…

So, you wrote more story songs with characters in them?

Peter Bruntnell: Yeah – I’m not banging on about the Tories anymore… and now they’re out. anyway…

Houdini and the Sucker Punch is out now on Domestico Records.

For more info, visit: https://peterbruntnell.co.uk/

 

UK Tour Dates

2024

Oct 4:LIVERPOOL Outpost
Oct 5:ISLE OF BUTE Craigmore Bowling Club
Oct 6:GLASGOW The Glad Cafe
Oct 20:TWICKENHAM Eel Pie Records (in-store & signing)

Dec 5: LONDON The Green Note (duo show with Robbie McIntosh)
Dec 14: SUTTON The Sound Lounge
Dec  15: ST LEONARDS The Regency Rooms

2025

Mar 6: NOTTINGHAM Angel Microbrewery
Mar 7: PRESTON The New Continental
Mar 8: GATESHEAD The Central

‘I was wary of doing another album about a sad, middle-aged, white guy, so, instead, it’s about a sad, middle-aged, white couple…’

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Photo of Abe Davies by Kirsten Spence

One of our favourite records of the year so far is Wayfarer Beware – the new album from Americana-folk act Reichenbach Falls, which is essentially singer-songwriter, Abe Davies, who is of Canadian descent but was raised in England.

On Davies’ third studio album, he’s joined by Jonathan Anderson, a producer and multi-instrumentalist who’s based in the greater Vancouver area at his studio, Protection Island.

Davies, who has also been part of the Oxford music scene, is currently living in a remote area of Scotland, and has a small recording set-up at home, where he demoed these songs, which started out as just acoustic guitar and vocal tracks.

The songs were then sent to Anderson, who worked his magic on them, creating inventive and inspired arrangements, adding instrumentation, including electric and acoustic guitar, piano, vintage synths, drums, pedal steel, organ and Mellotron.

“As far as I’m concerned, he is the co-writer, as he transformed the songs,” says Davies, speaking to Say It With Garage Flowers over a pint in a cosy Buckinghamshire pub, not too far away from our HQ.

“Some of them have arrangements that are similar to what I’d done, but some of the others are things that I couldn’t have imagined. He plays virtually everything – the guy’s a genius, but don’t tell him I said that…”

These cinematic, autobiographical and atmospheric songs, which often feature references to snow, woods, rivers, trains and Christmas, recount the breakup of a couple between upstate New York and rural Scotland over the course of a single autumn and winter.

However, as Davies explains to Say It With Garage Flowers,  he didn’t want to make just another breakup album, so treated the record more like a screenplay – even going so far as to create a fictional character called Rosie, who is the daughter of the couple.

“I tried to tie the record together with conversations that they’re having between themselves, but also through Rosie,” he says.

“I was wary of doing another series of songs that were just about a sad, middle-aged, white guy, so, instead, it’s about a sad, middle-aged, white couple…”

Q&A

Wayfarer Beware is your first studio album in nine years… 

Abe Davies: Yeah – it’s been a good while.

How did you end up becoming a singer-songwriter? You’ve been in bands before, haven’t you?

AD: When I moved to Oxford, I wrote songs, but I had no particular ambition of doing anything… I thought maybe I could do some songs for other people…

‘I’ll try to write a summery album, but I don’t know if I have it in me’

Photo by Adam Smith

I’ve lived all over the place – Spain, Canada, and I did a degree in Norwich. I got a job in Oxford and moved there – I ended up sitting next to a guy at this office job. He had been a musician and knew everybody… He ended up getting me to play rhythm guitar in a band that his friend was putting together. They ended up hearing a couple of demos that I’d done, and it snowballed from there. All of a sudden, we were making a record [Reports of Snow] in a proper studio, with Richard Neuberg of Viarosa.

That record was a breakup album, too, wasn’t it? Didn’t you want to do something along the lines of Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker?

AD: Yeah – it was sort of accidental. If you’re a certain kind of person, those are the things you end up writing songs about – a lot of those songs were from over a long period of time. The songs on the new album are from a more defined time – a single year. They come from mid-2021 to mid-2022 – I don’t think there’s anything from before then.

There are common themes on Wayfarer Beware – it’s a record that’s consistent. It’s not quite a concept album, but…

AD: I hate to say it, but it almost is… A lot of it is based on one relationship – she was in the States and due to Covid and lockdown, we couldn’t see each other for a year-and-a-half. She was from New York – when we were together, we stayed in the Hudson Valley.

There’s a character called Rosie, who is mentioned in a couple of the songs…

AD: Rosie doesn’t exist… I had this breakup thing, but I thought it was kind of boring to just write another straight breakup album, so, I treated it more like a screenplay – a lot of the stuff is true, but I imagined it as a story, and I picked out moments to write about.

We’d talked about kids… I started to include this figure, Rosie, who is the daughter, so, instead, it became about a married couple who are breaking up. I tried to tie the record together with conversations that they’re having between themselves, but through Rosie. I also tried to make it less about me and write from both our points of view.

Was that a challenge?

AD: It was – and I don’t know if she thinks I succeeded…

It feels like a very cinematic album, and there’s a recurring theme about getting away – escaping or travelling… It’s a transient record and you describe places and scenery, like woods, lighthouses, rivers and frozen lakes… You actually live in quite a remote part of Scotland, don’t you?

AD: I love it there – it’s amazing. I rent an apartment in a beautiful little town and there are a couple of nice pubs nearby. I look after my neighbour’s dog a lot – it’s a nice situation. It’s pretty isolated, which suits me.

What’s your recording set-up like at home? Have you got a studio?

AD: I’ve got a little set-up at home, with some microphones that a few charitable producers have given me over the years. I’ve always suspected they did that to get rid of me… I demo a lot of stuff at home.

But the album was recorded remotely…

AD: I started doing all these songs and I was going to do them acoustic, on my own – I probably wasn’t even going to put them out – but then I said to Jon:  ‘If I send you a bunch of songs, do you fancy doing something with them?’ The first one we did was Gone As Sure As Trains, and I was like, ‘Wow – let’s just make a record.’ What I loved about the process was that it was his musical imagination but with my songs.

 

There are hints of optimism on the album, but it feels very much like a wintry record…

AD: Yeah – it’s totally wintry.

 

I like the line in The Cold, The Glow: ‘I wouldn’t wish this fucking cold on anyone…’ 

AD: I like that one too.

Your first album was called Reports of Snow – I’m sensing a theme...

AD: Yeah – I’ll try to write a summery album, but I don’t know if I have it in me.

On The Cold, The Glow, there’s a stripped-back, wintry atmosphere, but suddenly this big guitar solo with feedback appears from nowhere, and then disappears… 

AD: I’m a sucker for that stuff. Jon gets dynamics really well – I’d record a couple of acoustic guitar lines, so he could pick one, and a vocal, and then gave him carte blanche. What I love about it is that you get to enjoy your own stuff in a different way – if I record myself playing a song, I can recognise if it’s good, but I don’t want to listen to it.

 

Before We Left Michigan is a piano-led, road trip song…

AD: That was kind of a strumming, acoustic thing… in terms of arrangements, I’m limited – I’m not a producer at all. Jon transformed it – he took my vocal and made it into this completely other thing, which was amazing. I love that one.

Green Thumbs is one of the album’s more hopeful songs… It even mentions summer in it… 

AD: It does, but that’s as far as the optimism goes… It does have a bright, poppy feel – I love the chiming stuff that Jon did on the chorus.

I’ll Be A Crow Around Your Neck is a more folky and stripped-back song…

AD: That’s a funny one – it was the only song where we had a significant back and forth – I loved the background stuff, but until it gets to the end, it’s just me…. Jon said: ‘Just trust me…’

The process was that he would make a mix of me –  just acoustic guitar and vocal – and he’d listen to it in the car. Then he would figure out where it was going to go. On that one, he said he didn’t want to get in the way of it. I wanted to hear drums from the beginning, an electric guitar, horns, an orchestra… Out of all the songs, that’s the one that people have responded to the most, so, the lesson is trust Jon.

Hey Rosie also has a folky feel, with Simon & Garfunkel-style harmonies…

AD: Yeah – before we did it, Jon and I talked about Simon & Garfunkel. I did three different acoustic parts – a ‘60s folky thing, with the same chords but different voicings. It sounds full, but it’s cheating.

‘All the songs work acoustic – they started out that way, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to do some smaller shows with one or two other people’

Photo by Adam Smith

Winterhead (Hudson River Lighthouse) is one of my favourite songs on the album – I love the warm organ sound…

AD: That’s great. I wanted that song and Hey Rosie to be a bit more hopeful and optimistic at the end of the album.

Any plans to play some shows with a band to support the record?

AD: It’s going to be tricky to put it all together. I’m not going to push it… All the songs work acoustic – they started out that way, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to do some smaller shows with one or two other people. If it happens, it happens.

 

Wayfarer Beware is out now on Observatory Records. 

It isn’t currently available as a physical release – digital only – but there are plans for a CD release and hopefully a vinyl pressing. 

For more information, visit the Reichenbach Falls Bandcamp page here.