Andrew Deevey | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: That is money can't buy me love. The artist is Andrew d V and we have him with us via WhatsApp. We're gonna speak with him in just a moment. Welcome everybody, if you are listening live on Saturday, we have entered our number three New Marrow trace of Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. And of course you can stream the show from anywhere. Go to Matt connorton dot com, slash live for all of your live streaming options, social media links, contact infos, show archives, et cetera, et cetera.

0:29 Speaker 1: Jenny is here of course at the news table, and let's bring Andrew and I think we've got him via WhatsApp.

0:34 Speaker 2: Andrew, are you.

0:35 Speaker 3: There, Yes, I'm here, loud and Cleia.

0:38 Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to the show.

0:40 Speaker 1: Love that song very very catchy, which I'm sure people tell you all the time, but it's it's very easy to sing along to.

0:48 Speaker 2: I like it a lot.

0:49 Speaker 3: That's good, Thanks very much for liking it. It's it's good.

0:54 Speaker 1: So interestingly enough, so it's kind of it's it's a fun song, but it's kind of a serious uh sub jacked right, And I'm really curious to know more about it because obviously you're talking about you know, money, money only gets you know, not only can money not buy you love, but sometimes it can't buy you enough to live on, you know, and and and this is a problem in many places. You know, in the United States, of course, you know, we deal with inflation and things like that, and and where you are in the UK, obviously you experienced these things as well, and I'd be curious to know more.

1:29 Speaker 1: There's kind of the story behind the song money Can't Buy Me Love.

1:33 Speaker 3: It's just from from my personal experience, but I think a lot of other people experience it as well. No matter how hard you work, there's going to be so many outgoings that you feel like you're left with nothing. Right, And the origin the story comes from when it was in my early band days. I got my first royalty check through the post and as we're opening up the envelope, it was a check for hundred and twenty pounds and I looked out the window and there was a total truck going past. And then I remember that I left my car on a yellow line and because it was broken down, okay, and it got towed away.

2:14 Speaker 3: Oh so go to the car pound to retrieve it. And the cost of retrieving it was one hundred and twenty pounds. So that check, that rualty just disappeared in a matter of hours. So it's those kinds of experiences where suddenly you've got money and then then somebody else takes it away.

2:33 Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about that too is I think a lot of people I think this has changed over the years, but I know that there was a time, at least in America, and this is probably true other places as well, where people who don't know better will assume that if you're a musician and you're making money, you know that you're probably rich and you live in a mansion and you've got platinum records on the wall and all that kind of thing, And that's not how it works. If you're very, very successful and famous, you.

2:59 Speaker 2: Know, that might be how it works.

3:00 Speaker 1: But most musicians are working class people, certainly the people that we have on the show, and have the same struggles as everyone else, or if not even more so, because you know, being a full time musician certainly can be a very challenging financially economically, a very challenging lifestyle, you know, and in this era too, where we have streaming services like Spotify for example, who don't pay very much. You know, it can be very difficult. And your story is very illustrative of that. You know, you get that, you get that first royalty check and then it's gone.

3:34 Speaker 1: Immediately, it's gone because you had to go and retrieve your car. And are you surprised, like when you tell that story, do you find that people are surprised to hear that?

3:48 Speaker 3: No, because I think the things happen to them, not that specific example, but sure both other things like if they're eating, boiler breaks down. You know, something major happens, it's very costly to get a trade men in to fix it, and you know, all your hard end money is going for something that you didn't expect to happen. You know, the surprises that life throws at you as sometimes they're very hard to take, especially when there's expensive.

4:19 Speaker 3: Absolutely back to the thing about being a musician, it can be very expensive because when people see on stage, they think that's it. You're performing. It's great. Right behind the scenes of the cost of rehearsals, the cost of equipment, having to replace that, pressing records, all that kind of thing.

4:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, people have no idea what goes into it and how expensive it is. And you know, I know that in America, and I'm old enough to remember growing up and watching you know, MTV and seeing videos of bands and they're they look like they're living this lush, lavish lifestyle and they're they're all living in a mansion and and you know, hanging out with Playboy playmates and you know, all this stuff and driving these very expensive sports cars. And then over time that sort of shifted where it wasn't so much rock bands because it's sort of in the nineties, it became uncool all of a sudden to be projecting that that image, and then it that that kind of all shifted over to hip hop.

5:29 Speaker 1: But it's always fascinating to me how how different the reality is, or how different the perception is, and how distorted it is in contrast with the actual reality and the economics of the music business. I'm curious too. You mentioned so you used to how long have you been a solo artist? Because you mentioned you used to be in bands, I know that you're a veteran of the UK scene. You've been around a while, What's what's kind of been been your experiences? You used to be in bands and now you're strictly a solo artist.

6:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm strictly a solo artist now. I think I started that around sort of twenty seventeen when I first started writing my own songs, and by twenty nineteen I'd released my first album, Northern Soul, which happened fairly quickly because what I did was that instead of going into the studio and recording twelve songs in one go, I did it in three stages. I did like four songs at a time, and I started around a few friends like drummers, bass players, keyboard players if they just wanted to come in and help out, And surprisingly they did and I didn't have to pay them either, which was great sweet.

6:38 Speaker 2: But on the.

6:39 Speaker 3: Album there's so many different people helping me out and I thought that was really really kind of them to do that. Jack Hater from Hefner was on steel guitar. The drummer from the Bitter Springs helped out in drums. There was another two other drummers that helped out as well, a couple of backing singers.

7:03 Speaker 1: A.

7:05 Speaker 3: Trumpet player. So there's quite a long list of musicians that were willing to help me out, which that was great.

7:11 Speaker 2: That is.

7:12 Speaker 1: Yeah, So in the grand scheme of things, is that is that more challenging in a sense when you're recording a solo album.

7:21 Speaker 2: Or whatever it is that you're doing solo When you're.

7:24 Speaker 1: Recording, does that become more challenging because you have to find the right musicians to fit what you're doing, versus just being in a band where it's static, you know, you've got the same people on each song, or maybe it's not. Maybe it's liberating, you know, because you're in total control and you get to choose. You know, you can accept or reject the contributions of whomever may be coming to play on your on your music. I don't know, Like, how's that experience been, going from playing in bands to being a solo artist in terms of that.

7:53 Speaker 3: Well, we're playing in a band. It was a set thing. Each person did their own instrument. Yeah, Like somebody else asked me this question about when you were in a band, what was the songwriting? Like, Well, with that, all I did was my young guitar parts, the parts by the bass player and the singer and the drummer. They did all their own things, so I didn't, you know, interfere with that. But being a solo artist, I've played bass, harmonica, I programmed drums, so it's you know, I now responsible for everything.

8:28 Speaker 3: So although it does take a little bit longer, I've got more control over it.

8:33 Speaker 1: Right, Is that what precipitated you becoming a solo artist? Did you want more control?

8:41 Speaker 3: Not so much. When I first started off, I did have a bass player and drummer with me, but then I just got fed up of it. Was it became like a revolving door syndrome where somebody did leave and then you have to get somebody else, and then somebody leave and then you have to get somebody else. It was it got bit to moralized, and so I just thought I'll do this on my own at least. You know, I was going to say, I can't split up, but I have done that a couple of times. I've had a break for a couple of months, and then I'm sort, well, I've got to get back to it.

9:13 Speaker 1: Right When you take a break, like, what causes that? Do you just need to get away from it for a while?

9:21 Speaker 2: Or or is it.

9:24 Speaker 1: I mean, is there something that sort of necessitates that taking a break from it.

9:29 Speaker 3: I think it's healthy to take a break because weren't going to do this as a solo artist, and I tend to live it twenty four hours a day, so just get a bit tiring. You know, you're always thinking of lines for songs at eleven o'clock at night, you're relaxing or concentrating on other things, and you know, it's good to have a break, recharge your batteries and come back. It's like with the songwriting, I'll write a couple of songs and then I can't do anything for a couple of months. Yeah, it looks like absolutely, yeah, I'm gonna break is good because it rechards your batteries and then you can get new material a little bit quicker.

10:13 Speaker 3: Like I've got a new song on the go at the moment, which is going quite well, and I haven't done anything for weeks. Yeah, so it's you know, it's always good to have a break, oh.

10:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and then you can kind of reapproach it with a fresh perspective. I'm curious too about your live performances, because again, especially someone being someone who used to be in bands, And you know, I've played in a lot of bands. I've never done a solo thing, but I've played in a lot of bands, and I know that when you're on stage with a bunch of people, there's almost a kind of a safety and numbers thing. You know, you're all in it together. And I've I've never I've always been curious because I've never experienced kind of that rawness of being at least that's how I perceive it, of being a solo artist.

10:53 Speaker 1: I've never experienced that. But I'm curious what it's like for you in that regard. Did you feel more vulnerable on stage making that transition, even though you might have other musicians on stage with you, it's still you know, you then become really the totally the focus, And and what was that like for you?

11:14 Speaker 3: I did at first, because when I started solo, it was just me with a guitar acoustically, like a lot of other people do. But then when I added the drum machine and the harmonica, things got a little bit louder and there was more of it. So I sort of got lost in that and was able to focus more on doing all of that thing and having a louder sound. Sort of that set me apart from other acoustic musicians like I seem to have this problem at the moment where you get a lot of open mics where there's people with an acoustic instruments and a voice, but when I do them, I'm far too loud.

11:54 Speaker 3: So I don't think they like that kind of thing. But they won't have me on my bands because I'm not a band, but I'm as loud as a band.

12:04 Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So it sort of puts you in this weird position, right because you're you're you're you're you're, you're as loud as the bands, but they won't put you with the band because you're a solo artist. But you're too loud for the You know, you're too loud for someone who's just up there with a guitar and just sing it at the end. That's really interesting.

12:22 Speaker 2: Yeah.

12:22 Speaker 3: I did a gig in East London a while back and I was supporting this other band who were quite loud. I went went on and opened up for the gig and everyone really enjoyed it, and this this guy came up to me, came up at the end and shook me by the hand and said you were great this that was fantastic, and I was thinking, wow, what we've done. And you know, another thing like that happened at a festival. Some guy been there all day. I came on and played, and at the end he just came on, came on stage, and at the end he said, wow, have you fantastic.

12:57 Speaker 3: I've been here all day and all these other bands haven't been so great, and you've been fantastic. So you know, it's a bit refreshing for people.

13:05 Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, And to have that validation too, you know, that's so obviously you're you're onto something that was that challenging at all, you know, introducing drum programming into your live set, a drum machine. I mean, that must have taken some getting used to, right or maybe not. Maybe it seemed natural from the beginning. I don't know, but again, that's something I've never experienced, so almost I asked this question almost selfishly because I'm just very very curious about that, if that was a natural transition for you or did you have to kind of work at it?

13:37 Speaker 3: Not really, because I been in other bands where we've had a drum machine movement, like a semi electronic band. Oh that was the mid nineties. We were called Cloud Bass and I used to have like an older Tallery computer with MIDI files and a drum machine and we had that. We just had guitar bay some vocals and it was which call. It was quite quite regimented. So you really have to fit in with the time in is when you've got a live drummer and everybody's live. You know, you can be a bit more loose with this, really good at being your toes because all that the drum programs and the MIDI files don't wait right, You're going to be really good with your time in.

14:26 Speaker 3: So used to do that, but when it reintroduced the drum machine, I knew how to a new what to expect right, you know, to be good with the timing of playing.

14:38 Speaker 1: Now with your album, so Northern Soul, which that was twenty nineteen, correct, Was that that your first album as a solo artist technically?

14:49 Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know if you know my history, but I think it was twenty twelve. Oh, I had this crazy idea. I was really really into just acoustic guitar instrumentals, and I thought, I know, I'll just record it a couple of Beatles instrumentals and see how these sounds. And I was playing them in the car and the CD playing I thought, well, this is good driving music. This is maybe it's maybe it's a good idea to do it as an album, because I went into a studio and recorded I think it was fourteen Beatles songs and I released them put them out in c D, and it was an album called Well my Acoustic Guitar gently weeps.

15:34 Speaker 1: I love it and it's instrumental.

15:39 Speaker 3: It is it's it's fourteen Beatles Instrumentals and released that on CD and it did okay. It's sold in lots of countries and it seemed to do okay.

15:51 Speaker 1: I'm curious as a music industry guy, was it challenging at all?

15:57 Speaker 2: I assume did you have a.

15:58 Speaker 1: Label or a distributor that you worked with, because I'm curious about you know, if you're covering Beatle songs, that's not always necessarily easy to get all your ducks in a row, at least certainly not in the United States. To really make sure you've got everything nailed down legally so that you can do that without running in any trouble.

16:20 Speaker 2: I'm curious about that part of it.

16:23 Speaker 3: Okay, I did that. What you have to do is you have to apply for a license from I think it's the MCPS Mechanical Copyright Section Society or something, and okay, you send them a list of songs and they'll send you a bill for some like four hundred pounds. You pay the bill and then they send you a license and that allows you to press things physically in like a CD factory. Without that license, you can't go ahead. So once you paid for the license, you can get them pressed and then they get delivered and then you can send them off.

16:57 Speaker 3: And I did that again on my own label. Oh so they do things like bang camp.

17:04 Speaker 1: Okay, Oh that sounds relatively Uh, that's that's more straightforward than I would have expected. That's that's well, that's great, okay, all right.

17:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't have to ask any permission. I think you just just have to buy the license and that's the only legal requirement. That'll be limited limited to the number number that you can press as well.

17:26 Speaker 1: Oh they do okay, okay, yeah, no, that's still though. That's much simpler in streamline than I would have expected. That's that's fantastic. How was the response to it when you released it.

17:36 Speaker 3: It was good to got good reviews and it sold I think I remember it was USA, Canada, UK, and Japan. It seems to sell quite well.

17:45 Speaker 2: Outstanding. Oh, very good, very good.

17:48 Speaker 3: And you know, just just from an initial tryout of listening to it in the car.

17:52 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and this was I'm sorry, there's.

17:56 Speaker 3: A really starting about twenty twelve.

17:58 Speaker 2: Twenty twelve, okay, that's what I was wondering.

18:00 Speaker 3: Yeah, some copies available out there somewhere.

18:03 Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, it's.

18:05 Speaker 3: Worth checking out if a beatles fine and you want to listen to something different.

18:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'm curious. So then uh okay.

18:12 Speaker 1: So then was Northern Saul the next thing that you released or was there something else between between?

18:21 Speaker 3: I think it might have been the Bitter Springs in between that I got asked by the Bitter Springs to initially play bass for them. That was quite funny story because I got a call from the the lead singer, Simon Rivers. He found me up and said do you play bass? So I just said yes, and that afternoon I went out and bought a bass. I played it much before, so I got one and within a couple of weeks we were playing gigs in the Spain.

18:51 Speaker 2: Oh I'll be damned, but you were already playing guitar.

18:53 Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so it wasn't wasn't too difficult to learn.

18:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't so.

18:58 Speaker 1: I'm a bass player myself, and I know that my fellow bass players hate when I say this, but yeah, if you can play guitar, you can play the bass. I mean, it's just it's just a fact. It's just a fact. So no, So that's great, and you really kind of sees that opportunity. Now, when Northern Soul came out, you got a fair amount of radio support for that over there, didn't you. Yeah.

19:23 Speaker 3: The the lead track off it, I think it was called I Get the Feeling got played on so many radio stations, got really good feedback from it because it, you know, it seems like quite a happy song musically. It sounds nice and bright on the radio.

19:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.

19:43 Speaker 1: We might we might play that at the at the end of the segment, actually, because I think I think that would be appropriate. Oh yep, I found it. I found it online. Excellent, excellent. So then how is your approach change? Because I was twenty nineteen, so Obviously that was seven years ago as your approach changed in terms of how you were recording, writing and recording then versus how you're doing it now with like the new single money Can't Buy Me Love, for example.

20:14 Speaker 3: No, that was just it was a similar approach to when I recorded Northern Soul and book a studio and then get some friends to come and help me on things like bass and guitar and I do all the other bits that that was the initial recording process. But now I've got my own home studio where I can record at home. So I've now got the problem of what I've recorded at home, I need to take that to a studio to mix it so we can get a better sound that can at home. But I'm just trying to get my head around how to do that because I'm not very good at this recording technology out there that can help me.

20:57 Speaker 1: So sure, sure absolutely. We live in a time too where there's so many different ways to do it. There's so many different ways to record, and nah, yeah, I'm confident you'll you'll get it all figured out. Is money Can't Buy Me Love? Is that going to be on an upcoming EP or album or what's kind of the your forward trajectory there or is this just going to be a single.

21:20 Speaker 3: It's it's just going to be a single. At the moment, what I'm going to do. What I'm going to do is just release singles. At the moment, I was gonna say, I'm not in the mood to release an album. Yeah, but I just want to write a good song, record it, and then release it. And then I was thinking about this the other day. Once I've done like twelve singles, I can release it and call it the greatest hit.

21:48 Speaker 2: That's a good idea.

21:50 Speaker 1: Well, you know, and a lot of artists who now they kind of do, you know, because when I was growing up, it was, you know, every everybody released albums, or you might see an artist occasionally release an EP, mostly albums, you know, and then you'd have singles from that album. Usually first single goes to radio six to eight weeks before the album, and then if the album comes out it goes well, then you get a second single, maybe a third. But now a lot of artists are doing just literally the inverse of that.

22:16 Speaker 1: They release a series of singles that eventually coalesce into an official album. And nothing wrong with that, you know, in terms of I mean, algorithmically, I think it works well with Spotify and some of these streaming services.

22:29 Speaker 2: So yeah, not a bad approach.

22:33 Speaker 3: I was thinking about, you know, the singles the albums thing because with like things that Instagram and Spotify, albums still valid. People's attention spans are quite short now. You know, it'll probably only stretch to about thirty seconds to a minute on Instagram or song on Spotify, So you know, an album doesn't see it seem valid to me at the moment, right, I'd rather just like go at the flow and release something, promote that, hope it sells, and then move on to the next thing.

23:09 Speaker 2: Yep.

23:10 Speaker 3: But it is good because I'm building up like a set list for live gigs as well, get it, you know, to get get it longer and longer, right, so when I play live, that would be my album.

23:23 Speaker 2: Okay, there you go.

23:26 Speaker 3: That makes sense.

23:27 Speaker 2: That makes sense.

23:28 Speaker 3: Just that Instagram thing and people's people's attention to things seems to be quite small at the moment. They're always sticking through their phone listening to something for ten seconds and then they look at something else, and.

23:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Well, Andrew, it's wonderful to have on. Like I said, we really like the song money Can't Buy Me Love, and we will certainly spend that again in the future. And you know the next single when whenever that is, I mean you know when you're your next single. Do you have an eta on when the next one might be out or I know you're focused on Money Can't Buy Me Love at the moment, So I don't know if you if you have any idea, because we'd love to play the next one too when it's ready, But I don't know if you if you have kind of an idea of when that might be.

24:16 Speaker 3: There will be something out. The Money Can't Buy Me Love singles done quite well, so that spared me on, So think about releasing something else. And I've got another song called Time Waster, which is ready to go, and I'm just thinking of a time, maybe July or September to release that, Okay, And it's a similar sort of format harmonica guitar, drum machine with a strong harmonica hook. But this song is about it's good, it's about fellow musicians. Although the musicians who came into the studio were great, the other musicians you said that you played bass, you must have been in bands before, and you know, have musicians act uh, headline slots of festivals, build a build building up, and there might before musicians just ring me up and say, oh I can't do the gig tomorrow.

25:19 Speaker 3: So that that really got me. I just thought, why are they like this? So I just thought they're old time wasters. So time Wasted is a song about musicians wasting your time.

25:30 Speaker 2: Oh that is that is perfect.

25:33 Speaker 1: And yeah, anyone who's ever anyone who's ever been a musician, and and you know we all know the pain of that.

25:44 Speaker 3: In a band.

25:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, Andrew. So before we let you go, where's the best place for people to go to keep up with everything that you're doing?

25:53 Speaker 2: Where should they go? Online?

25:55 Speaker 3: It's my main website, which was andrewdv dot com. You'll find everything you need to know.

26:00 Speaker 2: That outstanding outstanding. No, that's easy, that's easy.

26:04 Speaker 1: So in a moment, we're gonna play, I'm gonna play. I get the feeling. I'm really curious to hear that and to share that with our listeners. But it's been wonderful to talk with you today and we'll definitely do this in the future. It sounds like you've got a lot of a lot of new music coming up in your future, so we'll absolutely have you back when the next single is ready, and we will keep in touch. But I really want to thank you for being with us today.

26:26 Speaker 3: Thanks very much. It's being a pleasure.

26:28 Speaker 2: All right.

26:28 Speaker 1: We will do it again in the future, my friend. I'm going to hit this track and we'll let you go for now, but we'll.

26:33 Speaker 2: Talk to you soon.

26:34 Speaker 3: Okay, thanks very much.

26:35 Speaker 2: You got it.

26:36 Speaker 3: Bye bye, hey, bye bye.

26:39 Speaker 2: All right.

26:39 Speaker 1: That is the great Andrew Devi and he's got the new single money Can't Buy Me Love. But right now we're gonna play This is a previous track that he mentioned he's had a lot of success with This came out on Northern Soul back in twenty nineteen, and let's give this a listen.

26:53 Speaker 2: This is called I Get the Feeling.