The Far North | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Oh what a great track.

0:01 Speaker 2: That is Mountain Song from the Far North, and we have the man behind the Far North, Lee Wilding, on the line with us via WhatsApp.

0:08 Speaker 3: Hello Lee, Hello, that you all right?

0:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to the show. It's I love that so much.

0:15 Speaker 2: We've we played that recently and we played another one of your songs too, and that's that's just really really good. I love that song. I love the vocals and everything about it is just perfect.

0:25 Speaker 3: Oh that's really kind of you.

0:26 Speaker 1: Thank you so much, absolutely absolutely so. I really curious to know.

0:31 Speaker 2: So you you spent fifteen years as the lead guitarist and vocalist in The Fireflies.

0:36 Speaker 3: Correct, that is correct.

0:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a long time.

0:40 Speaker 2: So what what drove you to, you know, to kind of start fresh, because that's you know, obviously you put a lot of equity into that project and then you started you started The Far North in what was it twenty twenty, Yeah.

0:56 Speaker 3: Around twenty twenty.

0:57 Speaker 4: Yeah. It's funny you though, because I haven't considered it really so being you know, in the Fireflies we did like seven albums, and we did loads of tours and we did show a lot of supports, lots and a lot of headline shows and it was a pretty full time kind of gig. And towards the end of it, we did one last tour with Radio one's Coffee House Sessions in I think it was a summer of twenty nineteen, and there were six of us in the band, and I just thought, I don't want to do this anymore.

1:24 Speaker 3: I just want to, you know, be acoustic.

1:25 Speaker 4: I'm a huge fan of like City and Color and Neil Young and Uncle Tupelo and all those bands, and I thought, you know, I want to do some acoustic stuff. And it wasn't until halfway through recording the first album, Songs and Dental Souls, we had someone come in and do backing vocals for us, a wonderful friend of mine called Susie Potts, and she said, why have you like kind of discredited the Fireflies after fifteen years you're starting a fresh like, you know, you might not take any fans over with you.

1:53 Speaker 4: And it had never occurred to me until that moment. She said, I thought, it will be fine. All the Fireflies fans will still know it's me, you know, And of course they didn't, and it's not. It was very, very much the long way round and it had never occurred to me for like six months, and it was like February and February twenty one. I think it might have been on twenty twenty, okay, and she was like, she just was like, this might not transfer, and yeah, she was right.

2:17 Speaker 3: But you know, I've worked it up against it all good.

2:20 Speaker 2: So I'm curious too because so the Far North obviously you know, it sounds like the name of a band, but it's really your solo project, right.

2:28 Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty much.

2:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, I got you know, I rope in friends to help me out, and you know, very talented musicians from like the local area and stuff to play, you know, piano and percussion and fiddle and guitar.

2:39 Speaker 3: On my new album, a lot of it's me.

2:41 Speaker 4: A lot of the guitar and the bass, and you know, the how monica and a lot of it it is me. You know, obviously vocals backing vocals, but sometimes you just need a better help, you know.

2:50 Speaker 1: I guess I'm curious too, because you know, your friend said.

2:54 Speaker 2: To you, you know, and again I refer to it as the equity that you had in the fireflys. Yeah, headed A heard to you at any point to just because I think you probably would have had. I mean, it doesn't matter now because you're obviously having a lot of success with this, so it all works out. But yeah, if you had just used your name instead of calling it the Far North, you might have had a better shot at pulling those people over because obviously people who are big fans of the Far North, they probably knew your name.

3:20 Speaker 2: So I mean, I'm sorry, big fans of the Fireflies, rather, they probably knew their name.

3:24 Speaker 3: So curious think of that.

3:27 Speaker 4: Yeah, to think of that with me being such a Neil Young Springsteen and City and Color fan and no Gallagher fan, I just thought that, like, obviously those those bands all had you know, it was someone and Someone, so I didn't want it to be Lee Wilding in the Far North. But obviously with me being City in Color, it's like his name's Dallas Green obviously, so City and Color. So I just thought, what kind of evokes like, you know, a log cabin with a fire burning with acoustic tunes in the middle of nowhere.

3:55 Speaker 3: And I thought, you know, the Far North is a great a great you know, a ban tire. But yeah, I mean, looking back at it now.

4:02 Speaker 4: Maybe I should have done to me recently though, you know, like new fans of the bands that I picked fans up all around the UK and all around the world, and a lot of people say, why don't you just say Lee wilder Man, because like people knew who you were in the Fireflies.

4:14 Speaker 3: It's like, oh my goodness. So yeah, you know, that's not the first time I've actually heard that.

4:20 Speaker 2: Well, but it did work out, you know, I mean, your your instinct. Ultimately, I think it's proven correct and you're having success with this. So and this is the third album correct, Songs.

4:31 Speaker 3: For Wirtstorms, Yeah, that's right. Third album.

4:34 Speaker 4: Yeah, we did song for Healing Hearts about two years ago, and then Songs for Gentle Souls just in the peak of COVID. You know, we never obviously no one saw that coming. And if you have the time again, maybe we would have waited till it was kind of over a bit. But you know, it is what it is, and it did what it did, and I'm pretty happy with it all.

4:51 Speaker 3: Really.

4:51 Speaker 1: Yeah.

4:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, now, how is your approach different? So I will confess I have not gone back and listened to the Fireflies, although I will now because I am very curious. I mean, is your your approach in terms of songwriting, is it Is it different when it's just you or maybe you were the chief songwriter in the Fireflies.

5:08 Speaker 1: I don't know, but.

5:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, I was the only person that only ever wrote the song.

5:12 Speaker 4: So for me writing the songs in the Fireflies, they all I mean, some of the songs I've taken out, you know, I've taken with me and just kind of like rehask them, put a bit of, you know, a new look, a paint on them. But really my songwriting is so effortless. I don't know what it is, but they all just appear almost fully formed out of the sky.

5:28 Speaker 3: I put the guitar up and just I'll play G.

5:31 Speaker 4: And I've played a million g's, but one time it's like different, and then the G to the E is like, oh my god, I've never played this before this way, and then you know, the vocals just come out. I'm writing stuff for the new album now, for the next album, and it's just all comeing to me really really quickly. So I'm not sure whenever it will dry up. But I'm quite lucky at the moment because a lot of people ask how you know, how do you write songs? Or you know, can I maybe coach some of my friends to write songs or whatever?

5:57 Speaker 4: And it's like, the truth is, I don't really know I'm doing. I just write them and they and they happen.

6:02 Speaker 3: You know. That's kind of where I'm at with it, really a bit of a hack.

6:06 Speaker 2: But has it always been like that? Like was it like that throughout your tenure in the Fireflies or is this something that's come out more as you've done this on your own and have it, you know, having the freedom, the liberation to be able to do it on your own.

6:19 Speaker 3: Yeah.

6:19 Speaker 4: No, it was always like that, really, So whenever I wrote stuff for the Fireflies, I'd write it on acoustic guitar and take it into band practice and people would just kind of start playing their own thing. So I mean, obviously with this though, the songs, I don't deviate from the structure much because it's me, it's written it, and it's me it's going to play it. But with the Fireflies it was a bit more of a democracy really.

6:38 Speaker 1: Yeah.

6:38 Speaker 4: But but you know, the bare bones and the verse, chorus versa all be the same, and a lot of more, you know, lots more people will kind of getting on it, really, but now it's way more streamlined.

6:48 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, good good.

6:51 Speaker 2: Now did any of the material from the Fireflies make it into the new project?

6:55 Speaker 3: Yeah?

6:56 Speaker 1: You still play some of those?

6:57 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

6:58 Speaker 4: So on the first track, I think first album, Sorry that like this House is Ours and I think Grace and My Heart and When we Were Young. The second album I think unplayed Guitar and hollow and this album. Yeah, if you haven't made it, there was Hummingbird, there was Sailor in the Sea, all the things you did. So yeah, there was maybe maybe two or three off each album was a Firefly song that was like a complete rock out really, you know. They were just pure rock songs or yah, you know, kind of big maybe psych songs, you know psych, you know.

7:27 Speaker 4: So with this stuff, I just wanted it to be like, just give those older songs a new liquor paint. But I'm writing the new album at the moment. I don't know when it could be out. It could be a year, could be two years. But I'm rescuing maybe three more Firefly songs. Wow, that's it. Then, yeah, okay, that'll be the Firefly songs done. Then I think the bag is empty at last, did.

7:47 Speaker 2: You uh was that when you started this project? Was that your intention from the beginning, because you know a lot of people they you know, if they have a project, you know, they're in a band, and then maybe they do their own thing. They don't want to necessarily you know, some artists they like to have like a clear delineation and they just want to uh not look back at older material.

8:09 Speaker 1: And some artists do, but a lot of artists don't.

8:12 Speaker 2: And and to me it's always been kind of like, wow, how do you just how do you just leave all that behind? If you had some great songs in your previous project, how do you just leave that behind?

8:20 Speaker 1: You know? But but some artists will do that.

8:22 Speaker 2: Was that a hard decision for you whether or not to revisit those songs?

8:27 Speaker 3: It was not really.

8:28 Speaker 4: I kind of like thought about it for a little bit, and I thought, is this going to be completely new? Because we had Nigel Stonia produced the first album, and we were like, you know, I don't know, I don't really know what approach and the heat. So I sent him a load of songs and he was like, some of the Firefly songs were greatly like we should definitely redo these. And I had a bit of reticence. At first, it was a bit quiet about it. I thought, I'm not sure, and then I thought, well, I wrote them, so you know, why not.

8:50 Speaker 4: So as long as they're acoustic and as long as they've got a lot of heart and soul, I kind of have no problem with it.

8:56 Speaker 3: And some of them are pretty.

8:58 Speaker 4: Much verbatim, you know, hold Me Birds pretty much the same. We just put a fiddle on it, and we've kind of really restructured like the Sailor in the Sea and all the things. You did, you know, they were completely different songs in the Fireflies.

9:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I just thought, you.

9:10 Speaker 4: Know, I wrote them, and I never really have writer's block, you know, I'm always writing, you know, as Bob Dylan said, you know, write ten songs a day and throw nine away. So I'm always you know, I'm always writing. But yeah, I didn't think about it too much. But I'm kind of glad I've carried you know, a lot of them over.

9:25 Speaker 2: I think, okay, excellent, excellent. So the album the newest one in our songs for weathering storms? What does that mean to you? And I assume, you know, in terms of weathering storms, And I assume and I did listen to the whole thing. I really like it, But is there a theme that you're presenting sort of a almost like it feels like there might be a story, but I'm not sure.

9:48 Speaker 3: Okay, it's I think it's a concept album.

9:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I wrote all the songs, you know, I obviously carried about three or four over and wrote the rest of the song kind of around the weathering storms kind of gam up really and it was like, I don't know, everyone's going through so much stuff right now, and I mean people always have, but I don't know if it's because of social media.

10:10 Speaker 3: It always seems very prevalent.

10:11 Speaker 4: It seems to be right at the surface right now that everyone just seems to be going through potentially the worst time of their lives. But yet life couldn't be any easier in a way, right, So it was just, you know, it was just about hold on, man, it'll be all right, Like everything will be okay, you know, in the end, and if it's not the end, then it'll be all right, you know.

10:30 Speaker 3: And it's like I just think you've just got to keep going.

10:32 Speaker 4: You've just got to have faith, you've just got to have hope, and pretty much every song is like formed in a bit of heartbreak.

10:38 Speaker 3: There's always about of heartbreak there.

10:40 Speaker 4: There's always a bit of loss, but ultimately everything's going to be all right. All you need to do is make it into tomorrow, you know, just take things day by day.

10:47 Speaker 3: It'll be fine.

10:47 Speaker 4: So it's kind of like my nine tracks of like It'll be okay. And I think there's a there's a song called release Repeat, which is obviously about animal rights and you know all that kind of thing as well, you know, But really the most of the song, the bulk of the songs on the album, like it is gonna be all right. And I know it's been done, and I know it's been done to death, but I guess it's not been done with these songs in my voice, you know, right right Yeah.

11:11 Speaker 1: Mountain song.

11:12 Speaker 2: I was reading that that was written about a particularly painful breakup, and it's it's pretty evident in the lyrics, you know, because obviously when you're a listener, you hear lyrics and it's it's somewhat subjective. Everyone's going to interpret things a little bit differently, but there's there's really no misinterpreting that one. To my mind, I'm listening to it and it's like, okay, you know, you know what it's about, and it does clearly describe a painful breakup.

11:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a few really, there's a few on the on the album that kind of deal with that, and it is quite it is quite clear. And I don't know, I think writing about breakup and that breakup and particularly I always find the kind of catharticism with it.

11:57 Speaker 3: You know.

11:57 Speaker 4: It's always like it kind of gets the pain out that's there. It kind of rinses it, you know, like a like a towel, like a wet towel. It just rinses it all out and I can just kind of deal with it and kind of move on, you know. But you know, everyone's going to go through three or four heartbreaks in their life, you know, and this is basically my heartbreak opus, you know, and ultimately you know that that you know, we split up like what three years ago, and you know, everything was all right, but at the time, I was like, oh my goodness, I've never felt pain like this.

12:24 Speaker 3: This is awful.

12:26 Speaker 4: And you know, three three months down the line, you know, you kind of all right, six months you're like, hey, I'm healed. This is fine. So I was in a place where I could actually write a song about it, and it's very very real, Like the lyrics are lyrics that she would say, you know, things she said to me and things had said back and how I felt. So, I mean, I don't know if she's heard the song, really, I assume, so I haven't been in touch, but you know, I.

12:47 Speaker 1: Was going to ask you that if you know, if she's heard the song.

12:52 Speaker 4: I felt like texting me, you know, I just felt like, like when it came out on Halloween, you I was like, should I text her?

12:57 Speaker 1: Yeah?

12:57 Speaker 4: But I didn't obviously, and you know, knowing her though, maybe she's heard it.

13:02 Speaker 3: I don't know. He's not come at me though, So that's cool.

13:04 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, good?

13:08 Speaker 2: And what about So I'm really curious about the production and I'm a bit of a recording nerd, so uh so, so of course I am. But there's a so the lack of the lack of drums is really interesting. It's a very it's a very sort of a strip, stripped down sound, which I really like because I think a lot of things are are overproduced. Yeah, and I don't even mean just you know, in these times that we live in. I mean, just going all the way back to the eighties, there's a lot of things that I think are overproduced and sound sound you know, really a little too slick and polished, and you know, I like a certain rawness and I think you've captured that with this album.

13:47 Speaker 3: Yeh.

13:47 Speaker 2: But but I'm I'm curious about I mean, is that something that you're very intentional about or does that just sort of come naturally that approach or.

13:57 Speaker 4: I think, you know, being in the Five Flies, a lot of our albums were quite underproduced, really quite raw, and a lot of the reviews and a lot of people listening were like, oh, no, obviously this has been made in a budget blah blah blah, but it wasn't and we aimed it to sound like that. So with The Far North, I wanted a certain level of polish, but also that like the raw beauty of an acoustic.

14:17 Speaker 3: Guitar, you know. So my co producer John.

14:19 Speaker 4: O'tringen, like we in June twenty twenty four, we were like, sat in a local kind of place having breakfast and we were like, how do we make this album? Because like I did the second album with him, and it's a bit more rocky, a bit more college rot, a bit third eye blind, bit match Brooks twenty Yeah. You know, we kind of turned the guitars up on that album, and I found myself in like, you know, fireflies kind of territory again.

14:42 Speaker 3: I thought, I need to get away from this.

14:43 Speaker 4: I keep just going back to that tried and tested my favorite sound, you know, just being in a.

14:48 Speaker 3: Band, I guess, and we were like, how do we do this?

14:51 Speaker 4: So we just listened, like I say, to a lot of you know, December Rists and Uncle Tupelo City and Color, early early Neil Young like Harvest here and Young and then obviously Nebraska era Springsteen, and we're like, we need to we need to make you know. We it was a conscious decisions and not of the drums, and there's only based on one track and all that, and it was very it was very planned, but I think a lot of it was came out like a happy accident.

15:18 Speaker 3: You know.

15:18 Speaker 4: It was like, Okay, this sound sounds because the production's massive. It sounds like really well produced. It's hugely produced, yes, but the sounds are still quite sorry, the songs are still quite direct and quite you know, down that funnel of like you know, heartbreak and loneliness.

15:34 Speaker 3: They're not, you know.

15:35 Speaker 4: And it was funny because I had a review from someone and the reviewed Mountain Song, funnily enough, in a local magazine, and the reviews are usually pretty good, like I've been lucky this last like twenty years with reviews. And this guy was like, so, this guy who's from Newcastle, and he just said, oh, the fanals back again with another one of his massive anthems. And I was thinking, okay, and he goes, he's desperately trying to be Fleet Foxes. Comes right, and the thing is, I've never listened to Fleet Foxes.

16:03 Speaker 4: I've never They've never like turned up on my you know, my thoughts for ever.

16:07 Speaker 3: Really, I mean, maybe I should. And he goes he sounds desperately wanting to be Fleet Foxes, but.

16:13 Speaker 4: Comes across as the drunk old man in the corner hater walling a song on the karaoke.

16:19 Speaker 3: Right, That's what he said.

16:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, So I like so and he was like and then he sent me a message personally and said, I'm really really sorry that that was like personal, but that's how I feel.

16:29 Speaker 3: About your music.

16:30 Speaker 4: And I was like, I was like that that's okay, but I've never listened to Fleet Foxes in my life. It's just one of those bands that, like, I don't even know who they are.

16:39 Speaker 3: I was like, what it was like, you.

16:41 Speaker 4: Know, so it's kind of funny really, but yeah, it's kind of it's annoying someone.

16:45 Speaker 2: I guess it's funny that he actually contacted you to tell you.

16:49 Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry. Sorry I was mean, but here's why I was mean.

16:53 Speaker 3: Yea, literally, he thought I was like trying to The thing is as well.

16:56 Speaker 4: A few of the reviews have said like, and I've never listened to Month and some once right, I've never ever listened to them because I've heard a few tracks on radio and I'm like, it's not really my jam and everyone's like, oh my godly, like it's so muffing and sons it's so good, it's so commercial, and I'm like, h do you know what I mean? It's like I didn't really write it to be commercial. I write I wrote it for people to to just enjoy it.

17:18 Speaker 3: I guess just kind of you know, there's no plan here. I just kind of do you know, I.

17:23 Speaker 2: Can tell you so I've I've listened to Fleet Fleet Fox's.

17:28 Speaker 1: I don't know.

17:28 Speaker 2: I I've definitely heard a lot of Mumford and Sons is huge here in America, so I've heard a lot of Mumfort and Sons.

17:34 Speaker 1: I can tell you.

17:36 Speaker 2: I kind of understand why someone would hear that, but I don't hear it in the sense that because I really like the album, but I find Mumford and Sons kind of unbearable.

17:47 Speaker 3: So I did myself.

17:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, so I definitely uh so again, I can understand why someone would make that connection, I guess, but but I don't. I don't really hear it myself. I don't perceive it that way. Honestly, till you mentioned Mumford and Sons, it hadn't even occurred to me. Oh that's good then, north Fleet Foxes.

18:05 Speaker 1: To be honest with.

18:06 Speaker 4: You, yeah, I listened to them like they've got a few good songs, and you know Fleet Foxes, and they thought, oh, this is a band that actually they're actually good. I quite like this, but I thought I never sat down and sort of thought, you know what, I really want this to sound like a cross between Munford and Sons and Fleet Foxes.

18:19 Speaker 3: That it never occurred, like what right right now?

18:23 Speaker 1: What happens live.

18:25 Speaker 2: Is it do you have other musicians who perform with you live or is it just you?

18:29 Speaker 3: Or yeah, it's just me.

18:30 Speaker 4: I did an album launch here in Runcorn for the out of the day after the album came out, and it was just me on a stool and acoustic in this venue, and you know, there's a couple of hundred people that turned up, and it's just me, really, you know, And I don't know, it's like whenever I've seen City and Color, I've seen him. I used to live in Vancouver, so I saw him a few times in Vancouver on his own and that was when they sometimes and Bring Me a Love albums were out, and I never really thought, oh, you know, I hope that there's a full band, or I hope there's you know, I've always just been happy to hear that person in that voice.

19:02 Speaker 4: Really, so I think I've never really said to anyone when they do a gig, oh, it's just me. I don't know if people are ever kind of expecting a band.

19:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.

19:10 Speaker 4: No one's ever mentioned it, which is which is funny. Really well, it's it's just me with an acoustic guitar.

19:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But It's cool that because you're you're performing something that that can, you know, lend itself Like if you wanted to put a band together, obviously you could, but this lends itself to any any configuration, right like you could it can just be you. Or if you wanted to bring another just another acoustic guitarists on stage with you, you could do that, or you could play with the band. You know, you could do whatever you wanted with these songs. And I've always been a little bit fascinated by that because so I'm a musician.

19:44 Speaker 2: I used to play. I don't play currently, but I used to play in a lot of bands. But every band I was ever in, it was like, Okay, it's me and three other guys, and it has to always be this configuration. It has to always be the four of us, because if you take any anything out, it's you know, it collaps. But you know, so I've always been fascinated by the concept of just doing something where you can do it in any covenfiguration you want, Like like with jam bands, you know you can you know, if the saxophone player shows up, great, if not, it doesn't matter who cares.

20:15 Speaker 1: You know, you can you can play.

20:16 Speaker 2: Any way you want to, Yeah, exactly, and there's a it seems like there's a freedom that comes with that.

20:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

20:24 Speaker 1: What about is it ever or well, I'm sure it's not by this point, but at any point was it weird for you doing it that way after having played with a band for fifteen years?

20:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.

20:36 Speaker 4: It was really strange at first. So, like, my first gig as the Far North was at Old Trafford Stadium where Manchester United play. So that was about eight days before COVID hit funny enough, it was like early March twenty twenty. So I got up there and they had this huge event with like a few of the bands on big local bands from Manchester and it was a batch day. So you know, there's me on the big screens and I'm just sat there with my wow acoustic guitar playing to all these people, and it was I think that the thought of it was a bit strange because it was just me was kind of et up by the fact that I was like, holy cow, like what like there was so many people there.

21:16 Speaker 4: I was like okay, So I kind of like set my stall out super early with the Far North. I was like, okay, have guitar, will travel, you know. And I think I had a friend that sadly passed away on Christmas Day about eight years ago, called Paul Savage, and the first album is dedicated to him. And he used to come to all the Firefly shows and it's saying he used to say to me, your songwriting is so leans itself, so much to a just acoustic guitar voice and harmonica, you should really do that. And he sadly passed away before I got a chance to, you know, form the Far North.

21:45 Speaker 4: And he was right, you know, he was absolutely right that it was. It was so much easier as well, just me, you know, get my guitar in the car, away we go.

21:54 Speaker 3: It's just it's awesome.

21:56 Speaker 4: You know.

21:56 Speaker 3: I wouldn't trade it in for anything at this point.

21:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's fantastic. Do you ever do you keep in touch with any of the guys from the Far North? I mean, I'm sorry, from the Fireflies.

22:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going away with the basis. Tomorrow we're going to Poland. In the morning we'll go into the Outfits. Yeah, we're going to do the tour of outfits to pay our respect. Yeah, you know, because like my grandfather was a gunner in World War Two, and you know, everyone everyone's got family that was in World War two, you know.

22:23 Speaker 3: Yeah.

22:23 Speaker 4: So yeah, so me and Sam the basis. He was the basis in the Fireflies for many, many years. And yeah, so we're off to Poland in the morning. Yeah so some of the other guys, Yeah, we speak every now and then, and that you know, a few people from the band that haven't speaken spoken to since since the band broke up. You know, there was never any bad blood. I was just like, I can't really do this anymore, this thing, you know. And before that, I was in a band called Warped for like ten years and that was a full time as well, since when I was like fifteen.

22:52 Speaker 4: So yeah, for like twenty twenty five years, I've just been doing the full band thought.

22:57 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so now it's just I actually I love it now.

23:00 Speaker 4: But yeah, I keep in contact with a few of the guys and it's you know, it's all good.

23:03 Speaker 3: They come to the shows and stuff. Oh good, good, it's nice. Yeah, it's nice.

23:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what I was wondering about, if if there was any acrimony there. But that's that's good.

23:11 Speaker 3: Old no, nothing now, nothing, that's all.

23:12 Speaker 1: No, that's good. That's that's very good. Now.

23:16 Speaker 2: So what's kind of the forward trajectory for you? I mean, obviously, I'm sure you're focused mainly on promoting the current album, but you strike me as someone too you're probably always writing, right, you were kind of alluded to that earlier, that you write a lot of songs. Uh, do you have a future recording plans in the in the near future or are you thinking about that yet?

23:38 Speaker 3: I think so.

23:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got quite a few good shows coming up, you know, I got some really really good acoustic shows and I'm really looking forward to those. So yeah, there's one on the third third of January, and that's supporting the guy that was in the Seahorses, the guy who who formed a band with John Squire from the Stone Roses.

23:55 Speaker 3: That's quite nice.

23:55 Speaker 4: There's some some nice ones coming up well, because I've been writing so much. Yeah, I actually thought what once songs were general so sorry, songs for weather and Weathering Stones was finished.

24:06 Speaker 3: So we finished it.

24:06 Speaker 4: In like maybe maybe July, who was completely finished, and then the single was out in October and we worked for like fifty you know, eighteen months on it was like a year and a half and I thought, you know what, I'm never going to the studio again because it's just drained me completely. Like everything about this album has been like it was difficult to record in a not not a difficult logistically because like you know, me and John O produced it, and it was very easy that way.

24:30 Speaker 3: Yeah, but like every every.

24:32 Speaker 4: Fiber of who I am was put into it, do you know what I mean. I was so just just drained by the whole process because it was mainly me playing stuff over and over again. So and I thought I would I wouldn't be going to the studio again. But the way I feel at the moment, and I did say this to one of my friends, was before Christmas, I could probably see myself going back in to do a more acoustic album in like April or May, so maybe spend like three or four months just doing just fiddle and harmonica and acoustic.

25:00 Speaker 4: It's that is it. No piano, no percussion, nothing, just a very very low key album and maybe have that out by October. That's kind of the way I'm thinking, because I'm writing quite a lot of the moment, so yeah, yeah, But having said that, I'm a Gemini, So I might never release an album again.

25:15 Speaker 3: I don't know.

25:17 Speaker 1: No, I'm sure.

25:18 Speaker 2: I'm sure you will. No, that's that's fantastic. No, I can't wait to I can't wait to hear what comes out next.

25:25 Speaker 1: Thank you in a moment.

25:26 Speaker 2: Well, we'll let you go in a moment and we're gonna play Well, we'll end the segment with Sailor and the Sea.

25:33 Speaker 1: What should we know about this song?

25:36 Speaker 4: I'm glad you picked that one. That's my second favorite after Mountain Song.

25:39 Speaker 1: It's a good song.

25:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, like Sailor in the Sea is I think it's like again, it's about the same girl.

25:48 Speaker 3: It's not the same girl in Mountain Song.

25:50 Speaker 4: Yeah.

25:50 Speaker 3: Yeah, but then so so Mounting Song.

25:53 Speaker 4: Right, So you've got the first half of it where it's a little bit kind of like, you know, melancholy, I guess, and then it goes that when it goes into the jig da, that's the like me. That's me a few months later, realizing that the right decision had been made to break up. So that was me finding happiness. So Sailor in the Sea is almost like two songs bolted together again. So the first half of Sailor in the Sea is me feeling completely lost when she left.

26:19 Speaker 3: It was like how how will I ever lived? And do you know what I mean?

26:22 Speaker 4: It's like as a as a forty year old man, like you know what I mean, I'm like just feel like I'm like sixteen again and just lost and just like how will I ever cope without this person? And it's the stupidest thing that you think of. It's so silly, you know at the time, and you look back now and go, what will you.

26:37 Speaker 3: Pull yourself together for?

26:39 Speaker 2: Right?

26:39 Speaker 4: So now, So Sailor in the Sea is pretty much it's pretty much. The first half of it is that, and the second half of it is kind of an owed to the person I met, like you know recently, so like you know, so it's like all the lyrics and you know, do you have the heart to make it through you? And all that, and it's almost like I was like not saying saved by this person, but you know, when you find love again after a breakup, it's like almost everything's in color and it's wonderful and springs in bloom.

27:06 Speaker 4: So the second half of Selling the Sea is about the faith and hope that my girlfriend now gave me, you know, so it's so it's kind of yeah, so that that song, Yeah, it's nice.

27:17 Speaker 3: I bet really nice, hopeful chin.

27:19 Speaker 1: I bet she likes it too.

27:21 Speaker 3: Yeah.

27:21 Speaker 4: Yeah, she actually said to me, well, she came to one of my shows in York last year and she was like, you're going to have a song about me because these are all about your exits, like and then so there was the second half of that, and then a Ship of Bones, which is the last track on the album, was exclusively about her, you know, which is really nice.

27:41 Speaker 3: You know, so she's made up about that and so you know, so it's all good.

27:44 Speaker 1: Oh, good, good, very good. Well, so we'll play that in a moment.

27:47 Speaker 2: But before we let you goalie, what where should people go online? Where's the best place to go to keep up with everything that you're doing as the Far North?

27:54 Speaker 1: Where should people go?

27:55 Speaker 4: I'm more prevalent on Instagram than anything else. So I think that Instagram is the Far North music, and the likes of Twitter and Facebook and TikTok it's just the Far North music.

28:05 Speaker 3: And I'm on there.

28:05 Speaker 4: I post most days, you know, I always reply to people. There's been a massive kind of avalanche of people just getting in contact since the album came out, really, you know when obviously it hit like a couple of charts and stuff, and obviously it's found its way all you know, all the way over to the us of a your good self, you know. Yeah, so it stuns me really, I just kind of think, like, holy moldly, like what is happening here? So it's just great that people getting in contact. So anyone that want to wants to reach out, you know, they're more than welcome.

28:35 Speaker 1: I always reply excellent, excellent.

28:38 Speaker 2: Well we will let you go. We'll hit that track in a moment. But Lee Wilding of the Far North, thank you so much. We will definitely have to do this again in the future and really appreciate you joining us today.

28:48 Speaker 3: No, it's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on. Mate. Thank you all.

28:52 Speaker 1: Right, you got to Lee. We'll talk to you soon, I'm sure, take care.

28:55 Speaker 3: Thanks mate, Bye bye, okay, bye bye. All right.

28:57 Speaker 2: That is Lee Wilding Is project is The Far North. And here's another great track from the new album. This is called Sailor and the Sea.

29:06 Speaker 1: The Far North