The Noise Who Runs | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I love it. That is called Commercial Road and that is The Noise Who Runs. And we're going to be talking in just a moment with Ian Pickering from The Noise Who Runs. Really looking forward to this. I love this project. But welcome everybody. 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 your live streaming options, social media links, contact and Fosho archives, et cetera, et cetera for our live listeners.

0:34 Speaker 1: Today is Saturday May second, twenty twenty six and let me get this mic up here. And Ian Pickering has joined us via Microsoft Team. Hello Ian Hell, how are you good? Good? Welcome to the show. I'm very very excited to talk with you. I love I love The Noise Who Runs and I was a fan of the Sneaker Pimps too. Do you does that project continue? Is this some? Is this an addition to that or has I don't know if snecret Pimps is still active or.

1:07 Speaker 2: I don't know if I don't know if there was there was the Square in the Circle album in twenty twenty one. Yeah, Sneaker Pimps. Yeah, I don't know. That's always that's always the decision of Liam and Christ with the Sneakers. Sure they're doing something, you know, then then I'll happily get involved in the project again anytime, you know, right right, But I don't know if that was a line drawn under it. And then they went back to doing their own separate things again. It was a nice moment I thought it was.

1:43 Speaker 2: It was nice to work with everyone again and do that. But the ball is not in my court, if you like, I'm not the I'm not the brains behind the operation.

1:54 Speaker 1: Understood, understood? Yeah, well I love I love this. I love the noise who runs. I listened to the whole thing. Of course. The album read gen X, this just came out? Did this just come out on the eighth or it's coming out on the on the eighth rather, I'm sorry, Yeah, absolutely, it's coming coming out on the I'm experiencing some time distortion, I think.

2:19 Speaker 2: Like that.

2:20 Speaker 1: But what what? What's the response been over there? Where you are to this so far, because it's not it's not a light listen in the sense that I mean, it's light in terms of the production of some of the songs, and you know, it's electronic, it's sort of some of its sort of poppy and whatnot. But but the lyrics are not light. I mean there's some're you're tackling. You're tackling heavy stuff with the lyrics.

2:44 Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I mean I came to music from the angle of the lyrics. I think for me, that's the most important thing. That's the thing I like first and foremost. I'm a writer. Yeah, it happens to be songs. I don't think that makes any difference. It could be poetry, novels, it could be journalism. You know, I'm a writer and music is the way I do it because that's always what That's just always how it's been. And even when I try and do something different in a different form of writing, music comes back within three months or a year or two years and it wants something from me.

3:25 Speaker 2: So I'm stuck with it, you know, right, Really it's a pleasure. But you know, sometimes it's like it's always music, isn't it. I just happen to do it in three four minute pop songs.

3:38 Speaker 1: And you know, and not only that, but so tell me if I have this right. So you're a songwriter. Obviously you're a vocalist, but you also play multiple instruments.

3:47 Speaker 2: Correct, I play multiple instruments good enough to make a record because I can retake and read take and I can I can do the guitar parts and cut them up, you know.

4:05 Speaker 1: Sure.

4:05 Speaker 2: No, I have to learn to play live, you know. I have to learn the songs like a session musician. Again. I write very fast, I record very fast, and then I start to mess around with everything else about it. You know. So if I I want to take the project live now, I really do, but I'm going to have to learn everything again, just like everyone else who comes into the project, you know.

4:35 Speaker 1: Right right? That makes sense.

4:38 Speaker 2: Play a little bit of everything.

4:40 Speaker 1: Well, that makes sense because it's it's sophisticated. It's not you know, you're not in a three chord punk band here, you know, where you just go out and Joe just go out and wing it. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that.

4:52 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, yeah, No, I had training as a child on piano and Chris Corner. Really he taught me the guitar more than anybody else really.

5:04 Speaker 1: Yeah.

5:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, when we when well, when we were still teenagers. Yeah, you know, but I didn't really develop any brilliant virtuoso skill on any instrument. No, okay, I'd stuck with the lyrics all the time. That was always my thing.

5:19 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Now on the album is this all you are? You playing everything?

5:26 Speaker 2: Yes, that's the first time that's happened actually, so yeah, yes, I don't know why that makes me so happy. I think, you know, it's just it's an achievement in itself. It is just to have done everything.

5:43 Speaker 1: So what what what led to that decision to take that on, because that's I mean, obviously I would think it would be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it's probably very liberating because you're in full control, but on the other hand, that's a lot of pressure you literally have to do everything.

5:58 Speaker 2: Well, it's it is quite arbitrary, weirdly, the decision to do it is. I had stumbled across an artist, a Newcastle artists called The Blonde maybe three years ago, and I think she's amazing, you know, I think she's absolutely brilliant music she makes is stunning, and the last album she had she said, Oh, I'm really proud because I've done everything myself and that's the first time I've done it, and I thought, oh, I could do that, and that's the only reason I did it. Okay, yes, that was Yeah. I got influenced by some by you know, a young artist who I discovered as I just found out by chance.

6:44 Speaker 2: Yeah.

6:45 Speaker 1: So, as you're making the album, was there ever any point where you thought, I don't know, I don't know if doing this all myself is really going to work out. Maybe I do need to bring somebody in for this part of that part. Did that ever? Did that ever happen? Or were you able to just kind of do that and just enjoy it and you know, and make something great just sticking to your plan?

7:08 Speaker 2: Well? I did. I sent the songs to a friend, Philip, who plays guitar. He's been playing guitar for the project since twenty twenty, and I said, okay, do you want to do the guitars then? And he kind of listened to it, and after about a month he sent it back. He said, there's not really anything to do because it all sounds fine, which makes me sound like Donald Trump. Suddenly I did it very well, brilliantly.

7:38 Speaker 1: Actually it was me. Many people are saying it, but yet and I just thought, okay, and I was a bit That's what.

7:49 Speaker 2: It took a long time for me to think about whether that was a good thing or not, because I thought maybe I should ask someone else to do it in that case, But no, I just in the end, I just left it. I thought. I played around with it a little bit, tried to do it a little bit better, but it's almost you just want some extra security for some reason. Sure, it's like having a security blanket. I'll send it. I'll send it to Colin and he can master it. And it turns out not good enough, I'll do it again, right.

8:23 Speaker 1: Right, No, that makes sense. How long did it take to make the album? I would imagine this took a while or maybe not.

8:32 Speaker 2: Well, I think all the songs pretty much. All the songs were written by the end of twenty twenty three.

8:42 Speaker 2: But I have periods of big activity, so the album was there in all its form. It basically comes down to me recording the vocals, and I wasn't getting on with it because basically I wrote another album, and I keep writing rather than doing other things because writing is my big pleasure. Okay, okay, I'll go a backlog of material. You know, really, there's like four albums waiting. I keep writing new stuff all the time. I'm always playing catch.

9:17 Speaker 1: Up, right right, I mean it's a good problem to have in one sense. Right, It's better to have too much material than not enough. Better better to have too much than have writer's block.

9:26 Speaker 2: But well, well yeah whenever, if I, if I ever have writer's block, it's not really going to be a problem so much to the literally, I'm going to be doing it till the day I die.

9:42 Speaker 1: So the vocal tracks came last, obviously, after everything else.

9:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I went back to the Northeast, Okay, back to the Northeast in it, back in England to do it for two weeks, went to see my mom and my brother. You still live up there, so yeah, So it was I say, it was nice, and I kind of wanted I kind of wanted to feel I wanted to visit my hometown where there's been some riots and stuff the year before, Okay, so I just wanted to see that and get a sense of the mood, right, and that kind of helped. It's helped informed a bit of the vocals, okay, you know, giving it a bit of anger in there somewhere right right.

10:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of that. I mean you can kind of hear that edge throughout the album. And I wanted to ask you about you know, we played Commercial Road the new single, and I wanted to ask you about that specifically too. What does that song represent to you lyrically?

10:38 Speaker 2: Lyrically, it's I mean, it really started off. I mean, firstly, it's a very old song and the title is very old.

10:48 Speaker 1: Okay, I wrote that.

10:49 Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety six in Birmingham. Oh, but I never had any lyrics apart from having seen your girlfriend baby on Commercial Road. That's all I ever had. And I just felt like it was I played it for no reason, you know, just one day on the guitar and I thought, oh, it's pretty good. I like the melody. I used to write better melodies, and so I just started thinking about everything that's been going on. And I think it was probably about the time that you know, they overturned Row versus Wage, you know, that was back in the news for some reason, and that had set me thinking, you know about how people like Kirk Cobain, he wouldn't be having this, would he'd be standing up against that instantly.

11:40 Speaker 2: And nobody's doing that much anymore, you know. And I've done that all the time, and now it seems like people are catching up. But it's basically just about the complete exploitation of women in all countries under all guys. Is. Equality is not complicated. You just do it. That's my main angle, you know, And then it's it's got a lot of other stuff thrown in. It's a snapshot of it's a snapshot of capitalist society falling.

12:10 Speaker 1: Apart, right right? Fair to say that that's kind of a theme throughout the album.

12:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think things are reaching. We're definitely in an end game situation. Ah, the whole ball game has actually changed. And I guess Generation X so the last people to straddle the analog and the digital.

12:39 Speaker 1: That's true. I say that all the time, Yeah, because I'm Gen XC. Yeah, you know, our generation is the last generation to grow up without the Internet.

12:47 Speaker 2: And so is it that it's just hard to understand the generations who would never have gone and known anything other than social media. I don't know whether it's us. What do you think, is it us not able to understand that this is just the evolution of how it is? Or should we rightly be very afraid that this is control and manipulation on a massive global level.

13:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I tend to look a billionaires. Oh yeah, oh of course it is. It is easier than ever for that mass manipulation to happen, absolutely, and and in the grand scheme of things, any technology that you know, it's not that the technology itself is bad, but it can be used for nefarious purposes obviously, and there's always bad actors who will do exactly that.

13:39 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that is that is, isn't it? You just it's not just fundamentally you cannot get the balance is everything. You know, if we don't like it, it doesn't mean it's not part of the beauty of it's you're good.

13:55 Speaker 1: And evil, right right?

13:57 Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess it's like that, you know, it's is it a bit early for philosophy and Manchester?

14:07 Speaker 1: Have you have you written things like this before I get well, let me put it this way. Have you done a project like this in terms of the lyrical content and concept prior to the noise who runs prior to this projector or is it is this kind of the furthest you've gone in that direction.

14:27 Speaker 2: It's the it's the it's the hardest it's ever It's the most overtly kind of socially where that it's ever been. Okay, it's more, it's more direct, and this album is more direct again, you know, yeah, I think, but it was it always existed in the sneak of Pimps. It existed that, you know, a lot of it was that Splinter was about the troubles in Ireland. You know, my mum's background is Irish. You know, Spin Spins Sugar. That was originally it was supposed to be a sonnet and it was an anti capitalist sonnet.

15:07 Speaker 2: And everyone thinks it's a massive, like sleezy sex kind of song, which is which is yeah, that's because but no, I think there's always been a love kind of politics there. But you can take everything two ways with my lyrics. I think Sneakers particularly is that you can look at it very personal in terms of a relationship, or you can look at it as a sort of a social thing in terms of a section of society. And I think I'm Becoming X with sneakers, it was very much. It was I think us more than anyone else in trip hop.

15:51 Speaker 2: The lyrics nailed the kind of the under barely culture at the time. You know, it was sleezy because that was what life was like, right, you know, I was on the dole in Portsmouth at that point. Right in those lyrics, you know, have to finish in a journalism college and not being able to get a job.

16:10 Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, it was like that.

16:13 Speaker 2: But everything was you know, you're young, everything was you know, try everything at least twice, three times, four times. Yeah, it was very It was just like that. But you could see where politics was and you could see where it was going to go.

16:31 Speaker 1: M h.

16:33 Speaker 2: I think Becoming X quite it's quite a preemptive strike on what happened to the world. Okay, people people said it was cynical, I said it was, But no, I don't think it was cynical. I think we were.

16:46 Speaker 1: Right right right, No, that makes sense. That makes sense a couple of the other and when we in a little bit, when our conversation concludes, I am going to play the other two singles on the show today, Bang Bang and I'm particularly fond of the bodies are under the Bus again and the yeah, the anti war theme of that. But I mean that was that song? When was that song written? Because in some ways it seems so especially relevant right now, and yet you really could have I mean, you could really write an anti war song anytime, because there's always war.

17:25 Speaker 1: It's sort of absent, you know what I mean, there's always war.

17:30 Speaker 2: No, No, you're quite right. Yeah, no, I wrote that. I think that was twenty that was twenty twenty three four. Okay,

17:45 Speaker 2: certainly the music was done and I had the idea that bodies are under the Bus again. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, But it's just basically how it is. I think maybe it was you know that there is a love. There's a lot of trouble in the world, and I don't really know what it is. It's just it just seems like there's always an exploitation. Nothing is ever genuine, right, no, right, And it just seems that there's billions of us. So why isn't why don't things run the way we want? Why are we still sitting here like the peasants revolts under Richard the Second and we get promised something and they steal it back.

18:31 Speaker 1: You know, it is remarkable when you think about it that way, how we don't learn much.

18:40 Speaker 2: And war.

18:41 Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's so obvious, you know to those of us who are conscious and thinking about it. It's it's a business really, but but we just keep letting it happen because there's I mean, I know here in America. You know a lot of people here love war. You know, they they see it as patriotic and they believe what they're told and they don't question anything. And I mean obviously not everyone, but there's there's a large swath of the American population that is like raw rah, yeah, let's go, let's go kill some bad guys.

19:10 Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's true. All right, that's true all around the world. Absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, I think it's Yes, it's it's a business. But I just think in every way, like you know, yesterday was what it was, International Workers' Day. Yeah, no, I understand there's a lot of activity with the unions in the USA. There is you know, uh, which which which is which? You know, which is how it's meant to be. That's what America is all about.

19:41 Speaker 1: I think it should be.

19:44 Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's the point is just on every level, on every level, the majority gets stiffed and he just doesn't make any.

19:55 Speaker 1: Sense, right, but we accept it.

19:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how we keep doing it.

20:01 Speaker 1: It's it's yeah, it's it's. It's pretty frustrating. So so that raises a question, Uh, like, what what's the response been. I mean, from from what I've read, it sounds like the response uh to to these uh to the singles and again, the album comes out May eighth, but it sounds like the response of the singles has been pretty positive. Right. But but I'm wondering, I mean, when when when people tell you they they like it, I mean, are they do they just like it sonically? Are they connecting with the messaging of it?

20:30 Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine it's a mix. But I'm curious what kind of feedback you're getting.

20:35 Speaker 2: Uh most of the feed most of the feedback is about is kind of about the lyrics. And I'm always very I'm always very I'm always very touched when people like like the songs musically. So you know, a lot of people, a lot of people are really really enjoying the bodies are under the bus again, which I'm quite surprised because it seemed quite lightweight and out of play. You know, it seems so very electronic and pop. It's the only one where there's no guitars, I think. But I've had a lot of good a lot of good sort of feedback about little bits and bobs of the music in all in different songs.

21:15 Speaker 2: Oh, I like this per synth there, I like this big keyboard. So that's always It's always really nice when people like the musical parts, or they see something or they hear something and it's, oh, yeah, I did do that. It's funny. But all these things just happen naturally, don't they true. But yeah, I mean, I think I'm just people have been really positive. I think it. I think it's probably I think the production and everything about it is very tight on this record, so I think it's more accessible because it's just everything has been done very well, possibly for the first time.

21:58 Speaker 2: In the Hole, the Noisy Run.

22:01 Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, yeah, I think yeah.

22:03 Speaker 2: Everything else has been a bit shambolic and a bit shabby.

22:06 Speaker 1: On my path.

22:07 Speaker 2: You know, I've been in a rush. I've gone balls. I'm just going to use the drums like this. No no, I make atrocious decisions.

22:19 Speaker 1: Well, it's urd, I mean it's you know, it's certainly not supposed to be perfect, right, No.

22:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think this time, this time it was everything seemed to be like a like a well oiled machine, maybe because I just did it and pleased myself.

22:36 Speaker 1: Any plans for a follow up? I mean, obviously you're writing a lot of music. Do you have any plans for a follow up to this? Specifically, will you continue to release music under the name The Noise Who Runs? What's kind of your your long term plan or do you know?

22:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, The Noise He Runs is basically is basically might kind of like a non de plume, So I go under this name regardless. That is now the project I do is Ian pickering my thing when it's not sneakers or it's not wrying for someone else. There is a follow up album, yes, oh, it's pretty much done once again. I've got to do the vocals provisionally. That is called Signals in the Static.

23:20 Speaker 1: Okay, Oh, that's an interesting title, and.

23:24 Speaker 2: I think it's kind of like a follow up to this.

23:28 Speaker 2: It carried on, the writing carried on and spilled over. But it's very bizarre at the moment. You know, I've done things with guitars that you shouldn't do.

23:40 Speaker 1: Okay, that's intriguing. That's intriguing.

23:44 Speaker 2: And basically I've also just finished writing some songs with a French guy, a French guitarist who just happens to write songs and kind of make up words over the top, and so he comes with guitar and a melody and we just wrote some songs. So I'm thinking about what to do with them, okay, And basically I really want to play live, So that is my immediate plan is trying to figure out how to put that together so that maybe next year I can do some shows.

24:22 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, Do you have any idea? I mean, would you just try to put together a full band to play these songs live? Or would you use loopers? Or I mean, do you have you thought that far into.

24:33 Speaker 2: It or I've thought about both ways. At the minute, I thought about whether I could do it just by myself, whether I could do it as two people, three people, and then you get into the point where it's like I'm going to have that many people, I might as well have a bend and an orchestra section. But so I do like it very stripped down. I like the kind of two three people using a bit of technology, you.

24:59 Speaker 1: Know, one hundred persons.

25:02 Speaker 2: I think it kind of suits the nature of the project. Maybe I don't know.

25:05 Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, so I didn't ask you the obvious question yet. What does the name mean? The noise who runs? What? What is the meaning of the name for you?

25:14 Speaker 2: Uh ah? Well, in French there's a it's a French phrase that means gossip. Okay, so I think it's a breaky corp breeze noise. And basically there was a restaurant called this that we went to once when I first arrived in France. My girlfriend took me to this restaurant and I said, what's the name? And she said, it doesn't mean anything in English. It's the noise who runs? And I went, oh, I quite like that, because basically I took it to mean more like word of mouth spreading right, right, which is I think, what that's That's the one thing we have.

26:02 Speaker 2: You know, I'm not particularly interested in selling records. I'm interested in the world getting better, right, So if I could, if I can do a show, and if I can put shows on for free, I would yeah, yeah, more than you know, that's what I want. I'm not seleaning, Dion. I'm not going to come back from the brink and then charge three grand for a ticket. What's that about?

26:28 Speaker 1: Right?

26:31 Speaker 2: You should be giving it for free. You should be grateful, you.

26:34 Speaker 1: Know, if only? Yeah, if only.

26:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, because ticket prices that's a.

26:40 Speaker 1: Joke now, Oh, it's it's way, way way out of control. Absolutely, absolutely, yes, So Ian, where's the best place for people to go online to keep up with everything that you're doing with the noise who runs or anything else that you're doing that you want people to know about.

26:59 Speaker 2: I guess, I guess the website is the best place. And band Camp, band camp, paull Is band Camp, the website, Okay, she's just ww dot the noisyeruns dot com.

27:15 Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm a big fan of band camp, by the way, and I am looking at that. You've got h you've got the uh, you've got the album on there. Band Camp is the reason I I like to talk about band camp is just because not everyone realizes that with band camp, if you get the music from there, you get a higher quality file than you do if you're just say streaming it on YouTube or even or even Spotify. You know, band camp, you get a really high quality file, which is important. I mean it, or it should be important.

27:45 Speaker 2: See, I didn't know that. I mean, I'm sitting there uploading all the web files and everything, but I never even thought about that. Yeah, okay, yeah, I should really direct people to band camp all the time.

27:57 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah. Yeah. I'm a big, big fan of a big fan of band camps. So well, Ian, this has been wonderful. It's great to talk with you. We'll we'll conclude our conversation in a moment, and then I'm actually gonna play. I'm gonna play the Bodies Are under the Bus again because we talked about it. But I'm also gonna sneak in Bang Bang because I think those are both both just great singles.

28:17 Speaker 2: That's very kind.

28:18 Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and I want to remind people, of course, the album comes out May eighth via t nw R Records. What is that tnw R Records? Is that a Is that an independent label? There? Maybe that's your label. I don't know.

28:31 Speaker 2: Basically my label. You have to you have to give it a name when you register the songs.

28:36 Speaker 1: Oh, I just realized, I'm a little I'm a little slow sometimes. I just realized tnw R the Noise Who Runs. It didn't even occur.

28:44 Speaker 2: It didn't even Yeah, I just had to give it a name. I think before that at some point there's Rogue Noise Recordings as well, which, oh that's a cool name. You just have to give it an arbitrary name.

28:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like that Rogue Noise Recordings. But yeah then w r Yeah, I'm staring at those letters, and it finally dawned on me. Oh the Noise Who Runs took.

29:08 Speaker 2: Me a minute.

29:10 Speaker 1: It's still morning here. I haven't had enough caffeine, I guess.

29:12 Speaker 3: But but I got I got there eventually. But yeah, we're gonna play both of those, so we'll we'll let you go for now. But when the you know, when you've got the next single ready to go, If you're gonna keep releasing singles from the album after the album is out, please you know, we'd love to be kind of your your conduit into American radio here.

29:32 Speaker 1: Love what you're doing. It's a great project, and uh yeah, I can't wait to hear and when the next album comes out too, I can't wait to hear that. So so all good stuff.

29:41 Speaker 2: Thank you so much man, really genuine it's been a big pleasure. Thank you. I hope everyone has a good day.

29:47 Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, thank you so much for joining us. Ian. Okay, we'll talk to you soon. Take care, all right, thanks bye, bye bye. All right. That is the great Ian Pickering of the Noise who Runs. He is the Noise who Runs. It is his project after all. And we're gonna play let's see. Yeah, we're gonna we have time, we can seek both of these in so we're gonna play this. This is an important song and that's why you know, we spend some time on it. The Bodies are under the Bus again, great anti war song.

30:14 Speaker 1: And we're also gonna play Bang Bang after that. Another great single from the album, which does come out May eighth, so it will be the full album will be available everywhere very shortly. But here it is. Check this out. The Bodies are under the Bus again by the Noise who Runs.