The Idlewild singer and sometime solo artist talks about the pivotal songs in his life.
Roddy Woomble made his first musical discoveries as a child, when he travelled with his family across Europe and America.
Following the release of his fourth solo record The Deluder, he’ll retrace some of his childhood steps. “We’re playing all over the place, the UK, some concerts in France and Germany, which is the first time I’ve been there with my solo band. The last few solo records I’ve done have been very low key, so it feels good, everyone’s pumped.”
Initially Woomble was drawn to the classic songs his Father played in the family Campervan on their travels and after that was introduced to music via his friends and older sister. Starting with punk rock, his musical tastes broadened, moving from R.E.M and The Smiths to later discoveries of Bob Dylan and jazz.
As he talks through his pivotal songs, Woomble explains that whilst as a vocalist he loves unique and timeless singing voices, as a wordsmith he’s fascinated with lyrics that leave the interpretation up to the listener. “I’m drawn to words that have a randomness and a vagueness about them. I want that kind of magic to develop in my mind without it being dictated. To me, really good lyrics are ones where you think you’re listening to a story, but you’re actually listening to ideas being transmitted.”
1
“Inchworm” by Danny Kaye
“I travelled a lot when I was younger. My parents had a Campervan and we used to move around lots of different places like France, England and America.
“I was six or seven when I lived in France, my Father had a tape player and he’d play music in the Campervan. He’s an educated man and he appreciates art, he’s not really a music fan but he loved ‘Best Of’ tapes and had lots of best of show tunes, The Beach Boys, The Beatles and lots of other classics. I remember loving it when he put on the show tunes tapes, songs from Oklahoma, South Pacific, My Fair Lady and Hans Christian Andersen, which is where ‘Inchworm’ is from. Alongside The Beatles, it’s the first song I remember.
“As an adult I’m not really interested in musical theatre, I only listen to the classic songs, but there’s something about the melodies in a lot of them that tells a story, the people that wrote those songs were geniuses really, more than geniuses. The melodies are so meaty it’s impossible to get them out of your head and ‘Inchworm’ combined that with this real tenderness. It’s always been one of my favourite songs, I associate it with childhood and Hans Christian Andersen, the whole musical is about the magic of childhood and how it can get lost so easily.
“Without being too sentimental, that’s what I love about this song, it reminds me of being young and all the best qualities of being young. That kind of wild childhood, growing up spending time in forests and fields, running about in the French heat in the afternoon as we went around the country in a Campervan.
“That’s why ‘Inchworm’ is important to me, it’s a nostalgic thing but that song in particular stopped me in my tracks, if we were out somewhere and it was on I’d have to stand still and listen to it, even now, what a beautiful song."
2
“Filler” by Minor Threat
“I lived in America between thirteen and fifteen in North-West Carolina, which isn’t a particularly sophisticated part of America, it’s like the Bible Belt, full of Rednecks and that kind of thing.
“I went to High School there and it was like the movies, there were Jocks with cheerleaders hanging off their necks, nerds with thick glasses and guys smoking weed and wearing leather jackets. I was like “Am I in a film?”
“I started hanging out with guys who were into punk rock and they all had older brothers who played in punk rock bands in Athens, Georgia, which was only three hours’ drive away and where R.E.M. and all those bands come from. It was the late ‘80s and a really good time for American Underground music, with The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth and Black Flag. All those bands were alive as an exciting movement and not a lot of people knew about them, certainly not in Greenville.
“Minor Threat were a really important band in my teens. I loved them straight away, they were so rudimentary, it was about the exchange of ideas, not about being a good musician. Within a week of hearing their album, me and a couple of my pals formed a band, I was on drums and it was really unsophisticated in the best possible way, teenagers exchanging ideas, shouting and having fun.
“I think punk rock is the healthiest thing for teenagers, it should be on the curriculum. It’s such a great way of being creative when you’re young, you’re not worrying, you’re making a noise, it’s cathartic and it’s the way you feel when you’re that age. Metal is a bit too technical, you have to be good to play that, but you don’t have to be technical to play punk rock, it actually works better the worse you are.
“Minor Threat were one of the best punk rock bands of all time and ‘Filler’ is one of their best songs, if you’re into this kind of music it’s hard to put it on and not think it’s just great. I don’t listen to that much punk anymore, but at that time in my life it was my favourite form of music.”
3
“Gardening at Night” by R.E.M.
“R.E.M. were a punk band when they released this really, they were playing the same places as The Replacements, Black Flag and all those bands but they had this whole different thing going, there was a mystery about them. They’re a unique band, it’s just guitar, bass, drums and vocals but they somehow managed to bring everyone under their spell.
“My sister’s three years older than me and she introduced me to R.E.M. and The Smiths. I must have heard Chronic Town and Murmur around the same time as Minor Threat, I didn’t like them as much instantly, but my listening tastes were starting to get more aware and ultimately they became much more important, you’d keep going back to them, the songs are really simple but dense. Murmur doesn’t have much overdubbing going on but it’s still one of those records, when you listen to it you think ‘Wow’, it creates a world.
"'Gardening at Night’ from Chronic Town is a bit more rudimentary, it was their first or second time in a recording studio, but that’s one of the reasons it’s so raw and powerful. What I love about punk rock is it exists in other bands that have different ideas and I think R.E.M. and The Smiths follow on really well from punk rock. After I got over my fixation with bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat, they were the bands I went to and were really important to me in my late teens.
“I suppose you can hear that all over Idlewild, the influence of punk rock, R.E.M. and The Smiths, particularly early Idlewild, before we started putting our own personalities into the music, which took a while because we weren’t that confident.
“This song is very unique and still really original to me; I mean, what’s he going on about with ‘gardening at night’? It’s not about going out to do the weeding or picking potatoes, he’s talking about something much more. Michael Stipe and Morrissey were big influences in terms of how I thought about song words and the early ‘90s was also a great time for lyrics, with Steve Malkmus, Guided by Voices and Beck.
“The American bands were really changing the way people thought about words, they didn’t have to be love songs, they didn’t have to be about anything. Vagueness and randomness were being celebrated and those were big, influential ideas for me.”
4
“Land” by Patti Smith
“R.E.M introduced me to Patti Smith, all great bands always introduce you to other great bands. I remember reading an article with Michael Stipe in my late teens where he said that Patti Smith changed his life, so I bought Horses and it changed my life too.
“I listened to and it thought ‘Wait a minute, this came out the year I was born’, yet It sounded so contemporary, it was like the ideas were in the room with you, it was basic but really effective.
“It was part of a brilliant era of music, with bands like Television and Talking Heads but Patti Smith struck a chord with me more, maybe because I was into punk rock bands and this seemed to be like a poet fronting a punk rock band. I had an interest in poetry too by that point, which made it even more appealing.
“I saw Patti Smith live in ’95 when she started touring again and it blew my mind, I’ve seen her more than any other performer, maybe ten or twelve times, I’ll travel and go anywhere to see her play. Idlewild were lucky, we did some of The Remote Part with Lenny Kaye from The Patti Smith Group in New York in 2001. Patti Smith was doing a warm-up show with the band and we went to two nights at The Bottom Line club, it was 300 capacity and one night I was stood next to Lou Reed. It was one of the best gigs I’ve been to, they played different songs each night, it was The Patti Smith Group in a really small club and I’d loved those records since I was eighteen.
“What I love about Patti Smith is the poetic lyrics and the poet speaking, but there was a Rock and Roll band behind her. I think ’Land’ is a really good example of that, maybe the best that she’s done, It’s not a song and it’s not a poem, it’s a real combination of them both and it’s done brilliantly.”
5
“Tears of Rage” by Bob Dylan & The Band
“I became a Dylan fan in my twenties. I was always a bit of a denier, I thought he was someone that older people listened to, but as you get older you think ‘Wait a minute, there’s a reason old people listen to this’, because older people are wiser than young people and they’ve got better music taste a lot of the time.
“I was twenty-three or twenty-four when I started listening to Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home and it just clicked and I listen to a Bob Dylan record pretty much every day now. I realised he was the ultimate songwriter really, he had all the ideas and all the melodies, it’s so sophisticated yet so accessible.
“I was drawn to The Basement Tapes maybe because of my liking for Lo-Fi and punk rock. It seemed like you could hear the ideas as they were formed and I was a big fan of The Band by that point, they’re such great players. It was a combination of them both, Bob Dylan and The Band, recording this prototype Lo-Fi music, the whole record is so evocative, wonderful and full of amazing songs, it’s a mixture of everything.
“The Dylan version of ’Tears of Rage’ is great and I love the version that Richard Manuel sings, he’s one of my favourite male vocalists of all time, but what’s not to like about this? The words are simple but totally universal, they can be understood by someone that hates songs and someone that listens to them all the time.
“The tune’s really great too, people forget that Dylan’s one of the best melodists around, they’re wonderful melodies that you can’t forget and he combines that with these genius, insightful lyrics. ’Tears of Rage’ is an example of Dylan at his simplest and most effective.”
6
“It’s Always You” by Chet Baker
“I became a jazz fan from my late twenties onwards, when music is an education and you start getting turned on by different things. Other artists you listen to suggest different things and I started listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis and all the usual suspects that you to turn to when you want to find out about a new form of music, particularly jazz.
“I loved the idea that they were expressing it and the fact that I didn’t understand it at all, it was like another language, like when you enjoy sitting next to Spanish people in a café, you can’t understand what they’re saying but it sounds great and that was jazz to me. I’m still mesmerised by it, but as a vocalist myself and someone that really appreciates singing, when you hear Chet Baker or Billie Holliday sing it’s pretty mind-blowing in a completely different way to Patti Smith.
“Chet Baker was almost whispering these songs and it was so beautiful, evocative and romantic. Him and Richard Manuel are probably my two favourite male vocalists, maybe Dylan as well. He represents a form of music that I spend a lot of my time absorbing.
“I listen to jazz a lot and I’m more naturally drawn to the melodic stuff. I’ve got a few free jazz records in my collection and I do love the meditative chaos of it, but I prefer melodic vocal jazz and that’s why I love 'It’s Always You.'"
7
“Evolution” by Cat Power
“Cat Power’s a vocalist I’ve admired for years and her voice is supernaturally beautiful. When she sings it’s unmistakably her and there’s so much feeling in it, it’s like she’s not trying, but of course she is, it sounds effortless.
“I’ve been a big fan since Moon Pix came out. I’ve seen her live a lot and in terms of live performance, sometimes it used to be frustrating but latterly it’s not. I remained a fan and You Are Free, where ‘Evolution’ is from is one of my favourite albums, I listen to it a lot.
“There’s something about her whole aesthetic and vibe, the way she plays music and approaches live performances. She’s operating in her own world in the best possible way and in a way that not an awful lot of artists do anymore. A lot of people do things the way they think they should do, that’s not a criticism, it’s just the way it is, but Cat Power seems like she’s from another era almost, she’s timeless and her voice is too.
“Evolution” is one of my favourite tunes of hers. I like the words, the fact that it feels like she’s just singing a list. As I said earlier in the conversation, I like words that have a vagueness to them, the song’s called ‘Evolution’ so you think it’s got to be about that, but then of course it’s nothing to do with evolution I don’t think. Only Cat Power knows what it means and that’s the way it should be.
“I like the words from songs like the show tunes and Chet Baker in a totally different way, they’re standards, but I don’t look to them as a guide to writing song words, it’s the artists from my time and slightly before that I’ve been influenced in my own music.”
8
“Journey in Satchidananda” by Alice Coltrane
“Earlier we chatted about the free jazz element of my listening habits and Alice Coltrane is the bit I like about that kind of thing, again drawing more towards the melodies.
“I had a few books on meditation and I thought it was an interesting concept, something I wished I could concentrate on more, like the Alan Watts quote ‘grooving with the eternal now’ and Alice Coltrane seemed to be a good soundtrack for that. She was recommended to me by a friend in 2008 who said if I was to get into more freer jazz I should check out this, because it’s a combination of lots of different ideas and it’s really worthwhile listening to.
“That was a really significant time in my life, my son was born in 2008 and you listen to a lot more music because you’re in the house a lot more, he’d be asleep and I’d be listening to Alice Coltrane records. You’ve got a lot more time to discover, I felt like I spent a lot of my twenties running around on tour and always busy, then all of a sudden I was in my early thirties sitting in the house with a baby and I thought ‘Well, let’s listen to some music.’
“’Journey in Satchidananda’ is a long meditative groove that lasts for sixteen minutes. You can really lose yourself in it, things weave in and out, I think Charlie Haden’s on bass, it’s got really interesting musicians playing on it, it’s calming and not frenetic in any way. I’m not suggesting that it’s influenced me in any way, that I’m sitting there cross-legged, blissed out by it, it’s not a part of my life that became like that, but it symbolises a different way of listening to music.”
9
“Mid Air” by Paul Buchanan
“Paul Buchanan is definitely my favourite Scottish singer, he’s a bit of a genius. My sister was a big fan of The Blue Nile, I listened to their records when I was younger and thought they were pretty good but I was more interested in Minor Threat at the time.
“I rediscovered them in my thirties and thought they were so good, so interesting and not in a rush, which is the really beautiful thing about them. So many bands put out so many records, mine included, but The Blue Nile put out two in twenty years, which gives their records massive amounts of resonance. It was the same with his solo music, he’s only done one record and because of that you listen deeper.
“There’s a lovely laziness to it and it’s so intimate too, he’s really able to sing into someone’s ear and that’s a talent as a vocalist, because he’s not singing into someone’s ear, he’s singing into a microphone in a studio. Like Chet Baker, he’s almost whispering into the microphone and it’s so powerful because of that.
“His voice has the best qualities of all the singers we’ve talked about, Richard Manuel, Chet Baker, Cat Power, even Dylan to a degree. He’s singing like no one else and it’s totally unique, he doesn’t sound like any other vocalist. He’s not in a rush with his melodies or lyrics and he doesn’t put that many lyrics into a song.
“’I think Mid Air’ is the best one on the record. They’re all great and they all work together, he makes albums like people used to, the songs are tied together like chapters in a novel, but as a songwriter I’m always drawn to melody as well and this song has got a wonderful tune.”
The Deluder is released 1 September via A Modern Way / Empty Words
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