Fifteen minutes. No more, no less… just 4:15 until 4:30. My time with Patrick Wolf, the person that has inspired me and my photography for years, ever since the release of his first album. Meet and greet, thirty seconds already gone… I sit on the tour bus and start recording straight away. Patrick grabs a checked blanket and wraps it around himself. We start talking… I tell him I didn't make any notes because 'I fucking love your work anyway'… so I ask a few questions, let Patrick see some of my Photography and ask him if we can do a shoot, which he agrees too. I thought I was getting fifteen minutes but fate, or luck, or something on my side locked the doors on the tour bus. So I was trapped, with one of my idols… on a bus. We talked about music, photography, style and love…because Patrick Wolf has found his muse. He fell in love. And his third album, The Magic Position, is his love story.
N: The Magic Position is about you being in love, what was it like finding your muse?
Patrick: I guess for the first time in my life I found myself in a very domestic, confident, joyful mode…where I haven't been before. I was stable. When my friends read that it was a stable relationship they start laughing, but for me it was a very stable part of my life. I was on the road a lot and when I came home we would go and do the garden. It's all in the record I think, but I definitely found a partner in crime and it was wonderful. The Magic Position means four or five different things, and people keep coming up with new ones. It's the perfect position to be in at your life at the time and 'the magic position' as in to believe in the possibility of magical events, but then it's also a sexual thing. I want people to find their own relationships and bring them to the record, to read into my work.
N: You duet with Marianne Faithfull on 'Magpie', what was it like working with such an influential person?
Patrick: It was wonderful... I didn't have to do much, there was no direction and she understood the work. Marianne is famous for singing other peoples songs, which is a shame because she is a great lyricist herself. It was perfect. Working with Edward (Larrikin, Larrikin Love) was very different because he is a songwriter through and through. He knows how to sing his work; so getting him to sing other peoples was hard, I had to explain so much about what I was trying to do. With Marianne I didn't have to explain anything. All we did was make sure we knew each other, so we spent the day together before the recording. We swapped stories of our lives and got to know each other perfectly, by the end of the day we were ready to record. I think a duet should be about two people coming together and joining musically, emotionally and spiritually, and that's what happened. It was just wonderful. When you meet someone or fall in love you are there in each other's minds and hearts for a while and that's the kind of place that we got to in order to record the song.
N: Where does your lyrical inspiration come from? You seem quite passionate about life by the sea; it comes across in your lyrics quite a lot.
Patrick: It's a landscape I am very comfortable with, I want to retire and live by the sea. I see it as a very safe place to be, by the ocean. Lyrically it's always personal, first hand experience that I write about. Definitely. When I was 13 or 14 my lyrics were dreadful, they didn't mean anything. It was only when I realised I could take my experiences and turn them into lyrics that I learned how to change everything around . You could translate it into something fantastical. Some people avoid writing about things like that but I took them and turned them into visible, audible things…. That has been my goal with my lyrics, to go to places other people don't.
N: Your family background is very musical and you include your sister, Jo Apps, throughout your records. Have you both always been musically connected?
Patrick: Me and my sister have shared music since we were very young. We were both people who weren't that popular at school, so we would come back home after a shitty day at school and get out a Yamaha keyboard or a fisher price tape recorder and just make music. She was a singer at a choir and we were both involved in the orchestra so music dominated our lives, always. The thing we could talk about was music. She was the first person to come into my room and be like 'Get rid of this Faith No More tape, here's some good music'… but Faith No More is fantastic and I'm still annoyed that she threw it away! She was a guiding light when I was about 12 or 13 and is still my best friend. When you are in that bubble of being together and living in the same house under the wing of parents it means that you are in the same company after five-o-clock, inspiring each other. It was natural progression to have her on the records. Even unspoken inspiration from her that isn't on the records and just the very fact that she exists. Musically, to have a real partner is great.
N: Your music videos are absolutely beautiful. For them to be that personal to your musical work, do you have creative input?
P: Almost full input! People find it quite irritating because I address myself in a style that I have created for myself since I was twelve and rebelling at school. Nobody, whether that be a teacher or a record company or a video director could change that. It's almost like I co-direct the videos. People tell me to calm down but I care so much about that side of things and there are so many shit images in the world, I don't just want to create another one. I care so much about the production, arranging and writing of the record that when it comes to translating it visually I don't want it to be cheapened with a bad image. I choose to work with photographers and directors that I really respect and can give leeway too. I'm not trained as a photographer or director but I know what I want to communicate. Like with Marianne, I make sure that I like the person because within the industry a commissioner can go 'Hey your name is this, you released this album and if you work with this director he will do something crazy for you' … but then it's just random images and I want every photo and every image to relate to the record. It's an exhausting way to work because so many people just leave it to the label or the director. I make sure I choose people I respect, and they respect me… so it's a great collaboration. With Ingrid (Z, Photographer) the work was always personal because we would be totally drunk at six in the morning and I'd be like 'I've got to do my artwork and the deadline is in a week' …so she would get her camera and I would go to the mirror and dress myself up. We spent hours photographing… just reels of film. No-one got paid because it was just about being passionate and that's the way it should be, just pure passion.
N: You have strong personal style, where does your interest in fashion come from?
Patrick: It's all very personal just because of that whole thing within the industry where someone hires somebody else to get that particular image or product, and that's not what I'm about. I have done photoshoots for so many bad fashion magazines and I never use anybody else's stylist. It's right from the beginning of me dressing up in front of the mirror when I was twelve, with your mum coming in saying 'You should do your parting the other way then you might make more friends' it's like, Fuck off! This is exactly the way I want to be. I love having younger fans, when they turn to 16 or 17 they get judgemental… but go younger and they are just open minded about everything.
N: Have you enjoyed playing parts of 'The Magic Position' live for people?
Patrick: It's been good. I had a funny moment where I was just exhausted then I had to go on stage half an hour later. When you go on tour you think it's going to be parties and staying up late, but then you realise that it's physically exhausting. You are using your voice all the time. I have to make sure I look after the performance; I just had to start being a little bit more responsible so I can put on a good show. It's very strange. I've done tours with five days a week on and five days off, but this is the first one not booked by me. At the end of the day the vocal thing is hard to do, and I use the top of my voice a lot. It's the days where I get to my bunk, wake up, sound check and then forget the name of the town I am in. On the bus we have been having nightmares about witches and being sent to hell…just lots of metaphors for not having a fucking idea where you are in the world.
N: Travel seems to be quite a big part of your music lyrically…
Patrick: I have travelled a lot in my life, but I ignored England for quite a lot of time because they were confused about what I did. The only people who booked me would be the Electroclash clubs because I look this way so I MUST make this kind of music, I've proved myself now though, I think. From the first album I never had a booking agent, just a suitcase ready to go. I wanted to see the world and I guess there's that idea of being a traveller and waking up going 'I want to see Egypt' …or Devon or something, and the road never being set out for you. I don't have a watch or a diary so I close my eyes, open them the next day and see where I am.
N: Do you prefer studio work rather than live?
Patrick: Definitely. Studio is my passion, getting lost creating layers of noise. I don't enjoy being completely alone, just me and my piano with an audience… It's ok as a one off thing but not as repetition, it gets a little boring. I'm really into layers and layers of sound; I think it's due to being in the orchestra as a violinist and being lost in this whole sea of sound…and now that I have a bigger band I'm just enjoying it more and more.
