Racking up an impressive following in the lead up to his debut album, Luke Sital-Singh is a name you’ll see on plenty of festival line-ups this Summer as he spreads his contemporary folk sound to a wider audience.
We caught up with Luke just before his set at this year’s Barn on the Farm festival…
You’re set to play Barn on the Farm later – are you excited for that?
Yeah I am actually. I’ve not been before but I’ve just had a little tour around and it looks really nice. It’s nice where you get ones like this with a couple of stages and there’s never more than one act playing at the same time.
Have you got many gigs or festivals this Summer?
Yeah a few, I mean festival season is just starting to ramp up but I’ve been doing four or five so far and there’s a lot more to come. I quite enjoy it. It’s always really interesting just to see how different they are, ’cause they’re all essentially the same thing, there’s camping, food and some stages but they’re also vastly different so it’s interesting.
I’ve seen and heard a few people comparing your sound to the likes of Bon Iver and Damien Rice. Would they be influences to you or what’s your stance on your own music?
Yeah there’s definitely elements. I mean, take Damien Rice, he was the first inspiration I had back before I was even doing this kind of music. I was into heavy music in my younger years and when his album came out, I stumbled upon that and it was the first folky singer/songwriter thing I consciously heard and it blew me away. So that was the catalyst for everything. I started doing gigs just doing covers and stuff, so since then there’s been a million other influences and stuff including Bon Iver more recently. I think from that music I’ve taken more harmony, vocal layering stuff but I think I could accurately say if Damien Rice did more harmonies, that would be an accurate way of describing my music.
Tell us a bit about your writing process when it comes to starting fresh on a new song.
Well I do a lot of collaborations with other writers so its a bit different then, but if I’m writing on my own it’s a process of staring at the wall for a long time and then giving up, and then coming back the next day and staring at the wall for a bit longer! And then eventually for some inexplicable reason, one day it just works and it all tumbles out. It appears like it all comes out fully formed but if I was to really analyse it I think I kind of collect lots of things along the way, quite unconsciously, like little snippets of conversations or bits from film or tv or books or phrases and stuff. I don’t really keep a notebook. I try to but I’m not very good at keeping up that sort of thing, but they’ll all log in there and they’ll be chewing away subconsciously and eventually it comes to that moment where it works, lyrically anyway. It’s an annoyingly unpredictable way of writing songs, I don’t write that many songs ’cause I can’t force it, it’s very instinctual and stuff. But I’m always trying to find new ways.
You have an album coming out in August – what can people expect from that?
Well it’s my first album. But if people are aware of my music already from my three EPs, they’re a good indication of what’s on the album. It’s sort of half stuff that’s been on those EPs already and half brand new stuff. Those EPs have some real intimate, melancholic songs on them and then there’s more scissor-kicking, rockier, more boisterous songs as well and I think that’s the same as the record really. I think it’s a good balance, and I don’t think it will shock anyone who’s a fan already, but I hope there’s a few surprises anyway.
After the three EPs, how did you decide that now was the right time for an album?
I think it just felt like I had to. Two EPs I did independently and then signed a record deal with parlophone and put out the third EP. I’ve been doing quite well over the last 18 months and the momentum is kind of there and different things were tipping me for 2014 and stuff so that kind of puts a bit of pressure on to get the album out in 2014 so they don’t all look a fool! But yeah, I think you can’t wait around too long either, momentum fades quite quickly and there’s so much music for people to get into. I sort feel like we’ve left it too long already, I’d have preferred to put it out a while ago but things happen and you just go with it. It’s out of my hands in a lot of ways as well.
Apart from Barn on the Farm, where can people see you for the rest of the Summer?
Well there’s Summersault Festival in Devon, Curious Arts in Hampshire, Latitude which will be cool, Port Eliot festival in Cornwall, I’m looking forward to that one as well. Belladrum in Scotland as well and there’s a few in Europe which will be nice. Moseley Folk Festival, End of the Road festival, and then that kind of leads into my album tour which is in September, which is all around the UK for a few weeks.
Nice, what kind of venues are you playing on that?
There’s London Scala which will be cool, I’m quite nervous about that, it’s the biggest gig I’ve ever done. Academy 2 in Oxford as well, The Haunt in Brighton, a few new ones like Gorilla in Manchester. I’ve not been before but I’m sure it’ll be nice. Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh too and a few others. Those kind of 300-400 capacity venues. It should be a good tour.
Do you reckon the nerves will be at you a bit more for the headline gigs rather than gigs like this at festivals?
I think somewhere in between. There’s different pressures for different ones. I mean, at festivals like this you’ve got to kind of win people a bit and there’s less control ’cause you’ve to kind of slot in with the vibe that’s already there, whereas headline ones are my shows and I can customise the atmosphere to suit me. And my agent has booked venues that are appropriate for what I’m doing. And people are coming to see you, but then again that adds up to more pressure that they’ve paid money and you want them to enjoy it. And you want to play the right songs that people want to hear, and then of course the thought of “is anyone actually gonna come!?”, it’s pretty bad if no one shows up! I enjoy both really. They can both be pretty horrible if it goes wrong but equally amazing if it goes right so just have to take it as it comes.
Thank you so much for that interview Luke.
Pleasure!
http://www.barnonthefarm.co.uk
VOTE for Barn on the Farm as the Best Independent Festival right here: http://www.diymag.com/AIMawards – We did!