MU: Does that start of your solo project mean the end of Guillemots?

 

FD: No not at all.  It’s just something different you know.  I just felt the need after our second record to do something of my own really.  It’s probably the opposite way to how a lot of solo projects come about which I think is maybe when someone feels like they want to do something a bit more experimental than they do in their band but with me, I love the fact that in Guillemots all four of us are always trying to push things in as many directions as they can go but I just wanted to do a record where I just focused on really simple song writing I suppose and I just wanted it to have simple beats and simple, traditional sounds which is quite different to what I’ve done before.

It just felt like a good thing to do by myself.  A lot of the songs are just voice and guitar anyway so they didn’t even need a band.  For the last twelve months we’ve been writing in Guillemots and we’re gonna start making the record in about a month’s time, so there’s no sense of things finishing for us but, on the other hand, I’m sure I’ll be doing things by myself again in the future and I’m sure the others all have things on the cooker too.

 

I was going to ask about further solo material in my next question…

 

I’ve always anticipated doing stuff by myself.  Just the thought of playing music only with the same people for the rest of my life is just horrible but the thought of never playing with Guillemots again is horrible as well you know.  I’ve just always wanted to play music: it’s not as if I met the band and then we suddenly started making music.  It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do and I think, in music, it’s really good if you do things with different people.  I think doing this thing by myself has made me come back to the band with renewed energy so I see no real reason why the band would end but I will do things by myself in the future but, again, I think they will be very different to this thing that I’ve just done.

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