Quick-fire Questions
Who is your idol; musical and/or otherwise?
I have several idols, and they're all grumpy old white
men. I mimic them perfectly.
Who would you compare yourself to?
I couldn’t possibly be that cruel.
How did you find the performing arts in general?
I like Les Miserables an inordinate amount.
Where is your ideal place to live?
Urban while I’m young, rural when I’m old.
Whose life would you love to have?
Stephen Moffat's life. I want to write Doctor Who.
Whose life would you hate to have?
Salman Rushdie's life.
How do you enjoy producing covers compared to writing your own songs?
Not very much.
How would you describe your music?
Bits nicked from bands I like.
What is your biggest personal achievement; musical and/or otherwise?
So far, probably writing a novel, which I'm putting the finishing touches to at the moment.
Have you got any ambitions not relating to music?
I’d like to get my novel published. And then write another one and get that published.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
Pretty much in exactly the same place, but with white hair.
What has drawn you to writing music?
Necessity.
Rob's passion in life is creating artistic media. He writes music, he writes stories, he takes photos. His mind is always pondering on his next creative output.
What was your childhood like?
I had everything I could possibly have wanted or needed. However, I took it all way too seriously.
Despite never being schooled in music he has always shown a keen interest in the field. Regrets which are still changeable include not being able to read music or being able to play something 'properly'. As a child he received piano lessons from rising R&B star Katy Shotter's mother, but was never able to really apply himself to the instrument...unlike his fellow student!
The band name; With Stones In His Pockets, came from a line in the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song 'The Curse of Millhaven' which goes, “They found him next week in One Mile Creek, his head bashed in and his pockets full of stones,” which he misquoted for his band name. Previous names 'Post-Mortem' and 'Above the Rule of Law' had been beaten...
They formed about a decade ago and the other two members were still learning to play. Rob felt the weight on his shoulders and was up to the challenge as he was reasonably competent at guitar, writing songs, or at least riffs to turn into songs. He wanted to be the legendary Pete Townshend, so it suited him fine.
The Montreal based Constellation label was a huge influence on Rob with the music of A Silver Mt. Zion, in its various iterations, pinnacle to his style. Back when he was part of his three piece band he tried to make his guitar sound like post-rock outfit Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Although trying to capture their entire orchestral scope with a single guitar proved difficult, he managed to simplify it. He tried playing just the bass note on the E or A string and a melody line on the B or G string, and heaped on distortion, reverb and delay.
“And that started to sound a lot like the kind of chords they use in house and techno music – quite sparse, but always melodic. Being in a very small band, but trying to cultivate a massive sound influenced me a lot - the lack of sonic texture forced me to always try and do something interesting.”
Bands and styles influence Rob on a subconscious level so he can't tell who's influencing him at any one particular time. I suppose everyone could agree with that. He's completely unaware of where his ideas come from; he has no technique that enables to tell what he's doing. Is it necessary, or even possible, to have any control over your inspirations?
A modest Rob believes that he's not a particularly talented guitarist - so what is it that keeps him going so strong? Well, he feels he can write songs better than he can play them so that's got to be his biggest strength. His debut album Falls The Shadow was recorded in as little as three days with little time for retakes, so perhaps Rob is no perfectionist but his love for the music takes over.
“Someone once told me - and I don’t know if this is true - that John Frusciante believes that ghosts feed him his ideas from the ether. You might scoff - like I did when I first heard that - but I can tell you it’s fucking true! Not necessarily ghosts from the ether...but when I’m really on it, where are those ideas coming from? Certainly not from my conscious mind. They feel like they’re coming from somewhere else, which is why I don’t feel like I have any real ownership of some of my songs. 'Speaking in Tongues' from Farewell Happy Fields, or 'Tree Song' from Falls The Shadow. Where have they come from? Not me, I couldn't write songs like that.”
Have there been difficulties to deal with over the years?
With Stones in His Pockets is built on difficulty.
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| Courtesy of Rob Tamplin, Falls The Shadow by With Stones in his Pockets |
Rob was adamant that his trio of musicians could do it themselves with him creating all the texture and music needed with his guitar and pedals. Maybe that could be their 'thing' he wondered – how do they make all that sound with just the three of them? If Muse could do it, why couldn't they? A pretty rough gig coincided with the band going through some troubles, causing the split. With Stones in his Pockets stopped dead for a few years...
Going solo proved almost impossible – he hates playing live solo, really HATES it.
“I’m fine in a band, but when it’s just me and an acoustic guitar, the tension gets to me something chronic. It’s not stage fright. It’s stage hate.
“The difficulties and flaws continue to this day with the fact that the latest album was recorded in just three days by a band who barely knew the songs. But I like the difficulties and the flaws...or at least thrive on them.”
The London music scene has always been key to Rob's entire creative output. Although his sound is not too similar to beloved London acts such as The Clash or the Sex Pistols, he feels that his music is heavily influenced by the Capital.
“There's a sense of being at the mercy of things much bigger than you – indefatigable, unknowable, uncontrollable things. That's the feeling I get from London, and that's inherent in my music, and everything else I do.”
The unfortunate riots of the 2011 summer occurred just before the recording of Falls The Shadow, and despite the songs being years old they all tied into an underlying theme that chimed very much with the time.
Rob feels that when the climax of the album kicks in – the heavy bit of 'Burning Billboard Blues' – it's supposed to convey the kind of “nameless terror you feel when you know the things you're seeing are going to change the futures of everyone around you – and not necessarily for the better.”
“The album is borne of that kind of anxiety, of seeing violence and destruction, and you can’t stop it because you're eating your dinner in front of the telly. All the songs are full of paranoia; they're all snapshots of something huge and broken down.”
He believes his biggest musical achievement is the song 'I Believe You Like I Believed Nixon, and Look Who Was Right There'. He believes he'll never write anything as good or as effective at summing up the whole With Stones thing ever again. Despite his love for the half hour track it didn't make it onto the album – it just didn't fit apparently.
He thinks of the 31-year-old Damon Albarn when Blur went on hiatus. Rob's 28. He's convinced it's too late to have any high ambitions for his music. With the release of Falls The Shadow, he's realised his one musical ambition of the last ten years. He will look to whether he wants to pursue his musical ambitions as he is unsure where he can realistically take them...perhaps the Pyramid Stage is no longer attainable.
Tell me an interesting fact about yourself.
Back in 2007 I lived for two weeks in a hospital in Croydon as part of a medical research trial. I met a lot of nice people and got the best sleep of my life. It’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever done.
His recently finished novel; Belong, is a historical/detective/horror story set shortly after the Second World War. Focusing on the theme of intolerance, it looks at the start of immigration in the UK.
“Even though there are monsters, most of the horror comes from the characters' - and humanity's - territorial nature and usury of each other.”
How would you define music?
If you're making a noise, and you intend for it to be music, then its music. It's all in the intention, not in the result.
You can access Rob Tamplin's work by clicking the links below:
Falls The Shadow is out now on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon MP3!
