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Darren Hayman: ‘Essex Arms’, Band Reformations & The State Of Music

We have a date with ex-Hefner frontman, Darren.

Posted 18th August 2010, 9:10am in Interviews, by Simone Scott Warren
Darren Hayman We are very very excited. Tonight, we have a date, and not just any date, a dinner date with ex-Hefner frontman, Darren Hayman. The man whose band dominated John Peel's Festive Fifty at the turn of the millenium has invited us into his east London abode, and is merrily cooking a very lovely vegetable soup with homemade croutons (not just stale bread, we're reliably informed). So this seems like as good an opportunity as any to quiz him about his forthcoming release, 'Essex Arms', band reformations and the state of the music industry in general. If the world isn't a better place at the end of this, then at least we'll be very well fed indeed.

So, your new album Essex Arms is about to come out, care to describe it a bit for us?
I realised that I'd written a lot about the city, and in the last couple of albums I've written about the suburbs, so I wanted to write about the countryside, but I didn't want to write about thatched roofs and real ale pubs. I wanted to write about a dirty, lawless countryside. It's about beauty in unlikely places, I find it interesting when you see a traffic cone or an abandoned car, bits of the city that creep into the countryside.

I wanted to write about rogues and scalliwags, but I wanted it to be a love story. I wanted to write about these things with affection, so I had ideas for songs about a dog fight and illicit sex, but I still wanted it to be quite traditional and operatic. I think the problem that I'm anticipating is that reviewers might think it's an album about “Chav Britain”.

Are you worried your intentions on this record being misunderstood?
Look, I'm about to cook a vegetarian soup for you, I've got a wine rack, I've got a digital radio that's tuned to Radio 4, I don't go out dogging in my Ford Escort that often any more, so yeah, you are making a reach and you're writing about things you've observed, and things you used to be, perhaps. And I think there are just certain subject matters that make you wary, it makes me wary when I see middle class people write about these things.

I do think that this is the most immediate of your solo records. Was that intentional?
'Pram Town' [Darren's previous album] was supposed to be, in terms of reaction, “I'm going to make an album that people like”. You might think you do that every time, but I'm scared of beauty, I'm scared of prettiness, and I sometimes often put a synth on to upset the listener, like prettiness might be too polite. I think I've come to realise that 'Pram Town' probably is better than the other solo albums, and I have got an opinion about the Hefner albums, I don't really like the first or the fourth one, but I don't know what I think of 'Essex Arms' yet.

Are you going out on the road again to promote this album?
I'm doing a couple of shows in an Observatory in Manchester, and I'm doing a gig on the Isle of Eigg in the Outer Hebrides for the Fence Collective, it sold out before they announced who's playing. British Sea Power are playing, I don't know what they're like. I get a little bit worried by how I try not to know what's going on now. And I try to do it quite deliberately.

But are you aware of current chart topping folk rockers Mumford & Sons?
Yeah, they couldn't fly under or over my radar, because ostensibly they have all of the same signposts that we do, there's a banjo and they're doing kind of what we do, but in as different a way as possible. We've noticed that someone's successful with British folk music, and you do become jealous of them.

They tread so heavily on all the things I try and tread lightly on, I'm so conscious of accent and trying not to be overly mannered. I like a waistcoat and I like a scarf, and a flat cap. But for everything that I am, I have to take something away, so if I've got a banjo in the band, there's no way I can wear a waistcoat, only a moron would do that. So you see this band with neckerchiefs and facial hair, false American accents and banjos, and you think, I suppose if I'd not been such an idiot and I'd done all these things, I'd be more successful.

I had a carpet fitter around, who worked out I was a musician, and was asking what I do, and I stupidly said, “I dunno, like folk, like rock”, and he just said, “oh, like Mumford and Sons?”. And I thought well actually, yes. It's probably the folkiest thing he's ever bought, and he probably really liked it and actually it gives him a better idea of what I do than if I'd said no, not at all. I think he was learning guitar as well, and he was trying to broker some kind of carpet fitting/guitar tutoring deal, but really, how often do you need a carpet fitter? I'm probably not going to need carpet for another year, I've just had that room done.

You've reissued three of the Hefner albums, are you re-issuing the French album?
I do plan to, I think it might be the most interesting one, because the second CD isn't just different versions, it's about twenty songs that we didn't release, but it is just hard to find the motivation for the reissues. The most amount of promotion I did was with the Darren and Jack shows for 'The Fidelity Wars', but I couldn't really think of anything else to do, other than more shows with Jack, and I didn't really want to do that.

Was there a part of you that was a bit pissed off at how quickly those shows sold out?
A little bit, I suppose. I tried my best to enter the spirit of it, I really did enjoy the 100 Club show. I really enjoyed the Spanish shows, we did some massive shows in Spain, but I was more annoyed not so much about how quickly they [the audience] came back, but how quickly they went away again. I still get stopped in the street by people asking if I'm that bloke out of Hefner, but I don't get stopped in the street by people asking if I'm Darren Hayman, so I think that's perfectly legitimate to be really into Hefner and to not know who I am. Not everyone reads the back of a record.

I do regret doing those shows with Jack, but they did serve a purpose for me, being completely selfish about it, it allowed me to see how much money I could make if I reformed Hefner, and be quite sure that I didn't want to do it.

I think that bands spoil the story. I used to read lots of rock biographies, I'd read a biography of Jim Morrison, I think he's rubbish, but I like the story. How did it form, how did it fall apart? I particularly like how it fell apart. The Pixies story is rubbish now, you get to the end and they fall apart, and then there's this fantastic underdog story with Kim Deal and the Breeders and everyone thinks, actually, the Breeders are a bit better than the Pixies, and they are. Then they got back together twenty years later and just ruined the story.

Have you never been tempted to write a book?
A little bit, I'm kind of getting worn down by people asking me. And I find, as I get older, I'm having trouble doing this job now. The way to make money is to play live more, I'm starting to really not like playing live, so it's starting to become a bit of a conundrum.

I'm happier when I'm not playing shows. I think I'd have a lot more fun if I could just put songs out. I'm quite agoraphobic, that makes shows hard to do, and that's not to do with getting beaten up. Last year I had an idea that maybe I suffer from stage fright. When we were having a period of recovery, after what happened in Nottingham [Darren was badly mugged after a gig and left with a fractured skull], my drummer said that my problem is that I deflect all the time, and I wonder if I'm suffering from stage fright and disguising it as fear of travel, fear of the show, and I pretend that I'm absolutely fine to be on stage but I'm not.

So it's occurred to me to start writing a little bit. I tend to over edit though, so my prose style tends to be very clipped and short sentences, which is good for songwriting because it means I'm good at distilling things into the shortest amount of time, but it's a bit irritating as prose. It sounds like someone's talking like William Shatner. But I have got some short story ideas and I do have an idea for a longer story, that I haven't done anything about, but I did have the idea a year and a half ago and I haven't forgotten it. So maybe...

After a few reassuring words that Darren has not just used me to announce his retirement, we tuck into dinner before checking out the Ship's Piano, bought on eBay, that will form the basis for Darren's next album. Later, I am afforded a sneak peak at the video for next single, 'Calling Out Your Name Again', which features Emmy The Great. I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you this much; it's a bit special. Like those croutons.
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