Nick Kirby: Welcome, everybody. This is South Leeds Radio and this is South Leeds Goes Live show, and today we’ve got a real treat for you because sitting in the studio with me today is Nick Cody, of Nick Cody and The Caravan of Dreams. We’re going to be having an interview with Nick and also a little bit of music from Nick as well.
Nick Cody: Well, thanks very much for the invite. It’s very nice to be here.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. Because, I saw you quite recently playing at the Grove and I was so impressed.
Nick Cody: Well, thank you so much. The Grove is this almost like time-warp of a venue that’s been there forever. I mean, people have been playing there, it’s like stepping back into the 1970s. So like many of the venues we play in, it’s a tiny little stage and we’re all huddled together, because today you just get me. The Caravan of Dreams, they are all working doing their musical stuff elsewhere.
But that was a fun night, and it was the first time we played since doing the album launch. And any band that plays will tell you that you do the album launch and you have this big sort of, “Oh thank God, that went well,” then you have to really pay attention for the next gig because there’s a high probability you relax too much and it’s a complete train wreck.
But, touch wood, it was a good night, highlighted by my co-singer and brilliant friend, Agi, who at one point leapt into the audience into some wild dance routine, which even I was surprised for. I’ve never seen her do that.
Nick Kirby: Wow. Yeah. And of course, you haven’t always been in Leeds, have you? I believe, didn’t I read somewhere that you were playing down in Guildford at one stage?
Nick Cody: Nope.
Nick Kirby: No?
Nick Cody: Not unless I have seriously lost any recollection. This is a new band. I previously played with a band which I started up called The Small Change Diaries.
Nick Kirby: Right.
Nick Cody: We played mostly in Leeds, except for one surreal invitation we had to play at a festival in Portugal, which I thought initially was some spam email. I thought that this was going to be, “Send me all your money and your bank account details.” So I was a little sort of, not rude, but sort of fairly curt until I realised that it was a genuine invite. So we played overseas at that festival. Over here, we’ve played some local festivals. We played Wetherby Arts Festival with the first band.
But The Caravan of Dreams, this is a brand new band with a brand new album, Tales of Dark and Light, just come out. This is actually the first radio interview, so you have an exclusive. If we become mega famous, you can say, “I knew those guys.”
Nick Kirby: Well, I think you deserve to be mega famous. I’ve been listening to the album, I’ve listened to it several times now and it’s just absolutely superb. The songs are a little dark, on the dark side in places?
Nick Cody: Yeah. There’s, the idea behind the album was, I was playing with my old band and I wanted to do some tracks which didn’t really fit in the old style. And I was having sort of like music lessons with Agi who’s my co-singer in this band. And we were originally going to do, I think we were going to do like three tracks, maybe an EP at best. And we got Agi in the Studio and I heard her sing, and I thought, “Oh my God, it’s like listening to Emmy Lou Harris and Joni Mitchell, all rolled up into one.”
And that inspired me to start writing more tracks. And some of the tracks were very sort of happy, jovial tracks like, The Pink Moon is one of them. And some of them were more than a little bit dark. So I thought, we’ll call it Tales of Dark and Light with a big emphasis on lyrics, because I’m a big fan of great lyricists like Dylan, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, would all fit into that category.
And so, the album’s split between very introspective stuff, a bit like Dylan circa Blood on the Tracks, my favourite album of all time. And then, other stuff which is a lot lighter. So you have light and shade, literally, Tales of Dark and Light.
Nick Kirby: Yeah, and actually, because you’ve mentioned the lyrics. Does your song writing begin with the lyrics, and then move to melody, or?
Nick Cody: It can vary. Sometimes you can, I was doing a gig at The Grove, and I was talking to my double bassist Adrian Knowles, a fantastic player, in the other band. And I had this line that came to mind, where I went, “He’s shooting blanks, she’s shooting cops.” God, bit of a tongue twister. And I thought, I said, “Adrian, give me a pen, I’ve got to write this down. I have no idea what I’m going to do with this, but that sounds like a really great juxtaposition, lyrically.”
So that was the first track that we recorded for this. And I thought, “That is a bit dark,” and the first line in that track is, “I’m your attack dog, she said with a smile.” And I thought, “Whoa.” So, I like things which are going to get people’s attention, get people to think and provoke people getting into a different state, rather than lift music in the background or music for shopping in Tesco’s.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: So, yeah. There’s some fairly dark stuff, and there’s more tracks to be recorded. Which you will have heard, actually. One of the tracks we’re going to record is called Sticks and Stones which is similarly, I think, a line that starts with, “You bring the guns, I’ll bring the knives,” is definitely in the dark category.
Nick Kirby: Yeah, so you-
Nick Cody: But it’s all about human experience, human expression and getting people, in the great story telling tradition, taking people on a journey somewhere.
Nick Kirby: … Yeah, well, you mentioned, He’s Shooting Blanks, and there was a couple of lines in there that I really liked, which was, “She’s got no answers, he’s got no love. In between the gravel road, and the stars above.” And I thought, “That is just so good.”
And that’s something that makes me buy into songs, that sometimes there’s just like, those lines that grab hold of you, and you think, “I want to hear more.”
Nick Cody: Well, it’s all about creating a sensory experience for the audience. So, if you talk about, if you say you know, “the road,” is a description people can make up their own minds. If you say, “the gravel road,” it’s much more sensory explicit. If you say, “the stars above,” then you’ve created more of a visual image for people.
So my idea is taking people on a journey so that you’re, they’ll have their own road, their own gravel, their own stars interpretation. But you’re really sensorarily exploring things. And this is why, in writing lyrics, it’s important to do many drafts. Because sometimes the first draft, you go, “Yeah, it’s all right. But it’s not got it, yet.”
Nick Kirby: Right.
Nick Cody: And sometimes the smallest change can make the biggest difference.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: That’s the difference between your Leonard Cohens, your Bob Dylans, and your average guy, who’s, “It’s all right.” But it’s like Dominoes Pizza, it’s not Michelin star.
Nick Kirby: No, no. You know, I think Leonard Cohen said on his last album, he had a track on there that had been 40 years in the writing because he, I would imagine that he’d got probably 30 great songs in there, that he’s discarded. But, yeah, so, I understand what you’re saying. You just keep going until you feel that you’ve got it absolutely right?
Nick Cody: Well, songwriting is strange. Sometimes you can get, for example The Pink Moon, which was a song written about my good friend Zeke Schein. Zeke Schein wrote a fantastic book called Portrait of a Phantom, which is about one of the long lost Robert Johnson photos. There were only, I think, two photos ever known of Robert Johnson, famous bluesman, in existence. And Zeke found a third one.
Immediately, this massive debate from the Blues Mafia is, “Well, how can it be legitimate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” but the Robert Johnson Foundation verified it, as did many other very esteemed scholars. And I was talking to Zeke, and he was telling me the story about this. And we were having lunch one day in Manhattan, and it just inspired a whole bunch of lyrics. Literally, I just sat down and I was just writing, writing, writing, writing.
And so, the whole song came together really quickly. So sometimes it’s the lyrics, and then you come back and you get the sounds. Or sometimes you may just get a riff, or a sound and think, “Man, that’s great.” And the secret then is, record the thing.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: Immediately. On a phone, or whatever device you can get hold of, because as soon as you don’t record it, you know it will disappear into the ether. And you’ll forever be thinking, “That was the one.”
Nick Kirby: I must admit, I keep an iPad by my bedside, and it probably drives my wife crazy, because like three o’clock in the morning she’s like, “What are you doing now? Oh, you just thought of something, haven’t you?” And it’s like, “Yeah.”
Nick Cody: Any songwriter, I always say, always have a pen and paper to hand or an audio device because inspiration does not come on the clock. I’ve often had things where, wake up early in the morning, you get an idea for something. And sometimes you think, “I must have heard that somewhere, because that sounds too good, just to be an original idea.” So you have to check back, and check to see it’s not something that you’ve just recollected.
But inspiration comes from people, travelling, interactions sometimes you may just overhear somebody say something. With the old band, I wrote a song called Draw You Out, for a protest songs EP, about the Charlie Hebdo thing.
Nick Kirby: Ah, that’s, yeah.
Nick Cody: I was just so outraged that I literally just sat down and every verse started off with, “We’ll draw you out,” you know, “We’ll draw you in our cities, we’ll draw you on our signs,” and the whole theme was around, “We’re not going to have this.” And that was written, literally, in about 30 minutes. And it’s, to my delight, a one chord song.
Nick Kirby: Oh, right. And you’ve got a song on there about Big Tony, is Big Tony a real person?
Nick Cody: Big Tony, well, I thought, there were a few Big Tonys, and I thought, for the purposes of legal matters, I will blur the Tonys all into one character. So, we have Tony Soprano, and then some real life characters which I thought, “So I don’t get sued, we will sort of make it suitably vague enough,” that with that band, people can sort of make of it what they will.
But The Caravan of Dreams stuff, that’s my current love, and of course we’re playing back in, locally. In August, we’re going to be playing.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: And we are playing the 22nd at The Grove Inn and on the 23rd, we’re playing The Chemic Tavern. And then we’re back in November the 22nd at The Chemic Tavern. And the August gigs are going to be recorded, we’re going to video record those. So any listeners here who want to be in a famous video, then come down to the 22nd at The Grove or the 23rd at The Chemic. And who knows, if we become world famous, you’ll be able to say, “I was there.”
Nick Kirby: You might even spot yourself in the video, who knows?
Nick Cody: You never know. You never, everything starts, everything starts somewhere.
Nick Kirby: It absolutely does. Yeah. So, going back to the album, with The Tales of Dark and Light. Do you have a favourite song on there, or is it difficult?
Nick Cody: Ooh, it’s a tough one, I mean, there’s a big variety of songs. There’s The Pink Moon, that we’ve talked about. Which is a lovely, sort of like swing song, with the fantastic Rich Ferdi playing percussion. Phil Doleman, fantastic player down in Darby, playing lap steel. Agi, with great vocals. That sort of swings along.
Then we have Grey Skies, which is a bit like the ghostly channelling of Jim Morrison Doors, circa One, or Strange Days album. Which I really like, which also has Phil Doleman playing banjo on it, brilliantly. And the terrific John Burr, who will be joining us at The Grove gig on the 23rd. Playing harmonica. And if you’ve ever seen, if you’ve never seen a great harmonica player, you should see John play. It’s just fantastic.
So I think, I like those two a lot, I really like He’s Shooting Blanks, because that was the first one that we did. But I also like Say What You’re Thinking, because that was just a simple, very simple, two instruments and vocals. And we have my very dear friend Laurent Zeller, from France who I met at this Portugal festival, years ago. Who is also an extraordinary musician, playing on a number of these different tracks.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: And then in England, we have now Jed Bevington, who just got back from playing at South By Southwest. And his friend, Fergus Quill, who’s playing more gigs than James Brown ever plays. Fergus plays double bass, and Jed plays violin. And then, the wonderfully named David Bowie, Junior-
Nick Kirby: That’s, God.
Nick Cody: … who plays double bass, on most of the album tracks. So I can legitimately say, I have played with David Bowie. I will say no more than that. I will not go into details.
Nick Kirby: Right. And what a great name to be playing with. Off that whole album, I also liked the song, I think I’ve mentioned it before, When The Pain Begins.
Nick Cody: Yes, When The Pain Begins. The learning starts.
Nick Kirby: The learning starts. And that grabbed hold of me, when I saw you playing live. And I just thought-
Nick Cody: Well, an old friend, an old-
Nick Kirby: … “That’s a great song.”
Nick Cody: … Well, an old mentor of mine, in my other world, a fantastic therapist who lived in America for, was based in America and taught all around the world, had this saying which was, “Nick, when the pain begins, the learning starts.” Which is essentially, if things get tough enough, then people change. Then people react. So, I thought, “You know what, that’s a, you know what, that’s a great, great chorus.”
And also, the thing I love about it, is it’s a three chord song. So it’s just literally three chords. And often, less is more with these things.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: You have something that’s really simple, and that works great.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. I was playing Long Black Veil, last night. And it’s basically D, G and C. That is three, that’s-
Nick Cody: That’s, I find, that’s all you need.
Nick Kirby: … and it’s such an effective tone, too.
Nick Cody: I was in a guitar store in, now, no longer there. Although Zeke used to work there, my friend Zeke Schein, called Matt Umanov in Bleecker Street in Manhattan. And I always used to joke, “Everything you ever need is in Bleecker Street. You have an ice cream parlour, you have this fantastic cheese shop that’s there, and you also have Matt Umanov Guitars.”
And I was in there, and I met Steve Earle, who would regularly go in there.
Nick Kirby: Oh, yeah.
Nick Cody: And got into conversation with him, and he was saying, “Basically, my songs are only about like, four or five chords. If I need to change the key, I just stick a capo on and just move it up, move it up two or three frets.” And that’s another big inspiration, Steve Earle.
Nick Kirby: Yeah, I like Steve Earle. I really do. And you mentioned instruments. I believe that you’re quite taken with the different, and particularly with the ukulele.
Nick Cody: Well, I first, when I first met Zeke in Matt Umanov, I looked on the wall and I saw this ukulele by this, Collings. A company I know very well called Collings. Collings Guitars. Made great acoustics.
And then started to make electric guitars, and everybody said, to Bill Collings, who was the owner, “No. Don’t make electric guitars, because everybody that does that ruins their reputation, because they’re good for one thing and not for another.” Anyway, Bill of course made brilliant electric guitars, which now, everybody knows.
But in never knew he they made ukuleles. So I look on the wall, and I’m thinking, “That’s a Collings ukulele,” and I said to Zeke, “Can I have a look at it?” And he went, “Yeah, yeah.” And I said, “I don’t know anything about ukuleles, so what?”
He said, “Oh, Nick, ukes are cool. You should get a uke.” And I picked it up and I thought, “Yeah, I kind of like it. It’s not massively expensive,” it was pre-production, from the NAMM show. So I bought it, and I had it for about a year. And then started to play around with it and thought, “You know what, firstly, it’s small. So it’s not like carting a guitar around, it’s very portable. I quite like this.”
And that sparked the writing of pretty much every single track, all of which now we have recorded with the Caravan tracks, 40 original tracks. All inspired from playing the ukulele.
Nick Kirby: And do you think those songs wouldn’t have been written the same, had you just stuck to a guitar?
Nick Cody: No, I don’t think it would have at all. There’s something about less is more. There’s an old story about Paul McCartney when he was with The Beatles, and they were recording on four tracks. And he heard that EMI had, allegedly, an eight track. And he was going, “Oh, would we be able to,” and they go, “No, that’s for serious musicians, like classical players. Not for the likes of you.”
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: So a lot of, sometimes, less is more. The less choices you have, the more you have to make of what you have, with what you have. And with ukuleles, and my favourites, Collings are very, very good. There’s a builder in North Wales called Pete Howlett that’s very good, as well. And a builder in Vienna called Gregor Nowak, who has built a few instruments. But my all time favourite is a Shimo from Tokyo. I brought one of his instruments-
Nick Kirby: That’s good.
Nick Cody: … which, I was completely seduced by, when I first saw it.
Nick Kirby: Well, I heard you play a few seconds before we came on the air, and I thought, “I didn’t know it could sound so good.” It is just absolutely amazing. Would you like to-
Nick Cody: Well, I’ll pull it up.
Nick Kirby: … play something, please.
Nick Cody: The first time I saw this uke I was playing in, I was in a place called Heartman Guitars in Tokyo. And I was, and this is like just the, they’ve got everything. They’ve got the top end acoustic guitars, but a huge amount of ukes, and I played a whole bunch of different ukes. And I looked up and I saw this, and I thought, “What the hell is that? That looks very different. So, can I just have a play of that?” And the owner said, “Yes sir.”
And I picked it up, played about three chords, and I thought, “Oh, God.” And my wife went, “What? You don’t like it?” I go, “No, I love it. I must have it.” It’s a bit like, sort of, Lord of the Rings. “It will be mine.”
And then proceeded to hand over my entire fee for Japan and the work that I was doing. And then the balance on Visa card. I now own seven Shimos
So not exactly your sort of standard, “I bought it on Amazon,” 30 quid ukulele.
Nick Cody: And I told my good friend Andy who’s my guitar tech in the UK, what it was made of and he said, “Nick, that’s a Visa melting combination of woods.” I said, “Yeah, you’re right.”
Nick Kirby: … Yeah. Well, ukes very often sound very underpowered and quiet, and I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to think about playing a uke, with the songs. Because it’s like, I’m not going to go anywhere with it. But that just is a completely different category.
Nick Cody: Well, it’s all about, it’s like every instrument. I say to people, “Okay look, do you want a ukulele shaped object, or do you want a ukulele?” They’re all different. This one has got a low G, so that you’ve got this-
… so you can get that whole slap.
That you wouldn’t get with a high G sound.
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: But also, it’s got a lot of range,
… so big, big variety. And then, you can really dig into it. This has been used on probably 30 tracks, most of the tracks on Tales of Dark and Light, we used this actual instrument. So, it’s cheap. It didn’t, if I figure out how much I’ve used it, to what I’ve recorded, it’s an inexpensive instrument.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. Well, I sometimes say about guitars and stuff that if I got a club membership of any football team, and if you were to pay that membership every single year, you would soon get through a few thousand pounds. So, the hours of pleasure that I get from a guitar, I think, “Well actually, working it back that way, isn’t expensive.”
Nick Cody: Yeah. A good friend of mine and I, years and years ago, my wife, my dear wife Sue bought me a place on a Martin Simpson guitar workshop, in Sheffield. Which he runs, it’s only once a year.
And I just heard Martin play, and I thought, first time I heard him play I said, “Martin, I feel equally impressed and inspired and depressed, in equal proportions. Inspired, because I could just see how amazing you are. Depressed, because I’m so far off that.” And he said, “Well, the thing you have to remember, Nick, is I’ve been playing for decades. So if you play every day, you get better.”
And then afterwards, I said, “I’m looking for someone who could really teach me one to one. Do you know anyone?” And he went, “Well, I can do that.” And I went, “Oh! Oh, my God.” So I’m on my way to have a Google lesson with Martin Simpson, and I’m equally inspired and concerned. And over the years, he’s been a big inspiration, he’s become a good friend. Just about to release, he’s about to release a new album that is amazing.
And he taught me to really develop the love of music, and a big variety of different instruments. They make you think differently, they play differently. And also, it’s a great excuse to buy more and more stuff, of course.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. Yeah. And, maybe they’re an investment, as well.
Nick Cody: But, yeah.
Nick Kirby: Because I know that you have written on this subject, as well.
Nick Cody: They seriously are. I mean, if you take your average money and you stick it in a bank account these days, with the inflation and what you get in terms of interest rates, mostly, you’re in a holding pattern or going to lose money. If you buy the right instruments at the right price, and they have to be the right ones, then they will accumulate and appreciate in value.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. And, you mentioned practicing , how long do you spend practicing away?
Nick Cody: When, when my good friend and tutor Agi has, we do an hour’s vocal workout every single week. And then every day I set aside time in my home studio to practise things. I’m also learning the mandolin, which let me tell you, is the most torturous instrument ever. Because the neck’s so thin-
Nick Kirby: Yes, it is.
Nick Cody: … so for the first four or five months, I kept thinking, “Why don’t they make these necks wider?” And Evan Davis, who’s a great player as well, and he’ll be supporting us at The Grove gig, said, “Nick, that’s how they make them.”
So eventually, your fingers get used to it, and you start to get some semblance of something that is bordering on musical.
Nick Kirby: Because I like to make excuses for myself. So when it’s guitar, I go like, “Well, I can’t really reach that, because I’ve got small hands.” When I get the mandolin, I go, “Well of course, my fingers are a bit chunky.” So I can’t have it both ways, I guess. Would you like to play something for us?
Nick Cody: Sure, I’ll play you something on, I’m going to play you something sort of like, really sweet, simple song. This is an old one, and this is an example of a song which was three chords, just a sweet three cord song. And this is called, There’s Only One Of You.
Nick Kirby: Oh, brilliant. And that really does quite resonate with me, because I’ve written a few songs on that same subject, but I’ve not hit the nail quite as much on the head as you have. So that’s also a good inspiration to me, to say, “Well actually, how could I do that differently?” But, obviously that’s a-
Nick Cody: Well that’s an old song, that’s on an album called Adam Blames Eve, which is also, I love that old Small Change Diaries song, which goes, “Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the snake. God only knows what folks make, of heavenly disasters here on earth.”
We play that once at literature festival, to a very small group of people, elderly people. And as soon as I announced, “We are now going to play a song of biblical proportions,” half the audience left.
Nick Kirby: A bit like Bob Dylan’s Saved album, was it?
Nick Cody: I was half expecting people to start shouting, “Judas!” Well, you learn from your experiences. But that was written, that was a sweet little three chord song, written pretty much in an hour. And it’s one of those ones that just appeared and then bang, that’s it, done.
Nick Kirby: Yeah, and it’s something that is, it’s so universal, which I think is one of the things about writing songs, isn’t it? It being, having universal appeal. That’s-
So really, sometimes, less is more. With The Pink Moon, it’s again, simple structure
… So we’re talking simple chords, but there’s always like a really nice melody in there, which I like.
Nick Kirby: Yeah. Yeah. One of my heroes was the late Tony Joe White, I don’t know if you know of Tony Joe White.
Nick Cody: Yes.
Nick Kirby: And I saw Tony Joe White rehearsing. And I can’t remember who he was with, but he kept saying, “How can we make it simpler? What can we take away?” And that was a big message that Tony Joe White had, and I just love Tony Joe White. But yeah, it does seem to be like, less is more.
Nick Cody: The great artists, Blood on the Tracks, by Dylan, no songs were really more than three or four chords. A lot of Steve Earle are really simple. I recently heard a track by Guy Clark which I want to record called, “That Old Time Feeling,” that is also really small. When The Pain Begins is literally just- C, G, F, G. That’s all it is.
Nick Kirby: But it’s, it sounds so great, as well. It’s obviously the strings that you’re picking out there, to bring out that melody. Would you like to play, When The Pain Begins?
Nick Cody: Well, I’ll play, I’ll play a little bit, I’ll play a little bit, I’ll play a little bit of it.
Nick Kirby: Play a little bit. Yeah.
Nick Cody: Unless this is-
Nick Kirby: Because I love that song.
Nick Cody: … do we, are we, are we, I might want to do the X rated version, or should I do the normal?
Nick Kirby: Whichever you like. We’re after the nine o’clock news.
Nick Cody: All right, we’re after nine, because when I wrote it, I thought. Okay, I’ll just play, I’ll just play the chorus. But I thought, “It, you know what, we don’t want to be swearing like some crazy rapper, from like, New York. But it needs a little bit of an edge to it.” So we’ll just play a little bit of this.
So you get the idea?
Nick Kirby: Yeah, that’s right.
Nick Cody: It needs that expletive, because if you go, time to heal these unhappy hearts, these sad hearts, it doesn’t quite work.
Nick Kirby: No, it doesn’t, no.
Nick Cody: And in this day and age, trust me, if you turn on the news and you’re just saying, “Oh my God,” I mean, some sort of like, Franz Kafka movie. It’s highly appropriate, I think.
Nick Kirby: I think whatever you do, you’ve got to make it real, haven’t you?
Nick Cody: I think so, and also I think, I’m a big fan of artists who have their own expression. My favourite artist would be Dylan. Neil Young, who wonderfully brought out a whole bunch of albums, the record company loved. He brought out Harvest and After the Gold Rush. And they thought, “This is fantastic.”
Then he brings out Time Fades Away and they go, “What is this? There’s no hit singles on this, this is sort of like driving, grungy,” fantastic. And then the other two albums were, they were called the Ditch series. Time Fades Away, On the Beach and Tonight’s the Night. All around ’74, ’73. Brilliant albums that have stood the test of time. But not for the general, happy, clappy listening public.
Nick Kirby: No, no. But as you say, sometimes, you need something with that bit of edge, and for me, I’m not, I have recently got into some of the more funky stuff. But, for me, I do like the type of music that you produce. And something that, a song that has something to say, which I feel that your songs actually do that.
Nick Cody: Well I like that, it’s, the greatest artists will often inspire and frustrate. Like Springsteen at his absolutely best, which would be Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska would be the same, the compilation tracks.
And then he’ll bring out something and I’m going, “What? What is this?” But, he’s doing his own thing. Same thing with other artists, Frank Zappa used to confound and bemuse people with some of his stuff. Tom Waits would be another example.
On jazz, Miles Davis. He would bring out albums like On the Corner. And people would go, “I don’t know, is it even music? This is not A Kind of Blue.”
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: So, everybody from Bob Dylan to Bill Frisell, they’re all people developing, and have their own voice. And a lot of the time, they’re ahead of the curve, in terms of what the public are expecting. And a lot of the time, they stick by their guns and go, “This is what we’re going to do. We could very easily do exactly what people want, or replicate what we’ve done before, but we want something which expresses how we feel in this place and time.” And I’m a big fan of that.
Nick Kirby: And, the songs on the latest album, did you have a problem selecting the songs for, did you have additional songs written?
Nick Cody: We’ve got some songs that we have yet to record. We’ve got a song, you would have heard at The Grove, called Hold That Thought, which is me playing electric guitar, which is kind interesting after years of ukes. So that’s going to be recorded. There’s another track, which is an acoustic track, called All Kinds of Crazy, which kind of reminds me a little bit of John Martin, which is definitely going to be recorded. That’s not been recorded, yet.
And then we have my Donald Trump type tribute, not in a positive way I might add, called What You Going To Do, which I said to my great percussionist, Rich Ferdi, “I don’t know Rich, it’s just a two chord song.” And Agi and Fergus and Jed all are playing it, which is like some hillbilly rant. So we’ll record that as well, because the audience liked that, as a song. So there’s at least those-
Nick Kirby: So does this going to be a second album?
Nick Cody: We’re already going to be on to doing the second album. But we’ll take our time.
And then as a side project, I’m going to working with Agi and some other musicians, with some really stripped back songs recorded old style, like Sun Studios, with one microphone. And when we play, there will be like one mic, which trust me makes, in some ways simpler is better. But we have to get that right.
And my producer Carl Rosamond, who is just brilliant, will be working on that in forthcoming weeks to start rolling out some tracks. Which will be like, a little side project.
Nick Kirby: Right, so they will have a very different feel to the album.
Nick Cody: It will be, well, it will, yeah, maybe a little bit different. But we may well put some of those into the Caravan set, where we just sort of strip back to one or two songs. We’ve started to do that, anyway. It’s, at the end of the day, it’s all about entertainment, engagement, are you taking people on a journey somewhere so that it’s an experience?
Nick Kirby: Yeah.
Nick Cody: I’m a big fan in getting people to listen to things that are interesting. I saw a very world famous jazz pop artist once, in Manchester. And it was all right. But I was just, it’s so predictable, I just thought, “I just wanted to do anything, a cappella, break out into rock, tell a story, anything.” It was just like the album, just repeated.
The best singer songwriters, whether they’re the people I’ve mentioned or your Carole Kings, or people like that, they know how to write and engage people. And they’re always pushing the boundaries, lyrically and musically, in what they’re doing. And sometimes the public are behind the curve, and they go, “Ooh, I’m not sure about that.” But over a test of time, it’s about building a body of work which just provokes, stimulates, and as I say, music for the head and music for the heart.
Nick Kirby: And am I right in saying that you’ve done something with a movie, before? It was a short movie?
Nick Cody: Well, I have, my new video guy, Nick [Bloomfield 00:40:57], there’s a shout out to Nick Bloomfield. I just got into contact with him, and he’s done a short clip for the track The Other Me. But in days gone by, I did some work, I did some ambient work and this guy sort of said, “Is it all right if I do it for my movie short?” And I went, “Yeah, yeah, fine.” And never thought anything of it.
And then he sent me an email saying, “It’s showing on Channel Four tonight, in the advert break.” I went, “What?” And this is a track, if you look on Vimeo for a track called My Amersham and the music on there is in my old, very, very old identity. That’s going back like 19 years.
Nick Kirby: Wow.
Nick Cody: Which is quite different. It’s nothing like the stuff I’m doing now. But it’s nice, you know, it works really well.
Nick Kirby: Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Any other songs that you’d like to play for us today?
Nick Cody: I’ll play you a little bit of, I’ll play you a little bit of Pink Moon.
Nick Kirby: Right.
Nick Cody: But I don’t have my fantastic co-singer Agi here, so apologies for everyone, this is not as good as the album, but we’ll play a little bit of it.
That’s an edited version. That’s Pink Moon, and that’s on Tales of Dark and Light, by Nick Cody and The Caravan of Dreams. You’ll find us on Facebook, on nickcody.co.uk, on Sound Cloud, on Spotify, and many other places.
Nick Kirby: And if you want to see Nick live, remember it’s August the 22nd at The Grove Inn, it’s also August 23rd at The Chemic Tavern. And then, again in November, November the 22nd, back at The Chemic Tavern, if you haven’t seen him anywhere else. Those gigs are on for certain, aren’t they?
Nick Cody: Those gigs are for certain, and if anybody’s looking to book us, then just contact me from nickcody … N-I-C-K, C-O-D-Y… .co.UK. We’re always interested in playing live to listening, appreciative audiences.
Nick Kirby: Oh, thank you very much, Nick. And it’s been a real pleasure to have you here today. Obviously we want to play a few more songs from the album, so that has been, it’s been great to have you here. And, listen to this marvelous instrument, too.
Nick Cody: Well, it’s terrific. I mean, if we, we’ll have to come back and we’ll bring some of the other guys with us as well-
Nick Kirby: Oh well you-
Nick Cody: … You’ve just got me. The Caravan of Dreams are still yet to appear. And these are like, fantastic musicians.
Nick Kirby: Oh, that would be great, if we can do that, yeah. Excellent, yeah. Be in touch to arrange that.
Nick Cody: Thank you so much.
Nick Kirby: Thank you, Nick.
