Belfast-born Liverpool-based songwriter Thom Southern has released his third single ‘Soul Singer’.It’s a fantastic burst of fuzz-pop that continues the frenetic sound we have come to love from Southern. I caught up with the singer-songwriter to talk about the new single, working with Sonic Boom and how he is carving his own recognisable sound as well as the advantages of beginning a solo career in the middle of a pandemic.
“Yeah, it’s always good to finally get the song out there because as a musician, you kind of just want to play it as soon as you write it and record it, you want to put it out the next day but there’s always a bit of a process to releasing music. I finished writing that song, probably a year ago and then I just sort of last-minute ended up asking Sonic Boom to work on it with me and he mixed it and added his instruments. Then we decided to put it out quite quickly, which was cool. Normally there’s more of a strategy to releasing music, especially if you’ve got a record label but with this track, I released it completely DIY. It was just fun to do it completely on my own and use friends to make videos and things. So that’s cool.”
‘Soul Singer’ was produced in collaboration with Peter Kember a.k.a Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3. A collaboration made in heaven as Spacemen 3 were notoriously known for their minimalistic psychedelic sound and Southern’s previous releases have shown flairs of psychedelia while maintaining a shoegaze and indie bite. Southern chuckles as he tells me how a random social media interaction brought about this beautiful collaboration.
“ It’s funny, I’m a big fan of Spaceman 3, for years I’ve been listening to them. And it’s [Soul Singer] actually really inspired by tracks that were probably more prominent with Pete [Peter Kember] because obviously Jason Pierce and Pete, their styles are very different inside Spaceman 3. You can kind of hear the difference, especially on the Recurring album. I’m pretty sure they’d split up by that point, and they did that album completely separately, and I think tracks like ‘I Love You’ and there’s a track called ‘Big City’. I think that was mainly Pete doing them. Those two tracks actually really inspired the production sound of Soul Singer so it was weird. I didn’t even know Pete then and I was just producing myself with Spaceman 3 in mind. Also, I love going to Spain, and everywhere you go in Spain, you kind of hear that…, I don’t know whether it’s Samba or whatever, you know, that kind of beat pulsing through every song, everywhere. Its like, boom, kicka boom ka. I’ve always really wanted to make a tune like that in an ironic way. So I just sort of blended that kind of Spanish influence and Spacemen 3 with like, another track I like, ‘Movin’ on Up’ by Primal Scream and I just really wanted to make a really feel-good song. I just felt like it was the right time to release it because, everyone’s a bit down at the moment, and it’s coming up to the summer, but yeah, it was funny, I just started following Sonic Boom on Instagram and he had released a new Christmas tune or something and I put it up on my story and then he shared my story post, and then I shared his share of my story post, and then he shared my share of my share, you know, and we kept doing that for like 10 minutes out of nowhere and we created this, In a way, it’s kind of poetic, but we created this kind of interstellar story sharing thing, and it’s like a parallel universe. It kind of looked like that with loads of shares. So we were just laughing and joking with each other all day and then I just said, you know what, I’ve actually got this song that I think would be perfect working together do you want to do it? and he was up for it, so it’s quite weird but yeah we’re kind of friends now on email and I keep in touch and stuff so yeah it’s funny how life works out like that.”
Like all true production maestro’s, Southern crafts his songs meticulously adding lush melodies and layers through each melodic whirl or sharp guitar wail. Within ‘Soul Singer’ there is a wonderfully sweet key melody that becomes the hook that lures your ears into the song while a catchy guitar and vocal melody intertwine to create a lush and exhilarating soundscape.
“I think, the way I connect the instrument and the vocals together, like the way I write songs, they sort of are always intertwined with one another. So a lot of the time I write a guitar chord that gets me going. I’m like oh this is class. I love writing a very simple hook inside the guitar. In a lot of my songs you’ll find, that I write the melodies of my lyrics, based on what the guitar’s doing or vice versa. So with Soul Singer, I’m pretty sure it was the acoustic guitar riff . I just sort of heightened it with a very clear melody and then I wrote the lyric, “you’re taking my problems away”, that’s the same melody over the top of that. I quite like when songwriting is completely simplified down to almost like a nursery rhyme hook, you know, just something super simple. So, yeah, that’s kind of how that came about.”
“Some of the verse melody ideas and lyrics I actually wrote when I was like 19 or something. It was at the very beginning of my old band, Southern. It used to be a song called Violet View or something, then I changed it to Soul Singer and sort of made it about a different story, but yeah it’s kind of three songs sort of put together and developed over time. I think it’s been hanging around for a good few years and I was never really happy with it. I wanted to define a vision for the production if you know what I mean. I think whenever I heard that Spanish drumbeat when I was going on holiday, a lot of that just sort of clicked.”
It’s interesting to see the versatility within each of Southern’s releases. He is creating his own instantly recognisable sound. ‘Soul Singer’ blends the swelling blitz of fuzzy shoegaze from ‘Shivers’ and the sweet heartfelt nostalgia of ‘Perfect Someone’ while adding more textures and sounds. I wondered is this Southern weening us into his sound or just showing what he can do
“That’s a good question. I think. Yeah, because of lockdown, I was watching an interesting interview with Mac DeMarco the other day actually and he was being interviewed about his process since covid came and everything, and it was funny what Mac DeMarco said. He said, there’s no point in me releasing anything at the moment because I can’t show and tell. That made me laugh. It’s so true, like normally I would write music that would incorporate how I’d like to present it on stage, so like, if I had a tour coming up or whatever I’d always make sure that the songs, sort of sounded similar so that when we go on tour, I can capture people in that moment and that style and get lost in it with them. Whereas I think because of all the lockdowns, it has sort of thrown the rulebook out of the window and it’s allowed a lot of artists to experiment more and I think it’s funny, I launched my solo career in the midst of it all so yeah, I think you can kind of get away with more. But, long story short, I think, It’s a bit of both. I’m just experimenting and I don’t think I can ever really have a specific style, because I really love a lot of genres, but the basis of my songwriting is always pretty similar, you know. I like writing catchy pop songs. But then, experimenting with the production sound. So maybe it’s more like the production sound, is what is more experimental. I think I’m just developing it at the moment. Eventually, when I’m ready to go on tour, I want to make a more full body of work where it’s like six tracks all interlinked and the whole story and the songwriting is all based around that EP whereas at the moment I’m kind of just releasing singles. So yeah, I’m just enjoying this.”
This experimentation has created a diverse listening experience for fans as they can hear the produced spectacle of the track as well as a more raw version when Southern performs the songs live. Recently Southern showcased how the tracks will translate live through a performance on This Feeling, providing yet another side to his sound that I’m sure fans were eager to see.
“I think, with Soul Singer, it was more of an artistic collaboration with Sonic Boom. It’s kind of not a representation of me on my own, just doing it completely on my own. So that was just a fun collaboration and something that I wanted to do because I admire Sonic Boom and I just thought, you know, it’d be cool to mix our styles together. But if I was to play Soul Singer on an acoustic guitar, it would sound more like what I did for This Feeling. And obviously, you know, ‘Perfect Someone’, it’s hard to replicate a sound like that with just three people on stage, unless you’re playing the backing tracks and I’m not a big fan of backing tracks. I prefer to hear the band totally raw. So, yeah, I think, what I did with This Feeling is probably more close to what I will sound like on tour, in general. Especially if I’m only playing with three people, you know guitar, bass and drums. I mean it’s hard to replicate all those sounds that I put into the production of Soul Singer. So, yeah that’s a good point, I think what I would really like to do is to make a more raw EP, eventually, I think at the moment just because of lockdown and everything I think it’s more fun to just do whatever I want, production-wise, and then when I’m ready to go on the road I definitely would love to make a more live-sounding EP, or album that I could easily replicate on tour. But for the meantime, I think it’s more fun for artists to just do whatever they want because there is no rule book at the minute.”
Versatility is an important trait to have as an artist and Southern doesn’t shy away from pushing himself to create tunes that erupt with life and energy. He also showcases his versatility through a few covers, most recently Billie Eilish’s ‘everything i wanted’.
“Actually it was like a year ago that I did the majority of that recording. I just kept hearing Billie Eilish’s name everywhere and I was like, you know what, I’m just gonna go and listen, and then the first thing I listened to was ‘everything i wanted’.Obviously, I think I’d heard some other stuff and it’s brilliant, but it’s not my cup of tea, you know like, ‘bad guy’ and stuff. But then I heard ‘everything i wanted’ and I was like, whoa, For fun I just started stripping it back onto an acoustic guitar and singing along with the lyrics and you just realize how good at writing her and her brother are. I think it’s as good as any master songwriter out there and it just suited my voice while I was singing. I thought I’d do my own take on it and I showed it to a couple of my friends and they were like you should definitely put this out, but I was sitting on that track for a while, and I just decided to put it out at the end of the year. And, yeah, it’s pretty cool and she won a Grammy for it the other day. It seems to be my most popular tune on Spotify which is cool”
Thom Southern is a talented singer-songwriter. He combines a natural knack for heartfelt melodies with an intense and ever-growing soundscape of alternative pop, shoegaze and psychedelia to create a sound that is truly mesmerising and lush. Each release brings something new and exciting. Looking forward to hearing what Thom Southern releases next.
Stream ‘Soul Singer’ below
Author : Danu
