Part 1

Name: Morganway
Members: Callum Morgan (vocals/guitar), Kieran Morgan (lead guitar),  SJ Mortimer (vocals), Nicole Terry (fiddle), Matt Brocklehurst (keys), Ed Bullinger (drums)
Interviewees: Callum Morgan, SJ Mortimer
Nationality: British
Current release: Morganway's Back To Zero is out now.

If you enjoyed this Morganway interview and would like to know more about the band and their music, visit their official website. The group is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.  
 


Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Callum Morgan: That’s a deep question! I’ve always been into creating songs and stories from a young age and I think impulse is a perfect word for it because it happens in such a way that it’s sudden, without really any thought or analysis. And the faster it usually strikes and the less you tend to think, the better the outcome.

Some of my favourite songs on this record that I wrote came out very quickly, with “The Man” the bulk of it in ten minutes tops, and with “World Stopped Running” it was the first riff I started playing on a synth I was using - not a common instrument for me!

In terms of inspiration, and for example, what a song might be about, I think that sometimes hits you after the act. In other words, I’ll be writing a song and I’ll realise ah, so this was inspired by THAT. Dreams rarely seem to get me there. I’ve had some about songs or in particular film ideas, and then I try and record them as a voice memo as soon as I wake up in a delirious state and when I hear them back the next day they’re nearly always nonsense!

Personal events definitely draw the closest link to inspiration, although that’s rarely a straight line in itself. Alyssa Bonagura, who joined us on our most recent tour, said an interesting thing to me, she said, if you’re going through a dry patch of writing, that’s a sign you need to go out and do some more living. I feel most can relate to that!

Finally, and to me this is most key to any form of creating and I think it links back to the impulse thing, and it’s something Leonard Cohen said, and I quote him pretty much directly here … it’s a place you go and I wish I knew how to get there as I’d visit more often. Yep, one of the most prolific songwriters of our time said that! 
 
For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

SJ: I think every song is very different. Sometimes I have a line and know that I want to write something around it, but then it may change into a completely different theme that I originally thought it might be.

Melody is most important for me when it comes to writing and it’s usually what I start with and lyrics come later, and sometimes in the studio when we’re tracking! With "Come Over" for instance I had the riff and then came up with the ”ooh” chorus melody on a dog walk and Kieran said “I like that!”



It was during the lockdown and we were bored of not being able to go out and that was one of the first tracks we wrote for this album. It definitely kicked me into the creative writing brain haha. I thought I had a solid visualisation of what the song would be when we would play it with the band, but I love how it took its true form when we all finally played it in a room together.

So, I love the chance aspect of it, I think to much concrete thinking and planning can get in the way of a collaborative project, and I love writing with others and vibing off other band members ideas on songs. It’s something we’ve worked hard on and I think we loved doing on this album.
 
Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

SJ: I usually grab my phone and record a voice memo if I suddenly get a melody idea, or if we’re jamming and Kieran or Nicky start playing a gorgeous riff or solo idea, more so we don’t forget it! I have lots of random lyrics in my notes on my phone that I go to for inspiration or when I’ve had an odd or great experience or just something cool happens that I want to remember.

I have loads of notebooks around the house, but I’m a messy person so I always lose them, so I find the phone best, hopefully I’ll never lose it as there’s loads of random ideas in there! We usually record a rough acoustic demo of a song so we can all hear it, we don’t like to do proper demos of tracks until we’re all in the studio together as that’s when the magic comes out.

Every track on Back To Zero was recorded all together at my brother’s studio Headline Music Studios apart from “Sweetest Goodbye” which was recorded completely live later on. Some of the songs we hadn’t even jammed all together yet like “Burn Every Page” and “We Were Going Nowhere”, as we got in the studio when the “rule of 6” was introduced between lockdowns. It was so good to finally play these songs live in the room together and forming structures and the music to our songs as a band.

We all listen to one another, no dictators in the room, we’re a band family!
 
Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

SJ: Usually needs to be night time for me as I’m a night owl! So I guess dark or moody lighting plays a role for me. I just need my guitar or a piano in a cosy space like my sofa by the fire, and then our dog Winnie is usually snoring beside me haha.

If Winnie is asleep when I’m singing, I know it’s good, or that’s what I tell myself.
 
What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

SJ: I always find the first line of a song the hardest part. I usually start with a melody idea, a riff idea, or a line for a theme for the song then go from there. When it’s difficult or I get stuck, that’s when I take it to someone else as I love to co-write and share ideas.

With “Wait For Me”, Kieran had the guitar part and Nicky and I then wrote the words together. It was the first song we’ve written together and it’s all about being in a band, so it’s very dramatic!



I love the fiddle part in the chorus, it really inspired the big notes to come out vocal wise. We wrote the bridge together outside in the sun when it was the “2m rule”, the dogs were running around and it was a lovely calm day and we were singing and playing furiously haha
 
When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

CM: For me the best ones arrive like the music, from a place of their own and with as little thought as possible. “Back To Zero”, the title track of the record, kinda references this notion in its bridge when the lyrics go, “and the music writes the melody and it plays with the facts, and it feels like salvation feels like I’m heading back” - to me that whole bit is about writing songs.



You let the music create the melody and that leads to the words, and if there’s any fact to them, that’s going to be twisted in some way because that’s the natural process of writing. We aren’t telling you something factual, we’re expressing something that could mean one thing to us but something else entirely to you. But ultimately it’s both healing and can even bring us closer to ourselves at that moment in time.

I think if you really let go to it the music will bring you the words as much as it inspires the words you choose. But often the best words are already chosen and you’re just the channel getting them on paper! That sounds a bit wishy washy I’m sure but hopefully it makes a bit of sense too.
 
What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

CM: I love lyrics, and in all shapes and sizes and contexts. Dylan, Springsteen, Nicks, Petty, Michell, Marley, Swift, Eminem … all great in their own way and totally different.

What makes good lyrics is so subjective but one answer could be, something only that person could write. So with Stevie Nicks, my favourite song of hers might be “Gypsy”, and no one else could have written that and to me that makes its lyrics and passion really grab you.



Then with Dylan, who is probably and predictably my favourite lyricist, one of his most recent songs, “Murder Most Foul”, does that too, but perhaps more so than any song I’ve ever heard and to such the extent that when I first heard it I pretty wept throughout! Utterly floored me.



Before hearing it I rolled my eyes at the idea of a 20 minute track about the JFK assassination written in 2020 but it was so much more than that, of course. Craig Finn, too. His lyrics consistently blow me away and fulfil the same criteria - no one else could write them.

So for me, I’m trying to let go and find my voice and the more I write and the more I let go the more real that all feels. And it happens when writing together and with others too!