Virgin Music » Interview: Nick Hemming (original) (raw)

Following this week’s surprise announcement of the relatively unknown and unsigned The Leisure Society’s nomination for a prestigous Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically (along with The Last Shadow Puppets and Elbow), Nick Hemming - the writer of the the song in question The Last Of The Melting Snow - was able to sneak out of the factory where he works in order to fill us in on the surreal sequence of events that have occured over the past few days…

Bob Fear: So Nick, what’s happened over the last couple of days!? It’s all gone bonkers for you! Were you even aware that the nomination was on the cards?

Nick Hemming: Yeah, well I was emailed by the a member of the British Guild of Songwriters a couple of months ago asking if I wanted to put forward The Last of the Melting Snow forward for a nomination. It hadn’t crossed my mind at all, but he said the closing date was next week, so if I was going to do it I’d better do it now. So I just sent it off and never thought anymore of it until three weeks ago, when I got a letter through the post saying you’ve been put up for a nomination in the category of Best Song Musically and Lyrically which is the best category at the Ivors. I was completely blown away; I couldn’t believe it was happening really.

So they organised a press conference to announce the nominations at the Ivy yesterday and they sent a car that picked me up, took me to the Ivy and they announced them all, and then handed me over to the press to give interviews. Then I had to get a cab straight back to work! So it was like a weird double life.

BF: This is something you’ve been working towards for how long now?

NH: I’ve been doing music for well over fifteen years now, I’ve not actually been making my own songs as much; I’ve played guitar in a lot of bands, I wrote music but not really lyrics. It’s only in the past three years or so that I’ve started writing seriously for The Leisure Society more as a kind of view to it being a proper pop band type thing. In the last two years we’ve been recording the album and we finished that and released it in March this year, and it’s just gone incredibly well.

The first single which is The Last of the Falling Snow was released in December and as soon as that left the door it started picking up loads of radio play; it was single of the week on Mark Radcliffe’s show. It just sort of snowballed from there.

BF: And you’re still unsigned?

NH: Yeah well basically there’s a group of us called the Willkommen Collective and it’s a load of slightly folky types based in Brighton and London and we all play in each other’s bands. There’s a guy called Will who’s the cellist, who’s common to all the bands, hence Willkommen. So Tom, who’s the hub of all the Willkommen Collective, decided to put a record label together to release his own album for his band Shoreline.

I’ve been recording this album for a while and he said why don’t we put it out on his label, there’ll be no money but it would be a good way to get the album out if you just pay for it yourselves. So we paid and put it out so we’re not signed really, signed no contracts; it’s just some friends who were helping us out, we’re financing it all ourselves. It’s been quite tough getting it together, but obviously it’s more rewarding because you don’t have a record label coming between you and actually getting some money from album sales.

BF: So where’s your head at right now; obviously I’m distracting you at the minute from your day job, how surreal is it waking up in the morning and mentally being in two places at the same time?

NH: It’s absolutely insane, yesterday was just mad all day long. Just getting to the Ivy and realising that there were loads of press waiting to talk to me afterwards. I kind of panicked a little bit, but throughout the day I did so many interviews, by the end it sort of felt like second nature! But I went straight from there to work and then News at Ten came in to do a piece on me whilst I was doing my job.

BF: So they came to the factory?

NH: Yeah, they had a film crew there and filmed me doing my day job, then interviewed me about how it felt to get nominated, and then straight after that BBC News 24 wanted me to go to their studio for a live interview, so I dashed on a tube and a taxi and tried to get there in time and it was all a bit mad. Good fun though, and then I was doing radio interviews all evening, so yeah it’s been crazy and I’m back to my day job today and it’s just really tough because I have hundreds of emails to answer and I could do with a holiday just to get my head around it all really!

BF: What exactly does the day job entail?

NH: I work for a posh fabric and wallpaper company called Osborne and Little and I basically dispatch everything, like exporting stuff to America, weighing things and data entry.

BF: Have you had lots of record label advances yet?

NH: No, I don’t think we’ve had any offers, though I have got this inbox full of emails so maybe we have! Willkommen Records have had loads of publishing companies getting in touch though because obviously this is the first time anyone’s been nominated for an Ivor who haven’t got a publishing deal so there’s been a lot of people in touch but I’m in no hurry to sign anything. It would be great to get out of the day job as soon as possible but I’m not just going to rush out and sign contracts; I’ve been doing this for years and I’m very cynical about the music industry so I’m going to be careful. I like having total creative control over everything we do, though at the same time we want to be a successful band so we may have to include other people at some point.

BF: So what’s your immediate plan over the next couple of days?

NH: Well, we’re sorting out a tour; we’ve just come back off the road from our first tour to promote the album and it was all sold out pretty much and we’re going to sort out another short tour, this time of slightly bigger venues, so hopefully that will go well. In the summer I’m really looking forward to playing some festivals and doing a bit of travelling; we’re going to Barcelona to play with Divine Comedy and we’re doing a festival in Latvia and we’re doing Green Man over here. I think we’re doing Big Chill as well, though that hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it’s looking good.

BF: You’ve been compared to acts like Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles and Fleet Foxes, which acts do you admire most in that field and maybe aspire to?

NH: Well, I guess the stuff I listen to is 60s pop like The Beech Boys, The Beatles, Love… stuff like that and I love the Divine Comedy, I’m really looking forward to playing alongside them in Barcelona. The album I’m listening to most at the moment is the new Bill Callahan album Smog, which is a great album, that’s my favourite thing at the moment.

I wouldn’t really compare us to anything around at the moment, because although we’ve got similar instrumentation to Fleet Foxes and we use similar harmonies, ours has a really English sound, where as theirs is obvioulsy more American.