An Interview with Baxter Dury

Words by Sarah Morrison

Photo by Tom Beard

Baxter Dury is back and set to release his forthcoming album ‘The Night Chancers’ on March 20th through PIAS. While abroad, I had the pleasure of catching up with Dury to have a very honest conversation surrounding his up-coming release. Through the use of narrating, Dury takes you on a “jolly and sleazy” experience with this new record, something different from his last piece of work. I got down to the gritty truth with the playboy legend on his opinion of spoken word music, his Kubrick influence, the struggles of writing a novel, and much more.

The lifestyle and home environment you were brought up in, does it play into the language/grammar structure you use when writing a story within your music?

I'm sure. There are all these things that, you don't try to over consider your makeup too much or you start to question how you function or what made you think or say or talk. But I'm absolutely sure that a composite of experimentalism environmental influences must impact everybody. There were definitely some outspoken people as I was growing up so yes, I'm very sure.

You’re able to use profanity in such an elegant way and I believe a big part of that is your use of timbre. Is that something you think about at all and if so what process goes into that?

As you say, there's a sort of accidental control. Over considered anything is awkward in music; it makes it static. We were always really good at swearing and apologetic swearing is quite a good thing. If you're not singing, swearing is a great device; it can compensate for the dull tone; monotone voice. It's an exciting energy, isn't it? So if you're saying 'Oh I'm not going to sing, I'm going to talk’, your beat poetry then you need something with a certain type of edge.

It's like a melodic beat and that's where it's used. If it's in a context of something that evokes a good feeling or a good story, then it's all justified. But if it's just for the sake of it then it’s dull. If it's just a teenage spurge then it doesn't make much sense.

You've got to time it right? It's all about timing, swearing, because you can be on the wrong side of it and it sounds corse and horrible. Everyone says swearing doesn't matter, it's language, but you don't want to hear your eleven-year-old cousin swearing in front of the priest really (laughs).

I think it just goes really well with your tone of voice.

Maybe I've got a reassuring weighty voice that allows me to; people allow me to swear. I don’t know what that means.

You mentioned that speaking over music has become more popular/more acts are using this method. Why do you believe this has become more potent with today’s independent scene?

I don't know, I think it's just lazy really. I don't have much of a choice because I don't have much of a voice that operates in any other way so I've always done that. I guess I have a bit of lineage there; I almost thought that by the time I finished this last record that 'I better not do that again’, because of the narrative of man speech is sort of done and complete as an art form and you never need to hear it again (laughs). I'm going to try and really sing my heart out however affective that is the next time.

For me personally, it's a bit of a lazy process. I do it so easily it just pours out. Really wordy songs are really difficult to write convincingly, and they're very rare. When you've got a good enough talking voice you can get away with saying some more interesting stuff. But I think it's a bit of a tired genre to be honest, I think we should move away from it. But you know, who am I to say that?

Stanley Kubrick has been noted to have had a massive influence on your writing for this record. When were you first introduced to his work? What about his display/representation stuck with you?

You know what, it's a bit of a pessimist thing. I've always been into Stanley, and there's been a few exhibitions and stuff like that recently. But when I wrote the album someone said to me 'Oh it's very Kubrick,' and I went 'Ya! Best remark anyone's ever said’. I didn't intentionally base it around that but I make out that I did in interviews because it's an easy thing to say. But it's not true.

I love all Kubrick films. So if I want to in an interview, I can say 'Well this song sounds like this film,' and usually they go, 'Oh ya, it does!' but it's not true.

The album is a reflection of a post-heartbreak. Was that the initial thesis you wanted to achieve with this record?

I just do whatever comes naturally to me in that moment and what I'm experiencing. I sort of surface emotional without any great big political intentions so I can't really lie about the more complicated scary world. I don't really understand it and I've got an ego eccentric vanity writing about my own stuff. That's what interests me, the small details between people that surround me.

Whatever I'm going through, I account for; maybe the album before that I wrote about breaking up with somebody but this is more the exploration of what it's like to go out and find yourself again. Usually, I write about the unsuccessful experiences because they make a better copy.

Success romantically when you're a forty-seven-year-old man sounds really wrong to the evaluation of the world. You might as well talk about the failed bit of it and then it justifies the subject I think. But if I talked about how I'm really successful, a romantically successful guy that's too old, then it sort of gets a bit creepy.

It's not actually about anyone being that bad but there's a sinister overtone because it's put with symphonic music and that's Kubrickesque. I like the idea of being a bit lost and whether that's true or not, I don't know. It's all dramatized.

As someone who had to transition mid tour and return home, was it a difficult process? Did you struggle at all leaving with one life and returning to another?

Not really, I mean it is sometimes. It depends on how you feel really. When I made the last album, I was really miserable. It was about a breakup and I had to carry that burden for two years. I was miserable anyway; this isn't really answering your question but I'm going to tell you this anyway. This new album, I'm just very jolly; 'Ya, everything's great’! That affects how you feel when you come back and forth.

Now I'm kind of enjoying it, maybe because the album is about something different? It has a different nature to it, this album is a bit sleazy and silly. It's much more fun to go promote and talk about it whereas I did about seven hundred interviews about my ex-girlfriend and become tethered to it; I couldn't escape.

This fake persona that I might be some sort of mysterious playboy, it's just not true whatsoever. I really wish!

You are the narrator of your lyrical work. What about writing about a character gives you comfort? When you begin to write through another, do you picture a film or book being brought to life through song?

Legal distance; not in a dodgy way, I mean that you can control the information better by creating a distance from it yourself. It's not always talking about you, it's a mixture of things. You can lose yourself if you're too detailed or confessional. That's the rich sort of vanity that I don't like. Unless you can do it really well. It's a pretty limited way of describing things but you can experience things and the people around you can experience things if you push it to control the story. It doesn't necessarily have to be true, it can be inaccurate.

Is the plot of ‘Slumlord’ written around you? 

No, it’s written about somebody else. Literally, somebody, I had just spoken to before speaking to you. I think he probably knows it’s about him, I probably told him. It’s not a very nice thing to do because it is a bit critical, but he sort of deserves a bit of criticism. I really like him but it's definitely him.

Have you ever tried to write a story in the form of a novel? Does that sort of writing appeal to you at all? 

I'm writing a book at the moment, I signed a book deal. In fact, I have to go to the book conference and talk about my book. It’s actually a childhood story about growing up between fourteen to seventeen the way I was brought up [not about dad or anything] but the way it was an eccentric few years. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my entire life. It's literally really fucking impossible. 

Is it hard in terms of actually sitting down to write it or to talk about those years? 

Totally fucking impossible. Bleak, impossible, academically difficult; it really is the peak of what I've ever found. I don't believe in it. I think that's the hardest thing; it's not the actual process of writing the words, just the belief in when I read it back. I go 'Oh god, that's the worst shit I've ever read’.

I think you really have to find a place to not over consider it. Then you read good author's work and you just want to be like them, and you're not them, you can't be them. You can be something, not apart of them, but something very interesting if you just let go. You're only good when you relax. If you start thinking too much about what you're doing then you'll just ruin it all. You need to find an inner peace to do it and then you'll be fine. 

What fascinates you about other's personal frailties as well as your own? Why hone in and watch/view those as a focus? 

They're just descriptive. That's why they're described in all stories and all forms of things that we're so fascinated in; why we watch Scorsese films or why we watch ‘Parasyte'. It's more interesting, isn't it really? Awkward behavioral stuff is much more interesting. I'm good at converting that stuff; I'm quite honest. I can really tap into that stuff, I enjoy it. It's like Jane Austin (laughs). You get really into it, it's the behavioral nuances of human beings that I like.

You've basically got your own deli counter of this behavior and these bad decisions. You can use that; that's all you need as a reference for yourself really. It's all there! You are your own Mozet, your own Fresco, or whatever it is. You've got it all there in front of you. 

You previously worked with Delilah Holliday in which you stated encouraged your music to “be something more emotional”. Is that something you worked on with this record? Were you able to tap into a different area of emotion that your other albums didn’t? 

That record was made very quickly. This one I made myself and it’s a bit more considered. It's all been coming quite easily at the moment because I'm trained in a certain way of writing and thinking. I think that's the last point of me to be that comfortable. I don't think it will be good, like you talking about the spoken word stuff, if I did any more spoken word it would be shit.

I must stop. Even though it might be unlistenable, I must stop. It's too accessible, it's too easy for me to do. It's good, I don't think what I did was bad, it's a good piece of work! I'm just very trained in it now. My head needs to find something else. I'm not sure if that answered your question, I'm not very good at answering questions. I just need to do something different, whatever the question you asked, I just need to do something different.