Sandi Thom

Onward Journey

October 2015

With a new album about to be released and a busy UK tour under way, Pete caught up with Sandi for a chat about songs, instruments, The Blues and much more. It won’t be long before our Sandi gives birth to her first child, too…

  • First question! – How many weeks are you now?

Er, twenty one weeks!

  • And you’re busy working?

Oh yeah! Definitely I am working hard..I have just about finished this album and I’m about to go out and promote the single..and play the gigs..right now, Pete I am at home resting with my guitar and my dog

  • A good case for the thinline guitar, really…I hope to get to one of the promo shows, probably Jazz Café if I’m not playing anywhere..I hope you keep steady, I know it’s not easy..hard for a bloke to imagine it

Yes, because when you’re singing, you know you’re giving it your all .and the baby kinda reacts…starts to move round and get a little lively

  • It’s the nearest member of your audience..

(Laughs) And the baby now knows everything about the record

  • OK now this album, there’s a single coming out called ‘Earthquake’ and the album is Weapons of Past Destruction…Why ‘Earthquake’ for the single?

It’s about a dark year and a half in my own life..heartbreaking moments..and finding out the reasons for them…anyone in that situation might feel that their entire world had shattered round them..anyway the song is about that moment..in the aftermath of all that you start to rebuild your life..back then I didn’t think there would be good things around the corner..but you can emerge maybe a lot stronger, depending upon circumstances..there is a positive message in it, really..at the time it does seem to be an emotional disaster..what did come after for me was great things..I didn’t know that was coming.

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

  • It’s a cliché but it’s very rare in life that a door closes without another one opening

That’s very true

  • And you have to reassess things and just maybe you have more going for you than you realise..you have a talent, after all..and friends

Ah yes, great friends ..and through them I met my husband, so you’re correct there

  • What does he do?

 

He’s in a very sort of suity job..financial world, Head of Operations..he’s a creative, positive person

  • It must help if someone’s different enough from you, to always have something to talk about

My other relationships were with musicians…leading the same kind of life

  • On this record you’re self produced…I think the person who produces female voices best is Mitchell Froom..Suzanne Vega, Bonnie Raitt…your perspective presumably is different from the Sandi Thom of 16 years old

Oh yeah! Definitely..I’ve never been given that full option before, I’ve always had someone somewhere along the line steering me in a direction..earlier I think I could have been pushed into any musical territory..it’s great now to take your exact blueprint of what’s in your mind and translate it into the recording. Plus I have this luxury of time cos I don’t now really work to a big timescale or plan. I have done some organically BUT with Earthquake I was using layered production to get the sounds I wanted. This record blends the pop styles with the more roots, organic elements into something that I like.

  • If you were a painter, you wouldn’t keep painting the same picture over and over, would you ? Let’s do the Top Ten Blues thing we were planning? The Thrill Is Gone, B B King…

It’s the simplicity and sincerity. It’s kind of hypnotic. Just a few chords, very simple, very classy. One of the songs I wish I had written

  • Help Me, Sonny Boy Williamson (the second – PS)..you do this live

Now that comes from my love of and love of playing the harmonica. I’ve been discovering more harmonica players for the past year. Probably what drew me into that particular song initially was the harmonica playing. To me it’s cool to perform a song in a different way from the recorded original, so my version is pretty far removed from that…

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

 

  • Hoochie Coochie Man – Muddy Waters. It’s hard to pick a Muddy song, isn’t it?

In my Itunes, Muddy Waters probably takes about half of the catalogue! There’s so many of the..it’s one of those recording that just sounds great, isn’t it? the vibe at the session. Folky elements, some magic about it. One of his most defining songs

  • I do Bottom of the Sea, from After The Rain..real gravelly feel to it, depth – no pun meant. I saw him twice, once with Otis Spann. He had nothing to prove, very regal gent

Such a good presence and rapport with his audience

  • Spoonful, Howlin’ Wolf..I am with you there

A one-chord song pretty much..with the stops. A classic Chess record

  • They just captured a pokey sound which stands up now

It’s very current at the same time, using sex appeal to sell records. That song’s all about sex

  • I saw him do that backed by Dave Kelly’s band and he sang the whole song to a tiny blonde girl who was perched on the balcony…

Oh wow…there’s your proof of that! I saw Clapton and BB do that on a video and it was all call and response, so very live

  • The Sky Is Crying, Stevie Ray Vaughan – Elmore James. There was a lot more to that guy than the Dust My Broom type tunes

It was a huge hit. More of an R&B song, I suppose. It’s that tempo that’s a little more complicated than a blues standard. I do love the Stevie version.

  • Sinner’s Prayer, Ray Charles. Again it’s hard to pick one Ray number

Yes, the subject matter, it’s about repentance. There are so many amazing Ray Charles songs. And he was always as much blues as R&B in his delivery.It’s in a way biblical, this song, but you wouldn’t have to believe in God to just understand what he’s singing about.

 

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

Sandi Thom plays the Jazz Cafe in Camden.

 

  • I can vouch for that…guitars, you’re using a Taylor T5 12 string are you?

I still use that and I have a Guild..and for electric a Duesenberg, again 12 string. If you don’t have too many instruments on stage for a particular gig, the 12 just fills up the sound really well, it gives more body to the overall sound. I do have a very nice Gibson Custom..a SongWriter it’s called.

  • A 12 stops you playing clichés

Absolutely, also it encourages me to try open tunings. I’m not a learned guitar player as such. But the 12 s make me explore a bit more, gives me cooler sounds to use in the songs

  • The best 12 string album is Dave Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My Name. If you speak to the Jefferson and Dead guys they are all on it, somewhere. Very ethereal sounds

It leads into the atmospheric rock stuff, Tom Petty..Joe Perry uses 12 string a bit

  • What are your hopes for this new album, Sandi?

Well I hadn’t really – through circumstance, mainly – given my own career my all for a while. But it’s that open door you mentioned, Pete. Now I can push forward with just me to be worried about. So it’s to get songs finished and out there, now. Hi, I’m back, I’m still making music!!

Pete Sargeant

PS – For the record….Sandi’s Top Ten Blues is completed by Cocaine (Eric Clapton) Still Got The Blues (Gary Moore) Chain of Fools ( Aretha Franklin) and In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett)

All live photos credited to Kieran White at KW Media.

Sandi Thom’s new album ‘Weapons Of Past Destruction’ is out now on MITA Records. For more information visit her official website here: http://bit.ly/21INwLK

Since this interview, Sandi Thom gave birth to a healthy baby boy and we wish her and her family all the best. Many thanks to Sandi and Cat)