The Shipbuilders Talk New Album, Their Hometown And More

Sea mist, the scent of rum and aimless romance all combine into foamy folk-pop wash in the hands of Liverpool’s incandescent, swaying five-piece, The Shipbuilders as they ready the launch of their second album ‘This Blue Earth’. Frontman and guitarist Matty Loughlin-Day chatted to us about the album, hometown and more: 

Who is in The Shipbuilders, how did you meet and what do you play?

There’s me, Matty, I’m the singer, songwriter, and guitarist, then we also have Danny Lee on lead guitar, who has been a mate for many a year, and Sully on drums, who we met in the early days through mutual friends. The more recent additions to the band are Pistol Pete Higham on trumpet, who was actually in the year below me in school, but it wasn’t until we were playing Kendal Calling the other year and he came to watch us and caught us after our set that the seeds were sown for him joining the band, and finally there’s Tony Ferguson on bass and vocals, who is also in a band we love playing with called The Good Host. When our last bassist had to leave us to play with Bill Ryder-Jones’ band on a European tour (we could hardly hold him back!), Tony was a natural shoo-in, and now that’s us; Five Go Shipbuilding! 2 – What is your earliest musical memory?

Being on holiday when I was about three years old, in Majorca, singing a song about walking on a wall. It went “walking on the wall… walking on the wall… walking on the…” – well you can guess the rest. But otherwise, I am old enough to remember the whole Blur vs Oasis debacle making headlines on the news, which is mental to think about nowadays isn’t it! Although my dad bought me the Oasis album, the first album I actually bought with pocket money was something less cool; it was Eagle Eye Cherry’s ‘Desireless’ – I think I still have that copy somewhere up in the loft…

 

When did you begin songwriting?

I was writing throughout my teens; really dreadful stuff that any teenager writes, but it wasn’t until I was about 16 or 17 that the songs started turning into ‘proper’ songs that I could sing to my mates without being cripplingly embarrassed. I dug out an old tape of them not too long ago, and whilst they’re very naïve and of an age, some of them aren’t too shabby. I hold onto songs for a while though. I started writing one of the songs on our new album about 20 years ago, when I was a daft lad, still in school, and it took me about ten years to finish… there’s only three chords in the blummin’ thing, too!

 

Your new album ‘This Blue Earth’ is out on Friday 11th July 2025. How did you want to approach the making of the album?

We actually started the second album even before our first one was out. For that first album, we had two songs left to record and finish, but we knew we were in a bit of a purple patch, so decided to start recording other songs that we knew would make up the bare bones of the second album, and we took it from there. Our first album was delayed, like everything else, because of COVID, so while we had time to twiddle our thumbs and wait until the world was sane and safe enough to release the first album, we cracked on with the second.

By that time though, we’d grown massively in confidence in terms of being in the studio. With the first album, we were just so enamoured and giddy to be recording the songs we’d been playing for years, we recorded them like they sounded live, but maybe a bit spruced up. With this album, we decided to use the studio more as an instrument in itself, and speaking for myself, I let go of a lot of hang ups and “oh no, we can’t do that” thinking, and decided to go big and create an entire world to get lost in, which I think we’ve done.

 

Where did you record the album and who produced it?

Danny Woodward, in Whitewood Studios, Liverpool. He’s produced most of BC Camplight’s stuff and worked with acts like Ladytron and HAARM. He’s incredible and just gets us. He puts up with me asking for guitar lines to sound like smoke under water and has such a good insight into the sound we’re after that he’s almost like another band member. He’s a good daft lad too, always game for a laugh and puts us totally at ease in his studio.

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the album recording sessions?

I don’t envy the lads having to be in a band with me, certainly not whilst in the studio. Whilst recording ‘Flagpole’, I knew I wanted it to sound like a carnival during the apocalypse (see what I mean?!), so it needed some off-kilter piano. There was an ever so-slightly out of tune piano in the studio, which I thought would be perfect, but I knew I had to play it ‘wrong’. Danny, the producer, had the bright idea of giving me a black coffee just beforehand. Now, I don’t do drugs, nor do I drink much coffee, so this was like rocket fuel to me, and across the seven takes, you could hear the piano getting more and more unhinged with each go.

By take seven, there was practically steam coming out of my ears and I felt like I was creating new scales never discovered before, thumping away at any old note, not caring for musicality, tonality, or even sanity. It’s safe to say, all the takes from Take Four onwards were discarded. Shame. Maybe we’ll get ‘em out again, for the 20th Anniversary Edition.

Other bits stand out, like me asking Pistol Pete to recreate the sound of the THIRTEEN PIECE Charles Mingus Big Band on ‘Flagpole’, to which he simply nodded, entered the booth and… only went and did it! I also asked him to recreate a Regal firework ceremony for the big crescendo ending to ‘On The Run’… which again, he did. What a guy.

Do you use any particular instruments, microphones, recording equipment to help you get a particular sound/tone for the record?

I’m a luddite. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what guitar was used on what, or what microphone or effect we chose, and that’s why both Danny’s, Danny Woodward, the producer, and Danny Lee, our guitarist, are essential. Because they just know these things, and can translate what I’m saying. If I want things to sound, I don’t know, ‘drier’, they’ll suggest a guitar or tone, or if I wanted things to sound ‘further away’, they’d know too. They’re brilliant. And very patient.

You have also released your new single ‘Daydreaming’. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

‘Daydreaming’ is actually a very old song of mine; I think I started writing it in about 2009, which is wild if I stop and think about it too much. I was listening to a lot of stuff like ‘Real Gone’ by Tom Waits and the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series ‘Tell Tale Signs’ in particular, all the gritty, gnarly stuff. I wrote the song when I was heartbroken for a bit, feeling sorry for myself and a bit disconnected from the world, not feeling very in sync with it. All very dramatic, but this seemed to time well with me learning about

The Myth of King Midas, and how his secrets were betrayed by the whispering green grass, and how they floated on the breeze and the tall trees knew everything and so on, which led to the lyrics.

It’s only got two chords, but to stop things getting boring and predictable, I wanted to put emphasis on rhythmic changes, so the snare drum comes and goes, the hi hats and cymbals change, but there’s always this riff, anchoring everything.

I’d played it in an old band of mine, and with The Shipbuilders we even demoed it for album one, but could never quite get it right. We did a good take of it for this upcoming album, and we were happy with it, but it was never going to be a single, until Pistol Pete joined the band. His trumpet part changed everything. It opened up the song in ways I never knew possible and added a wild, maniacal energy to things, making it almost sound like The Teardrop Explodes! After that, we threw some drunken sounding piano on and some chain gang-esque hollering and by the time we’d mixed it, we knew it had to be the lead single.

The single is accompanied by an official music video. What was the thought process behind the video and who directed it?

Another Dan! Dan Hewitson, aka Freakbeat Films. We’d worked with him before and knew he gets us. The song is the right side of weird, so we wanted a location that would match that, and found it in Peter Kavanagh’s, a pub in Liverpool that is rammed with character. The people that drink and work! in there are lovely but crazy, and the whole building has so many artefacts and trinkets that it was just irresistible for the video. We then headed down to the International Festival Garden site nearby, to frolic in the foliage for good measure. A good laugh was had by all.

Which of your new album tracks hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?

Happiest is definitely ‘La Dolce Vita’. It’s a rare, happy song and there’s no hint of death, natural disasters or wars, which dominate so much of our other songs.

The angriest is ‘Flagpole’. I was angry when I wrote it. Angry with the nation for voting for Brexit, angry at the billionaire class for feeding such crap to us that 52% of the voters believed it. Angry at the loss of my future, our future. Just angry. But knowing that we have to hold on to compassion and each other. But yes, anger.

And reflective is a good one to ponder. Maybe the finale, ‘Heavy is the Weight’. Lyrically it’s almost parody blues, but musically, the whole song, all six and a half minutes of it, feel like a summary of everything we’ve done as a band and just feels like an end to a chapter. Hopefully that leaves space for a next chapter, but it always makes me feel like it’s a perfect song to use at the end of a film that leaves you feeling overwhelmed, uplifted and fulfilled.

Was it a difficult album to write?

No, some of these songs have been in my head for years and years. Strangely, the most recent song, ‘Hills of Mexico’ was the hardest to write, because I just couldn’t find a way to reign it in. I have a habit of writing long, sprawling, epic songs, and then need to chop them down to fit into a ‘pop’ song, which was the case here. We did it though, we did it!

Who designed the album artwork?

An amazing artist and mate called Anna Jane Houghton. Years ago, I found a website that had digitised a Japanese catalogue of fireworks from the 1850s. Obviously there was no photography, so they had to paint what each firework looked like when exploding, and then print them onto individual cards with catalogue numbers.

They are beautiful and I wanted each of the ten songs to have their own card, just like this. Anna understood the brief totally and asked me about each song; what it was about, what the feel of the song was, and then designed ten cards, all of which make up the front and back cover of the album. She’s brilliant and has a clutch of brilliant songs to boot, too, so I hope she releases more stuff soon.

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

We plan our sets out quite carefully, so, as horrendous as it might sound, we want to take the people watching on a journey. Start with the BANG! keep the pace up, then detour via the weird and the psychedelic, before finishing on another BANG. So, if we’ve done that, by the time we leave the stage, ideally, I want people to have felt that. The two things I’d therefore want, is for us to gain at least one new fan. One, ten, a hundred, it doesn’t matter, but The Shipbuilders’ universe is open to all, and all encompassing. Also, people buying merch helps us pay for the petrol home. 14 – Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

Again, I’m a luddite, so I can’t really comment on this, other than to say that there are two key components to our current sound. One is Pistol Pete on trumpet, who has a clip-on mic that allows him to move as he pleases, and the second is a Memory Man pedal that Danny Lee, our guitarist uses. He’s a man of many pedals and his sound has been the absolute backbone of The Shipbuilders since day one. No Danny lee, no Shipbuilders. But across all of this, the Memory Man pedal has been ever present and faithful. As for me, I plug in my acoustic guitar to the DI box and warble away into whatever mic the venue has!

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Liverpool. Liverpool is… Maddening. Wonderful. Complex. Frustrating. Unique.

 

How do you look after your voices?

That’s a good question. When I was first starting out in bands, we had no money for microphones or PAs (well we did, but used it to buy cheap ale!) so, often, I just had to shout to be heard, which meant I developed a style of singing that feels very much like I’m trying to shout in tune. Now, that’s fine when you’re 18, or even through your twenties, when you can rock up to a gig, do that, shout your head off, and feel fine the next day. But beyond that, as you enter and prepare to leave your thirties, it’s not as easy to recover quickly and some songs get harder to sing, especially as you find less time to practice.

So, I do always find time to warm my voice up, even in the car on the way to a gig, or backstage. I use some vocal sweets you can get from chemists, and have also worked on my breathing during singing. That’s been a gamechanger and one I wish I’d worked out many moons ago.

 

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

Ha! That’s great that you’ve asked that as, on our new album, there are two very literary songs. One, ‘Metempsychosis’, takes its title from James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ (just in case I hadn’t crammed enough pretentious indie points in my pocket!) and is an interpretation of Tom Joad’s monologue in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, which is probably the greatest and most important book ever written. ‘Hills of Mexico’ was written as a direct attempt to create the perfect soundtrack for ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, which is probably the greatest and most important book ever written.

 

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

Egadz, too many to mention. In terms of what went into this upcoming album; Bob Dylan’s ‘John Wesley Harding’ album, Tom Waits (‘Rain Dogs’ & ‘Real Gone’ in particular), Charles Mingus, Galaxie 500, Sea Power, The Coral, John Coltrane’s ‘Ascension’, Burt Bacharach, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry… honestly, loads.

In terms of recommendations, we run a club night and record label, so some of the amazing acts we’d urge you ALL to go and get into are Gintis, William William Rodgers, Holy Gloam and Alex Gavaghan and The Boss Jockeys. There’s so much out there.

Do you have any live dates planned in the UK/Europe in 2025?

Yes, we’re working on them as we speak, but they’ll all be confirmed very soon!

 

What makes The Shipbuilders happy and what makes you unhappy?

Obviously, the global slide to the political right and the unopposed surge of Neoliberalism as it destroys civil, human and environmental rights makes us unhappy, but not quite as unhappy as the discontinuation of Brannigan’s Beef and Mustard crisps. Rest in peace, sweet angel.

What makes us happy? Good people, doing good things, making other good people happy.