Once in a while a guilty pleasure comes along that I can write about freely in a family newspaper, and Cherry Ghost are just that.
Bolton lad Simon Aldred bided his time playing in a succession of bands, supporting himself with a variety of part time jobs before forming the band, and his life along the way makes for fascinating lyrics.
“I did the books at an estate agents for a bit,” he says. “I did private maths tuition for kids. When I first left university, I joined this credit card company and that was the most frightening experience of my life, trying to sell storecards to poor people. It was like being a loanshark. They asked me to leave in the end.”
Things changed dramatically when a solo demo of Mathematics’ dizzily euphoric string-and-glockenspiel-drenched musical rush began circulating on MP3. “After years of coming to London in vans with bands, I went up to Glasgow to do a solo gig without actually telling anyone, and about four record companies turned up. They’d been given the MP3 by a manager in Manchester. It wasn’t even a venue I was playing in. It was a Mexican restaurant. I played for 20 minutes, just me and a guitar. People started putting offers in the next day. It was a matter of three or four months from writing the tune to being offered five record deals. It was f***ing weird, actually. It was f***ing nuts.”
Blessed with a yearning voice and an uncanny ability to write songs that sound like you’ve known them all your life on first listen
“I was always very mindful of the musicians I worked with, the singer-songwriter route leaves me cold in the majority of cases, what generally happens is they wheel on a generic Pebble Mill band to back them and the overall sound is efficient but without passion or dynamism. The musicians I work with are friends of mine. You’ve got be careful when you get to a certain level as being able to play your instrument with greater technical prowess isn’t always progress.”
Cherry Ghost play Barfly on June 12. For details see www.myspace.com/cherryghostband.