Interview with local singer, songwriter and writer Tom George

Tom George is a Liverpool-based musician, poet, journalist and film-maker. He has also done event promotion, magazine publishing, graphic design, photography, illustration and cartoons. He tends to focus on different artforms at different times; right now he is primarily a musician, but that may change.

By Tracey Dunn 7/10/2013

How do songs come to you? In the bath, on the bus, in a dream? Is there a pattern or is it random?
There’s no pattern to it. Sometimes it’s a case of playing on the guitar and discovering things that way, but otherwise things can pop into my head at any time. Often I feel I’m totally at the mercy of my muse. I might be in the middle of doing something important, or in a hurry getting ready to leave the house. It’s then that a tune or a line will come into my head. And even if it’s an inconvenient time, I have to try and capture it or make a note of it there and then. Something else that’s been happening more and more lately is things coming to me in dreams. You know when you’re waking up slowly and it’s like you’re coming to the surface of an ocean? Well sometimes when I’m waking, as I’m surfacing, I find that I have a tune with me that I seem to have discovered down there. And as I’m surfacing, it’s exiting. Because it’s like I have treasure!...Once I’ve woken up, I have to sing this tune into my phone or whatever, before I forget it. Later when I come back to replay it, sometimes I find that what seemed like treasure at the time is just a pretty worthless piece of junk. But sometimes you polish it, and work on it, and it comes up really nice.

What could Liverpool do to improve the lot of musicians?
I think there’s lot of opportunities for musicians here. But there is one thing that needs addressing and it’s not exclusive to Liverpool. If people are coming to a venue because of the live music, the performers need to get some reward for that. Not all of us are making our living from music, but the very least venues can do is provide free drinks for the musicians. And many don’t even do that. Do they pay the brewery? Or the person who installs the jukebox? Of course they do. But musicians are often expected to entertain people for nothing. As far as I can see, this is a British problem.

Have you played much abroad?
I’ve played in Spain, France and Germany, and I go to Berlin every year usually to do gigs. I have a little cluster of musician friends there, and I never want to come back. The city is just a hotbed of creativity and freedom. But I would encourage all performers to play outside of their native city when they can.

How do you feel about free music downloads?
Is just part of the territory nowadays. I download stuff for free now and then, but not from emerging artists. I figure how can I expect people to shell out for my music if I don’t do the same?

Do you think social media has helped you to reach more people with your music?
In the sense that people have clicked on links to listen to watch videos and tracks, yes. But it’s not very rewarding. If you do a live gig and people come up to you and show their appreciation and want to stay in touch, that’s life enhancing. All the online stuff you can do is just like admin, and I’m not doing this because I want an office job. I’m doing this because I want experiences that don’t feel like work! The way I look at online is that it helps me to maintain the contacts that I make in the real world.

If you weren't a musician what would you like to be?
I’d love to lay some bricks. I don’t think I would enjoy the atmosphere on a building site though. You don’t often hear 6music or Radio Four coming out of building site radios.

What is your fave venue to play and why?
The Kazimier garden in Liverpool. We don’t get much nice weather in Liverpool, but when we do in the summer, it’s great that we now have an open air venue where people can get together to watch live music.

What is your fave venue to watch live music and why?
The same place! The atmosphere always seems so celebratory there. They have one bouncer and he has virtually nothing to do all night. And the sound is always wonderful; I think it’s the fact that there’s no ceiling on it so the frequencies are not clashing around.

What did you want to be when you were a child?
I wanted above all things to be an adult. Adults are generally free in this society if they choose to be. Kids can’t do what they want. They are the most powerless section of society. They don’t have human rights. When I was a child I dreamed of leading a kids’ revolution. I thought that kids should rise up and have equal rights with adults, because I hated being controlled, even by my lovely parents. I was very independent-minded. But as I got older realised that kids can’t be equal. That is sad, but they can’t have the same kind of rights as adults because they can’t have the same responsibilities as adults. Now that I’m an adult, but I’m hanging on to all the childlike characteristics that help me be creative and happy in myself.

What are your fave gigs ever?
Performing and watching. My favourite gig of mine was at the first Threshold festival at the CUC building. I did a poetry set alongside the drag artist David Hoyle. Something happened in the audience and I reacted to it and started improvising some kind of monologue. It was strange and comic. I can’t even remember what I was saying but I felt like I had the audience in the palm of my hand. I think the best performance I ever saw was B.B.King at Sheffield Octagon in 1988.

What is your fave fantasy line up for you to perform in?
If I can put together an ideal backing band for myself, I think I’ll have Gail-Ann Dorsey (who plays with David Bowie) on bass and Stewart Copeland from The Police on drums. Gail can sing backing vocals too so that’ll be perfect. I’ll give them both a call in a minute…

Where would you like to be in five years time?
I suppose I would like to have successfully united all the various things I do to my satisfaction…a few years ago I did some shows at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool where I combined music, poetry, film and monologue, and it worked very well. My blog tomgeorgearts.wordpress.com is partly an attempt to put out information about all of my different activities in the same place.

I really enjoyed reading your now discontinued Slacker magazine. Could you tell me a bit about it?
That was a fanzine I produced between 2006 and 2009 featuring underground music and culture in Liverpool and beyond. It had cartoons and stories in it as well. I did 21 issues in three years and people liked it. I didn’t promote my own music in it much as I could have. But I like the thought that people held on to their issues and there are probably thousands of Slackers sitting on bookshelves and under beds all over Liverpool. Get one out, and see if it was really was good!

What are you working on at the moment?
I’m making videos for some of my songs. It’s’ a bit hard pointing the camera at yourself so friends have been helping out. I did the video for my current single ‘Sharks’ with the help of the artist Chiz Turnross, who has also worked with The Coral. The single’s on Free Rock and Roll Records. You can find it at www.tomgeorge.bandcamp.com as well as my album Postcards.

tomgeorgearts.wordpress.com Music, words and more...

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