Texan Raiders
In this interview, Texan Raiders’ creative force explores the roots of Americana, the storytelling power of country music, the inspiration behind The Adventures of Glenn the Cowboy, and the project’s musical and animated ambitions.
1. Your musical journey began with rockabilly bands in Yorkshire before taking you through dance music, television composition, and eventually back to your passion for Americana. What inspired you to launch Texan Raiders at this stage of your career, and how have those different musical experiences shaped the project’s identity?
This is a project I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time. I’ve been on a musical journey from a lot of guitar playing in my early years, through to getting deep into synths and samples and programming. The more that samples progressed, the more I felt a real need to get back to creating organic music and getting my guitar playing skills back up to scratch. I started doing some finger picking lessons and totally fell back in love with the guitar and country music.
In my years of writing for tv, I’ve written everything from big band to orchestral to trance, but there is something about a country train rhythm that never gets old. I also think that there is something about getting older that makes you really appreciate the art of story-telling in songs, and country music talks about life experiences in a very down to earth way. A really good example is Jamey Johnson ‘In Color’where a Grandpa is showing his grandson black& white photos, and says that ‘if you think we look scared, you should have seen it in colour’. Country music is about seeing it in colour.
2. Your 1987 trip to Nashville and Memphis, including visits to Sun Studios and Graceland, seems to have left a lasting impression on you. Looking back, how did that experience influence your understanding of American roots music, and which elements of that tradition did you most want to capture on The Adventures of Glenn the Cowboy?
I went to Nashville and Graceland with the radio station I was working for at the time, and we took a couple of die hard Elvis fans who had won a competition. In Nashville it was like every bar had a singer in the corner and the general really high quality of the playing and the songwriting blew me away. I sat in one bar and started a conversation with the bouncer and a guy who was a country singer, just drinking beer and talking music. I was in my element and now whenever I write a new song I imagine that it’s me on that corner stage singing to the bar. I would want anyone listening in that bar to appreciate what I’m doing on the album.
One side recollection – I remember saying to the bouncer (who was huge and pretty intimidating looking) that we came from Yorkshire. ‘Ai’nt that where those fuzzy critters come from’ he said. I was like ‘whaaat?’and then realized he was talking about Yorkshire Terriers!!
3. The album features songs such as Log Settee, Diamonds in the Dust, and Wahoo Feelin’ Alive, each exploring different emotions and musical approaches. How do you balance traditional country storytelling with contemporary influences, and what connects these songs within the album’s overall vision?
The theme of the album is love and friendship, and it covers all aspects of a relationship, from outright euphoria (Wahoo Feelin’ Alive) to lifelong love (Diamonds) or just having somewhere to sit where you talk genuinely with each other. It does cover some of the other side of love, such as a song called ‘Like Lovers Do’ where we explore what happens when a relationship breaks down and you look at each other and ask ‘what happened?’ whilst still really wanting it to work. For the most part I wanted the album to be uplifting, light and feelgood. Even on all the photos and website we are using warm colour palettes and hope that what comes across is that this is an album to be enjoyed.
We used certain instruments like CJ’s pedal steel or specific guitar and amp sounds to create audio connections between the tracks, so that they all feel like they are part of the same family. The main electric guitar I used was a 1970’s Microfrets Swinger which has a bright jangly sound. We then really played around with effects to give a much more contemporary feel. Even the mastering had to feel warm and organic.
4. Log Settee, co-written with Gavin Alexander, explores the importance of genuine human connection in an increasingly digital world. What inspired this particular theme, and do you believe country music has a unique ability to communicate everyday experiences and emotions?
Log Settee started life as a four line verse by scriptwriter Sean Carson in a tv series called Wildwoods that I scored. It featured a bass playing sasquatch who lived in the woods with his pal and they wanted a place to sit together to talk. I really liked the basic idea and the bass line I came up with, and so I asked Gavin to work on it with me. Gavin has a fantastic way with making melody and lyrics sit together in such a way that you can’t imagine them any other way.
I think at the time we were both feeling a bit overwhelmed by the toxicity of interaction on social media where people just seemed to be talking at each other, not listening, and not having real conversations. I was aware that if people were just chatting in the pub or over a coffee you would never get to that level of toxicity, so we made the song about that, about sitting down together, talking about your day, and making each other laugh.
And we all need human interaction. There is a phenomenon in Neonatal Care Units where babies hearts stop if they don’t get human interaction, and the nurses just stroke the babies and their hearts start beating again. Obviously as adults our hearts don’t stop, but maybe something dies within us when we are truly on our own. That’s why we wrote the lines ‘sometimes life gets lonely, and sometimes all you need is a friend, and a log settee’.
Country music has the ability to tell stories like this in a way I think pop sometimes finds it hard to do. Pop is so often about fairytale love, whereas country is much more based in real life and life experiences.
5. One of the project’s most distinctive features is Glenn, an animated cowboy accompanied by his on-and-off girlfriend Glenda. How did the idea of creating these characters emerge, and how far would you like to develop their animated adventures beyond the music videos?
I have always loved comic books and graphic novels. I think that as a kid, so much of my worldview came from Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke books, and my favourite museum in the world is the Herge Museum in Brussels. This has also led me towards animation in my tv work as it is an artform that just hits all the right notes for me.
I was playing around with some stick figure sketches when I came on the idea of Glenn – a stick figure with a head that was just a cowboy hat with googly eyes, and I thought that this would be a great way of promoting the album – to have these characters who could live the lives described in the songs. I then started working with an amazing young animator called Maya Remenyi and between us we came up with the various characters. I had sketched out the storylines for the reels with Glenn, Glenda and Hoss the horse, but then we realised it would be funnier if we had other animals also trying to sit on the log settee until they all get squashed by an ogre. When find you have a cast of characters like this its almost like you want to take them to the next stage and create whole stories for them in their own series. That would be a long term dream – of course with a rocking country music soundtrack!
6. You’ve brought together an impressive group of musicians, including pedal steel player CJ Hillman, fiddle player Ben Ivitsky, and several other accomplished performers. How did these collaborations influence the album’s sound, and what are your long-term ambitions for Texan Raiders, both musically and creatively?
I’m super keen that when you get someone in to play on a song, you should give them the freedom to express themselves, because they will almost always come up with something you hadn’t thought of that inspires and takes you on a new journey. Chris Hillman (CJ) is just one of those people. We sat together in his front room in Manchester with me recording on my laptop as he played the most amazing pedal steel through an old fender valve amp. It was like watching a Rubiks cube being cracked before your eyes as it all just slotted into place perfectly, and his work became a kind of glue for the songs. So much of what he did in that session ended up on the album just as he played it, with very little comping or editing.
Ben Ivistky is my cousin. We have known each other our whole lives, and he and his brother Conrad are all truly world class musicians. So I regularly go up to his place in Scotland when I need to record fiddle, whistle or anything acoustic that I can’t play! Ben comes with an understanding of just how to get that raw fiddle sound while not getting in the way of the vocal.
Simon Foster who did all my backing vocals and vocal arrangements I met through Gavin Alexander. Simon and Gavin have a band called Arcelia who perform beautiful acoustic songs with impeccable vocal harmonies. I would outline what I thought would sound good, and then Simon would go away and work in his studio. I think in the 15 songs on the album there was only one where I asked for any changes!
Liam Ward the harmonica player is amazing – National UK Harmonica Player of the Year and when I heard him I just knew I wanted him on the album. He plays on a track called ‘Same Ol Train’ which has a driving rhythm on the harmonica that really pushes the song along. There was a time when you used to regularly hear harmonica players on the radio, but not so much nowadays, so I anything I can do to promote this amazing instrument is good!
Finally, drummer Harpal Mudhar really provided a backbone and a groove to the album. We recorded all the drums in his converted garage. Harpal is a very talented tv composer in his own right, but he also plays as a session drummer and has an amazing feel for a song.