David McAlmont releases a new Live CD and DVD, Live From Leicester Square, next week. David took some time out of his schedule to answer a few questions.
Where are you and how are you today?
Im in London. Im stressed because a lot is going on. A new single Isnt It a Pity is released today, a new Live album/DVD is released next week and then were off on a short 10 date tour to promote them, so theres a lot to do and think about.
You are about to start a tour of the UK, what can people expect? Have you thought of an Irish visit?
The tour is a celebration of my favourite songs of the last 18 years of songwriting and recording, so thats what the audiences can look forward to. We will make it to Ireland later in the year, closer to the autumn I hope. Incidentally we were in County Sligo earlier this month writing new material and plan to do that twice again this year.
Throughout your career you’ve always collaborated with other artists. On ‘Glare’ with Michael Nyman you chose from his compositions to write lyrics for. How long did it take, how easy/hard was it?
The Nyman collaboration was reasonably long. I met him n Facebook in 2008 and we first discussed working together then. At first we were going to do something quite arty, based on a painting, The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault, but I became fascinated by the artists methods and decided to adapt his approach to creating new material. I used Michaels pieces as canvases and painted contemporary news stories on them, which was a reflection of Gericaults approach. It was difficult at first because I made the mistake of thinking that I had to change what I did naturally to collaborate, but all the music I wrote sounded dull. Then I thought if Michael had wanted me to do something different he would have said to and so I reverted to my soul/pop approach which worked brilliantly. (more…)