Cherry Ghost
It seems highly unlikely that that the Bolton Tourist Board would ever employ Simon Aldred as a spokesman. “I’ve lived there all my life and it’s kind of on the skids a little bit,” he says. “There’s not much investment. You get all these out of town shopping areas, and what’s left in the town is pound shops and bars. It’s pretty depressing actually. I’m sure it’s had its heyday. It’s traditionally a very working class town, it’s got quite an old demographic. A lot of people you speak to there would be horrified that people even go to Manchester, and Manchester’s only 20 minutes away on the train. They probably see going to Manchester as being one step nearer to going to London, which would be the most godforsaken thing you could possibly do. I’m probably painting too one-dimensional a picture of it, but it’s a pretty insular place.” He smiles. “But it’s great for songs. You get a lot of soul and integrity that can come through that. I don’t want to play the Northern card too much, but Bolton has been pretty instructive in the way that my lyrics have
been written.”
He has a point. The music on the debut album he’s recorded under the name Cherry Ghost reflects a kaleidoscope of musical influences from far beyond the North West: the Cherry Ghost name comes from a line in a Wilco song, and, in quick succession, he namechecks gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kelis, Sparklehorse, “the really shameless melodies” of 80s pop, Smog, old soul, and the importance of the album’s producer, Dan Austin, who has a day-job as part of the Massive Attack collective. But the lyrics are shot through with individuals and situations inspired by Aldred’s hometown.
A fan of Chekov (“it’s a good grounding in how to tell a good story”), his songs are populated by the kind of characters no one else in rock music currently bothers writing about. “There is that section of society,” he says, “older folk. There’s just a level of dignity that you can draw on with that generation that I’ve never seen in anyone else.” There’s Mary On The Mend, eight and a half epic minutes of sumptuous, rain-splattered soul “about a woman who’s been married two or three times, lived a bit, and it’s her wedding day. She’s getting married again, and she’s still as positive and vibrant about her life as she ever was. It’s about not becoming bitter about your situation even though your surroundings are shitty.” There’s the frantic, punchy guitar pop of Alfred The Great, based in part on a poem by Stevie Smith and in part on Aldred’s father and grandfather, “about the pride that can come out of working your guts out at a pretty thankless job every day.”
Even when he turns his songwriting gaze further afield, it somehow ends up focussing back on the home of Warburton’s bread, Johnny ‘Think Of A Number’ Ball and Vernon Kay. Aldred started writing a soaring ballad called People Help The People, but then “I just referenced it all back to Bolton, really, because everyone’s so wrapped up in their own hardships that they’re not at all arsed. It’s just saying everyone’s going through the same shit, extend the hand of humanity.” He frowns. “It’s not got that Richard Ashcroft earnestness about it,” he adds hurriedly. “I don’t feel like singing that song all the time, because I don’t feel like that all the time.”
“I could have made an album when I was 25, and it probably would have been shit,” says Aldred. “I just didn’t think I had anything particular to say. I think life experience is the most important thing if you’re a musician. I don’t have a raging ego, so I was never like, “I’ll be in a band and we’ll be the next big thing”, or anything like that. I just spent time absorbing my surroundings, then I decided I had something to say.” After a unique start, playing his guitar in church at his mum’s insistence (“I’m not religious or anything like that - I suspect it was something to do with getting into the only half-decent school there was locally”), Aldred bided his time playing in a succession of bands, supporting himself with a variety of part time jobs: “I did the books at an estate agents for a bit. 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 fucking weird, actually. It was fucking nuts.”
Signed to Heavenly Recordings, the subsequent album was recorded in a bizarre-sounding studio in The Wirral – “it’s like a kind of extended bungalow in the middle of nowhere, but inside it’s partly modelled on the Motown studio” – with occasional help from Jimi Goodwin of labelmates Doves and underground Scouse legend Edgar Jones on bass. 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, Aldred spent twelve weeks recording a debut album that took years to make. “I don’t reflect too much on the last couple of years,” he says. “If I did, it would probably seem really daunting to have gone from a bedroom to having been played on the radio. I don’t want to get mixed up in the romance of it too much. I think it might stop me being able to write tunes if I did.”
“I was thinking maybe I should move to Manchester. People keep telling me to move to Chorlton, it’s where all the musicians live, there’s a nice community. But you don’t want to be hanging out with musicians all the time, patting each other on the back. I don’t think that’s such a good perspective to be writing tunes from. I think I should be in some way respectful to the thing that’s got me writing these songs in the first place.” He sighs. “So I think I’ll probably stay in Bolton. It’s quite nice there, really.”
“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 with an understanding of sonics and no background in session work. Slick jazzers with 6 string basses didn’t get through the door, music is a very human thing and should be fallible. Without edge and frailty it’s a real bore, 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.”
been written.”
He has a point. The music on the debut album he’s recorded under the name Cherry Ghost reflects a kaleidoscope of musical influences from far beyond the North West: the Cherry Ghost name comes from a line in a Wilco song, and, in quick succession, he namechecks gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kelis, Sparklehorse, “the really shameless melodies” of 80s pop, Smog, old soul, and the importance of the album’s producer, Dan Austin, who has a day-job as part of the Massive Attack collective. But the lyrics are shot through with individuals and situations inspired by Aldred’s hometown.
A fan of Chekov (“it’s a good grounding in how to tell a good story”), his songs are populated by the kind of characters no one else in rock music currently bothers writing about. “There is that section of society,” he says, “older folk. There’s just a level of dignity that you can draw on with that generation that I’ve never seen in anyone else.” There’s Mary On The Mend, eight and a half epic minutes of sumptuous, rain-splattered soul “about a woman who’s been married two or three times, lived a bit, and it’s her wedding day. She’s getting married again, and she’s still as positive and vibrant about her life as she ever was. It’s about not becoming bitter about your situation even though your surroundings are shitty.” There’s the frantic, punchy guitar pop of Alfred The Great, based in part on a poem by Stevie Smith and in part on Aldred’s father and grandfather, “about the pride that can come out of working your guts out at a pretty thankless job every day.”
Even when he turns his songwriting gaze further afield, it somehow ends up focussing back on the home of Warburton’s bread, Johnny ‘Think Of A Number’ Ball and Vernon Kay. Aldred started writing a soaring ballad called People Help The People, but then “I just referenced it all back to Bolton, really, because everyone’s so wrapped up in their own hardships that they’re not at all arsed. It’s just saying everyone’s going through the same shit, extend the hand of humanity.” He frowns. “It’s not got that Richard Ashcroft earnestness about it,” he adds hurriedly. “I don’t feel like singing that song all the time, because I don’t feel like that all the time.”
“I could have made an album when I was 25, and it probably would have been shit,” says Aldred. “I just didn’t think I had anything particular to say. I think life experience is the most important thing if you’re a musician. I don’t have a raging ego, so I was never like, “I’ll be in a band and we’ll be the next big thing”, or anything like that. I just spent time absorbing my surroundings, then I decided I had something to say.” After a unique start, playing his guitar in church at his mum’s insistence (“I’m not religious or anything like that - I suspect it was something to do with getting into the only half-decent school there was locally”), Aldred bided his time playing in a succession of bands, supporting himself with a variety of part time jobs: “I did the books at an estate agents for a bit. 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 fucking weird, actually. It was fucking nuts.”
Signed to Heavenly Recordings, the subsequent album was recorded in a bizarre-sounding studio in The Wirral – “it’s like a kind of extended bungalow in the middle of nowhere, but inside it’s partly modelled on the Motown studio” – with occasional help from Jimi Goodwin of labelmates Doves and underground Scouse legend Edgar Jones on bass. 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, Aldred spent twelve weeks recording a debut album that took years to make. “I don’t reflect too much on the last couple of years,” he says. “If I did, it would probably seem really daunting to have gone from a bedroom to having been played on the radio. I don’t want to get mixed up in the romance of it too much. I think it might stop me being able to write tunes if I did.”
“I was thinking maybe I should move to Manchester. People keep telling me to move to Chorlton, it’s where all the musicians live, there’s a nice community. But you don’t want to be hanging out with musicians all the time, patting each other on the back. I don’t think that’s such a good perspective to be writing tunes from. I think I should be in some way respectful to the thing that’s got me writing these songs in the first place.” He sighs. “So I think I’ll probably stay in Bolton. It’s quite nice there, really.”
“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 with an understanding of sonics and no background in session work. Slick jazzers with 6 string basses didn’t get through the door, music is a very human thing and should be fallible. Without edge and frailty it’s a real bore, 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.”
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