A musician who celebrates the natural world, alongside tales of lovelorn characters and the downtrodden, all wrapped up in a fuzzy melodic coating or a delicately beautiful acoustic guitar sheen, Pea Sea is back!
The new album ‘A Pyke Of Patina Slate’ features collaborations with Peter Brewis from Field Music and Tom English from Maximo Park, who both also help with production duties, and is awash with great folk inspired and indie pop tunes.
We caught up with Christopher Rollen (Pea Sea) to find out more:
Falling Leaves’ really evokes an autumnal day in an emotional song about relationships, even though you no longer live in Scotland how much does the landscape work it’s way into your songs?
That song is about a trip to Glasgow and a hungover return to Carlisle (Botchergate and the Citadel are by the train station there). I tend to use the Anglo-Scottish border a lot as a starting point for some songs even though I haven’t lived there for over half of my lifetime. It’s where I grew up and my family are there so I know the place quite innately. The features of small, rural towns are the context for the imagery in my mind’s eye when I write and sing the songs (e.g. Come Over, Mother England Pt1 and Home From the Hill)
Other songs such as ‘The Dominies Log’ and ‘Mother England Part 1’ seem to draw on folklore or historical stories, with The Dominies Log being taken from a book about a revolutionary teacher in Gretna, did you grow up with these stories or were they ones you’ve discovered and how have they inspired you?
With The Dominie’s Log it was a later discovery. AS Neill’s book on Summerhill School was my first knowledge of his work and from that learned that he had been the Dominie (Scottish word for Head Teacher) at the village school during WW1. That was an interesting time in that previously quiet, rural forgotten corner of the country with the building of the munitions factory there. I wrote another song about a fictional character who worked there (Mixing up the Cordite), also at that time there was the Quintinshill Rail Disaster that AS Neill recounts in his book. I grew up knowing some of the local history but have discovered a lot more as an adult.
‘Mother England Pt 1’ is an attempt to address the convoluted sense on national identity that has somehow gripped the UK in recent years. I lived in Germany for 10 years up until 4 years ago and have really noticed a shift in the intervening decade into a, shall we say, ’sticky’ direction when it comes to our priorities as a nation. We aren’t alone in that stickiness, these are very concerning times.
You’ve collaborated with Peter Brewis from Field Music and Tom English from Maximo Park, how did that collaboration happen?
Peter and his brother David invited me to their studio to record the first Pea Sea album, The Debatable Land, in about 2012. I have known them since the early noughties, slightly before Field Music started. It was pretty clear to all in the North East music scene of the time that the Brewis brothers were head and shoulders above anything else going on in terms of ability as well as vision and ambition. Tom drummed with them in a pre Field Music band called The Electronic Eye Machine. I saw them play once before I really knew them but got to know Tom really as part of Maximo Park. My band as the time, Les Cox Sportifs, supported MP a few times early on too.
Growing up in Gretna, who were your inspirations either musically or non musically?
If you consider that Gretna is 90 miles from Glasgow, 65 miles from Newcastle and 125 miles from Manchester then you get a sense of quite a culturally isolated region in terms of live music. I didn’t really see bands play regularly until later.
My Dad has a great vinyl collection of 60s and 70s rock and blues stuff. He encouraged me to listen to lots of music and to play the guitar.
Early on I had a love of Motown, U2, Deee-Lite and the Grease soundtrack. I then got very into Heavy Metal and Hard Rock collecting Iron Maiden, Motorhead and also AC/DC albums. I was 13 when Nevermind cane out and that was the real revelation period where through Nirvana I discovered a whole world of, not only, bands but ideas of how one should live one’s life.
I’ve always loved film, art, fashion and books too and so a lot of these interests mutated and moulded me as I traversed my teens.
When did you realise you wanted to be a musician full time and if you weren’t doing music full time what job would you probably be doing or do you feel it easier to combine music with another job ?
I’ve never been a full time musician but, like everyone, have harboured dreams of being a rock star as a job. The reality is a lot more conventional I’m afraid as I’ve been a full time school teacher for the last 20 years. I studied Fine Art and teach art at a Secondary School in Oxford. The music/songwriting can feel like a hobby at times but, like all good amateurs, I do it because I love it and have a compulsion to pursue it seriously as an art form.
It’s been eight years since the last album ‘Lonnin Life’, have you been constantly writing songs throughout that time or do you prefer to step away from music for a while and return
The songs have been developed over that time slowly. If you look at my track record for albums they tend to be about 6 years apart and if you discount two years for Covid, the pattern has continued. I am busy with work and family as well as Art work and so the songs have to get used to being samples on the shelf for a fermentation period. The risk is that they lose the vitality that one would like them to have or that they can pick up a mixture of embellishments over time that can confuse the overall song. It’s a risky business.
When you’re writing, do you just record on to your phone or do you go old school and use a 4 track, and then how does it develop?
I use a bit of both. I definitely played things into my phone for this album. When I started Pea Sea in the late 90s it was a 4-Track tape bedroom thing and loved having the ability to layer things. It still blows my mind that we can do that. Record sounds, immediately play it back, overlap it with another layer and hear them both back at the same time?! I mean, that is pretty crazy.
I demo stuff now on Ableton on the laptop, when I get the time and space to do so. One thing that I do really enjoy is the process of recording song ideas, listening, re working and re recording etc. Most songs go through 3-4 drafts and lyrics tend to be the thing that I obsess over the most.
Any plans to take Pea Sea on the road?
I will be playing a solo show in York on the 8th August (at the Fulfordgate Club with Dragged Up, Juku) and as a 3 piece band (Myself, Tom English on drums & Dom Berry of The Illness/Sea Records on Bass) at Pop Recs in Sunderland on the 15th August. Nev Clay has just agreed to support that night so it should be a great one.
Beyond these two shows I have a gig in Oxford coming up in December but nothing in the diary to speak of…yet.
You’ve mentioned that this is the final album in a trilogy of albums, so what was the thinking behind ending this series of albums and have you any thoughts yet about what the next album will be like?
Ideally I’d like to put a band together in Oxford and start to write and co-write new stuff for that outfit. Perhaps Pea Sea will continue or evolve a little and I’ll experiment more with the possibilities of recording, writing and performing. Not sure yet but it should be exciting when it happens.
Apart from Pea Sea are there any other future projects in the pipeline?
The pipeline is pretty clear at the moment which, from a plumbing perspective, sounds like a good thing but from a creative point of view is a sign that I need to fill it with some new shit!
From gloriously delicate acoustic ballads, to fuzzy guitar pop, Pea Sea’s latest album is awash with huge melodies and intricate musicality. Here’s hoping the pipeline doesn’t stay clear for too long!
Pea Sea – A Pyke Of Pakina Slate: Out Now (Sea Records)
From the early days of creating handmade zines, in a DIY paper and glue style, interviewing bands around town, then pestering Piccadilly Records to sell them, to writing for various independent mags such as Chimp and Ablaze, writing about the music I love is still a great passion. After testing the music industry waters in London with stints at various labels, being back in my hometown again, writing about this city’s vibrant music scene is as exciting as ever. All time favourite bands include Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Patti Smith although anything from electro to folk via blues and pysch rock will also do nicely too. A great album, is simply a great album, regardless of whatever musical cage you put it in.
 AND TOM ENGLISH (MAXIMO PARK)){kind=link}