Findlay Brown Goes Deep

© Verve Forcast

Findlay Brown's Love Will Find You

After first making his mark in Europe while touring with Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy, Findlay Brown hopped the pond to make it big in the old US of A. (You might have heard his song "Come Home" in a MasterCard commercial. Becuase if there's any way to make it in America, it's in a commercial.) Brown's  second album, a country/western/blues record titled Love Will Find You was released in January.

Love Will Find You harnesses the crooning stylings of the sixties and is a much more ambitious album for Brown. Over a beer in Brooklyn, he told me why.

So you wrote your newest album Love Will Find You while trapped on your sister’s couch with a broken leg after being run over by a taxi. That’s an interesting backstory.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of a guy called Eckhart Tolle, he’s a writer, I hate to use the word spiritual but that’s sort of what it is. Anyway one book he wrote is called The Power Of The Now and its all about living in the moment. I had just read this book and then gotten run over – this taxi reversed over me and pretty much squashed my leg, and I was rushed to the hospital, and it was a very busy time where I had a ton of stuff to do. And I was lying in this bed in the hospital thinking about how I should be really pissed off, but instead I was in a state of joy.

It made me be in that place, completely in the moment and I surrendered to what was. I was there, what could I do? I was living in this flat at the time that was on the 16th floor and the lift was broken, so I went to stay with my sister. I didn’t have any of my records with me so I was just downloading things and they all wound up being late 50s rock-n-roll, Phil Spector, Roy Orbison things. And I had this beaten up old guitar, its this piece of shit guitar really, its this funky little thing but we have chemistry. So I just started writing base lines and bits and bobs and the album came together. I don’t regret the experience at all.

In regards to the genre of this album, you mentioned Roy Orbison and I know Elvis comes to mind as well. It’s very different than your first album Separated By The Sea.

Yeah well it all started when I looked in the mirror one day and thought that I was balding. I used to have a Beatles haircut, so I had to cut it off you see and start stickin’ it up instead like I have it now. So I transitioned into the Elvis music. The music would have to suit the haircut.

Really?

(Laughs) No. The first record was actually more of a departure for me, it happens that it was the first solo record I made. The reason that it is so intimate sounding is because its actually glorified love letters to my now wife/then girlfriend who basically had enough of me because I was staying up a bit too late too often and not doing any housework. I wrote those songs for her but then my manager heard the tracks and signed on and he ran with it. It took off quite quickly. I used to have other bands and such but this was the first thing that felt like it could go somewhere commercially. It’s ironic that it was unplanned. The record I’ve done now is more me. The first person who drew my attention was Hendrix, I was sixteen, which is quite late to get into music really, and someone was playing Electric Ladyland at a party and I was like "What the hell is this?" it was amazing and I had never heard anything like it. And since then I’ve just been obsessed with that decade, the late sixties to seventies, that’s where its at for me.

I heard a rumor that you traded your Beatles autographs for a guitar.

Yeah that’s right. Well, you can’t sing with a piece of paper.

I had also read that you were once a bare-knuckle boxer.

It wasn’t anything like Snatch, it wasn’t glamorous. I almost regret saying it, and now it comes up all the time. I’ve been told I have quite an interesting colorful past that is a contrast to the sort of music I do now. I used to get into trouble a lot, but as far as the boxing it was kids stuff.

You are a British boy moved to Brooklyn. How do you feel being in this sort of environment?

I haven’t really gotten a chance to get into the scene yet, but having been to several shows I can tell that the standard of musicianship is much higher here compared to the UK. Sometimes it’s to the music’s detriment really, because sometimes it can lose its edge. Particularly in Brooklyn there is so much great music coming out of here. TV On The Radio and Vampire Weekend etcetera, I think some of the best music of the past two or three years has come out of Brooklyn, there are just some very creative people here.

But your sound isn’t like the sound we hear coming out of the area.

No, not at all. But I just play and hope that people like it. I’ve played a few gigs and a few acoustic things, the acoustic scene here is very different, here its very country American roots, and in the UK it’s more folk. I don’t really know where I fit in, but the audiences have been very warm, and it’s been enjoyable playing here. You just have to be good, the standard is high here.

Are you in a writing phase now or are you planning to perform a lot more?

Brown: We are planning to get on the road. Next week we are going to the West Coast and then I’m going on tour with a female singer songwriter as well. I’m always writing though, I’m planning to go down to Nashville as well and get together with some artists down there. That could be amazing, it’s a whole other entity there. A lot of my influences come from that scene. The whole writing thing, as I get older, is becoming more important as well. I would like to be a songwriter first and foremost. I’ve been writing with Carl Barat of The Libertines and that’s going very well. We work well together. We both like to drink.

Any plans to play summer festivals?

For sure, yes. I love to play and I’ll play anything. Sometimes I’ll play the opening of a letter.

I know you toured with Duffy, another artist who’s sound really pulls from a past era.

Yeah it was great. I did my record with Bernard Butler, the guitarist from Suede, and he produced her record. Its’ that egg or the chicken thing, I wanted to work with him because he understood the old style way I was working. Duffy heard a few of my tunes in the studio and was a fan so it all fell into place. We stay in contact still, I’ve actually written a song with a friend of mine and I’m thinking of trying to get her to sing it. I don’t know if she will but who knows! I’ll email her.

You were recently on The Late Show. How was that?

A lot like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. Everything went about a million miles per hour. I wasn’t nervous until about half an hour before; the thing was we were doing rehearsals and I was looking at that monitor that shows you what is being seen by the audience and I was just checking myself out and I forgot the words! To a song I’ve sung a thousand times. And I was worried it would happen on the actual show. But it all went well, it was a blast.

One of your most well known songs is "Come Home," which was used in a MasterCard commercial. Were you surprised that that was the song that was sort of hooked on to?

It’s funny, never would I have chosen it for a single. It’s a song I am quite fond of, but I was quite surprised when it became what it was. It leaves a slight bad taste in my mouth when bands use songs for commercials. But you know, I thought long and hard about it and when I saw the commercial I thought it was very tasteful. And I considered what the difference was between my using my song in a commercial for MasterCard and my actually physically using a MasterCard. Not much. I’m still contributing to a big corporation. Same with signing to a big record label or buying anything from Sony, I’m in the gate already. It’s either I do that or become a hermit. I worked in chocolate factories growing up, working for the man. When I’m writing music for adverts I don’t have to wear a hairnet. I’m quite pleased about that.

Think you’ll stay in America? In Brooklyn?

Brown: In Brooklyn definitely. My wife and I, we love it here. We just skip down the street everyday like we are on holiday, and we don’t have to go home. A bit too many late nights though, I feel like I’ve put on a stone since I’ve been here. Do you know what that means? Basically it equals like two inches on the waist.

In beer?

Yeah beer. And pizza.