EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
The Sun's Something For The Weekend interviews Newton Faulkner, a British guitar genius, whose album "Hand Huilt By Robots" is released on 30th July. The big, dreadlocked 22 year-old released the single Dream Catch Me on 23rd July...
Our answer to Jack Johnson
The Sun
27th July 2007
Faulkner ... 'I don't mind being compared to Jack Johnson, I really like his sound'
July 27, 2007
NEWTON FAULKNER - Hand Built By Robots
Rating 4/5
IT’S a momentous week in the life of 22-year-old Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner.
In the intimate, hallowed surroundings of the Union Chapel in London’s Islington, he’s reflecting on the imminent arrival of his debut album Hand Built By Robots.
“If it doesn’t do well, I’ll curl up in the foetal position and cry,” he tells the assembled throng before his happy, hairy face breaks into a wide grin.
The comment is typically tongue-in-cheek by the affable Newton. (“I’ve just taken bits of the name. There’s enough to play with!”)
He’s also pretty excited about his new single, Dream Catch Me, which, he informs the crowd, has just entered the midweek singles chart at No16.
The song is already a familiar fixture on the nation’s airwaves but only hit the shops the day before his gig.
With his shoulder-length ginger dreads, he is one of the most striking new arrivals on the Brit music scene, a summery, upbeat character oft compared to Jack Johnson and partial to ending his concerts with a rousing rendition of the Spongebob Squarepants theme.
After high profile support slots to chart favourites James Morrison and Paolo Nutini and plenty of exposure on the summer festival circuit, he is emerging as a headline act in his own right.
And there’s a great deal more to Newton than his image. He’s a genuine master of the acoustic guitar, extracting dazzling melodies and, more remarkably, inventive beats by drumming on the instrument’s body.
Growing up in Surrey, his introduction to music came through his parents. “My dad played harmonica and guitar when he was younger and Mum was always into music,” he says.
“They’ve both got amazing record collections . . . Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young etc, some crazy psychedelic stuff. I never had to rebel against the things they liked. I was like ‘Man, that’s wicked!’ ”
Newton got his first instrument, a bass guitar, when he was 13. “A bunch of my friends friends started a band and a bass was the thing they didn’t have. I said, ‘Well I can do that. I’m sure I can find one’. ”
And though this gave him the chance to play live, the blue touch-paper of creativity had already been lit. He explains: “I’d kind of been writing before I could even play. I did it in my head without even realising what I was doing. There was lots of stuff in there!
“I was also into singing early on too, nothing proper, but I did try drama school briefly because of it.”
It was when Newton began attending the Academy Of Contemporary Music in Guildford, Surrey, that the path opened up to where he is today. He honed his finger-picking and percussive guitar skills under the tutelage of the late Irish virtuoso Eric Roche.
Out this week ... Hand Built By Robots
“He’s by far the biggest influence in my playing. I just started doing the percussiony stuff on the body while doing a lot of versions of other people’s songs,” he says.
Out of college, Newton began using two vital outlets behind so many of today’s successful crop of young musicians — gigging and the internet (MySpace, Bebo and Facebook).
“If you just sit in a room and practise, you might become really good but I don’t think you’ll be really good at gigging,” he believes.
“Thinking about when I started in little clubs and bars, some of the things I was doing in front of people and getting away with were quite appalling.”
The hard work is clearly paying off as the buzz around Newton is building nicely, particularly with Cornwall’s surfer set who connect with his engaging personality and laid-back style.
“Cornwall’s a really wicked place to hang out,” he says. “But I don’t surf. I was doing an interview for a surfing magazine and had been talking to them for ten minutes when they said ‘So obviously you surf?’ and I’m like ‘No’ and then there was a minute’s silence.”
It also makes sense that he has been hailed as Britain’s answer to Hawaiian singer/surfer dude Jack Johnson and he doesn’t mind the comparison being made. “Not at all,” he says.
“I really like his sound. It’s not a bad thing.”
As for the net, Newton adds: “It works incredibly well. The problem is I need to do about an hour a day to keep on top of it.
With me, if people rang me, I could have a perfectly civil three-minute conversation but if I’m writing a message I’ll spend half-an-hour writing three lines trying to get it right.”
Much has been made of the dreadlocks but they’re not just some passing fad. Newton has had them since he was 14 and didn’t take the decision lightly.
“I did a lot of research before I got them. I wanted to know what I was getting into, to know about all the different cultures that have them.
“Rastafarians are the most widely known but they’re not the only ones to have dreadlocks. Indian high priests have them. Some tribes in South America and Africa have them too,” he says.
There is one group of dreadlock wearers that Newton connects with the most: “There are bald Buddhists, which is their sign of purity, that they’ve been cleansed,” he says.
“But there are Rasta Buddhists who believe that nature is an over-riding force. If you accept that, you embrace it. That kind of sums up how I feel.”
And Newton enjoys the camaraderie. “When you see someone walking around London with dreads, it’s almost like a code. You say, ‘Hey!’ It’s our friendly little club. There’s even a bit of a special club for ginger dreads as well.”
Next our discussion turned to the matter of the moment — his beautifully crafted 17-track album Hand Built By Robots, which is out on Monday.
It comes after a succession of EPs and singles but represents the moment Newton feels he has well and truly arrived.
It features original songs including his best-known efforts To The Light, I Need Something, Dream Catch Me and UFO. The only cover is a spellbinding version of Massive Attack’s Teardrop.
He says he had to fit the album’s recording into a hectic live schedule and put down most of it in London but also Manchester, Liverpool, Cornwall and so on. “I was thinking, ‘This is nuts’,” he says.
“I had to move a whole tour at one point.”
“I just wanted to make an album that you can listen to from start to finish. I think I went far enough in different directions to keep it interesting. Too many albums are just about three big singles.”
His songs are clearly winning him plenty of new supporters, including the great Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who asked him to perform at a summer solstice party.
“His kids really like my stuff. I don’t know if they played the CD to him. His wife called me.”
With rock gods like Page jumping on the Newton Faulkner bandwagon, it’s time for the rest of us to follow suit.
--------------------------
The single Dream Catch Me was released on 23rd July
thesun.co.uk