During the lead up to the release of album number eight, A Spanner in the Works (listen here), Impact Music decided to give Jay, better known as “drunk folk singer” Beans On Toast, an interrogation about his musical career so far…
Impact: So, to begin, why did you write a fifty-track debut album?
Beans on Toast: I hadn’t thought about releasing an album. I’d been playing and writing extensively. I ended up being support for one of Frank Turner’s bigger tours, and I was introduced to Xtra Mile Records.
They asked if I wanted to put an album out, and I said ‘I don’t think what I do suits a record’, but they were insisting, so I said ‘whatever I do will annoy you’ and they said that it wouldn’t so I said fine. And then I counted up my songs. I had 49, so I wrote another and told them I wanted to do a fifty track album and they were like ‘what?!’ and I said ‘I warned ya’.
How long had you been writing them for?
Probably over two years or so, that’s how long I’d been playing as Beans On Toast anyway.
“I mean hang on a minute, this life is fucking mint”
It’s clear from your songs that you are very socially aware. What are your thoughts on the world right now?
It’s disastrous. I mean, I’m an optimist at heart but I’m really challenged at the moment. I really think it’s ‘wise up or we are looking at the end of days’. I think all the problems we’re seeing, political, environmental, and social problems are all fundamentally linked at the core. And that’s what the danger is, because it makes it much harder to fix.
Do you think music or more generally art can help with this?
I think it’s something everyone can do. I don’t think it’s the job of artists or anyone else. Maybe the truth is people will only start to really change when shit affects them personally. And I don’t think we’re that far away from that.
I’m not saying I’m any different though, there’s a million things I could change in my life to help change the world but it’s hard – I mean we’re conditioned to live the lives we live, but we need to reevaluate from top to fucking bottom.
Here’s a question from Molly Davies: are you still in touch with the lady you wrote M.D.M.Amazing about?
Yeah! I haven’t seen her in years and years but we’re still friends, I know I could call her if I needed to.
I started listening to you when I was 14, and I know many people my age like you. What should people of that age take from your songs?
Um, I’m not sure, the themes don’t differ from what I talk about now really, and they’re quite self explanatory I guess. But I was near thirty when I started recording, I mean I wasn’t trying to appeal to someone half my age, it’d be a bit creepy!
On album three, there’s ‘the tour blog song.’ How did this song come about?
I mean, it was literally written in a Travelodge. Many of my favourite songs are about life on the road, certainly those written by country singers and American songwriters. It’s something I found romantic but really distant. But I realised that I found all that romance travelling up the fucking M3 and staying in Travelodges and service stations, so I guess I wanted a life on the road song about England.
I mean, now that I’ve done America too I have a travelling song for there as well. I think it sort of came from the presumption that people made like ‘ah you have to sleep on the road all the time’ – like as if I wasn’t loving it? I mean hang on a minute, this life is fucking mint.
“A kid in Bedford told me that my music inspired him to take drugs”
How do you find touring these days?
Yeah I love it even more now. I mean, I don’t have to pay to do it, which helps. It isn’t all about money of course, but let’s be realistic. I was working a lot of part time jobs and sort of paying my way before, which just out of principle doesn’t feel great.
Now, touring England is amazing because the shows are so much bigger, and I’m constantly still finding places in the States where I’m literally playing to five or six people who have never heard of me which is humbling – I’m still as pleased to have those opportunities as I was when I started.
Since album five, the music has been becoming more polished. Was there a change to the process?
I record every album with different people in a different place. So, it maybe got better because I approached different producers? I mean also, [impersonating a smokers voice] my voice got better over the years. I don’t listen back to my songs though, so I don’t know if the albums are polished or if they’re trash!
“The war on drugs is a waste of time and money”
Fishing For A Thank You is a lot more contemplative than the previous three albums. Was there change behind the album?
Yeah it’s definitely me looking at the future. I was thinking of settling down, I was with Lizzy. Well I met her half way through the first album, but things were more serious, and well, I was a year older. Again, I wish I could give you a deeper insightful answer – it sounds like you know me better than I do. But yeah that album was recorded in Leeds with a band I put together for a few festival shows and we did it over a weekend.
Giving Everything is notably more emotive lyrically, is there a song writing process behind the album, or in general?
Smoking weed. In order to write songs I sit in a room alone with my guitar and smoke a bit and then it happens.
“This interview can be my proudest moment”
What’s the worst thing about songwriting?
It’s when you’re out and about and you hear something and think ‘this would be a wicked song’ but then you forgot it. But isn’t it Nick Cave who writes a song without writing anything down and says if he can’t remember it the next day, it isn’t worth remembering? I mean, it makes sense, but he must be a fucking patient guy.
On to the latest release, A Spanner in The Works [out December 1st]. How does it compare to the previous, and are you happy with it?
I’m well happy with it. It is different; we did it on a laptop. Around this time last year I was chatting to a mate about a new album, and making it a bit different. He just said if you don’t use a guitar, it’ll have to sound different. So I signed him up as producer there and then. It still sits comfortably with the rest of my work. It isn’t euro-pop or anything, but it is different.
Finally, what’s the plan for the future, and proudest moment so far?
Just the same as really, the same old shit! This interview can be my proudest moment.
Rhys Thomas
Look out for the forthcoming live review of Beans On Toast’s set at Nottingham’s Bodega.
Images courtesy of Rhys Thomas.
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