Lewis Leverett is Essex born and bred. There are high hopes for him to follow in the well-beaten path of other Essex singer-songwriters, like Billy Bragg, Darren Hayman, and Dodie, into the nation’s consciousness.
I bumped into him at the City Sound Studios in Chelmsford. He was there to perform live and chat with Paul Dupree. Naturally, I got in on the act.
Lewis Leverett at City Sound Radio
Please click on the link below to listen to the three-way chat and Lewis (lewlevmusic) play a couple of songs off his ace debut album. And a nice Leonard Cohen cover. That’s saying something coming from someone who doesn’t ‘get’ Cohen’s music.
The radio interview with Lewis revealed much. However, there were a couple of other things I’d wanted to ask but time was against us. Please read on.
Your album, Essex Gothic, is out now on the usual platforms. Tell us about your most mysterious, unsettling, or gloomy experience in the county of Essex.
While trying to make my way back to Southend Victoria in the dark, I was once harassed by a gang of hooded teenagers for eating a ninety-nine. But I’m not sure that’s quite what you mean.
As a more serious answer, I think a lot of my experiences of Essex are my experiences of the mundane; the sorts of things you hear in ‘Billericay’. It was a look into the past that unlocked perhaps my gloomiest, most gothic song: ‘Norsey Woods’.
The Norsey Wood, not far from where I live, was once a home to ancient burial mounds. In the 1800s, a man named Edward Lewes Cutts was responsible for the carrying out of an excavation of these burial sites. I was reading about this one day, and thought it would make for an interesting folk horror story.
A dark forest, old bones being dug up. And what if the bones, or the earth itself, decided to fight back?
So, I suppose my answer is that the ‘gothic’ of the album title doesn’t come so much from my own experiences as it does from my interests, my reading, and my gloomy imagination.
Musical inspiration
In our studio chat in the studio, you said that you have spent most of your life in Essex. That said, North American greats – for example, Dylan, Cohen, Waits, Mitchell, have inspired you.
Are there any UK and/or Ireland artists you listen to? Say, Van Morrison, Nicky Wire, Beth Gibbons, MacGowan, or Isobel Campbell?
Absolutely. Van Morrison is somewhere in most of my playlists. Dodie is excellent, one of the few people I’ve seen live. Her lyrics are very touching, and delicately poetic.
Luke Jackson is perhaps a less well-known name, a great folk musician. His song ‘Eliza Holt’, a gothic, historical tale, bears a resemblance to ‘Norsey Woods’ in a lot of ways.
I listen to the great folk that came out of the late 00s and early 10s – Mumford & Sons, Noah and the Whale, Dry the River, and so forth. But also Kate Nash, The Answering Machine, McFly, Bowie, Marianne Faithfull… I was never one to stick to a genre anyway, but I’ve found myself listening to increasingly diverse sounds now I’m writing music.
It’s necessary, I find, to continue to come up with new ideas.
A nod to the late, great Ian Dury
This is more of an observation really. Your song Billericay is a gloriously acerbic successor to Ian Dury’s ‘Billericay Dickie’. You sing about ‘there’s nothing funky about Billericay’.
Maybe The Blockheads used up all your hometown’s funk?
If I’m being honest, I’m not sure we had much to begin with. I think it’s worth stating that what is said in my songs is not always the truth. Every lyric is put through a lens, of one form or another. The voice of the ‘singer’, who in each instance is, to some extent, a character. So, just because I sing that there ‘ain’t nothing funky about Billericay’, doesn’t mean it’s true.
What is said in my songs is not always the truth.
Lewis Leverett
It’s up to the listener to take in the lyrics and decide if they agree or disagree. One critic said the song had a Bossa Nova feel to it, which most certainly was not invented in Billericay.
Are you a self-taught musician or have you had tuition?
When I was maybe fifteen, my parents bought me a ukulele. A family friend gave me two or three lessons. Aside from that, I’m self-taught. I can’t read music, and my knowledge of music theory is almost non-existent. My education, up until I left school, came mostly from shower singing. From what I remember, music classes at school involved having a random instrument shoved into your hands, and then being told to make a song. I don’t recall ever being told how.
Many thanks for talking (again) to me. Best of luck with the album and the upcoming live show at The Star in Shoreditch (Sunday, 3 November 2024).
Thank you, Andy. It’s been a pleasure.
Did you enjoy reading this article? How about the radio programme? Please let me know in the comments below. Why not subscribe to my blog using the form below? Coming up later this week on this blog will be a chat with the legendary Pete Wiggs of St Etienne. Spoiled you truly are.
