There’s so much music released every week that plenty of great records slip by unnoticed. That nearly happened to Turfin’ Out the Maniacs, the jangly debut album from English slacker-rock outfit Clock Radio, but half a year after its release, the album still surfaced—we called it one of those rare discoveries that feels both familiar and freshly inspired—and now it’s even building a kind of momentum. Rightly so, because it’s alt-pop gold with lived-in magic.
I’ve recommended this band more than any other this month, and the ten songs only grew more intriguing with time. A good reason to ask frontman Oliver Daltrey about his sources of inspiration, right? In an earlier conversation he’d already mentioned that we share many musical interests and passions (and a few friends), but for our Gimme 5! feature he chose to spotlight five songwriters who influenced Turfin’ Out The Maniacs.
Read what Clock Radio’s Oliver Daltrey admires about his heroes and how he tries to apply their craft in his own music:
David Berman (Silver Jews / Purple Mountains)
“Very few songwriters come close to Berman lyrically. He was a master of juxtaposition, blending observations of the everyday with funny pop culture references and profound reflections on life. So many brilliant and deceptively straightforward lines: ‘It’s been evening all day long,’ ‘friends are warmer than gold when you’re old.’ The Purple Mountains record was the absolute pinnacle of his songwriting. I feel like some of those songs could have become American standards. You could easily imagine Dolly Parton signing That’s Just the Way That I Feel.
Mountains Beyond the Sun is me attempting to write a kind of world-weary love song in the same vein, trying to examine decades of a relationship through odd little vignettes; a bit like shuffling through a stack of Polaroids. It’s quite emotionally ambiguous. We’re sort of hunkered down in a period of domestic calm, the catastrophes and chaos of our thirties behind us, grateful for the relative peace and tranquillity, but braced for whatever’s coming next.
The problem with discussing your influences is that you invite ridicule simply by mentioning yourself in the same breath as your musical heroes. So yes, for clarity: I will forever be the Dan Brown to Berman’s Martin Amis.”
Jonathan Richman
“There really is no one like Jonathan. He’s a complete one-off and his place in the pantheon of great American songwriters is unimpeachable at this point. Of course I love The Modern Lovers, but I really started appreciating his singular talent when I found a compilation of the songs he recorded for the Rounder label. They’re beautifully produced: warm, acoustic, bursting with life. One of our favourites from that record is New Kind of Neighbourhood, on which Jonathan rhapsodises about a groovy enclave in which it’s perfectly acceptable to do outrageous things like dance on the lawn (‘No one acted like something’s wrong’). There’s a brilliant spoken word section in which Jonathan provides directions to a newcomer who’s keen to partake in the liberating activities on offer. Jonathan performs both voices in the conversation, responding as the grateful visitor with ‘uh huhs,’ and ‘yeah yeahs,’ to his own directions.
It’s completely ‘bananas’ as they say, so when it came to writing a breakdown for Handsome Weeping Man from the new record, a homage to New Kind of Neighbourhood was irresistible. There’s a call and response section in which I ask the listener, ‘Are you willing to weep with him?’ Then I answer, reluctantly at first, but growing ever more willing to weep with each repeated enquiry.
Something else I appreciated about the Rounder recordings was the directness of the lyrics. I used to hide behind allusions and cryptic wordplay (and there’s still plenty of both on the new record), but I’m gradually learning to balance this with more honesty and transparency. There’s a line in Cactus is Cooler where I sing, ‘I was scared, I was vain. I’m sorry.’ That’s me apologising to my friends and bandmates for the implosion of our first band. (I don’t think they know that.)”
Jessica Pratt
“I love Jessica Pratt’s songs. They’re completely beguiling. They are often very beautiful, but they also have a slightly unsettling quality, a sense of something shifting uncertainly underfoot. She can be quite experimental, too, occasionally slowing down the tape machine mid-song to induce a sort of woozy, hallucinatory mood. On Complex 5 from the new record, I wanted the same sense of space and the same slightly unusual chord phrasings that she uses. I’m always impressed by songwriters who are confident enough to leave space in their songs. I hope Complex 5 has some of the ambiguity and mystery of Jessica Pratt’s music.”
Dan Bejar (Destroyer)
“Destroyer are my favourite contemporary band. I think Dan Bejar is the best living lyricist. I’m completely in awe of what he does. And the sound of those albums! He’s such an interesting writer. His lyrics sometimes have a sort of sarcastic, almost bitchy quality, which I love, and sometimes he can be quite macabre, but in a slightly camp way. But then he’ll write something heart-stopping like Girl in a Sling. Destroyer can be as experimental and complex as any other band when they want to be, but they can also make beautiful, genre-defying songs like Poor in Love, or essay a sort of crooked classicism on a song like The River, from Poison Season (an album so good I bought it twice). Dan Bejar’s lyrics can be very arch, but also emotionally affecting. A difficult trick to pull off. The new album Dan’s Boogie is maybe his most ambitious yet.
If I could have one line as good as Dan Bejar on this record, I’d be happy. When I sing, ‘the cats destroyed the jewellery,’ I’m trying to do so with a Bejarian(?) flourish!”
Dolly Parton
“I listen to loads of music in the car with my family and we play a lot of Dolly Parton. What is there to say about her that hasn’t already been said? I admire her total commitment to the art of the song, her mastery of the form and her generosity to the listener. I’m always trying to write pop songs and I learn something new about the craft every time I listen to Dolly. I wanted the chorus of American Roomz to have soaring vocal harmonies, so I listened a lot to songs like My Tennessee Mountain Home, to learn how it’s done. I embrace the campness of pop music and there’s definitely some of that on the new album, whether I’m singing about a Handsome Weeping Man, or in the guise of a buttoned-up naïf off to seek guilty, shame-inducing pleasure in the city on Square Feelings. A little camp is indispensable when writing pop songs.”
You can find Clock Radio’s Turfin’ Out The Maniacs on Bandcamp.