Joe McKee - On the border between life and dream

On this solo record you took a different direction from your previous experience with Snowman. Yet, at the same time, you started when the band was still together. What was it like to completely change your musical style? Did you know from the start that you weren't writing for Snowman?

I knew these songs were different from Snowman's. They were a kind of "escape plan" from the band. They were something I hid from the others, so I could have some separate form of expression. I knew they had to be played by me alone, written by me alone, since they were deeply personal songs. They have to do with my childhood and with my sense of nostalgia and loss for the place where I grew up. I felt the need for them to be quiet, cathartic, healing pieces of music, and I knew that, within the constraints of Snowman, I couldn't reach that kind of state of mind.

“Burning Boy” deals with the past in a very evocative and unsettling way, with a truly vivid depiction of memories. Your bio also says you wrote the songs in London. What was the most important creative driving force behind this work? Was it simply nostalgia, or also the expression of a major shift in your musical career, the image of Snowman falling apart?

I was going through a very turbulent period in my life. My band was falling apart around me, as was the relationship with my partner at the time. On top of that, I felt very isolated, lost in London. I missed a certain warmth, the comfort of my past. I wanted to go back to those moments, to those places. These songs were transcendent in that sense. A way of transporting myself to a place that no longer existed.

Capturing that feeling of nostalgia, of loss, was my main goal. I think music should always try to communicate something that can't be communicated otherwise.

The sheer intensity of the record makes me fear it might be a kind of “one-shot” work, born out of a very specific situation. Do you see this solo career as a long-term project instead?

From now on, I'll keep writing and releasing music under my own name. I don't want to hide behind a pseudonym anymore. I want to be bold about it, in that sense. I suppose that, by releasing things under my own name, people will assume they'll have a certain sound, but I'm restless by nature and I'll always be looking for further meaning in my music. I'll always try to communicate something I haven't already said. I'd like to be more prolific, though. I'd like my albums to be like an archive of my state of mind at a given moment. A window looking out onto my imagination.

You went back home (to the Darling Ranges, south of Perth) to record the songs on “Burning Boy”. Did your home environment give them an extra shape?

When I went back home, I realised things didn't exist any more the way I'd left them. It was comforting, but in a way it wasn't, because of the uncertainty, the insecurity. Change is inevitable, of course. I finished most of the songs in London, but some were completed by first going back to Melbourne, then to Perth. I felt like I was bringing the songs back to their rightful birthplace. It's always important, for a travelling artist like me, to remember where the creative spark was born. I felt like I was bringing my children to the place where I grew up.

What we found particularly interesting and fascinating about your record is the range of shades in the songs, which reveal a different side with every listen. What would you point to as the “underlying inspiration” for “Burning Boy”? David Sylvian seems an obvious reference, but a colleague of ours called it “a lost album of 60s/70s Californian psych-folk”…

I hadn't listened to anything by David Sylvian before recording the album. People have brought it up a few times. It's nice to know there are people out there on the same wavelength as me. I'm certainly inspired by American psych-folk, as well as by Latin American tropicalia from the 60s/70s.

But I think I relate more to the European school of psychedelia: Robert Wyatt, Scott Walker and so on. More than anything, I wanted to communicate something that sounded honest to me, a sound somewhere between Europe and Australia, really. I grew up with a bit of confusion about my nationality. I felt English in Australia and Australian in England. I never really had a sense of belonging. I suppose that's where my "outsider" mentality comes from.

Part of these nuances is due not only to the composition, arrangements and performance, but also to the production. Do you try to recreate the same atmosphere live?

I present the songs in a more stripped-down way live. Although they still swim in reverb, delay, feedback, loops. I build one layer after another, but I also use silence as an important tool to seduce the listener. I like to draw the listener in with silence, rather than stun them with volume. I like to fill the space between an audience member and the performer, immersing myself in the crowd.

I don't like the idea of separating the audience from the performer. I like to share the experience on the same level. It's important that the venue be an intimate space, rather than a pub or a club. I often have guests playing with me. Different people in every city. Sometimes violinists, sometimes keyboardists or percussionists.

An important part of your expression as an artist, of what's pompously called your “poetics”, is the concept of the dream. There's a strong oneiric component, for instance, in the Snowman's songs. Was it your contribution that gave that dreamlike sheen to your former band's music?

Well, to be completely honest, I wrote 98% of the lyrics and music for the Snowman. The others' contribution was vital, they helped with the arrangements, but the starting concept and the songs themselves always began with me. I've always been drawn to the territory of the surreal. Dreams play an important part in my life. I have dreams that influence the way I live. I have dreams that seem to act as prophecies.

I'm a dreamer by nature. I like exploring the endless universe inside my head. It's a wonderful place to explore, the unknown. I'm always drawn to things I don't understand. Music is, for me, a way of understanding these things. A song is in itself a dream. With your eyes open.

In “Burning Boy”, however, I find a very emotional attitude, more "down to earth". Are you comfortable with this image? Is that what you wanted to express on this solo record, and is it what's changed since your time with the Snowman?

The name “Burning Boy” comes from the idea of burning off a piece of land, in order to regenerate it. This record is a burning of my childhood, so I can move forward. It's about starting over from scratch. Alone. I wanted to strip away all the anger and focus my energy on searching for answers. I'm still searching. I probably always will be.

There's also a great sense of the theatrical in “Burning Boy”. What is, in your mind, the setting of your songs?

The setting is the memory of a place where I grew up. But from a future perspective, with the benefit of hindsight, through rose-tinted glass and in a dream state on the other side of the planet.

Would it be fair to say you're an attentive listener of certain 4AD releases, especially those from the This Mortal Coil project?

I was working in the kitchen of a French restaurant when I was sixteen. The chef was from Paris. At first he seemed like a tough guy, but when he found out about my passion for music, he opened up and shared some wonderful music with me. He was the first person to introduce me to 4AD and to artists like Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance. I was captivated by those sounds, and inevitably they show up in my own work, since they were a formative part of my life as a young listener. I remember hearing This Mortal Coil's "Song To The Siren" in David Lynch's "Lost Highways". Everything seemed to click into place in that moment. I love connecting the dots and finding parallels between different art forms.

Could you give us a brief snapshot of the Australian music scene, from your point of view?

The Australian music scene is incredibly fertile right now. Some of the best music in the world is coming out of there. Unfortunately, nobody anywhere else in the world seems to care, because we're on the other side of the planet. Some of my current favourites come from Australia: Lost Animal, Rabbit Island, Montero, Pikelet, Charge Group, Ned Collette… The list goes on.

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