An inspired walk on the wild side for Richard Hawley

CHARLES Dickens often did creative work as he made long walks around London - and Richard Hawley knows the feeling.

richard hawley jan 15 hit

CHARLES Dickens often did creative work as he made long walks around London - and Richard Hawley knows the feeling.

Much of his latest album, Standing At the Sky's Edge, was written on walks in the woods near his home in Sheffield, in company with his dog Fred.

Hawley would come home from those walks with chunks of songs playing in his mind.

"I have always written in my head, as well as writing songs on guitar or piano," Hawley says.

"As I've gotten older I do it more and more. It's a way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. If you write a piece of music in your head and the idea is still there an hour later, then it's good.

"When you put one foot in front of the other, the pragmatic part of your mind shuts off. It's a great way of freeing yourself from the chains of day-to-day bullshit and allowing flights of fancy. And I just like walking the dog."

Standing At the Sky's Edge was one of the best albums of last year.

Hawley's solo career includes elegantly crafted albums, often referencing places in his Yorkshire home city, such as Lowedges, Coles Corner and Lady's Bridge.

Sky Edge is a rundown part of the city that has had problems with gang warfare and liberal use of one of the city's most famous products: steel knives.

Hawley's dad was a steel worker by day and guitarist by night. He would work long shifts but found time to introduce Richard to the splendours of Howlin' Wolf and Bo Diddley after hours, sometimes before heading off to play in a band playing behind touring bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker.

"Ever since I first saw my Dad's guitar, I've been in love with them," Hawley says. At school, Hawley formed a band called Treebound Story, which gained attention with some great songs in the '80s (see their song Something on YouTube for evidence of Hawley's fully developed guitar style while still a teenager).

He pressed on with music while many of his contemporaries gave it up, showing the same sort of dogged determination that eventually paid off for another Sheffield export, Jarvis Cocker, whose band Pulp Hawley briefly played in.

In the '90s, Hawley was a guitar slinger for hire in bands such as Longpigs. His song-writing didn't so much fall by the wayside as mature quietly out of the public eye.

"I wrote songs in Treebound Story and sang a bit, after that it wasn't necessary with the artists I worked with," he says.

"The songwriting came out with Jarvis because our bands would play together in pubs when we were kids. He said, 'Can you help me out with a song?' He was the first person in years to say that because he knew my past and that I wrote songs."

The guitar is back to the fore on Sky's Edge.

"The deliberate decision I made was to dispense with peripheral instruments, I wanted it to be really direct," he says.

Though Hawley tours the world, he has no intention of leaving his hometown.

"People always think of Sheffield as a post-industrial s---hole, but it's my favourite post-industrial s---hole," Hawley says.

"The people are slightly different to a lot of other places in England, on the whole people are friendly. It's a great city, man, the end." 

-- SEE Richard Hawley

 QLD The Old Museum, Brisbane, January 26, with Halfway as support; oldmuseum.org, $72 +bf

NSW Sydney Town Hall, ticketmaster.com.au, $56.

WA Rosemount Hotel, Perth, January 31, $72.45