Albert Hammond Jr On His New Opus: Melodies On Hiatus
Images by Elena Saviano
Where Albert Hammond Jr’s solo records, 2007’s,Yours To Keep, made us fall in love and 2018’s, Francis Trouble, was a consummation, his brand new album, Melodies On Hiatus, feels like a happy marriage being lived.
The nineteen-track double record is a long listen by today’s standards - standards which encourage one-minute-thirty-second, double-hook double-chorus, TikTok-able garbage - but an enjoyable, nuanced, and fragrant one that doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is, which is to say, a good time. Featuring collaborations with GoldLink, Matt Helders, and Rainsford, to name a few, Melodies is an expansive, and developed multi-genre collection by an artist willing to spruce up, cut down, and build out in whichever direction the song takes them.
As a whole, when compared to previous albums, Melodies On Hiatus is more spacious, and, strengthened by or perhaps even made even possible through a lyrical collaboration with Simon Wilcox, draws from a deeper emotional well, although I do believe that even if Albert had abandoned linguistic reasoning all together - if he had taken a note from Sigur Ros’ heartwarmingly nonsensical Hopelandic and had chosen to develop a dialect all his own, the album’s layering, patience, and strength of melody - particularly on stand out tracks like ‘Caught by Night’ and ‘One Chance’ - would be enough to hit, to feel, and for the song’s emotional fingertips to graze your own.
On the note of emotional fingertips grazing one’s own, Melodies On Hiatus flirts. It knows what it is and what it has to offer, and can accommodate you at any given mood with a confidence that one can’t help but find simultaneously elusive and alluring, and as we claim in our next print issue, it is an album to make friends to, to have sex to, or maybe both. It is for listening, but also for living. The double album floats but doesn’t mope, with moments of excitement and complexity that accent and balance the minutes of moodiness and tranquility.
We recommend hitting play on the album embedded below before proceeding. By my best guess, I don’t think we’ve spoken to Albert since last Splendour in the Grass, so about a year ago.
By my best guess, I interviewed you around this time last year for Splendour Weekender.
Was that a whole year ago?
Yeah, Splendour in the Grass is next month, I think.
Geez, yeah, I remember that. I was in a very different place.
You were telling me about how you were listening to The Body on audiobook. You’re a big audiobook guy?
I don’t know if I’m a big audiobook guy. It helped me read more, so I guess it’s a good crutch for reading. Damn, what was that…
It was all about anatomy, I think. I realize this is a weird start to an interview.
No, not weird at all. Let me see where it was… Audible or… oh god damn it, I gotta sign in? This is bologna.
Are you reading/listening to anything currently?
I mean, clearly not if I gotta sign in. I was listening to this book called, When Things Fall Apart, which was pretty good. It was pretty fascinating, just about this person whose life starts to crumble. It’s the kind of book where you could start at any chapter and it kind of fits somehow with whatever moment you’re in. I try pretty hard, and I do pretty well sometimes, but it’s only the occasional book that cuts through. There was this Japanese author…
Murakami?
Yeah! I read one of his books, and I started another and was like, ‘great, this is another book that I’ll get like a hundred pages in, and then I won’t have read for like five days, and then I won’t remember anything.’ But I read the whole thing and it was amazing, then picked up another one and failed. Work in progress, man, work in progress.
“ I thought we achieved what we wanted to achieve. I mean, I don’t think I ever achieve what I want to, I’m just saying that so it’s not so depressing. ”
Yeah, that kind of ties into my greater thematic question which is: what media or art have you taken in recently that may have affected, inspired, or influenced this new album?
Oh, just microdosing life.
I saw that on a shirt in Japan once!
Microdosing life?
Yeah!
I thought I thought of that. Damn. I mean, look, I think that if I sat down with nothing and created something and then I got asked about it afterwards, maybe I’d be able to understand the process, but because it’s like a little bit every day, and throughout your life you build an encyclopedia of different works that all push in different directions, it’s difficult to say. This record is tough. I had made Francis Trouble with a band and an alter ego and a frontman, and accepting that that’s what this was and not wanting to lean into a band name, and I thought we achieved what we wanted to achieve. I mean, I don’t think I ever achieve what I want to, I’m just saying that so it’s not so depressing. With this album, I thought it’d be fun to make a deconstruction of that. I always make demos and build on them and try to create a vibe and it changes, so I thought, ‘why don’t I just keep the demos and the drum machines?’ And there are some songs on this album that don’t have that, but a majority are like, a drum machine app I had on my phone. Just fun, vibey things.
“The point is that when you’re writing, you aren’t trying to be right, you’re trying to not be mediocre. There’s no winning. The fun, the point, is in creating.”
Sometimes it is really that simple.
Sometimes it is! I liked that and I didn’t want to have to go any deeper than that, and songs started coming out over time. I thought this was going to come out ages ago. I started working on these songs back in 2019, so I thought I’d release them in maybe 2021, but then Covid happened, and the process slowed. But because this has been such a long process, I don’t remember many of the details of inspirations and what not.
Do you think that you thrive in parameters? Was it easier to work within the confines of the capabilities of a drum machine app?
Well I only used the app because I just had it and as I was taping demos, it was just quicker on my phone, but then it felt sort of right. If it sounds cool, it doesn’t matter where it came from. To some degree, I do feel good in parameters. In my mind, if you told me to write a story about whatever I want, I probably wouldn’t do the homework, but if you said to write a story in this place, my mind might have an easier time. I do push structures of songs but I do like understanding that there is a structure. I try to keep things as simple as possible so that I can see where things are boring and where they are exciting. A lot of the time when you’re writing, you can do things to the drums or guitar and it’ll sound more fun, but really it’s just not a great part. When you’re listening and everything is dumbed down, you can hear and be like, ‘this is where it gets boring. Why?’ and then you fix it. ‘Caught By Night’ was a song that we sort of pieced together and built up at the last minute and added a different drum machine, and it just worked. That, ‘Never Stop’, and this other song were the three songs at the very end that came in a burst even though the album was kind of done at fifteen songs, we just added another three.
Even fifteen songs by today’s standard is a very substantial album.
Couldn’t stop, dude. Couldn’t stop.
It’s interesting to me that you were writing while recording, I don’t hear a lot of people doing that.
I think that there’s always one really good song that happens when you’re recording. I’m constantly writing little things and putting them in voice memos. They aren’t songs, they’re just like, ideas. If I played them for you, you wouldn’t get what it is. There are just all these things that come up while you’re recording and in that space that you’re like, ‘oh there’s something here’ and you push on them, and some lead to another thing and you throw away the bit where it started, like when a rocket takes off into space and throws off that booster piece. The idea leads you to a better one.
What is your editing process like? If you come up with a song last minute, do you just bump out other ideas?
Something that Julian told me a lot is that when you create something, you love it because you made it, and you have to sweep away stuff that isn’t as good as others. Those things don’t have to be gone forever, but you need to be able to see what is exciting. I have songs that I keep coming back to because I know that there is something there - it’s like your own personal puzzle.
Are there any songs on this album that you’re like, ‘no one else likes this but I think it’s great, so fuck you all, it’s going on the album,’?
That’s a funny question. Ah man. It’s not that no one understands- we’re not there to kill something, we have long discussions. The biggest thing when learning to create is understanding that ideas are very fragile. You have to slowly take what this idea is trying to say and pull it out. You can record an awesome demo and then you go to record it and you murder it because you lose what it was about in the first place. I have no idea why that is, I think that that’s why producers are so sought after. It’s easy for an artist to overthink because maybe it’s perfect in their head but by being perfect, all the charm is gone.
Someone told me years ago that if you are the artist, you shouldn’t be the one who decides when your song is ‘done’. You know what I mean? Because it’ll never be done. Collaboration is really important in that way, and that’s very present in this album with collaborations between you and GoldLink or Matt Helders.
Totally! I always need to talk things out. It’s not like because it’s my album that I’m not going to read the room and see how people are feeling about it. There’s a song from my album, Momentary Masters, called, ‘Caught by My Shadow’, where I knew that I wanted this riff as the whole song. Everyone was like, ‘this is just a part, right? There’s this and then something else comes?’ and I was like, ‘nah nah nah, the whole song is that.’ I knew that when it got to the end, that people would understand, and they did, but at the same time, I’ve had a lot of times where something is not working and the feeling is there not just with you but with the other players. The point is that when you’re writing, you aren’t trying to be right, you’re trying to not be mediocre. There’s no winning. The fun, the point, is in creating. I love melody and giving rhythm to it and building it out, and then it goes deeper and hits you in a way that makes you feel something. That’s bigger than words for me. Like in classical music, you feel it in your guts. It’s not about doing it my way, it’s about trying to do something that you think is great.
“You know when you throw a party and you’re trying to create a vibe, and one weird guy throws it all off? That’s the same thing as when you’re trying to find people to create stuff with. ”
The singular genius/lonely artist is such a romanticized trope in stories and in media, but it undermines the potential and importance and ubiquity of collaboration. Nothing is done in a vacuum.
I think that the people who are telling those stories aren't the ones creating. If you’re creating something like music, it is meant to be heard, but so is the experience and the journey of making it. You’d want to share it, no? Share in the process. I never liked when people give too much credit or assign too much to one person, or especially give guff to someone. Like when people talk about Ringo that way. Really? Do you know how delicate it is to be in a band in a room? Put another drummer in there and see if that chemistry will still be there. I don’t think it would at all. You know when you throw a party and you’re trying to create a vibe, and one weird guy throws it all off? That’s the same thing as when you’re trying to find people to create stuff with. Maybe some people do have a moment and see it all, and that’s great, but it’s also very lonely. People want to share.
Do you think that that’s a motivator for you to make things? Because you want to share?
I don’t know… I don’t know why I am doing this.
Yeah, what the hell are you doing, man?
I remember being a kid and falling in love with Buddy Holly and that you could do that as a profession. It just seemed so magical. It’s just something that I do little by little every day. Like if I have a day where I’m like, ‘I don’t want to write, I am done, I am spent.’ And then I start playing something and my immediate thought is that I can't wait to create this and share it.
You’ve been working on this album since around 2019. You’ve put in a lot of time and thought. What are your hopes with this album?
I guess besides the hope of it connecting with people, I kind of have reached what I wanted in simply making it. Everything after that is out of my control. I can’t convince anyone to like it or to feel it. I really just sit innocently between each song and create a world that I’d want to hear, or create something new that I haven’t done before. I wasn’t trying to make a double record either, so maybe I’m stuck in that, still. I had twenty songs and was like, ‘there’s no way I’m writing twenty lyrical sets.’ I didn’t take the 20th off just to have one less; I like lyrics, I love lines. I’m just not great at putting those lines into a whole. Sometimes I really nail what I want to, but when I was staring down the barrel of twenty songs, I didn’t even know where to begin. It’s weird to have written these songs throughout all of this time, having been in so many places in my life, and now the album is out and everything still connects; it’s been amazing. So you’re asking about what I consider success or what I want for this. That, to me, feels like more success than I thought I would get out of it.
Follow Albert Hammond Jr’s every move, here.
