“I think of Our Man In The Field as a kind of character and not really even me”, says Alexander Ellis, “Something like a Jack Kerouac or an Albert Camus. I don’t want the listener to think about the songs as being mine or about me; it’s more about the story and the characters in there. They’re always about real people, and hopefully that makes them relatable”.
In this exclusive interview with Mark Underwood of Folk Radio, Alex talks candidly about his experience of recording his latest album, Gold On The Horizon (reviewed here), in Portland, Oregon, with Tucker Martine, his approach to songwriting, the people who inspire his songs, and the amazing support he’s received from the Americana community.
Hi Alex, your debut album, ‘The Company of Strangers,’ had almost uniformly great press. ‘Gold On The Horizon‘ is also receiving similarly impressive reviews. The album was recorded in December 2021. What’s the story about bringing ‘Gold On The Horizon’ to fruition, and why did it take so long?
We made the first record in a studio in Tobacco Dock called The Rattle. At the time, we were members of this start-up focused on music, trying to help bands and artists record and develop their projects in an affordable manner so that everyone was able to share the costs. It was great – and I particularly wanted that record to sound like the band in the room so that people would recognise it, but when we finished it, I thought, “We’ve done that now, and I really want to make a studio record that stands up against other records that I love”. And there are only really a few producers in the last 20 years that I thought could deliver on that – and Tucker Martine is one of those guys that we approached. And with Tucker, I got on with him so well on the phone; I could see that he’d listened to everything so many times, and he was also the guy whose approach was: “How can we overcome this Lockdown situation; how can we start work as soon as Lockdown eases; and can you get ready to come over?” I thought this guy really wants to do it, and what also really helped was that we agreed on the kind of music that we thought would suit, and the kind of music we’re both into. He’s made records with The Jayhawks (‘Paging Mr Proust’) and bands that I liked a long time ago, and there’s a darkness to the atmospheres that he creates which I think suits the songs – not in an overly oppressive way, but just that there’s things happening in the background and the lower parts of the synths that your ears wouldn’t normally go to – but that’s the difference between his and other people’s records, So, yeah, we pulled out all the stops; it was expensive, and it was tricky because of the Lockdown situation, but we took off the day after Lockdown eased. And we came back the day after they’d started another Lockdown with the Dimpker Brothers from Sweden, who are playing with us here tonight. And they actually got stuck in New York because of Lockdown, and then ended up for about three and a half to four weeks in Portland – and we just filled the time with music. It was a fantastic experience.
How did you first become aware of Tucker Martine? Was it hearing records that he’d been involved with?
Almost as soon as we’d finished the first record, I really wanted to find out who’d made certain records that I loved and the particular recording techniques that had been used on them. There are a couple of Jayhawks records that I really liked; there was The First Aid Kit album, ‘Ruins‘, that Tucker Martine produced in 2018. That wouldn’t necessarily come to mind as my all-time favourite, but the record itself and his production had so much going on, but neither did it take away from the authenticity of who First Aid Kit are. With some other people, there can be a level of overproduction, which moves you away from where you want to be. However, I wouldn’t want people to think this isn’t an Our Man In The Field record. A lot of the stuff we do is pretty basic and old school, and we rely on harmonies, pedal steel and acoustic guitar – without too much fancy stuff. But Tucker was there to help add synths and a drum machine, but he did it in such a way that it didn’t sound out of place.
I understand you were quite nervous at the start of the recording process and a bit worried about making mistakes and slowing the recording process down. Was that just because you were outside of your comfort zone and working in an unfamiliar environment?
It was a big step up from the first record. Jim Wallis, who produced the first album, had loads of experience with records, and it’s not to say that he isn’t a great producer because he is, but the budget and the rooms we were in at the time to make that record were like solving problems with bits of sticky tape. I took a big risk personally and financially doing this latest record with Tucker, and up until day one, I felt the pressure: “I’ve got to get this right; a lot of it’s on me because everybody else is such a great musician and while I write the songs and sing, I’m not a great musician and neither would I profess to be”. But on the upside, we had done a lot of work and preparation, and when we got to Portland, Tucker and Luke Ydstie, who played bass and a lot of other instruments – we started with this song called ‘The Road‘ which is coming out after Christmas and immediately it felt right, and I think it was because everyone who was there was thankful because we’d been locked down for so long and we had this opportunity to do this thing we loved, and we collectively realised how lucky we were to be able to go and do it. And I knew Tucker was a nice bloke because we’d already been talking for a long time – and everybody he brought in was the same. There is a really nice community in Portland of people making the kind of Americana that I like, the kind of Americana that isn’t trying to be something else. I’m English, so I’m going over there making the kind of music that they know more about than I do, but there was no sense of that – people still just accepted me for who I am.
One of the things about your debut album was the mature sound and feel about it. For those people who aren’t familiar with the story about Our Man In The Field, what were you doing before recording your debut?
That’s really nice to hear. I’d been an actor for a long time, and there were some periods of relative success which were great, and then you’re always hoping you’re going to get something else, that you’re going to get the opportunity to work on other projects, but there were also intense periods of just hanging around. But all the while, even when I was at sixth form in the 1990s, I’d still be writing songs, even though I didn’t really know how to play guitar very well – and some of my friends were also very complimentary about my songwriting. But it was only once I reached my thirties that I realised I’d got a lot of songs that I’d written and I’d like to play them for other people, and it was my friend, Bill, who is an actor – a much more successful actor than I ever was – he really encouraged me to do something with my music, and he sent some of the recordings off. Then they got played on the radio, and since then music has been the path of least resistance – and it’s been a nice journey so far.
Were you looking to do anything particularly different with ‘Gold On The Horizon‘ in terms of the album’s tone, style, or songwriting when compared to ‘The Company of Strangers‘?
I was a really big fan of one of Ray LaMontagne’s albums, ‘Monovision‘. There’s a particular sound on that record which sounds just perfect for vinyl. I know a lot of his stuff sounds like it was made a long time ago, but he made that record at home during Lockdown, played everything, and I said to Tucker, “What is it that he’s doing there?” And he was able to pick it out and also identify the darkness in the way LaMontagne had recorded things. One of the benefits of not being able to get into the studio right away was that we spent a lot of time discussing how we’d like to record each individual song and how we’d like to approach it. For example, because we were so well prepared for songs like ‘L’Etranger‘, Jerry Joseph, whose house we were staying at during this time, lent us a National, a $50,000 old metal guitar, super heavy. And I played that on one of the songs, and Tucker said: “I’ve got an idea – and tuned it to the key that ‘L’Etranger’ is in and put that in the drum loop and used that as the only mike on the drums so that when you hear that drone in the background of that song what you’re actually hearing is the resonance of that 100-year-old guitar picked up and then going into an amp in another room – which was fantastic. Because we were so quick to set up and make the songs sound good, Tucker was able to say, “I’ve got this idea or that idea”, and Luke Ydstie as well, he came up with some great ideas – and they worked. They were willing to work till past midnight – every night.
Turning to some of the specific songs on the record, according to our own correspondent for Folk Radio, Mike Davies, the album acknowledges its musical affinity with Leonard Cohen’s ‘The Future‘ LP, particularly on the song, ‘Feel Good‘, with its layered, gospel backing vocals and noirish desert horns. Was there a conscious effort on your part to use ‘The Future‘ as an influence, or was it more of a natural evolution in your sound?
It evolved naturally. One of the great things about Our Man In The Field is that we’ve made a lot of really great friends, such as The Dimpker Brothers. We didn’t have a budget to fly them out to Portland, but they still found the money and flew out. And they brought another whole instrument, which is their voices. They leant into that tone and some kind of vintage bed of harmonies that gave Tucker the opportunity to say, “I think we can go in this particular direction” that we wouldn’t have necessarily had otherwise. If we hadn’t had the Dimpkers in the room, it wouldn’t have been the same.
I was interested to read about the songwriting project instigated by the UK Americana Music Association that led you to being paired with a doctor – and resulted in the song, ‘Glad To See You‘. I understand you did a co-write with a doctor who was in charge of an emergency Covid ward when the pandemic broke out. Can you tell us a bit more about the experience?
It’s credit to Stevie Smith and the American Music Association UK for putting that together. Mohan Bhart, the doctor concerned, just told me his story. He ran a dementia in-patient hospital ward in North London and was then told that half the hospital needed to be converted to a Covid emergency hospital. He said on the first day they were given that directive that almost half his staff resigned on the spot, with the exception of two Nigerian nurses. And so there was Mohan of Indian descent and two Nigerian nurses right at the time they were saying that people from black and minority ethnic communities were at a higher risk of poorer outcomes from Covid. But the experience bonded them, and their friendship developed – and every day, he would say how glad he was to see them during what was such an incredibly stressful time. That wasn’t the actual song that I wrote for the AMAs. I wrote another song, which might be on the next record. But the song, ‘Glad To See You‘, I wrote really quickly and is almost a homage to Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’ – almost a waltz and a shuffle thing – but I wanted it to be delicate and talk about the lightness of Mohan’s approach to his staff.
The first thing people will think of when they hear the song ‘L’Etranger‘ is Albert Camus. It also feels like something of a self-conscious reference back to the title of your debut, ‘The Company of Strangers‘. Does the idea of being a stranger or an outsider represent where you feel you’ve been – for at least some of your working life?
There were difficult things that I didn’t feel comfortable doing as an actor, and there were some experiences I had that were quite jarring. I really enjoyed the work, but I didn’t enjoy a lot of what came with it. I’ve also felt at times like Our Man In The Field don’t really belong in the Americana genre. In America, they’re inclined to think of us as being an indie band. Having said that, there is such a great community of people that have supported me personally along with the band, so I don’t feel like an outsider in that sense because we’ve got a close-knit group of so many people who’ve supported us.
“I’ll put my faith in hope because hope is all I need” – and “I believe in something else/I just don’t know what it is yet/I know it’s out there somewhere/I’ll know it when I feel it”.
Maintaining a degree of curiosity and perhaps a guarded optimism about life and the future. Would that describe the general philosophy of Our Man In The Field?
Yes, I’m really interested in theology, but I really struggle with it on a personal level. But I do admire the commitment of those people who are religious. So, while I’m interested in it, I can still see a value in a humanist lifestyle as well.
Does Our Man in The Field feel like a convenient form of disguise sometimes? Could you ever see a time when you might abandon Our Man In The Field for something else – perhaps another, alternative pseudonym?
I quite like it. I have this sort of character in my head of what Our Man In The Field is. Other people have their own version of it. I have thought about that, but I can’t see me changing it, as the band is already comprised of so many other people anyway. I’ve said before that I don’t necessarily want the listener to think about the songs as being mine or about me; it’s more about the way the story and the characters in them. They’re always about real people, and hopefully, that makes them relatable.
In a character sense, does Our Man In The Field give you some kind of distance?
I wanted to be an actor since I was tiny; I went to college and I studied it, so I understand how to be a character and also the Stanislavsky approach to method acting, and I feel comfortable about doing that with music too, but I want people to realise the songs are intended to do the job – and tell a story. The best Our Man In The Field songs, anyway, are about real people. The song ‘It Was Ever So‘ on our first album was actually about firefighters; it wasn’t really a personal thing. There are people who want to do that job for not very much money; they want to put their life on the line because that’s their vocation. I think that song really resonated with people. The song ‘Come Back To Me’ on the new record is a similar style of songwriting – about an old school friend of mine who became a teacher; it’s intended to do a similar job.
Looking to the future, does it feel a bit strange promoting a record where you’ve been performing some of the songs live for some time already? Presumably, there’s more material that you’ve been working on in the meantime.
I’m hoping to get back to Portland and do another record with Tucker next year. I’ve got another 20-odd songs, all of which Tucker says he likes, and we’ve got the opportunity to work with some of the guys from Midlake as well. That’s quite an exciting prospect.
You’re on tour throughout the rest of the UK between now and the end of February, including some dates in Sweden. Can you tell us about your connection to Sweden and why it’s so important to you?
After our debut album was released, we played at the Americana Music Association UK showcases in 2021, and Maria Theesink, the artistic director of the Tønder Festival in Denmark, came in with the guys from the Rootsy in Sweden. They heard the end of our set, loved it, and asked if we could come out to Sweden to play a show with Kelsey Waldon, who was just finishing a John Prine tour. And then when I went over, I just immediately thought these are my kind of people. And then separately, I met The Dimpker brothers from Sweden through another friend. And it’s been the best experience I’ve had so far. Everywhere I’ve been to in Sweden seems to have a stage – and they have a deep passion for music.
Gold On The Horizon is out now on – LP, CD, download and streams: https://omitf.com
Upcoming Tour dates can be found here.