Nick Heyward: The SDE Interview

Considering he was only 22 when he made it, Nick Heyward’s 1983 debut solo album, North of a Miracle, which was reissued last week as a 3CD deluxe edition, is a surprisingly mature and ambitious record.

Produced by Beatles engineer, Geoff Emerick, it’s a richly cinematic and colourful set of pop songs – uplifting opener, ‘When It Started To Begin’ is anthemic, brassy and soulful, and ‘The Kick of Love’ is jazzy and sophisticated, but sublime hit singles, ‘Blue Hat For A Blue Day’ and ‘Whistle Down The Wind’, have a sense of melancholy about them, as does the lush and atmospheric ‘The Day It Rained Forever’, which was recorded at Studio One in Abbey Road with an orchestra arranged and conducted by Kate Bush producer, Andrew Powell. Musicians on the album include legendary session bassist, Pino Palladino, Fairport Convention drummer, Dave Mattacks, and keyboard player, Steve Nieve (Elvis Costello).

SDE spoke to Haircut 100 frontman Heyward about writing and recording North of a Miracle, hanging out with Paul McCartney, and his plans for making two new albums – a solo record and one by Haircut 100.

SDE: It’s been 42 years since North of a Miracle came out. How does that feel?

Nick Heyward: I’m surprised it’s only 42 – it feels like 82 [laughs]. It feels like a lifetime ago, mate. The album sounds so good – I’m not being disrespectful to anybody else I’ve worked with since, but to work with Geoff Emerick at AIR Studios in Oxford Circus, where ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ was made, and Pretenders – it was an amazing studio. What an environment to work in! I felt completely blessed that I was there, let alone working in that environment.

You were only 22…

Yeah, and there I was working with Geoff Emerick – I couldn’t believe it. He’d just made one of the albums that had blown me away – Imperial Bedroom [Elvis Costello and The Attractions], which had an astonishing sound.  Just to be in that room and surrounded by those people… We still had the dream of the band sounding the best we could, so that was it – it was amazing.

North of a Miracle didn’t start out as a solo record, did it? It was intended to be the follow-up album to Haircut 100’s debut, Pelican West…

Yeah, it was.

But it didn’t work out that way, because you found yourself in a difficult situation with the other members of the group and you left the band. What went wrong?

I’ve put something about it in the sleeve notes [of the new edition] because it hasn’t really been talked about much since that time. Things have moved on, and Graham [Jones – Haircut 100 guitarist], Blair [Cunningham – drummer] and I are now working together and it’s positive and so good. I haven’t got any feelings on it either way – I’ve just got a reflection of it was what it was.

When I listen back to it [North of a Miracle], I think, ‘This is how we could’ve sounded, chaps, and I wish it could’ve been different…’ We could all probably go back to that time and have a meeting on our own, but we were so successful that everybody wanted a piece of Haircut 100… It was awful, but for such an album to come out of that period was quite strange really.

Listening to it now, it sounds beyond its years – the sound of it was so sophisticated, and the instrumentation I was using… I didn’t realise I’d learnt that much in that year. At that point, Geoff was at his height and so were studios – in hindsight, I think how brilliant he was. The album is a lovely thing to look back on – I could only dream of sounding like that now. If you listen to North of a Miracle, sonically… wow! Everybody wanted to record at AIR – I walked down the corridor and saw Billy McKenzie – because it was the wizard’s alchemical residence.

Before you went to AIR, you’d started working on the record at The Manor in Oxfordshire, where you wanted to try and get a drum sound like XTC’s – you were big fans – but it didn’t happen, did it?  So, you ended up doing your own parts in AIR, while the rest of the band moved to Roundhouse Studios in Chalk Farm…

Yeah – I hoped that we could salvage the situation and move on and make the album sound better. We didn’t get that sound, but it was obviously evolving into something else.

Andy Partridge offered XTC to be my band

Nick Heyward

Funnily enough, while I was in AIR, Andy Partridge got in touch, and we went for a cup of tea round the corner from the studio. He offered XTC to be my band… I couldn’t speak, I was so knocked out – I’ve had lots of opportunities that I couldn’t deal with at the time because I was so overwhelmed, and I didn’t have the tools of communication. I’ve learnt them since, and now I can speak up about things.

I couldn’t believe what has happening and dealing with it all was tough – I didn’t have any management to turn those ideas and offers into fruition. That was the tricky part, and, anyway, it wasn’t meant to be – it would’ve been a completely different record.

What do you think that second Haircut 100 album could’ve sounded like? Would’ve it sounded like North of a Miracle?

It would’ve sounded exactly like North of a Miracle, but it would’ve been Haircut 100… and if it had had XTC as the band, it would’ve sounded like XTC – brilliant, but they would’ve probably never wanted to work with anybody again apart from Geoff Emerick.

Pino Palladino and Dave Mattacks were vital to the sound of the album – they were the band. Of course, Dave went on to work with XTC and be their drummer.

I was initially just doing vocals for the Haircut 100 album [at AIR] because I didn’t want to go to the Roundhouse because of the awful experience I’d had there. I was having a tough time doing the vocals because I was in a tiny studio at the side.

So, you talked Geoff Emerick into working with you…

Geoff kept walking past and so did George Martin, and Paul McCartney was there – that itself was an amazing thing because I became a Beatles fan on tour with Haircut 100. I hadn’t heard them much before, but on the coach, from one gig to another, I was listening to all their albums and going, ‘Oh, my lord…’ It was like opening a huge box of music.

Paul McCartney was helpful to other artists and knew the effect it would have on people

Nick Heyward

McCartney came into the studio while you were making North of a Miracle and you played him ‘Whistle Down The Wind’, which he gave a thumbs-up to…

Yeah – it was good. He’s a supportive person because he knows he’s the king of songwriting, and everybody else is probably influenced by him – if not consciously, unconsciously. It wasn’t an ego thing – he was helpful to other artists, and he knew the effect it would have on people – the inspiration.

Didn’t McCartney play your red Gretsch guitar in the studio?

I asked him how to play ‘Ticket To Ride.’ I said, ‘Am I playing it correctly?’ and he said, ‘No – this is how you play it,’ and he showed it to me. I went, ‘It’s so simple – of course it’s that…’ It was a lovely moment.

How did it feel becoming a solo artist?

It was awful. I never got used to it – it took years… That wasn’t the dream. The dream was for Les [Nemes – Haircut 100 bassist], Graham and I to be XTC, The Beatles, Talking Heads, The Cure or The Jam (laughs). It was bands, bands, bands then – it wasn’t a solo artist thing, the fun thing was to be in a band. I didn’t have any aspirations to be Leo Sayer or David Essex – brilliant as they were.

North of a Miracle has some upbeat, soulful songs on it, but it’s quite a melancholy album too – was that down to your state of mind at the time?

Yeah – definitely, because Pelican West was so optimistic. There was a slight bit of melancholy with ‘Surprise Me Again’, but it’s pretty much surrealism all the way because  I was so into Talking Heads and XTC, and we still had punk, and The Fire Engines were kicking off – when we were playing the Embassy Club [in London], they’d be playing there the week before.

Everything was influencing everything else, and then we had our set of influences, which is why we were in one studio trying out one thing…

Uriah Heep were in the other studio when we were recording – I used to do their record sleeves when I was working as a designer and a budding artist. I love all those connections. 

A lot of the songs on North of a Miracle mention the weather – the lyrics refer to rain, the wind, the cold… Your music often has a very English feel – in some of your other songs you’ve written about caravans, the traffic in Fleet Street, flying a kite…

If I was a writer, I’d be a children’s writer or I’d write  [books] for adults, but with child-like things in them. I suppose it’s the optimism… It always comes through and, personally, it’s what gets me through stuff.

When I’ve got to face stuff, the only way out is the way in… and because you’ve gone right to the heart of it, you’ve felt it… I couldn’t understand why I was singing ‘Feel the pain’ on ‘Favourite Shirts’ – what on earth did I mean as a youngster? It’s such a whimsical song, but all that stuff comes from the subconscious mind.

‘The Day It Rained Forever’ was recorded live at Abbey Road, in Studio One, with an orchestra conducted by Andrew Powell. Can you remember that session?

Yeah – completely. Like it was yesterday. It was terrifying, and I’ve since read that it was where ‘Alfie’ by Burt Bacharach was done… I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time. I was there going, ‘I can’t believe this is happening…’

Geoff said, ‘Can you give us a guide vocal?’ I was like, ‘Oh my God…’

So, they set up a booth within the orchestra and I was singing along with it. I felt the movement of the sound in the room, and it was deep and sonorous. I felt overwhelmed – it was like a huge wave of emotion.

There’s a choir on ‘When It Started To Begin’, which is the first track on the album. It’s an upbeat and anthemic start to the record…

When I was doing it, I didn’t realise it was going to be the opening song – you do it all and then you fit it together to make the narrative work, right up to the last minute, when you’re plonking the title on the record and doing the mixing.

I had this song, and I didn’t know what it was going to be called – originally it was a song called ‘Coming Home,’ which was written in the early days.

I think it goes right back to way before Haircut 100 and, at one point, it really sounded like The Skids. It was a song that Richard Jobson wanted to record – we met him in a pub, and we asked him if we could produce him. He said, ‘Yes,’ and we were like, ‘What?’

So, we went into the studio and that was one of the songs we did, but I don’t think it worked out – it was a demo, and it wasn’t really happening. I thought I could change it and write lyrics for it because it didn’t really have any – it had lots of Talking Heads-style words like ‘heh’, ‘woah’… Everybody wanted to be like Talking Heads, but nobody could write lyrics like David Byrne.

It was just influences… I loved Imperial Bedroom, but I wasn’t about to write ‘Town Cryer…’

But you did get Steve Nieve from The Attractions to play on North of a Miracle…

Yeah – Geoff knew him, and it was amazing to work with him. He played the Hammond organ and piano on ‘Take That Situation’ – he came in and did three or four run-throughs, but they were all over the place. I was thinking ‘Oh, God…’ but it’s just Steve’s way of finding his feet, and suddenly it all just came out, note-perfect.

Jazz musicians Bill Le Sage and Ian Laws played on ‘The Kick of Love’ – you and your dad used to go and see Bill play in the Bull’s Head in Barnes, and your dad came to the recording session…

We got to know him very well… At that point, we didn’t know him, but I knew that Bill was dad’s hero, so I asked him, and he came down and did a session.

‘On A Sunday’ reminds me of Squeeze – that ‘80s, English guitar pop sound…

That’s Paul McCartney’s favourite song ever.

Is it?

No, it’s not, but he liked the guitar on it. When I tell that story live, I say it’s his favourite song ever [laughs].

Was ‘Blue Hat For A Blue Day?’ inspired by a film?

I had the title… I thought it sounded like the title of a film –

It’s quite cinematic. I wanted the whole album to have a cinematic feel because I loved cinema posters – that was my thing. I had them all over my walls – especially American ones, from California.

The new reissue of North of a Miracle includes an unreleased single called ‘Teach Till You Reach.’ What can you tell me about that song?

I was trying to find my feet after North of a Miracle – I had that moment of working with people of that calibre, but I hadn’t worked with anybody else like that or sounded like that – then the whole world changed.

I was trying to sound as good as that, but I wasn’t. The sound of the music is an important ingredient, if not the most important – I could take care of the song part of it, but I hadn’t been trained to make the landscape pop and happen, and, with me, the budgets were never there again.

‘Teach Till You Reach’ and some of the other extra songs, are bits of music that for me are the sound of less budget.

Sometimes there was a producer but sometimes there wasn’t the budget for one – I was doing demos, and I was learning how to do stuff in the studio.

If you had a great engineer, you could make it happen. Geoff was lucky enough to be an engineer and a producer and be great at both – that’s why him and George Martin were so good together – you had the best of both worlds.

Your ‘90s albums, From Monday To Sunday, Tangled and The Apple Bed, were shamelessly influenced by The Beatles and ‘60s pop, weren’t they?

Yeah, but it didn’t start out like that. For The Apple Bed… there was a B-side, which was called ‘A Beautiful Place’, which was how the album was going to be – it was influenced by The Beatles a bit, but mainly it had all these strange Turkish and Greek instruments all over it.

It sounded odd, and I was using handclaps, but being on Creation, and the fact that Oasis was happening, and the influence of that… I got waylaid.

I can remember one day getting out a Les Paul and putting it on it. When you get a Beatles influence and you put a Les Paul on it, it sounds like Oasis. Ironically, I sounded like Oasis, which was the wrong thing at the wrong time. In hindsight, I should’ve reined it in a bit.

Haircut 100 reformed in 2023, and last year you toured the UK and the US, and released a single, ‘The Unloving Plum.’ You’re working on a new album – will it come out this year?

I hope so – we’re doing it right now. It’s tricky – we can’t be Haircut 100 because we’ve been Haircut 100… We have an open canvas of what we can do and what we can be.

Are we funking now? Do we carry on with the same influences we had before? There’s a lot of finding our feet and rediscovering what we want to say. There’s going to be a Haircut 100 band album and a singer-songwriter solo album.

So, you’ve been writing songs for a solo album?

Yeah – on the last solo tour I did [October 2024], I played a new song called ‘The Remainers’, which is about a couple who are Elvis Costello fans. They meet in a supermarket in London, in 1978, and they move to America. They’re living in Madison Avenue and they’re arguing. It’s that thing – do they remain together?

They also dream of living somewhere with open borders and great chorus lines – it’s a nostalgic look at their past. It came to me when I was riding a bicycle and living in Tampa during COVID – that was all I could do every day.

Instead of sitting and writing melodies, I took them for a ride to the local park on a bicycle, where there were alligators. It was so hot, and I was sweltering, but it was great for writing lyrics. Once I had to phone my wife, Sara, to come and pick me up because I had no energy.

Any plans for more reissues? How about your ‘90s albums? It would be good to have them out on vinyl…

I think From Monday To Sunday is going to be reissued– it will hopefully come out on vinyl.

Two of your most well-known songs are ‘Fantastic Day’ and ‘Blue Hat For A Blue Day.’ What kind of day are you having today?

Well, I had reflexology this morning, which is always fantastic.

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Thanks to Nick Heyward, who was talking to Sean Hannam for SDE. North of a Miracle is available as a deluxe 3CD set via Demon Music. More info on this release, here.

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