Richard Hawley / The SDE Interview

‘Coles Corner changed everything for me – I was thinking about going back to busking and playing pubs in rock ‘n’ roll bands…’

It’s been 20 years since Richard Hawley’s melancholy masterpiece, Coles Corner, was released and to celebrate its anniversary Parlophone are reissuing the album on vinyl – a half-speed master black edition and a Zoetrope LP – as well as a 2CD deluxe with an extra disc of alternate versions and B-sides. Hawley is also playing some special UK shows where he and his band will be joined by a string section to perform Coles Corner in full.

His breakthrough solo album, it saw the singer-songwriter and guitarist (Treebound Story, Longpigs, Pulp) nominated for the 2006 Mercury Prize, but losing out to fellow Sheffield act Arctic Monkeys – at the ceremony, Alex Turner famously joked: “Somebody call 999. Richard Hawley’s been robbed…”

It may not have won the Mercury Prize, but Coles Corner garnered great reviews for its mix of late-night laments and love songs – it’s an intimate soundtrack of sweeping, orchestral-led ballads, country music, blues, chamber pop, and early rock ‘n’ roll influences – and effectively took Hawley’s career to the next level.

In an exclusive interview, he tells SDE why it was a ‘make or break’ album for him, reflects on writing and recording some of the songs from that era, and explains why he doesn’t play the fame game.

SDE: Coles Corner was your first album to be released on Mute Records – your previous albums had all come out on Setanta. It’s a late-night, melancholy record – where was your head at when you made it?

Richard Hawley: Looking back at it, I think, ‘If I only knew then what I know now’. I found myself in my mid-thirties without a record deal, and completely broke. It felt like the last roll of the dice for me – I thought, ‘You’ve had a really good innings here, boy…’ Most people get maybe a bite of the cherry, but I’ve had the whole bowl. I’m not the wealthiest man in the world, but I’ve had an amazing life. But, at that point in time, I thought it was the end. I was thinking about going back to busking and playing pubs in rock ‘n’ roll bands.

I was never going to give music up, but the thing that’s kept me going all these years – apart from my family and the love of friends – is being creative and being skilfully creative enough to avoid gainful employment! (Laughs).

It’s to do with luck… I don’t believe I’m talented, I just believe I’m mentally ill, and that people are capitalising on it – me most of all! (Laughs).

Coles Corner changed everything for me. It’s like that old joke: ‘It took him 40 years to have an overnight sensational career…’ At the time, I felt like a passenger, watching all this mad shit happen, but because I was older, I could do it with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek.

It’s a cliché, but I took it all with a pinch of salt to a certain degree. If it had been some kind of rocket that had been invented and people were hoping it would take them to the outer edges of our atmosphere, that fucker went to Neptune!

When you’d finished recording Coles Corner, did you know you’d made something special?

No – at the time I didn’t know – but that record was made with so much love – and it wasn’t just from me. I pulled in a lot of favours, and I’d accrued a lot of respect by that point.

Not all the songs were [originally] recorded for that album: ‘(Wading Through) The Waters of My Time’, which is a bluegrass / country song, and the last track, ‘Last Orders’, were two pieces of music that were for a completely different project.

At that time, I met Shane Meadows through Mark Herbert [film producer] and I went in the studio to see a rough edit of the film Dead Man’s Shoes. We worked together on the soundtrack – they asked me how long I needed to do it, and I said, ‘Oh – an afternoon…’

I wrote them a soundtrack live – putting music to the images. It was just me in the studio with my dear friend, Mike Timm, engineering.

They kept some of it, but a lot of it was cut. I really liked the two pieces of music [‘(Wading Through) The Waters of My Time’, and ‘Last Orders’], so I think I ditched two other songs that I’d written at the time that I didn’t think were right.

‘Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?’ [from Coles Corner] is an old folk song that my mother taught me – she used to sing it to me.

When my sons were small, I used to sing them to sleep with that song – they’d be gone before I got to the second verse. When I was going on tour with Pulp, my wife, Helen, said, ‘What am I going to do to get them to bed when you’re not here? They’re going to run me ragged’. So, when I had some downtime in the studio, I recorded ‘Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?’ with Colin [Elliot – co-producer / bassist / arranger] in one take. The plan was to give Helen a CD of it, so she could play it to the boys while I was away on tour, which I did, but Colin and my manager, Graham [Wrench], heard something else in it, and they went ‘Fuck! That’s got to go on the record’.

It was the last choice on the album – I was searching for something… I didn’t want it to be a big rock-out – I’m a rootsy player, and my stuff is based on ancient music. If it was going to be my last album, I didn’t want it to be twiddly, like a lot of guitar players – I wanted it to be more soulful.

Coles Corner is a timeless record – it hasn’t dated…

I don’t know why… that’s the music I make, but I’ve veered slightly away from it over the years with heavier stuff or whatever.

On your latest album, In This City They Call You Love, there were some songs, like ‘Heavy Rain,’ ‘Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow,’ and ‘‘Tis Night’ that harked back to the sound of Coles Corner…

It’s because they’ve got space on them – you don’t need to fill in all the dots to lead folks to the conclusion. The listener fills in so much.

On the new deluxe 2CD version of Coles Corner, you’ve included the single versions of ‘The Ocean,’ ‘Just Like The Rain’, ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ and ‘Hotel Room’, which are different from the versions on the album…

I hated all that, but it was the A&R people at Mute who managed to persuade me to re-record ‘The Ocean’. It’s got its merits, to be fair. I do like what we did with ‘Born Under A Bad Sign.’

That’s one of my favourite songs of yours…

That riff, which is in B Flat, is childlike. I’ve always loved glockenspiel, dulcimer and celeste – those kinds of instruments that elicit a response that’s related to childhood in even the most cynical of adults.

‘Born Under A Bad Sign’ is kind of a doo-wop song – I grew up listening to doo-wop, I’ve got over 1,000 doo–wop singles and I’m obsessed with it. It’s also definitely influenced by The Velvet Underground’s ballads.

The song is basically about what a c*** somebody is and how much they’ve got away with it, and it’s most definitely autobiographical!

Am I right in thinking that ‘Just Like The Rain’ was written when you were really young?

It was written on my 16th birthday – I wrote three songs that day. One was called ‘Swimming In The Heart of Jane,’ which was a single by Treebound Story, and the other one was called ‘The Nights Are Cold’, which I did later. It just goes to show that I was a miserable c*** even back then! (Laughs).

You’ve written quite a few songs that mention rain…

I know. Whenever I send Duncan Cowell, who cuts my records, the files for a new album, he says: ‘Ah, yes: lots of songs about large bodies of water – that’ll be a Hawley album, then…’

On the new 2CD deluxe version of Coles Corner, there are some great B-sides, including your cover version of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Some Candy Talking’, which you transform into a Phil Spector-like epic…

It was on a CD for Q magazine. There’s only me and Colin – my bass player and co-producer – on that track. I played drums. There was zero budget and zero time, and we ripped the song apart… I got a message from Jim Reid [from the Jesus and Mary Chain] saying that he really liked it, which made it worth it.

I’ve always loved the Mary Chain – they’re a brilliant band, great songwriters and one of the greatest statements to come out of Scotland – they’re fucking awesome, and I proudly own everything they’ve ever recorded.

There are some instrumental B-sides included on the 2CD set too, including ‘I’m Absolutely Hank Marvin,’ which, brilliantly, features Hank Marvin on guitar. How did that come about?

I ran through it with the band, and we recorded a demo version of it, which was rough. My manager, Graham, became quite obsessed with it, but I wasn’t that bothered. I loved the melody, but I said it was too near the knuckle, as it was a real pastiche of The Shadows.

Graham said it was beautiful and that we had to record it, but I was adamant… ‘No fucking way!’ It became a bit of a thing, and he was annoyed with me because I wouldn’t record it.

I said, ‘I’ll tell you what – if you can get Hank Marvin to play guitar on it, I’ll do it!’ I thought there was no way that was going to happen, but then I got a phone call from Hank saying, ‘When do I play my guitar bit?’ (Laughs). Graham had got in touch with him, sent him the track and he loved it. Hank did an amazing performance on it – he is a master guitar player and a trailblazer.

I called it ‘I’m Absolutely Hank Marvin’ because when anybody in our country is hungry, they say, ‘Fucking hell – I’m absolutely Hank Marvin!’ When Hank found out I’d called the track that, he pissed himself laughing – my pure cheek…

He sent me a letter which I still have. I used an eight-string Supro Hawaiian lap steel guitar on the recording, and the letter is inside the case. He wrote: ‘Hi Richard. I hope you like what I’ve done with the track – if you don’t, I’m sorry, but I don’t do refunds.’ He played on it for free… The curious thing about that track is that when they do Shadows conventions, when all these guys try and pretend to be Hank Marvin, the second most chosen song they play is ‘I’m Absolutely Hank Marvin’ – the first is ‘Apache.’

Coles Corner was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2006, but Arctic Monkeys won that year. Famously, when picking up the award, Alex Turner said: ‘Somebody call 999. Richard Hawley’s been robbed…’

I knew those guys a bit, and I was really happy that they’d won it because they had to do all these fucking interviews but I went to the bar! Because Alex had said that, it was like winning it without winning it, and it sent that record even further into the stratosphere with me doing nothing.

Does it feel like it’s been 20 years since Coles Corner was released?

No – it doesn’t, but then I look at my kids, who are now young men and women, and I think, ‘Fuck!’ They’re adults now, but when that record came out, they were little.

I can remember writing the initial idea for the song ‘Coles Corner’ – the melody, the lyrics and the beat – in Endcliffe Park, in Sheffield. I had a double buggy and our two little boys… I took them to the park at the end of the street, and I was pushing them on the swings, one at a time, making them laugh.

I had a creative burst – I got the melody and the beautiful idea – but it completely fucked the moment… These days I would’ve just hummed it into my phone, but I got my boys off the swings, stuffed them into the pram, while they were complaining, hugely, and ran home up the hill. It was a hot day, and I was puffing and panting. We had a shared passage with the neighbours – I left the boys in their buggy, went indoors, grabbed my guitar, and bashed the idea down. I had a drink of water – I was so sweaty – then we went back to the park and continued our day.

My creative process develops and morphs, but I keep close to the everyday – that’s massively important for me. It has to have some meaning and depth. There’s a big reason why I avoid all the fame shit. If you’re in a limo or a private jet, what are you going to write about that any other fucker can relate to?

So far, you’ve done one gig, in York Museum Gardens, where you played the entire Coles Corner album, in order. How was that?

It was fucking nuts! It’s a curious position that I find myself in… I’m 58 years old… I’ve been around a long time, but people still seem genuinely interested. It’s just funny that so many folks turn up. When we walk out on stage, it’s a sea of people, and I keep looking behind me and saying, ‘Who have they come to see?’ I live in my own little bubble, like a lot of us. I potter along, and I don’t care much for the trappings of it all – it doesn’t interest me, and it never has.

One minute I’m pushing a trolley around Lidl and then I get in a car and find myself on stage with my mates, playing in front of thousands of people in Hammersmith… My life is so weird. It’s great – I’m loving it, but the thing I like about it the most is that it’s on my terms and at my pace. I’ve been in situations before where you feel like you’re holding on to the back of someone else’s car, going at 200 miles per hour.

It’s safer to be behind a trolley in Lidl…

Yeah – holding on to that…

What’s it like playing a whole album in concert? You’d never done that before, had you?

No – never. I wasn’t very keen on the idea, but on this occasion, I’ve had to accept that that record meant so much to so many people other than me – it means a lot to me, but I know how that record was constructed… It’s a bit like The Wizard of Oz… Don’t look at the guy behind the curtains, pulling the levers…

I know that Coles Corner means a lot to people because of the number of letters and messages that I’ve had from folks over the years where they tell me stuff, like ‘I buried my mum to ‘The Ocean’, ‘we walked down the aisle to ‘Born Under A Bad Sign,’ or ‘we had our first dance to ‘Coles Corner.’

It’s not just one or two – it’s thousands… I’m known for being someone who makes music that has a nostalgic atmosphere to it or sentimentality. I’d never set out to do that, but with other people I guess it evokes a certain vibe.

I’ve agreed to celebrate the record because it’s a totemic thing in my life – a point on the highway… But, for someone who is known for music of a certain atmosphere – a timelessness – curiously enough, I don’t like looking back. I constantly want to push forward.

In 2023, you compiled an album for Ace Records called 28 Little Bangers from Richard Hawley’s Jukebox. Any plans to release some more volumes?

I’ve sent Liz [Buckley – Ace’s head of A & R] enough to do six volumes… I thought I’d better crack on with it… I’m going to do 10, as long as Liz doesn’t end up in a mental institution doing it!

The first one took so long because of getting it cleared, and Liz had so much else to do, and I was busy… But now we’re ahead of the game, and Pete Paphides has written the liner notes [for the second volume].

So, after the Coles Corner gigs, what’s next? The last time we spoke, you said you had a lot of songs that didn’t make your last record, In This City They Call You Love. Are you thinking about your next album?

I’m already kind of there… You don’t have a choice, and the older you get, you realise the clock’s ticking…

You’ve been so busy over the past few years – are you not going to take some time off?

It’s a balance with me – the creative life and my home life – and it always has been. That’s why I’m not particularly keen on touring America or travelling miles… because I don’t have the time. I’m not interested in being a megastar in America, and, even if I was, I don’t think people would dig it. I’m not easy on the eye – I was hit by the ugly stick when I was a kid, but at least fate and time has allowed me to have my teeth and my hair, and I’ve not become a fat fuck! (Laughs).

Thanks to Richard Hawley who was talking to Sean Hannam for SDE. The 20 anniversary edition of Coles Corner is released on vinyl and a deluxe 2CD set on 1 August 2025.

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