Teddy Thompson took to the stage in the small marquee at the back of Colfer’s pub, Carrig-on-Bannow, Co Wexford to the slight bemusement of some of the mainly local audience, who were there for the annual Phil Murphy Trad Weekend and were expecting Irish traditional and folk music. However, John and Pip Murphy, the two musician brothers who run the venue in the small village near the sea, have put it on the map for Americana music too and there was a hard core of fans who had come from all over the Sunny South East to hear Teddy. They weren’t disappointed either, and he treated them to a set list of songs ranging from his first solo album in 2000 through to his latest in 2023, a collaboration, with Jenni Muldaur, of classic country duets. Favourites like I Should Get Up, In Your Arms and I Wish It Was Over were interspersed with covers of classics like Felice & Boudleaux Bryant’s Change Of Heart. Thompson’s intense performance was interspersed with his usual wry observations and self-deprecating sense of humour. Just before the gig, Lonesome Highway got the chance to catch up with him and get a little insight into his world.
You’ve been doing a little road trip around the countryside during this tour but do you have any Irish family connections?
We do but we haven’t followed it up, unfortunately. Most of my family is Scottish, especially on my mother’s side and her surname is Pettifer, but it’s too far back and we haven’t researched it.
What are the origins of your well-known love of country music?
I listened to a lot of that stuff when I was a kid and then when I was getting into music the first thing I heard was the Everly Brothers, who are not really country but it leans that way for our ears now. Then later on I would be in the car with my dad (Richard Thompson) on road trips and he was the one that had the tapes, he would play the Everly Brothers and country stuff and I’ve realised that it’s from him that I got this love of country music. This was in England when I was growing up, until the age of eighteen when I moved to the States.
How do you feel about touring - do you enjoy it or it is just something you do because you have to?
Well, it depends … (laughs ruefully) I feel like I have to do it now to make a living. I don’t feel like I have to do it creatively. I like playing but if I didn’t have to do it to make some money I don’t know how much I’d do. It makes you wonder, you know, if you didn’t need the money would you still do it when you’ve done it a million times? I mean, most of the time I like the gig, but it’s the other 23 hours, the travelling, that can get you down. And it depends on how you’re doing it, like most things in life, what kind of style are you doing it in. It’s a tougher job the lower down the totem pole you go. It gets tough for me, but even down from me it’s even tougher, you have to drive yourself around, you have to sell your own CDs. The further up you go, doing a gig is still some effort but it’s not as much effort if you’ve got someone driving you there, if you can travel business class etc. So for the working musician it can be a slog, but the gig is usually ok. But then if you have a bad gig, you’re thinking ‘ugh ..and I’m staying in this horrible hotel somewhere and I’ve just driven seven hours and I’m exhausted’ .. so it’s all the stuff that comes with it.
What are your thoughts about digital music compared with physical and what effect has it had on your life generally?
Like most of us, devastating is the word I would use. Approx 75% of my income has disappeared and that’s true for everybody and it’s been very difficult. So what has happened is that a lot of people have just stopped doing it - the industry is just a fraction of what it used to be and it’s just a numbers game. It went from being something like a £10 billion industry and now it’s a £1 billion industry, so at least 50% of people just got out of it, and that’s artists, managers and agents. It was bound to happen, I guess, and there are good things about it but unfortunately there wasn’t a strong enough lobby or union at the time when the laws needed to be adjusted for the new technology to ensure revenue streams. The big companies made sure it didn’t happen and that chance is gone, so it’s all over (laughs). It bothers me as a music consumer too, it bothers me that music is such an undervalued thing now, because once you make something free it then, in society, holds very little value for most people.
It follows that you probably can’t afford to bring a band over now? It’s quite a few years since we saw you with a band over here. You’re based in NY - do you tour over there with a band?
Sometimes, yes, if it’s in a small enough geographical radius but it’s tough to pay to fly people around these days. We can do it if it’s drivable and we can do a few shows close together. But I don’t really play in America any more than I do here. Like most touring musicians, it doesn’t really matter where you live. It would be the same if I lived in London, just because you live there doesn’t mean you could play there every week or every month. It’s the same cycle - you can only play a certain amount of times in any place.
As regards songwriting, are you a disciplined person, do you set aside time every day to write?
I wish I was, but no, not at all! I don’t have that sort of mindset, the creative urges to do it just for the sake of it. I like it as being a job, and it’s become a lot more difficult now because there are fewer people wanting you to do it, with the demise of record companies etc. Basically, I usually just have some songs on the go, and every couple of years I get a sense that it’s probably time to do another one. Then I’ll sit down and try to finish things that aren’t finished. I like to have time to let things percolate.
You’ve done some producing - you’ve worked with Dori Freeman and Roseanne Reid, as well as with your mother (Linda Thompson) and other Thompson family projects - would you like to do more of that?
Well, I’m not really a proper producer - I don’t think of myself as being that and, again, I’m a bit of a ‘man out of time’. Producing for me is old fashioned producing, having a good set of ears and just telling people what to do and making decisions and there’s not much call for that anymore. The business is so small now that if people really want to pay a producer, they want someone who can do the engineering as well, which I don’t do. I like it, doing bits and pieces, but I think if it was thirty years ago I’d probably be doing more of it, because there would be more opportunities. But it’s nice, being a producer is like making music without the heartache, and you can sleep at night!
You always play a Lowden acoustic guitar exclusively when you’re touring. Do you know George Lowden, have you worked with him on anything?
I’ve met him, but I really only play a Lowden because my Dad does and the guitars were around and I liked that sound. I can’t, of course, do what he does on a guitar - nobody can - but I gravitated towards that sound, and I’ve had a couple of them. They’re really good for playing solo, because you can do a lot, and they’re very versatile.
What’s next in the works for you?
I’ve almost finished an album, with producer David Mansfield, who also did the last two country albums. It’s my own songs again and it’s not particularly country.
So you’ll be back touring again soon
Probably, when will it ever end?! That’s the other thing - in the old days I always had this thing in the back of my head ‘maybe someone will cover a song or it will be in a movie’, those things that would have happened in the days before streaming. They were retirement plans for musicians, bits of luck you might get along the way, other people doing your songs, and it only takes one and it doesn’t even need to be a hit, it could be on an album that does well. Lots of people I know and admire had this happen to them and I used to think, ‘I’ll get good at the songwriting’ and now that’s gone too. So now when you’re touring you’re thinking ‘am I going to be doing this until I die? I’m already tired!’
Interview and Live photo by Eilís Boland