Interview, James Heather on Pulse Music

Ahead of his performance at Presto Music tonight to celebrate the publication of his first volume of piano works, the British composer-pianist talks to us about forging his own creative path, how a near-death experience profoundly affected his relationship with the piano, and his musical inspirations - ranging from The Pixies and Nirvana to Steve Reich and Michael Nyman...

How autobiographical is your music?

My relationship with the piano is so intrinsically linked to my very being that it can’t be anything other than autobiographical. That’s why I haven’t pursued writing soundtracks or music for adverts – I wouldn’t rule that out for the future, but so far I’ve been focused on telling my story, or the stories I want to tell that I have empathy with but are not specifically about me. For a long time the piano was a place for me to put my feelings, and I’ve had a lot of feelings to work through!

In 2008 I was involved in a traffic accident which left me in a coma: I had a 5% chance of living, and miraculously pulled through. For six months I was out of action, and as I was trying to find a way back to life something shifted in my relationship with music: previously the piano had been more like a hobby, but having an experience like that took it to another level. I’m not saying you have to nearly die to get there, but when you come through something like that it does feel like you have a superpower.

My debut album came out nine years after the accident, and a lot happened during that period. I was 37 by that point, which seems like I’m quite a late starter, but the music on the album didn’t just appear out of nowhere: it had been years in the making.

I’m at a good point in my life right now, so music-making has become more joyous and perhaps more observational: we all evolve as human beings, and as you mature you start to see things from a wider perspective rather than just your own point of view. There’s been sadness alongside that, and the track Meant To Be is one example. We all have moments in life where we feel that something is blocking any sort of future joy in life, often because something terrible has happened: Meant To Be is about realising that you’re not defined by that trauma and that there is hope beyond it.

My latest album Invisible Forces is about looking that bit deeper into everything around us – when life gets busy, you often take things for granted and don’t take a moment to tune into your surroundings. The track Balance was about my dad, who was very ill with oesophageal cancer which went to his brain; at one point it affected his balance, which itself is something we take for granted. It’s quite plaintive and sad, but I do have another track dedicated to my dad called Seed to Seed, which is more uplifting: I feel it represents his personality in a better way, because he was full of life. My first album came out the week he died and he never saw me perform live, even though he was my biggest fan. I’ve never released that track, but I will one day. 

Did you grow up in a household with music around you?

I got used to making music with noise around me, because that’s how I started: when I was 12 or 13 I’d be playing the piano with my brother listening to music upstairs, my mum watching TV and my dad doing the hoovering! My dad and brother were really obsessed with a wide range of music too which definitely rubbed off on me, but I was also keen to find types of music on my own too. If we had family friends around I’d start playing really quietly and try to gradually pique their interest - then at some point if I thought I had everyone’s attention I’d go off on one! It was always improvisation, because I hadn’t memorised any entire pieces.

To some extent, that’s still true today. If I’m in a lively pub with my mates and there’s a piano in the corner, I couldn’t just bang out a couple of Top 10 classics by A-Listers unannounced and entertain the room. But now that I’ve released 29 original songs there’s a chance more people actually are starting to know my music and would give it attention in an impromptu performance setting. As I evolve my catalogue I want it to be flexible to working in any type space, not just places you’d traditionally expect contemporary piano with a classical slant to be in. 

Do you see any connections between your music and meditation/mindfulness, either in terms of your compositional process or the way your fans consume it?

That world has definitely benefited some artists in my scene: some people need music for meditation, and also for things like study and sleep. But I don’t listen to music when I sleep – I want to be awake and feel alive when listening to music I don’t judge anyone who writes for that market or consumes music in that way, but I 100% don’t write for any of those things.

Certain tracks or passages on my albums will work in those environments, but I don’t have markets in mind when I’m composing. I’m really into playing with dynamics, so a lot of my songs do include meditative moments, but then it bursts into life and develops in different directions… I grew up liking things like The Pixies, Nirvana, punk music and post-rock, and they’ve influenced me at least as much as people like Satie or Michael Nyman.

I call my music 'Pulse Music', as our own internal pulses are not rigid - they adapt to the world around us. The music is often meditative, but sometimes it’s faster, fighting for and ultimately celebrating life. Because of this, the tempos and dynamics can be fluid. If there IS a connection with meditation, it’s closer to the way people used to focus in ancient times around the fire: something trancey and hedonistic rather than slow and peaceful.

For me the meditation aspect comes into it as I’m composing: if I’m locked into the meaning from the very first note to the last, I know I’m onto a track that’s true to me. Some people use yoga to get into that sort of flow state, I use the piano: sometimes it’s about lighting the fire, sometimes it’s about chilling out.

I think a lot of music attempts to take people away to a dreamlike place, but that’s not my goal because ultimately I don’t believe utopia exists; I want my music to represent a journey, with road-blocks along the way. There are always going to be conflicts in the world – I don’t agree with any of it, but I want to represent what’s happening now rather than creating a world that isn’t really true. In that sense my music’s probably closer to the spirit of punk, if not the sound-world. I like to keep the grit and the imperfections, because it’s a reminder that chasing perfection will drive you mad.

How much inspiration do you draw from minimalist classical composers?

I was obsessed with the great composers as a kid – I remember lying in bed with a torch reading biographies of Beethoven under the covers when I was about twelve! I have such a respect for that world, but I’ve ended up coming at it from another angle: I just wanted to do my own thing, and it’s taken twenty years to get the momentum I needed.

From 11 till about 15 I played sheet-music, and as part of that I remember playing the Satie Gymnopédies. But an equally big influence is minimalist electronic music, and specifically its repetitive beats: perhaps there’s a link there back to Satie and the earlier minimalists, but I’m not a full-on student of that. I’d say I’ve been influenced by Reich in terms of being just as interested in rhythm as I am in harmony, and there’s definitely a connection to electronic music there. The only song I’ve ever imitated on purpose was a Michael Nyman track, which I learned and did my own little variation on when I was about 15 – that was maybe the last time I thought ‘I want to sound a bit like this world or composer’.

I use the sustain pedal more than your average composer – it creates like a drone effect, and I feel that’s quite a minimalist aesthetic. But one thing I’ve learned is to keep things quite simple and not to overegg the production: if you’ve composed something well enough it doesn’t need over-embellishment. Take Debussy’s amazing compositions for the piano: they wouldn’t stand up if they were overproduced, because there’s already so much going on in a very subtle way.

How and where do you compose?

I don’t want to glamorise the process, because I’ve tried to incorporate it into my everyday life in the suburbs. I’m sure it would be great to go on retreat to a lodge in the woods and write your masterpiece - but if you don’t have the time or money to do that, does that mean you can’t create magic through music?

I do have a designated space to work on my music, but I’m not in there every day. In my garden I’ve built a studio and I’ve got a Bösendorfer piano: it’s sound-proofed, and I have the facilities to record to release-level if needed. But a lot of the magic actually happens at the little digital piano in my lounge. If I’ve got a spare fifteen minutes before dinner’s ready, I find nothing better than just getting on it and practising in a little burst: it's like my sketch-pad. You’re not performing live or trying to do a perfect take, you’re just having fun without pressure – never lose those moments.

I’m a bit different to most people in the classical world because I don’t write anything down – it’s all in my head. But my songs aren’t improvisations: although I do have sections in my live shows where I improvise, the songs themselves have been developed and refined over several years.

I practise loops a lot and spend a lot of time working out little earworms: I record sections onto my phone to revisit later. I know a song is good enough if I want to go to the piano and play it again because I’m excited about it – if it wasn’t good enough then I’ll just forget about it. There’s a certain foundation that comes from my early classical training, but it’s also freeform like jazz: when I play tracks live, sometimes the little connecting sections end up becoming a new track of their own at some point.

I don’t like to put songs out too quickly: because I’m not writing the music down, I’ll work on it for around a year until the basic framework becomes second nature. Then the next year is about adding the intricacies: the little unexpected chords and the slight offbeats just to give it my own character. When we get to the final take I know exactly what I’m going to play, but the process of getting there is about experimentation.

Working on the sheet-music edition with Sam Lung was interesting, because I’d give him what I thought was quite a simple song in 3/4 or 4/4…but when it came back it looked like Stravinsky or something, with time-signatures all over the place! I play instinctively and never with a metronome, so time signatures can fluctuate. Once the player learning my songs achieves a grip of the pieces and if they want to get closer to my style, try to delay or prolong notes a millisecond or merge notes slightly to create tension, trusting in your own energy. Getting the music down on the page took two and a half years of back and forth: we wanted to end up with something that was approachable to the player, looked neat on the page and remained true to the essence of the piece.

What sort of atmosphere do you like to create in your live performances?

People often come up to me after my concerts and say they’ve cried, and I definitely cry when I’m playing sometimes: I find it quite overwhelming, but it’s joyful tears. I play a lot of small-to-medium venues where you can see people’s eyes, and I like to have a bit of banter with the audience in between pieces rather than playing my programme from start to finish.

In a way it’s closer to an indie rock gig than a classical recital in terms of the relationship between audience and players. I welcome the chink of glasses or people going to get a drink: I’m happy with a bit of chaos in the room, and I adapt my playing accordingly. I suppose I learned that from playing at home as a kid: my music can evolve in the moment, so you can put me in different spaces and environments and I’ll make it work. It’s not about being a virtuoso or playing the most perfect gig in the world – it’s hopefully about creating an environment where everyone feels welcome and we can all be at peace in the moment together.

One of my favourite gigs was at the Neues Museum in Nuremberg, which is a bit like the Tate Modern in terms of the vibe. It was an evening gig in the foyer with 150 seats, and on the day there was a queue to get in; I got so much confidence managing to sell the room out, and I did one of my best performances ever. I’ve also played the Jazz Café and Steinway Sessions at the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, and I loved performing at the beautiful church at Haldern Pop festival in North-West Germany. Churches can be risky as a pianist: usually you’re playing the piano for the first time, and there’s only so much research you can do in advance. But this one was amazing: the sound-person put tiny mics in the piano as well as normal mics around the room, which created real lift-off for the piano.

Just recently I played the Beyond The Pale Festival in Ireland: the line-up included big mainstream poppy electronic artists like Jessie Ware and Romy, and I got to play the main stage early in the day. Sometimes festivals prefer you to play an electronic keyboard because it’s easier all round, but I stuck to my guns and played an acoustic piano in an environment that’s not known for this kind of music. If you play concert-halls in Europe, everyone can hear the intricacies of every phrase, whereas at festivals it gets a bit lost because of the wind and the noise. But I love taking this music into different environments: I learn something from every show.