I've heard about Cookie for some time in the Nottingham music scene and it was a pleasure to put out this blog on his work.
Thanks for the interview Cookie, can you tell us about your background, how you got involved in music, bands/projects you've been involved in and your main inspirations, etc?
I caught the music bug through the Punk explosion of the late seventies and many of the bands that painted the soundtrack to my youth remain the main inspiration for my own music creation.
Punk gave the young me all the tools I needed to tackle life and I still pretty much think the same way now, don’t judge, question everything and continually evolve.
From 1979 I played bass in punk band ‘Solvent Abuse’, we wrote songs, we gigged out and about the country and we recorded - we split in 1985. Everything Solvent Abuse recorded was released posthumously on vinyl on Pure Punk Records (PPR015) and Rough Trades Demo Tapes Records (TAPE003)
Rewind to 1979 because at the same time I was playing with Solvent Abuse I was writing and recording songs with school friend Alan Robinson. Alan introduced me to the six string acoustic and the concept of song creation. We wrote and recorded songs under the name ‘White Feather’, and never gigged. In 1983 we released a vinyl single called ‘Summer Days and a Golden Haze’. I still occasionally collaborate with Alan and would sight him as a significant influence on my song writing.
After Solvent Abuse disbanded I played in a band called Emily, named after the heroine of the Oliver Postgate classic ‘Bagpuss’, we wrote songs, gigged and recorded. Emily was short lived and disbanded in 1987.
In 1990 I started a band called ‘The Little Pigs’, playing bass and singing. We wrote songs, gigged and recorded. I like the three piece format, there’s a closer bond, more intimate, we worked well together. The Little Pigs wrote songs in a style reminiscent of the bands we loved most in our youth, The Clash, The Ruts, The Jam, we introduced reggae and ska into the live sets which put us apart from other local bands at the time (when a kind of fluffy rock and roll was popular in the pubs and clubs)
The Little Pigs released two CD’s, ‘Quiet Before The Storm’ which is a collection of the early demo’s and ‘Knockout!’ which is an album recorded at Crash Studio’s in Nottingham and released in 2009.
The band finished for good in 2014.
During the lifetime of The Little Pigs, I’m guessing around 2000, I started to attend local open mic sessions.
It took a few years of observation before I eventually started to write and perform songs at these sessions, usually on the acoustic guitar, sometimes on the mandolin and occasionally unaccompanied, I learned that a thought-provoking lyric sang with a little conviction can deliver as much punch as a wall of loud guitar and a bark, it can be really powerful stuff.
At these open mic sessions I noticed that most performers sang cover versions of other people’s songs, often about places that were not the East Midlands and usually in the accent of the place about which they were singing. This persuaded me, initially as a bit of fun, to write songs about local places and characters and to sing them in my own accent. Surprisingly it got a positive reaction, I remember the first song I wrote and performed at Ilkeston Folk Club; ‘Frank Robinson Xylophone man’, I ended up playing it on a Radio Nottingham breakfast show (rock and roll!)
I released my first collection of songs about local topics in 2007 called ‘Nottingham’, and I did so under my lifelong nickname ‘Cookie’, however the urge to continually evolve gradually took me from this way of writing and presenting songs and I began to add beats and bring in the bass guitar. I also started to layer my voice and added multiple harmonies which I guess now is a feature of my recordings.
Since 2007 I have put out several albums under the name Cookie, as a collection they are probably best described as an eclectic mix, the three best received are ‘Armchair Critic (2012)’, ‘Fake Ballads and Tea Shanties (2017)’ and ‘Big Chief Thundercloud ( 2019’).
My love of music is wide, I like much of it and continue to soak it in like a sponge, I would like to think my own style is not a straightforward pigeon-hole.
This means my influences are wide also, my first exposure to music would have been my Mum’s rock and roll singles, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran were favourites and certainly the harmonies of The Everly Brothers have influence on my music creation now. Lyrically I would sight Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Paul Weller, John Lydon, Joe Strummer, Elvis Costello and Ian Dury as influences and theirs is the bar to which I continually aim.
I love accents in music, particularly when it is a true accent to the person singing it, Ian Dury was the first indication to me that songs didn’t have to be sang in a false accent, in fact they could have more effect sang in a local vernacular. The Proclaimers, The Artic Monkeys and The Futureheads, I love them all and their songs don’t suffer because of their accents.
One of my other big music loves is reggae, particular the earlier roots stuff, and ska which had a big influence on my time with the Little Pigs and of course I have a big soft spot for folk music.
The divide between Punk and Folk is very slight I think?
Has lockdown impacted you creatively at all and how have you coped over the past 18 months?
Covid and lockdown did not stop me creatively, before it all kicked in I had started a song-writing collaboration with a man named Andy Victor. Andy plays with a band called The Corndodgers but also sings solo, I spoke to him first at an open mic session at The Running Horse in Nottingham sometime in 2019. We were swapping lyrics and ideas when lockdown came in.
To help mold the songs into some kind of form Andy brought in a couple of other people, John Hooper contributed Banjo and Guitar and Martin Gallimore the Violin, Keyboard and an array of other instruments plus Lynn, Andy’s wife, added some vocals.
Each of us had home recording kit so we recoded our parts separately and Andy stitched them together, resulting in the album ‘Songs from the Grooveyard’ under the collective ‘Ravenshead’.
Available here on bandcamp Songs from the Grooveyard | Ravenshead (bandcamp.com)
Also during lockdown I collaborated with an old friend, Nick Foulds. Nick began to email me words he was writing and once the Ravenshead project was done I set about putting them into song, eventually this came out as an album called ‘Socially Distant’
Socially Distant is available here Socially Distant | Cookie & Nick Foulds | Cookie (bandcamp.com)
What's your latest work/project and what inspired you to make it?
The last album of my own Cookie originals is called ‘Big Chief Thundercloud’ and is a collection of songs written before going into, going through, and coming out of a period of depression. Yeah I realise this probably paints a right dull affair and something that should be totally avoided but I truly think it is the most uplifting work I have done, I think the lyrics are quite witty considering and the listener probably wouldn’t pick up on the over-riding topic. The process was completely cathartic for me and I still enjoy listening back to it (ultimately we write for ourselves right?)
Big Chief Thundercloud can be found here Big Chief Thundercloud | NottinghamCookie
Where can folks get to see your work?
Most of my albums can be found on my website and are usually free to download there, the Cookie albums are up there plus those by The Little Pigs and Solvent Abuse, and there is a collection of songs by White Feather also that includes the single ‘Summer Days and a Golden Haze’.
You can buy these albums on Bandcamp if you’d prefer Music | Cookie (bandcamp.com)
Can you list your social media links?
Twitter https://twitter.com/@CookieNottm
What's next for you?
Since the lockdown ended I have a changed perspective, particularly to playing live and have agreed to more gig offers than I would usually, I guess we don’t know what is around the corner?
I’ve started writing new songs and these have made it into the live set, not sure where they will end up but for anyone intrigued demo versions are free to download on my website (on the tab ‘Free Downloads’)
Anything else you'd like to add about your work, or a message for the readers?
I’d like to just thank anyone that took time to read through this, if you do visit my website and like what you hear please feel free to send a message
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