The Gary Daly Conversation

What was your process and influences when making Gone From Here, and how would you describe it in terms of genre?

Poppy Prog, Jazzy Folk, Modern Contemporary, Old School Synth Pop, and every song starts the same: I sit at the piano and play (although there are a couple of guitar-led songs), mostly it all comes from sitting day after day at the piano, whether I’m at home or on the road. When I’m on the road touring with the China’s, which is a lot these days, I nearly always go looking for a piano. Local churches are good places to find a piano, and some quiet time in which to work. The clergy never seem to mind, and they are nearly always quite beautful places to hang out. My influences…new artists like Owen Pallett, Sufjan Stevens, John Grant, Midlake, and then just about anything and everything I come across. To be truthful, I never spend any time thinking ‘what has influenced me’; I can hear all the inspiration when I listen to the songs, but would struggle to define it. Some things are best left alone, and the creative process is one of them.

With a solo project, what do you think were were the main differences/similarities with how you approached this album versus how you have worked on China Crisis albums in the past?

With the China’s it’s always Eddie and myself at the very heart of it, always running ideas past each other, always being there for each other, but with it just being myself, well it’s been liberating believing I’m in charge, but the reality is, songs do have a life of their own. I’m a firm believer in the mystery surrounding music, so I just followed the songs really. After making Autumn In the Neigbourhood and being largely responsible for its creation, I felt like I knew ‘how to make a record’, but it was only after months and months of recording solo that I knew I had a new album on the go, which was both hugely exciting and terrifying at the same time, and still is.

Why did you choose the evocative album title, Gone From Here?

I wrote the song Gone From Here – it’s most likely the simplest song on the album – and I was singing about me and my girl, the delightful Mrs Weir, from way way back, and how we used to laugh at everything and everyone, which is exactly what you do when you are young but maybe not so much when you have lived a little. Then the chorus comes in and boom! …friends have gone, gone from here, and it’s sad, but not always a bad sad, just it is what it is, everything and everyone, life moves on, it has to. And why make it the album title? Well, leaving has been in the air for quite some time now, and Gone From Here the song is super real, and I love that song soooo much, so yeah, it gets top billing even though it’s the last song on the album.

The fifth track from the album, Carousel Of Stars, is available to download ahead of Gone From Here’s release, and features John Campbell from It’s Immaterial, how did your collaboration with John come about?

John is a sort of neighbour of mine, and over the last couple of years we’ve bumped into each other quite a bit. I’ve always been a big fan of John and his band It’s Immaterial (we both put out singles on the Liverpool label Inevitable Records in the early 80s). His speaking voice is magical. I had Carousel Of Stars all written with myself singing lead vocals, but I didn’t like it so scrapped my vocal and had it instrumental so I could rethink it. I was playing it in the car and started mimicking John’s voice, and then it occurred to me to just go on up and ask John would he like to hear it and collaborate, which he did, magnificently. Absolutely a stand out track on the album.

The album also features amongst others, musicians such as Tom Moth on harp from Florence And The Machine, members of Outfit, Blue Of Noon, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and of course, China Crisis. Did you have a specific wish list of musicians in mind to approach beforehand or did it all evolve organically?

Everyone has been so incredibly generous with their time and talents. I’d like to think it’s because they have known that I’ve chosen specifically to work with them, and that my musical endeavours are heartfelt, passionate and true. I’m always so curious as to the magic of music making, being a bit of what Brian Eno would call a “non-musician”, I’m always blown away by how some people are just naturally gifted. Born to play, so to say. I’m definitely not one of those, so I always find it incredibly interesting seeing how people respond to my ideas. I suppose on reflection, Eddie and myself learnt very early on to trust our instincts and really, really believe it’s all about the music/song and what people bring to that. And never being intimidated, after all making not one, but two albums with Walter Becker of Steely Dan fame, I’d like to think we learnt something from those experiences.

The album sounds absolutely gorgeous, so it’s no surprise to find out that three time Grammy Award-Winner, Mark Pythian, mixed it. How did that transpire?

That’s very nice of you to say. Mark originally worked on the China’s Working With Fire And Steel album at Amazon Studios in our hometown of Kirkby in 1983 when he was a little teenage lad getting some ‘work experience’, and we have remained friends ever since, with Mark working with us on many projects, most recently mixing the China’s Autumn In The Neighbourhood album. So yeah, it was always gonna be Mark mixing Gone From Here, and it is his ‘audio picture’ we are hearing, very much so, and a beautiful thing it is for sure.

Can you tell us about the making of the video for track three on the album, I Work Alone. It’s so amazingly hypnotic, and a true work of art in itself!

That would be the supreme video visual work of young Mr Adam Sloan. Adam is a buddy and we have worked together over the last ten years or so. I basically gave Adam the memory card from my camera, which had over 3000 images on it, and asked if he could make a video from the images, with the idea being to illustrate just how much I do work alone. But my life is so informed by everyone in and around it, as is everyones. I am absolutely thrilled with Adam’s production. It’s such a beautiful video and I think sums up the whole sentiment of the song in quite a visually stunning way. Amazing!