Jim Lockey talks to Dom Smith about The Solemn Sun’s return and what it means to him to perform once again.
Hey Jim, how are you?
Very good thank you, thanks for having me
How do you define success now, what does it mean to you?
After a long time away it feels successful for me just to be back doing this again. We’ve worked really hard as a band to make this new record, and that in itself feels like a great achievement. We’re just excited to see what comes next, to get back to touring and rebuilding. A very welcome fresh start for sure.
How do you look back on ‘Death’ now?
Very fondly. That record brought us so much opportunity and some of the best memories we’ve shared as friends. It picked up a load of radio support including a shout from Zane Lowe, which always be a highlight for me, and it took us partway across the world. We’ll be forever grateful for those experiences. The album seems to have stood up too, people still listen to it and come to shows and talk about how much it means to them. That’s really special for us to hear. We’re still super proud of it. We love how recording it live gave it this energy and urgency that we were so keen on creating at the time. I feel like every album we’ve done has been a step up in terms of writing and production so ‘Death’ was a great reference for us in creating the new record. Having the opportunity to refresh the album with new artwork has also breathed new life into it, it feels different in a very positive way and we’re proud of how it’s aged.
Also that 2014 period as The Solemn Sun?
We loved the Solemn Sun time. The shortened name made sense to us for what those songs became, it was more band sounding and it’s darkness fit Solemn Sun better. Despite it being quite short with only 1 EP and a couple singles it was exciting to explore a heavier more textured side to our songwriting.
Those are some of our favourite songs we’ve made and in time we’ll bring some of those songs back into the JL&TSS sets. For one thing, they’re so fun to play and I think they still fit into the journey and sound of the band well. We were also honoured to support Mineral as that band and reach a new European audience. A super fun time that we’ll always cherish. It’d be interesting to pick more from that sound in the future, but we’ll stay as JL&TSS from now on.
There seems to be a hopeful mood on ‘Colour’ certainly in tone, and tracks like the last one, ‘You and I’?
Yeah, there certainly is, and I’m glad that comes across. It’s very much a record of positivity, of overcoming personal struggles and becoming something new. You & I is actually one of the oldest songs on that record. I wrote that back before we changed to Solemn Sun, so probably 2013. It’s been through various different drafts and genres, it was entirely electronic at one point, but it just never clicked. The sentiment fits this record well so I brought it back and suddenly the vibe was right and it ended up being the most anthemic song of the record. Naturally, we wanted to close the album on it, to give it an identity and to close out on that outro.
There’s a track called ‘Conditional Love’ on there – can you tell me about that?
Conditional Love was an early one in the writing process. I sat down one evening to mess around with some chords and the bridge vocal part just came out and I instantly loved the melody and lyric – I’ve been in love, once is enough for anyone – I spent the rest of the time writing that song trying to match how I felt about that line. Similarly to You & I, I think ‘Connie Love’ as we know it, could’ve gone any number of ways but we tapped into our Counting Crows / Fleetwood Mac influences with it and let that run until it shaped into a final song. The final recording is a bit heavier and more distorted than the early demos but fits better with the record as a whole, it’s more agitated.. like I have too much in mind and it all has to get out as quickly as possible.
What is your message to those people who have got behind you, and will continue to do so?
I’d like to thank everyone that’s ever listened, to even just one song. Out of all the great music available they’ve chosen to listen to ours and I’ll never take that for granted. We are very blessed with a community of people around us that always support us. They are as excited as us to be back, and so we invest a lot of time into making the best shows and songs we possibly can repay the people that listen and enjoy our music. In all honesty, I write songs for myself, they’re a means to vent and to understand my thoughts better, but I think it’s that honesty that people connect to and can relate to. I really struggle to connect to artists that don’t put something of themselves into their work, and so I try to live and write by the rule that I’ll be as honest as possible always, even if it’s sometimes things that are difficult to share.
Is there anything you’d like to add before we finish?
We’re just so stoked to be back. We’d like to thank Xtra Mile for their support and very hard work to bring this new record to life. We are very much looking forward to touring, meeting some new people, and putting everything we have into the shows. Looking forward to working on the next one too, it feels like an open road ahead of us now, and we’re excited to get going.
