Newton Faulkner’s new album was made with “zero fear” because he was so committed to creating a new sound that would surprise people.
The 36-year-old musician’s seventh studio LP ‘Interference (Of Light)’ was released on Friday (20.08.21) and he is very proud of the collection of tracks because he refused to be restricted by what his songwriting sounded like on his previous records.
Newton made a vow after he released his 2019 compilation, ‘The Very Best of Newton Faulkner… So Far’, to overhaul his sound and he has stuck to it.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz, he said: ““After the Best Of I said that things would sound different and the reason I did that was to force me to go through with it because I could have not mentioned it and it would have been fine and I could’ve done whatever I wanted. But because I told everyone, I had to do it, the first track on the album had to be a departure from anything else I’d done before.
“Production wise I feel it’s a huge step up from anything I’ve done before, the things that I’ve produced and the soundscapes I’ve created.
“There was zero fear in putting this record together.”
The ‘World Away’ singer has always had concerns that by stepping away from the style of music that made him popular he would “alienate” his fan base, but for this collection he decided to embrace his inner rock god and go for it.
Newton recently played a host of socially distanced gigs during which he debuted some of his new material and he was delighted by the reaction of the audience.
He said: “There’s loads more electric guitars and it’s much rockier and vocally it’s a lot bigger than anything I’ve done before.
“There’s lots of points where I’m just going for it. Because of the time I had I could just wait until it felt right. I would get up at 3am and do vocals and they go back to bed again, I just did it whenever it felt right. I think you can feel the comfortable-ness of it, I’m just doing what I do and I didn’t care what genre it was, I didn’t care about tempo or feel, I wasn’t hung up and what I thought Newton Faulkner had to do next, which I have been before, stylistically I’ve felt kind of hemmed in a bit.
“It’s like, ‘I could do this record but it doesn’t sound like Newton Faulkner, do I need a side project? Do I need a band?’ I feel like I can’t do the music that I want to do because it’s not what Newton Faulker sounds like and I chucked all that out of the window.
“You don’t want to alienate your core fan base but to be fair they’ve really go into it, especially playing it live hearing people sing the new stuff straight back at me the week after it came out is great.
“I think it’s one of the best records I’ve ever put together, I think sonically and from a writing perspective its quite a major step up from where I was before.”
Newton will play his rescheduled live dates from May 2020 in September and his ‘Interference (Of Light)’ tour kicks off in the UK in October.
Go to Newtonfaulkner.com for information and tickets.