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1.) We’re very excited to be speaking today with award-winning pop crooner Michael Nelson known far and wide as BANNERS; greetings and salutations, Michael! Before we dive right into the proverbial ring-a-ding Q&A session, how has the first couple of weeks of 2023 been treating you?
Hello! First of all it’s really lovely to be even momentarily thought of as a crooner. Like, maybe, just for this tiny moment, there’s a chance that someone might think that I’m classy or something. So, thank you for that! I’m having a great 2023, thanks. I went to Costa Rica for the first few weeks, so most of 2023 has been in paradise. The only problem with being in paradise is that, at some point, you have to not be in paradise. So, I’m at my dining table in Liverpool now, which is paradise in its own way. Just not in that sort of “warm in the sea looking at parrots” kind of way.
2.) Congratulations on the upcoming January 13 release of your new EP I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not! What was the genesis of this altogether remarkable new EP, how did it come into being?
Music is a time capsule isn’t it? We even categorize it by the decade that it came out, rather than by anything specific to the music. 70’s music, 80’s, 90’s etc. Like the time period is a genre in itself. Which is pretty wild when you think that that means Nirvana are considered somehow historically categorizable next to Britney Spears. It’s like the actual content of the music is almost not as important to us, as a society, as the things that were happening in the time period when it was released. I’m just sort of realizing this now, so bare with me. So, this EP is a little pandemic time capsule for me. It was mainly written across continents on Zoom starting with “In Your Universe” in very early 2020. Literally days after the first lockdown. Writing that song was a really big thing for me, actually. When everything got locked down and the world stopped there was a real feeling amongst songwriters that our profession was in serious jeopardy. That without being able to get together and collaborate, we wouldn’t be able to make it work. I think this was true, in some ways, of almost every industry. Then it turned out that Zoom was a thing and that you could, however, clunkily in the beginning, actually continue to work with people. “In Your Universe” was my first little bit of hope that things, from a creative perspective, at least, would be ok. It’s a miracle to me that anybody can write a song over the internet. Any song, even a bad one, is so hard to get together on what is, essentially, a conference call. So I’m so so proud of the songs I created during that time. I’m proud that it’s music I actually like and not compromised, creatively, by the circumstances. I’m so proud of the hundreds of thousands of songs that were written by songwriters that just kept on going. I’m glad I’ve got this little time capsule, mainly as a reminder to myself to keep going when things look lost. But I think it’s going to be a while before I dig it up and understand what happened in 2020.
3.) How is I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not absolutely different from anything else on the 2023 music scene?
I’m probably the last person that is able to judge that, really. I’ve been Banners for the best part of a decade now, but it’s only very recently that I’ve figured out how I want to do it. When you start out it’s inevitable that you’re going to pay very close attention to everybody else’s music. To try to use other people as a bit of a template because you don’t have any experience of your own to draw from. You don’t know what it is that YOU do that could resonate with people. All you have is what everyone else is doing. So you hear a song on the radio, think “that’s what’s working, that’s what people like” and are inevitably influenced by that. At first you just want to make it work. You just want to have a career, I suppose, but that is very unfulfilling. All you’re doing is comparing yourself, almost always unfavourably, to other people. You don’t really know yourself yet, so all you are is a less successful version of other artists. Then, as you get further down the line, you have your own songs that start to resonate and you start to realize who you can be to people. Who you are. So, now I don’t compare myself to other people any more. I don’t look at other people’s streaming numbers or sales figures or chart positions because that way lies absolute madness. There’ll always be a bigger fish and if you compare yourself to others then you don’t appreciate how far you’ve developed as a person and artist. I just try to make songs that might matter to people, songs that might help make someone’s day a little bit better. Everything else looks after itself. I don’t really know how these songs differ from anything else in 2023 but I do know that they’re by me.
4.) Who was your producer on I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not and what did that collaboration between artist and producer look like in the studio?
These songs are produced by Cam Blackwood and engineered by Dan Moyler. Sometimes I can’t believe that I get to work with people like Cam and Dan. They’ve both made so much music that I absolutely love and, honestly, they’re so successful that I never thought in a million years that they’d be interested enough in my music to want to work together. I met Cam at the very start of 2022 and I liked his company so much that within, I think, two weeks we were on an island off the northern coast of Scotland recording this EP. There are not many people I’d be up for doing that with! He’s incredibly nurturing of people. He’s so generous with his enthusiasm, that he makes you feel like every idea you have is great. It’s not, obviously, but that gives you the confidence to try stuff, which is so important. He’s also a genius. He comes up with stuff that I just can’t believe. His brain just works differently to everybody else and the thing is he doesn’t have any ego with it which, in my experience, is incredibly rare. And then Dan just makes it sound awesome. I can’t believe I get to work with them. We’ve written and recorded loads of songs in 2022 that will be coming out this year and I’m so excited for everyone to hear them.
5.) Can you introduce our readers to some of the other talented musicians who lent their musical alchemy to I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not?
This is a great opportunity to talk about my friend Olly. He’s amazing. He can play absolutely everything to an unbelievably high standard, is a great songwriter and composer, and is just the greatest lad. I met him about a year and a half ago, and I’ve seen him most days since then. He’s in my band when I play live and he’s playing almost everything on this EP. He’s going to go on to have such a massive career, I just hope he remembers little old me from time to time. I just want to do all this with my friends now. Making music is such an incredible thing to experience. Playing in front of people, playing songs that matter to them is such a profound thing to get to do and so much more special when you get to do it with people you love.
6.) How is the new EP similar to some of your past music? How is it different?
That’s a really tricky question to answer. I’m not sure. I suppose it’s still me singing! But I’d hope that it’s moved somewhere from music I released 7 or 8 years ago. Of course you want your music to develop, but you also want to make sure that the people that loved you at the start love you now. You don’t want to change so much as to alienate people. You also don’t want to make music from your comfort zone. That’s a really hard thing to plan. Some bands are amazing at it. The Beatles did it when it would have been the easiest thing in the world to just keep doing the music that made them the biggest band in the world. Coldplay is another one I think about a lot too. They could have just done Parachutes again but they reimagined things with A Rush of Blood to the Head and again with X & Y. I guess that’s how you stay at the top. I’m not clever enough to figure all that out. I suppose you just have to rely on working with new people, having new experiences to draw on and making music that constantly matters to you as your life goes on and changes. To keep making music you’re excited about and keep being open to new influences.
7.) On the heels of the release of the new EP can fans look forward to seeing you on the touring circuit in the weeks and months to come?
Yes! We’ve got 12 dates in February and March across the UK and then I’m just figuring out where to go for the rest of the year.
8.) What do you hope listeners walk away with after giving I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not a few dozen spins on their hi-fi systems?
I suppose that it all matters to me. That I only record songs now that move me because I think that’s the only way I can hope they’ll move somebody else.
9.) As a singer and songwriter which comes first for you: The lyrics or the music?
To be honest, it all just happens in one big constantly happening blob. Songwriting is so strange because it’s a craft where you can write hundreds of songs and then when you sit down to write another one you don’t really know how you do it. I think I generally have thoughts or titles in my head and then I’ll play the piano and sing some nonsense words and nonsense melodies. Every now and then the chords and the melodies come together into a little moment of magic. When you sing nonsense words you can get into a bit of a zen, meditative, headspace where you’re letting your subconscious take over and you’ll sing feelings that your conscious brain didn’t even know your subconscious had. Then you have a framework and you can engage the conscious, academic part of your brain to figure out what it is that you want to say and how it will be the most poetic and put all the pieces together. That sounds weird, but songwriting is weird. I’ve got some songs I really love and if I knew how to do them, I’d do them again. You just have to sit down at the piano and have faith I suppose.
10.) Your father Ken Nelson is a respected producer in the industry. When you were first forging your own path with your music would you routinely ask him for his five cents?
I am very privileged to have had a leg up that most people don’t get to have. I’m not sure it works in the way most people think it would, but it’s a privilege nonetheless and it’s something I check all the time. The privilege is that I learned from a really young age that it was possible to make a go of it in the music industry. Most of the people my dad worked with that went on to be hugely successful were just nerdy dudes, not superheroes. So I got to learn that it was doable. That anyone can do it. When you have that belief, everything opens up for you. I also got to see how hard it is, and how hard you have to work to get anywhere. You also have to be good to people and be someone that people want to be around. Most of all, though, I had the privilege of getting to be in recording studios and having the opportunity to absolutely fall in love with the process of making music. When I was really little, I just wanted to be in the studio. I loved it. I think that’s how you have to come at it because a career in music has so many knocks. So many times where you’re tired, lost, sad and uncertain, and you just want to curl up under the covers, but you keep going because you love it. So, I’m so lucky to have been given that opportunity to fall in love with music and to know it’s possible.
11.) Who inspires you musically?
I love Nick Cave. I’ve always loved him. Right now, I really love him. I’ve been watching all his films 20,000 Days on Earth, This Much I Know to Be True, and Once More, With Feeling. I just finished his new book, Faith, Hope and Carnage. I don’t sound anything like him but I find him so inspirational. His writing, as well as his lyrics and melodies. His humanity and his humility but mainly his understanding of what he is to people. To be a real frontman (in every sense of the word), you have to be a showman. So I’m trying to get a bit more Nick Cave in me somehow. I think I need to always wear a suit. That’ll help surely?
12.) With the new EP set to drop is it too soon to ask you about any LP plans you may have for 2023?
I’ve got loads of new music ready to go. Let’s leave it at that!
13.) Any final thoughts you might like to share with our readers regarding I Wish I Was Flawless, I’m Not?
Just that I’m grateful to anybody that gives it a go. 2020 was such a lonely, disconnected time, but the fact that people were listening was the thing that got me through. Made me feel not so alone and gave me hope for everything. I realized that, although I was on my own, I was connected to people every time they listened to one of my songs. Hundreds of thousands of connections every day. So whether people like it or not I’m grateful to you for giving it a go and for the tiny little moment we’ll share together when you do.
