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Garfield Mayor is back with a bang. After over a decade away from the music scene, the British singer-songwriter is riding the wave of excitement around his single, Foolish Feet. Known for his introspective lyrics and soulful sound, Mayor’s return is a bold celebration of reclaiming joy and letting go of inhibition. We caught up with him to talk about his journey, the inspiration behind his latest track, and the philosophy that fuels both his music and his life. Here’s what he had to say…
Hey VENTS great to meet you! Thanks for such an interesting and insightful bunch of questions!! 🙂
We couldn’t evade the hype amassing around your latest single, Foolish Feet; it’s a massive departure from your previous single, Been Thinking; what inspired the shift?
Honestly, if you’d said to me you can release one track that announces ‘THIS IS GARFIELD MAYOR’, Been Thinking wouldn’t be it. So making it my first single after more than a decade away probably doesn’t make much sense… But the truth is that without my wife Christy, there wouldn’t be ANY more Garfield Mayor… The first single had to be a tribute to her, and I could think of no better way than sharing the song with which I proposed to her.
In terms of the follow-up, while the struggles of the past decade will get their day in the sun, the release of Been Thinking was such a positive experience that before I started delving into the well of the soul, I wanted to celebrate this moment… I don’t think I fully appreciated how much I’d missed sharing music. It feels like coming up for air.
Foolish Feet celebrates that it’s never too late to be happy, and along with the late-summer sunshine, it just felt like the perfect time to express that.
Is there a story behind the single?
It took me 11 years to get Foolish Feet to you – you’re damn right there’s a story behind it!
I was at a wedding and everyone was drinking and dancing, but I was the designated driver for the night, so without any Dutch courage I was feeling a bit out of it. Dancing was the last thing on my mind, but when Daft Punk’s Get Lucky came on, I steeled myself and got up. It was incredibly liberating to know that I could find joy in such situations without the need to artificially alter my consciousness.
At that time I’d just finished an album, but I felt like Foolish Feet had to be part of it. I spent the next year on it. Just after we’d mastered it, I read somewhere that disco tracks typically operated at 120bpm (one theory being it’s related to typical heart-rate when dancing!)… Foolish Feet was considerably slower, and I started questioning it. I tried speeding it up but it wasn’t so simple. Over the following year I completely re-built the track. I then spent no fewer than 18 months mixing it – I just couldn’t get it where it needed to be. That still wasn’t the end of it, but I won’t bore you with any more – if you want to know the whole saga check out the blog post on my website. In short however, I ended up going back to the very first version! What can I say? I can get a little obsessive! But equally and in the words of the great Kelly Jones: “You’ve got to go there to come back”! Maybe the alternate version will find it’s way onto an album someday.
There’s no shortage of nu-disco tracks which inspire listeners to get into the groove, yet yours has such a soulfully compelling presence. What do you believe was the key to making the lyrics and vocal delivery so affecting?
On the face of it, Foolish Feet is a pretty happy go-lucky tune, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. In fact it addresses something which I think we all wrestle with: the fear of expressing ourselves in a way others might think is unbecoming – despite knowing deep down it would be good and healthy for us.
That fear of embarrassment can manifest in all sorts of ways, but in my case it’s connected to the fear of aging. Worrying about getting older is such a pointless exercise – but no matter how much I tell myself that – I can’t help but ruminate on it. That’s where courage comes in. Foolish Feet is about reaping the rewards of being courageous, refusing to let anyone else dictate how you ought to behave or what you are allowed to feel, and ultimately realising that the fear was a mirage all along.
The encouragement to throw away inhibition seems to run deeper than just dancing. Is this a metaphor for a broader philosophy you hold about life and creativity, and if so, how do you embody this ethos in your day-to-day life?
My greatest fear is wasting this precious life. I don’t believe we get another shot at it. And yet fear is often the very thing that prevents us from experiencing life to its fullest. It’s a paradox which haunts me constantly. It’s so hard to let go sometimes – even more so the older we get and the more invested we are in the current status quo. Ironically, as time slips away, you need to get better at letting go if you’re going to make the most of what’s left. I find these sorts of existential contradictions fascinating!
How do I embody this ethos? Increasingly, if I can see potential benefits, I’ll force myself to do uncomfortable things. It’s amazing what can come from stepping into the unknown. It’s so easy to avoid things because you think you know what the outcome will be – but in an infinite universe that’s the sort of naive hubris that gets in our way.
In terms of tools, I also practice meditation daily, and subscribe to the ideas of stoicism, which help remind me that I am lucky, and I should make use of my blessings while I have them – I won’t always.
Were there any specific production decisions that were pivotal in achieving the final sound?
Thousands upon thousands! But I guess choosing between the different versions was probably the toughest – I love them both. The single version you hear today has a slightly more electro feel – the drums are more processed. The groove has a lovely subtle swing, which temporarily gets put on hold during the middle eight when the hi-hat switches to a straight 16ths pattern. This makes for that brilliant moment when we launch into the final chorus and outro where the hi-hat reverts to its original pattern. You need to stop me – I can talk shop forever!
How do you decide which artistic elements to draw from your influences, and how do you make them your own in the songwriting process?
I want people to be able to discover something new with every repeated listen, because I want my music to have lasting value. To that end my music tends to have lots of layers – both sonically and narratively. But there’s a limit to how much can be squeezed into a mix, and how much information a listener can reasonably take in before they become confused. So this is my process: I build and build until I run out of good ideas. Inevitably I end up with way too much, including a bunch of things that might be good in isolation but don’t work in their current context. It then becomes a process of subtracting, reshaping, sometimes adding in new parts to solve technical issues. It’s very fluid – and VERY time-consuming! But I figure if I don’t try everything – how will I know it’s the best I can do?
That’s a long way round to answer your question by saying that I don’t choose the artistic elements or the influences: the artistic elements appear as flashes of inspiration – not decisions. I don’t care what the influence might be – if it feels good it’s as good a candidate as any other element. Whether that element survives the final cut is ultimately dictated by the mixing process – which is primarily a technical exercise and largely independent of my artistic opinions!
When are you most inspired to write?
Normally at the most inconvenient times! I wake up in the early hours with all sorts of interesting ideas flying around my head – it can be really frustrating because it would be much better for me to get a good night’s sleep! Just after waking seems to be a particularly creative time – so early morning in general.
The worst time is mid-crisis… I become paralysed when I’m low. Furthermore, I always try to have some sense of hope in my songs – no matter the pathos. I think hope is a remarkably potent tool. It can power you through all sorts – and whether or not its realised can be irrelevant: the journey is often more important than the destination. God love the dopamine system!
What are some of your career highlights so far and how have they impacted your relationship to music?
Wow have you been talking to my therapist?!?
Undoubtedly signing to Sony Records back in 2007, along with all the accolades that surrounded it is up there. To your younger readers that might not mean so much – but you have to remember that I started out in a world where major record labels were gods, and independent artists were unheard of. So to be championed by one of the biggest stars in the US (multi-Grammy winner Rob Thomas), and the biggest music publisher (Evan Lamberg), then signed to the biggest record label in the world… It was a magical time and every bit the fabled rock ‘n’ roll dream. As far as I was concerned my career was in the bag.
To this day I still don’t know exactly what went wrong. Mostly people blame the 2008 financial crisis, but whatever the reason, Sony’s decision to shelve my debut album Take and Take broke me and my relationship with music in a way that I’m not sure I’ll ever fully recover from.
Beyond that, opening for Joan Armatrading at Warwick Arts Centre back in 2015 is right up there… To have a thousand people you’ve never met before listen in silence to your every word, then cheer at the end of every song was amazing. More than anything though, at a time when I was feeling very lost and confused about my place in the world, it reminded me that for better or worse I was on the right path. I owe Joan a great deal of gratitude for that opportunity.
What’s next for Garfield Mayor?
I recently came to the somewhat startling conclusion that it’s now unlikely I’ll be able to share all my songs and ideas. I have lots of them, and there just isn’t the time to produce them to the standards I’m bound by. This doesn’t even take into account future inspiration which will likely trump other songs for production.
The release of Been Thinking, and now Foolish Feet marks the beginning of a determined drive for me to share new music every month or two for as long as I am capable. To that end I’ll be putting out my next single in mid-October. I’m really excited about this one – it’s some of my best work yet.
I also want to perform live more – especially on piano, which is far from my strongest instrument, but whose emotion I adore. Another opportunity for courage to reveal its mysteries perhaps.
Above all I want to feel like I’m making the best use of these precious, fleeting moments that I’ve been gifted.
There is no time to waste.
Check out Garfield Mayor on Spotify
Follow his journey on Instagram
