MUSIC

Anna Britten savours the mellow new album from comeback kid Gavin Thorpe.

In some parallel universe, Gavin Thorpe is playing the O2 and soundtracking the new Jennifer Aniston romcom. In this universe, however, he’s a (very) new dad running a guitar shop in Taunton and cheerfully plugging his self-released download-only album. The common denominator is his talent.

A decade ago, as documented in these pages, Thorpe suffered a stroke of such back-breaking, belly-hollowing bad luck it would have caused many young artists to go completely postal. In a nutshell: lucrative deal with Atlantic Records, album recorded in LA and mixed in NY, $15k dollar cover shoot with same snapper who did Ryan Adams’s ‘Gold’, song on a Hollywood teen flick, and then… blam. The label was bought out, its new owners cancelling all new releases by debut artists. Oh, and banning them from re-recording for two years.

After a frustrating spell with only a publishing deal (at one point he was sent off to write with Guy Chambers: “a pompous arsehole. I told him the song title we had wasn’t very cool and he said, ‘I don’t need to do cool because I’m f*cking loaded.’”), Thorpe dusted himself off with the help of his loyal dad. “I spoke to him a lot, about the ups and downs. He was always saying ‘You’ve got to keep on; only you can fail. Think of where you’ve come from [Wotton-under-Edge], what you’ve achieved.’” He put out the angry ‘Pictures’ album by himself in 2008, narrowly missed out (to Leona Lewis) on a Radio Two ‘Record Of the Week’ slot, then set about organizing Stateside meetings and gigs to regain the ground he’d lost. And then, suddenly, the floor fell away yet again. “I was going on holiday and phoned Dad from the airport. We chatted about football. He died an hour later, from an aneurysm.”

Thorpe’s pillar of support gone, there was now also the question of a family retail business to tackle. Thorpe stepped up. “I felt like I had to do it for him. Dad always wanted to run a shop. He always supported me in my dream and I wanted to support him in his. Also it was good to get up and go somewhere and focus on something other than how I felt.”

During the ensuing months Thorpe found it impossible – both emotionally and practically – to make music again. Then one day, in the shop, he started riffing. He went into his friend Sam’s studio and put down some ideas, then took them to Stew ‘Phantom Limb’ Jackson to be mixed. Jackson was so impressed he offered to co-produce a new album – using some reworked songs from the Atlantic period – and played on every track, introducing silvery slices of pedal steel. The result, ‘Rollin’ On’, is out now as a digital download. “It really is down to him. He inspired me to get back on track. I couldn’t afford to pay him so paid him in gear – an old Fender amp, a bass. There’s a laidback feeling to the album. We spent a long time chatting, eating onion rings…”

A summer of shopkeeping and babytending lie ahead, but come the autumn he’ll be setting out again on that long, rutted road to recognition. “It’s gonna start again. I feel good about it. Every time I try to run away from music there’s a burning desire that draws me back. Every time I sack myself I hire myself again the next day.”

‘Rollin’ On’ has a warm, guileless feel (“a bit less LA, a bit more Bristol”) inspired by Gillian Welch’s recent comeback ‘The Harrow & The Harvest’ and showcasing Thorpe’s Ryan Adams/Teddy Thompson-esque tones. One highlight is opener ‘For Your Love’: “My favourite. People are scared to write about being positive about love. Someone said to me, about the album, ‘it’s very love-heavy’”. He shakes his head, bemused that anyone should find this strange.

GAVIN THORPE PLAYED THE FOLK HOUSE, BRISTOL, ON 3 SEPT. ‘ROLLIN’ ON’ IS OUT NOW ITUNES, AMAZON, SPOTIFY ET AL. FFI: WWW.GAVINTHORPE.COM

Copyright Anna Britten 2011