MUSIC

The hardest-working man in BrisBusiness has enjoyed a heck of a twelve-month, says Julian Owen.

“Why..?” Normally loquacious in a warmly straightforward, entertaining kind of way, words have frozen and his face is a picture of bewilderment. Venue might as well have asked ‘Why do you breathe?’ Instead, it asked Gaz Brookfield – a man who this year had played 147 gigs by the turn of November, disappointed a three-week lay-off scuppered his hope of making 200 – why he plays quite so often. So, yes, why? We make a point of interviewing musicians clearly doing it for the love, but none gig with your frequency. Not even close.

“Why?” he repeats. “Where are they all? I have to earn money. If I don’t play I don’t eat, simple as that. And I just love doing it. Love the fact it takes me to new parts of the country. I’m in Doncaster tomorrow. Never been. It’s where my girlfriend’s Nan grew up, so me and her will have a look. Don’t know where I’m staying...”

What will you do? “Sleep in the van. Bit nippy, but surprisingly warm once you get your head down.” That’s a rare level of commitment. “I’m living the dream – my version of it. More money would be nice for security, but I don’t have to worry about whether I’m going to get sacked tomorrow, whereas my girlfriend’s just been made redundant.”

Since winning Acoustic magazine’s 2010 Singer-Songwriter of the Year award (“When you tell bookers in an email, it stands out: ‘Well, he must be quite good...’”), scooping a slot at Beautiful Days in the process, he’s added a whole heap of festivals to the weekly pubs/clubs roster. This year’s revived Bristol Folk Fest, for example, “was amazing. I was on first on the Saturday in Colston Hall 2-400 people, more trying to get in. Packed. I only took 50 copies of my album to sell, and they went in 10 minutes.”

You can see the appeal: as clear-eyed and honest in song as he is in conversation, an acoustic-wielding rabble rouser of the old school, with a full-throated voice to reach over the crowd. Still, he admits, “When I watch people who’ve been doing it longer than me, I often think ‘Sh*t, I should be doing it like that’. I watched Ruarri Joseph recently – that man has got class. I’m more shambolic, stamp my feet and swear at people. I don’t intend to, but it’s the way I feel comfortable.”

Quite right, says Venue. If you take the ‘I should be more like...’ route, you’re halfway to ‘X-Factor’. Nothing could be more anathema to an old-school circuit grinder. “Tough crowd last night,” he says. “Loud. You just switch your brain off, keep playing. If I have five gigs like that in a week and then one excellent one, I forget about the others. And the sh*t ones pay money.” It’s the One True Way, in Gaz world. Hence anti-Cowell track, ‘Diet of Banality’: “Music has been watered down to numbers on a pay cheque, for a man whose only talent’s conning money out of kids.”

“10 years ago,” he says, “all my songs were about being dumped by a girl. Misery breeds art, but nowadays I’m happy! And I don’t write songs about other people.” In fact, he says, he’s not sure what to write about at the moment, before revealing a credo a LOT of songwriters would do well to note. “A lot of my peers have been writing songs about the riots. It would be pious of me to think ‘I know what’s right about this, I’m going to tell people’. I’ve listened to them and thought ‘You’re wrong, you can’t say that’. Until I really know what I’m saying, I’ll leave it.

“I try to stay away from religion. I’ve got a song about Christianity and, in a pub full of atheists like me, it’s gone down really well. Another time I really upset someone. Made me think ‘That’s not what I’m doing it for’. Until I can write sensitively, not ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’, I’ll leave it. Plus,” he adds, casually dropping the holy father of all punchlines, “my dad’s a vicar.”

In the meantime, he’s about to play his biggest gig. Biggest since first picking up a guitar at 16 while at college. “Dropped out after three months. Didn’t like my course, so I just went to the music block to hang out with a friend who had a guitar.” Biggest since 17, “sitting in the park, getting stoned, trying to learn how to play.” Biggest since quitting his job three years ago to play full-time, since releasing debut album ‘Trial & Error’, since discovering that the Seven Stars of a weekend afternoon is, he says, acoustic musicians’ nirvana. He’ll be next door, launching a live album (first 20 attendees get a free copy). “I’ve played to larger festival crowds, but the Fleece will be my biggest headline gig. I’m flattered they think I can sell it out. If I do, I’ll apparently be the first local solo act to do it.”

GAZ BROOKFIELD PLAYED THE FLEECE, BRISTOL ON WED 21 DEC. FFI: WWW.GAZBROOKFIELD.COM

Copyright Julian Owen 2011