Music Interview: Bennett Wilson Poole

Five years ago, award-winning UK Americana trio Bennett Wilson Poole – Robin Bennett (Goldrush, Dreaming Spires), Danny Wilson (Grand Drive, Danny and the Champions of the World), and Tony Poole (Starry Eyed and Laughing) – released their critically-acclaimed, self-titled debut album, which was inspired by fellow supergroups Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the Traveling Wilburys.

Now they’re back with the even better follow-up, I Saw A Star Behind Your Eyes, Don’t Let It Die Away.

Produced by studio wizard and 12-string electric Rickenbacker maestro Poole, it looks mainly to 1960s British psychedelic pop, like The Beatles and The Zombies, for its inspiration, rather than the West Coast of the US, which was the main influence for their debut record, although there’s still a touch of Byrds-like country rock, CSN, Beach Boys and 1970s Neil Young.

For this album, the trio were joined in the studio by Robin’s brother Joe on bass and drummer Fin Kenny.

hi-fi+ spoke to all three main band members about writing and recording the album, which is one of the best records of the year we’ve heard so far.

It’s taken five years for you to follow up your first album. I know Covid put some of your plans on hold and Tony had some health issues, but now the record’s here, and I think it’s even better your than first album…

RB: It’s been gestating for quite a long time – in other circumstances we might’ve thought we’d missed the boat, but we knew it was so accomplished and the songwriting was so strong that it seemed really sad not to get it out. 

Bennett Wilson Poole was always planned to be a special collaboration that never got mundane or too much like a band. 

It’s the three of us coming together as little or as much as we choose – there were only ever two Traveling Wilburys albums and they never toured at all. Not that we’re of that kind of status…

DW: Tony is one of the few bona fide musical geniuses that I’ve ever met – if there’s an opportunity to do something with him, you’ve got to grab it. If he’s involved, you know it’s going to be mind-blowing.

The first album was a project that took us all by surprise how much it meant to people – it had a real life of its own. Then we decided to do the next one… The songs and the recording are always a piece of p***. I find it easy to write. Robin is amazing to write with and Tony is a brilliant songwriter, so there’s never going to be a shortage of songs. 

The birthing of the record was easy, but then there were health issues, COVID and a year wait for vinyl… It’s been quite frustrating.

TP: We started the first record in 2016 but released it in 2018 – we did about 80 gigs that year.

I’ve been champing at the bit since lockdown finished – we wanted to release the vinyl at the same time as the CD and do it all in one go… But it hasn’t harmed it – it’s not like we’re pop stars. This record was finished just before the COVID lockdown. I sent the master off in March 2020 – so, bizarrely, it feels a bit old to me. 

You all write songs separately and for the first album, Danny and Robin wrote some songs with each other over FaceTime, but on this album, some of the songs were written with the two of you sat in the same room, weren’t they? 

RB: This one was predominantly me and Danny writing the songs – after we played some gigs for the first album, we would get back to mine at about 2am, have a glass of wine and start writing songs, so, we quite quickly had a load more.

DW: It was great, drinking wine… 

It must’ve been good sitting in the same room and writing together, like Lennon and McCartney used to do…

RB: It was very much like that – I have a piano at my house and we were sitting next to each other… It’s a fun way to write. We would both learn the tune at the same time and sing in unison, like Lennon and McCartney. There were more blended voices on the melody, which pushed it in that direction.

DW: Robin’s amazing to write with – he’s very clever and, musically, he’s way beyond me. I’m like Neil Young – campfire chords, big ideas and very melodic, but half the time when we play live I have to say to Robin: ‘What the f*** is that chord?’

The three us of are totally into melodies, which is lovely.

RB: For this album, I made some home recordings, like ‘Heartsongs’ and ‘The Sea and The Shore’, and then Tony went to town on them, which was great fun when we got to hear what he’d done to them. There are multiple Beatles references on ‘Heartsongs.’

TP: Danny and Robin are strong co-writers. On the first album, it was going to be a Danny and Robin thing – originally a duo – but I did an album for Danny about 10 years ago [Hearts And Arrows] and I worked on some Dreaming Spires records. 

In June 2016, Danny and Robin came to my studio and we had a couple of sessions – I had some ideas for some songs and we finished them all together. Danny and Robin and I would sit around with three guitars and three mics and play the songs, they’d go away and I’d make the tracks. Then they would come back and add some harmonies and lead guitar.

The whole production on ‘Heartsongs’ was kind of The White Album, which was suggested by Robin’s original recording. There’s a mellotron and a bit of ‘Dear Prudence’ in there, too.

It was a bit like Jeff Lynne working on John Lennon’s home recordings to create ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. Danny put some harmonies on the verses too.

RB: It was as if I’d died and left the song for the others to finish… We’re all quite big fans of Jeff Lynne’s Beatles production – and my piano playing on the demo was probably as out of time as it was on Lennon’s posthumous demos, and as badly recorded…

This album definitely has a mid-late ‘60s Beatles feel at times…

TP: I love Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour. The first song we did was ‘I Saw Love’, which is one of Danny’s, and then ‘Ready To Serve.’

For those songs, I was thinking The Beatles – that was my thing. On ‘I Saw Love’, I played everything on it – I pretended to be Ringo with his ‘windscreen wiper’ hi–hat… But I definitely want to stay this side of The Rutles – our songs are original enough…

[To TP]: People talk about ‘the fifth Beatle,’ but on ‘I Saw Love’ you are all four of them…

TP: [laughs]. Definitely. When I play all the parts I’m always thinking of them, but, saying that, Fin Kenny is my favourite drummer, and he’s left-handed, like Ringo. It’s wonderful that he’s playing with us.

DW: This album is all the ‘Bs’ – The Byrds, Big Star, The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Although not just bands beginning with ‘B’. We’re massive fans of Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies, too. We were listening to stuff like that.

The British Pet Sounds…

DW: It’s as good as Pet Sounds.

My favourite song on the new album is ‘Cry At The Movies…’

TP: That sticks out for me because it’s a little country thing in amongst all the other stuff – it’s a bit like ‘Act Naturally’ [on The Beatles Help! album] or something. 

I think it sounds like Neil Young doing a song for The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo…

DW: That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be like, like One Hundred Years From Now. 

RB: It’s the most country rock track we’ve done – we pressganged Tony into buying a B-Bender Telecaster, which was invented by Clarence White and Gene Parsons of The Byrds. 

But then the album took a different turn with the songs that we were writing – there was more of a ’60s feel to the songwriting, which maybe came from doing the Lennon and McCartney-style writing. 

‘Tie-Dye T-Shirt’ was written as a Gram Parsons-style country song, but Tony made it sound like The Who…

RB: That definitely wasn’t how we envisaged it ending up, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Whatever happens to it, you know it’s going to be interesting. We were originally thinking of ‘Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man’ by The Byrds. 

TP: We recorded that track with Joe and Fin, though I’d already somehow been inspired to reference The Who. I don’t know where that came from – no special pills were involved. Fin played some amazing Keith Moon-type drum fills, and there was a section, since edited out, that was a bit ‘Substitute’-like.

‘I Wanna Love You (But I Can’t Right Now)’ has a lot of US pop culture and historical references in the lyrics…

DW: It’s a love song to America, but how everything that has gone on there has sullied it. The UK is hard to love sometimes too. 

RB: I really like that song. I can remember it started when we were driving back from a gig and Danny had an idea for the chorus, which was almost like a parody of The Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’ but flipping it and making it about politics and culture. 

There were quite a few references that didn’t make it into the song and there are a few that I don’t think people will ever find. There’s a bit of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. 

You also drop musical references into a lot of your songs – little nods to tracks by other artists, be it a guitar solo, harmonies, refrains or arrangements…

TP: We set a Bennett Wilson Poole template of references with the first album – Danny coined it ‘Tony Poole bingo.’ Some people have heard things on there that I didn’t even plan, and I thought it was cool to continue that. Well, that’s my story anyway. We may have a competition for people who can get the most. Hopefully the references are outweighed by a little semblance of originality…

You first record tackled politics and there’s a bit of that on this album too, but it sounds like this record is about trying to put some love, hope and humanity back into a world that’s become dominated by hate.

DW: Totally – that’s what the three of us do. Tony and Robin are way more willing to be political in songs that I am – we’re all interested – but, it’s a cliché, but I tend to want to put out peace and love, or human-interest stories. I’m aware of dating things with politics.

RB: The chorus of ‘Tie-Dye T-Shirt’ explicitly asks why are people so divided in society, and some of the songs, like ‘Help Me See My Way’, are about being in a bubble of isolation and all being stuck in divided places. Music is a place where you can bring people together. 

On the first album, perhaps there were more outrage politics about ‘how could this be happening?’ 

There’s a mix of stuff on this album – some of it is about domestic love and living day-to-day. 

TP: I think all the songs talk about that the love concept that Ringo always goes on about. We’re not The Beatles – we don’t have that reach – but we’re putting a little bit of something out into the world to counteract all that hate that is around at the moment. Love may not be all you need, but it’s absolutely the basis for everything.  

I Saw A Star Behind Your Eyes, Don’t Let It Die Away is out now on BWP Records – CD and vinyl.

www.bennettwilsonpoole.com

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