When did you start writing and playing music?
I started writing when I was about sixteen I think? I stated playing guitar when I was about 15, and then It was just something that happened naturally. I have never been a particularly good guitarist, but I always new that I had a decent singing voice as a kid, its getting a bit fucked from being on tour, too many roll ups. As I said I was aware that I had a pretty good voice, and I thought, 'Maybe I should be writing stuff'. I just started listening to loads of really good music around that age as well, all the classics like Led Zeppelin, Floyd and all that. As soon as I started writing I though 'Fucking hell, I can take advantage of all this knowledge I got,' as a lot of people my age weren’t listening to stuff like that. They were listening to D-ream, or whatever was cool in the nineties. You know, shit euro trance music, whatever? I felt I had a pretty privileged start to my musical education, that’s what probably started me off writing.
Talking about peoples listening habits around you, was there much of a musical scene around you growing up?
Not at all. No, I grew up in a shitty little town on the west coast of Scotland. Actually saying that there was a good musical scene there, it just wasn’t part of my circle. We just hung out on the street and pushed each other around in shopping trolleys and all that. Just a proper working class upbringing. You know, just fucking about. None of my mates were into music, we played sports and shit like that, but not really any music. It was only after that I moved away from Scotland when I was sixteen that I realized what an opportunity I had when I was there, because bands like Teenage Fanclub, and Captain America, Eugine Kelly, Superstar, Soupdragons, BMX Bandits, they are all from the same town that I grew up in, and I didn’t even notice them. Moving away from there was the one thing that opened my eyes.
So, what drove you into writing songs as a singer songwriter as opposed to fronting a band, because you have been in bands right?
I’ve been in bands in bands my whole musical career yeah. I was in a shitty little band when I was at university in Edinburgh, and I just decided to follow my girlfriend at the time, down to London where she got a job working in the music industry. I busked on the street for a year and a half, and played acoustic gigs wherever I could get them, open mic nights, stuff like that. Going through that process of learning other peoples songs over and over again, you start to take it in like a sponge. So it just happened, it just starts to come out. Then after a year and a half I got approached by a manager after a gig and ended up signing my first record deal with Island Records three weeks later. Ever since then I have been in a number of different bands. There was Cherryfalls, The New York Fund, but I decided to go solo last year just because I seemed to be the only person involved in the band. Everyone else has other commitments. This is my whole life, I don’t really now what else to do, got no choice.
What do you prefer about being a singer songwriter, as opposed to being in a band?
I get paid more! (Laughs). I don’t know? I still work with other musicians but I wrote all the songs for the bands I was in before anyway so it’s not really much different to how I work now. I didn’t write all the music, its still similar now, I just take a song to them and they write their parts. They will get their credit if any money ever does come in for it. I think the best part of it is I can literally do anything at the drop of a hat if an opportunity comes up to do something that’s going to benefit me or my music. My manager does not even need to ask, he just calls me up and says 'this is what you are doing' because he knows I’m not going to turn down any good opportunities. Whereas previously when there are a lot of people involved, there’s egos and diaries to deal with, and people have got commitments. So there is no question of that happening now.
Going back to talking about the 'classics', which you mentioned earlier, and the relisation of music around you. What would you describe as your main musical influences?
I would say probably a lot of the West Coast movement from the seventies, when singer songwriters really started to become big; Jackson Browne, Gram Parsons, people like that. I love Neil Young, although that’s a different kind of movement. I think more recently I adore Bruce Springsteen. I love the way he writes songs. His music may not fit with the way people perceive me, but I take a lot of influence from how he perceives normal things, and makes it the most romantic thing you have ever heard. I just love it when you can take the mundane and make it sound beautiful. Ryan Adams is another modern songwriter that does that very well. I get compared a lot to Ryan Adams, and people like the Jayhawks as well. That sort of Americana kind of sound. You could easily put me into those brackets, but there is an element of Scottishness to what I do. Through my Teenage fanclub roots and all that.
I was going to say. Are you ever stigmatized, being a guy from Scotland but carrying a large American sound to your style?
The only time I ever have any difficulty is Carl Barat. He is an acquaintance through mutual friends, and he is the only person who ever takes the piss out of me for singing in an American accent. But Paul Weller, The Beatles, or whoever they fucking sang with American accents at any given time in their life. People can say 'Oh, why don’t you sing like Glasvegas, why don’t you sound like Glasvegas?' Because I think their shit. I grew up on Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Crosby Stills and Nash. I started singing before I knew what I was doing, I never attempted to sing with any particular accent or be affected by it. That’s just how it came out, I have not attempted to change it, because that would be more forced. It’s just how I sing. I think if I sang with a Glaswegian accent I would probably get arrested for being a lunatic or something. It just doesn’t fuckin sound right? I would sound like a seagull in a plastic bag. The Procalimers, they get way with it. But me (makes wailing sound) just, no. Doesn’t work.
What’s in the pipeline for Joe McAdam then?
Ive just done a promo album that should be coming out before the summer. I hope to be working with the Hold Steady over the summer, and get the other half of the album rerecorded with the Hold steady, and have their guitarist produce it. Then get the finalized album out after the summer, after the festivals, and see how its received. I’m going to try and gig as much as possible, do as many festivals a possible, try and get over to Europe and America to play.
In the Long term? I dunno? I think the older I get, the better my songwriting gets. My voice gets worse, but my songwriting gets better. If I could achieve half, of what Ryan Adams for example I’d be happy. If I could be the British equivalent over the next few years, that would be amazing. Just to be happy with what I do, because I have been doing it for a long time. Just to be happy, not a millionaire. Just to go on holiday to the festivals every year. I get back and add the days up to realize that would make a wicked holiday with all my friends. I don’t really ask much more than that.
You mentioned that you would like to be recognised like people such as Ryan Adams. Do you feel being a singer songwriter that you get that personal recognition for their work?
Its not important for me, Its hard to describe, its like the chicken versus egg scenario. I just care about people having a good time, and finding something that maybe they can carry with them in their life for a little while, and it will make them happier. I’m not as we said before, capable of all the pretence. However, it would be nice to be recognised, or appreciated as an 'Artiste’, or whatever the fuck. To be honest I just like playing gigs, I like playing songs, and I like it when laugh when I say something funny, or sing along when I ask them too sing a chorus they have never heard before in their life, and they know it by the end of the song. That puts the biggest smile on my face that I can ask for. That’s all I’m after.
If you weren’t playing music, what would you be doing right now?
I got a degree in Civil Engineering, and I was thinking about doing Nuclear Physics as well. (Laughs)
There has to be one job out there, that interests you other than music?
Honestly?...... Astronaut, and I’m not joking, id like to go to Mars, that would be fucking mega!
Last thing, as someone who has gone from literally playing on the street, to having a record deal, what’s your take on the whole unsigned scene?
I think because of the way the industry has moved in the past couple of years that it give the listening public so many more opportunities to listen to new stuff, and to expend their musical horizons. It just gives stuff a chance to get out there because it didn’t have an outlet. I think it’s fucking brilliant. I think record labels are going to become obsolete very soon, because all they are is just banks. In the past, they had the machine to put your music in front of a large audience and the infrastructure to make you a success if they decided to. They still do to a certain extent, but you can get your own music in front of whoever you want right now. The reason you signed away so much of what you earned in the past is because you were buying that machine that opportunity so you give them 80% of what your earned for the rest of your life, but now you don’t have to. So they are just banks and they are asking you to give them most of what you do. It makes no sense; people just figure their own ways of doing it. If you care enough about what you do, then you will find ways of getting it in front of other people. That in itself can perpetuate your journey and your ability to make music. Even if you sell, a thousand records a year at a tenner a pop, that’s ten grand of funding. It’s not much of a stretch when you take into account the work people put in to get signed.
