newton faulkner tour review

Review: Newton Faulkner @ The Factory Theatre (Sydney)

• Newton Faulkner
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• Fletcher Kent

Fletcher Kent is doing remarkably well for being a week old.

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Interview: newton faulkner.

Liverpool Acoustic’s Luke Moore caught up with the chart-topping singer songwriter ahead of the next leg of his Feels Like Home tour.

To most reading this, Newton Faulkner will need no introduction. Striking gold (double platinum, in fact!) with his debut album Hand Built By Robots back in 2007, he’s continued to make original new music with a musical CV that looks like most singer-songwriters’ career bucket list!

We got together for a very pleasant chat ahead of his Liverpool tour date at Hangar 34 on 27th April and after a quick introduction, here’s what he had to say…

How’s life treating you? Good! I’ve got a 9 month old so pretty much in the same boat as you. And heading off on all sorts of tours so I’ve got a lot coming up!

What are you up to at the moment? I’m currently rebuilding my pedal board and foot percussion set up – I’m streamlining it for Australia because luggage wise I’m trying to keep it to a minimum. I’ve been travelling with a lot [in the UK] so it’s been like ‘let’s just put everything in the van’ which is fine but now I think I’ve got it down as much as I can. I think it’s still light enough to fly – I weighed it yesterday – so I’ve been being a massive nerd!

And I’ve recently tried 17 gauge strings on my guitar – it does sound really punchy and solid but it’s hard work!

The foot percussion thing I’ve been building looks totally nuts – it’s got a drumstick poking through two clamps so full renegade! But it hasn’t fallen over yet and I’ve been hoofing it in here so I think it’s quite happy.

Sounds like quite the achievement – you can’t go wrong with a bit of DIY can you? I find it quite satisfying. I built a folding shelf once which was wobbly as anything and anyone that saw it looked as if to say ‘are you actually going to use it?!’ and I was like ‘yeah, it’s fine!’.

You’re at Hangar 34 here in Liverpool on the 27th April – tell us a bit about your tour? The plan is to do a Feels Like Home tour every year. The first one was a bit of an experiment but we talked about the route and how that helps to connect with fans. It’s a pleasant way of spending a few weeks and it gives us the opportunity to do the guitar workshops, which I’m really passionate about and have been working really well.

The last big tour I did felt like a very different beast – for example, I played more electric guitar than acoustic and there were three of us. So what I wanted to do was ground myself in the instrument and if that’s what people want to see from me they will be able to. I want to tip my cap to where I came from which springs me up to go forwards in loads of other directions.

I had a look at the tour dates and noticed you’re at the Atkinson just up the road in Southport and also Buxton Opera House which is a gorgeous venue! Yeah, I’ve had some great gigs there in the past! I remember one gig there where the security guard asked if I was going to hang around afterwards and I said I usually stick around to say hi to folks. He told every single person as they came in that I was sticking around for signing things and to stay for that. At the end, the sold out crowd had organised themselves into a long line out into the car park and all wanted stuff signed! I’d played for two hours and was there another four after which was great!

Amazing! Are there any other places you’re really excited to get back to? Yeah, loads! I’ve got a massive soft spot for Scotland – I just think it’s so beautiful. The Olympiad Theatre in Dublin is great too but I just love playing. There are different places for different moods, too. This tour is a bit more theatre-y and a bit more sit down whereas the last one was no seating and all standing venues, all guns blazing sticky floor kinda vibe which I love being able to do. I never want to do just one or the otherand I like that I have to cater each performance to the room.

One of the really nice things about being solo is that you can really lean the performance to which direction that audience wants.

There’s nowhere that I don’t like playing. And it’s about how nice the backstage area is as well. I’m just really looking forward to getting out and playing.

On this round of the tour you’re going to be previewing tracks from your album that’s out later this year. What can people expect? There’s stuff that I’m still working out how to do live. I think there was a line that I crossed before where it was so complicated what I was doing that when I watched it back it felt like live maths in places. So I’ve taken a step back to look at reevaluating how to make sure people can get on board with what I’m doing.

I bought a piece of equipment from Nashville called a junk hat which is like an upside down dustbin lid on a stand. When I introduced that it did something interesting. I tried a few other things which didn’t quite work but when I added this – basically a dustbin lid on a hi hat stand then suddenly crowds really started moving in a totally different way! The junk hat came in and it was hips and feet and it affected my playing locking in. It’s a really physical thing and that small industrial junkyard element works really well.

It sounds like there’s a quite industrial, almost primal vibe going on there? Yeah, definitely. That’s come in more and more. The thing that surprises me most is my electric set up which I would not have seen me doing in a million years – it’s fully MIDI and I’m not using a real pickup at all. That goes out to the SY1000 [guitar synthesiser] which is creating all of my guitar sounds, which is…odd when my background is fully acoustic! But when I plugged it in at first it was fun and then I built a guitar sound from the ground up with a simulated acoustic, distorted electric and distorted bass. When you put all three together it’s such a satisfying guttural sound! And also I can change tuning at the touch of a button, which I do quite enjoy. I will have that with me for this tour, along with the acoustic, ukelele and other fun things.

It’s really interesting that the lines between acoustic and electronic have blurred so much over the years. Do you think it’s important to experiment and push yourself as an artist? I think it is, yeah. One thing I was never going to do was make the same album over and over again and get stuck in the same sound. It’s important to be pulled in different directions. I think in terms of production, as well, which I spend huge amounts of time doing, I think the way that you construct songs is different. I fully intend on keeping everything going all the time, so sometimes I’ll sit on the sofa and write an acoustic song without touching a machine and others I might write while producing as I go and dragging in samples because I love that as an instrument in itself.

That’s really interesting – I’m interested to know what recording software you use, as someone that lives in Ableton myself? I’m ProTools and have been for a really long time but I kind of use it as a giant tape machine and try to get a good take of everything. I try and get one that’s got the vibe and have a bunch of other takes. I am thinking of using Ableton Live so I can recreate some of the studio tracks live and link the recording and performing with a more natural progression.

I love looping and I’ve used it very sparingly in my career because people presumed I was doing it when I wasn’t…

…it was just really accurate playing! Yeah, with the percussive multitasking stuff like Teardrop people thought it was someone else doing something somewhere and I’ve had to prove it wasn’t! I had a Headrush looper board – it’s an amazing piece of gear so if you’re going to loop, I highly recommend it – and used it a lot on a tour. I did the whole gig on click though, which felt like a strange disconnect from the crowd. I feel like if I start adding too much other stuff it takes away from the communication element of music. This setup has really landed.

That really resonates – that question of do you want people to feel something when they’re listening. That’s the whole point!

And the records we grew up listening to and fell in love with didn’t have autotune or quantising – the mistakes almost felt like part of the character. Definitely – half the tracks were out of tune in terms of tuning. If you listen to old Crosby Stills and Nash stuff it’s all over the place – they’ve sat with the guitar then sang over it. “Shall we put the piano over it?” – “No”!

Your rendition of Teardrop and live cover of Bohemian Rhapsody jump out as covers you’ve really made your own. A question for some of the artists that will read this – how do you approach covering other people’s work? I did a whole covers album and did every one I’d done live. Bohemian Rhapsody was terrifying to record! And I put a few more modern covers in like Dua Lipa. But you know, I think it’s something I try not to think about too hard about.

There’s something in it which is just me and runs through it and I don’t understand what it is. When I’m writing sometimes I write melodies as different characters – like what would David Bowie do with this – and just try and tune into other artists’ vibes. I thought that might confuse the process but it never seems to. The one that took the longest was a ukelele shuffle version of All I Want for Christmas and that took a while to find – it’s the only one that didn’t land straight away. My inability to recreate the original is quite helpful – it’s a bit like Hank Azaria on his Simpsons voices!

The industry has changed a lot in recent years. What challenges and opportunities has that presented to you since starting out? For me, one of the most exciting areas has been the social media side of things. I’ve been a bit late to get into and for a while I was like ‘no, that’s not my job – I’ve already got a job, I’m busy’.

When I started I was big on MySpace – me and Lily Allen were the biggest thing on there – but fast forwarding to now, massive chunks of my day are spent on social media. I’ll do lots of videos in one then share them after. It’s such an accessible thing. It’s taken the fashion element out of music where before you had to go to the record shop, listen there and never buy a record you hadn’t heard. The streaming thing has taken that out of the equation and you can find anything from the whole history of music. It’s a totally different landscape but with the option to speak directly to people and a huge opportunity – I don’t have to call the label and ask if I can speak to someone.

How important were record labels and how has their lack of presence now impacted the scene? They’re still there and they’re still working with the massive artists but they were an absolute necessity and that’s changed hugely. All of the big playlists are run by labels and they’re not there the way they were but they’re sort of operating in the shadows. The knock on impact is that there are relatively few artists that are new and doing really well that will get the support to keep doing well. You hear people say if someone like David Bowie came along now they wouldn’t get a deal because they didn’t fit anywhere.

The way music gets released is pretty nonsensical at the moment and you can pretty much do what you want. Constantly feeding the machine by putting things out is the thing.

It’s very sobering, that always on culture but in our industry. Absolutely. It’s about being creative about how you approach it.

Can I finish by asking what tips or advice you have for any artist that might be starting out now and reading this? My advice is to take control of the things you can where you can do it personally. Sometimes that’s gigs and talking to people, driven by you, sometimes it’s the social media stuff. Don’t wait for someone to tell you to do anything and don’t let anyone tell you to do something you don’t want to do. I’ve done it where I’ve made even a slight compromise on a track or album and if it goes well it still might feel a bit tainted and you’ll question it. If you only do what you believe in, even it doesn’t work, you haven’t lost a piece of yourself and that’s better for your wellbeing.

Newton Faulkner performs at Hangar 34 in Liverpool on 27th April. Tickets available from eventim .

© 202 4 Luke Moore – Liverpool Acoustic

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Newton Faulkner: Studio Zoo – review

L ike Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson, this Surrey singer/guitarist makes laidback amiability his calling card, and has thereby reaped two of the most ignorable No 1 albums of recent years. Studio Zoo is a lesson in why Faulkner needs to start playing against type; rather than swaddling every song in layers of delicately picked guitar, he should have found his inner wildebeest and let it roar. There's plenty of disquiet in the lyrics – Faulkner is forever fretting and apologising for his very existence, to the point of telling his girlfriend, on At the Seams: "As if your life wasn't hard enough, you chose me." Had he stopped burying the emotions under passive-aggressive sweetness and let his voice ratchet up a few notches, this could have been an interesting album. The place to start would have been the aptly titled opener, Where to Start, in which José Gonzálezish dream-pop strumming damps down the frustration of romantic disappointment. "I'm tired of love, don't need nobody," he murmurs. Fine, now say it like you mean it.

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Newton Faulkner tour dates 2024

Newton Faulkner is currently touring across 1 country and has 21 upcoming concerts.

Their next tour date is at Old Woollen in Leeds, after that they'll be at ARC in Stockton-on-tees.

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Upcoming concerts (21) See nearest concert

Old Woollen

Old Fire Station

Cambridge Junction

Ropetackle Arts Centre

Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury

Arlington Arts

Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre

Komedia Bath

Opera House Buxton

The Atkinson

Docks Academy

Harrogate Theatre

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The Devils Arse at Peak Cavern

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Recent tour reviews

An enthusiastic audience greeted Newton Faulkner at Epic Studios, Norwich on 13th February. The intimacy of the venue lent greatly to Newton's style, which is to frequently involve his audiences during the show, and true to form we were joining in on only the second song in the set, Smoked Ice Cream, the opening track from his latest album. Not long after that, his drum/loop machine failed and we all ended up singing the part that it would have played, much to everyone's delight - we were all true 'backing singers'! If you've only listened to his albums then seeing this guy live is a total revelation. His guitar skills are breathtaking, playing it as a percussion instrument and hitting chords/riffs with incredible dexterity. Add to that his superb voice and incredible songs and you have all the ingredients for a great show. 1hr 15mins of pure delight.

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Was better than I had hoped. He was incredible on the guitars, did everything himself. Sounded as good as his album that is 10 years old. He involved the audience sooo much that we felt like part of the show, everyone loved it. And he was so funny and down to earth between songs, laughed more than a comedy show. He was brilliant, with a bit of calm and slow mixed in with crowd jumping fun songs. And it appeals to everyone, not exaggerating when i say i saw someone with their 14 yr old, and an old granny with hearing aids. Loved it.

I saw Newton Faulkner last night at the o2 Academy Bristol and im still buzzin! Ive seen him many times. He never fails to deliver excellent music with beautiful songs unbelievable guitar skills . He also has an amazing repore with his audience having us laughing , and joining in with most of the songs . The O2Academy as a venue isnt my favourite, as unless you get near the front of either the dance floor or balcony the view isnt great. but Newton was superb as always especially as he had just recovered from illness .

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Newton Faulkner: Feels Like Home Tour 2

“just a man with his voice and guitar doing some old fashioned diddly-diddly-diddly-bap-bap” newton faulkner.

Newton’s going old school, solo, mainly acoustic with the occasional splash of something off the beaten track, maybe a cassette sting part, who knows. It’s been two years since Feels Like Home part 1 , who’s ready for Feels Like Home part 2 , this time it’s personal.

“On the forthcoming UK tour, I’ll be focusing on the songs that work best with just a vocal and guitar part and dusting off some things I haven’t played for a long time,” says Newton. “There are a lot of songs I miss playing at this stage in my career, but I can’t play them all at every gig any more, we’d be there all night. I’m very excited to be reunited with some of my old friends.”

VIP tickets – £77 (inc fees)

Become a VIP ticket holder and pick the best available seats in the theatre, along with a VIP meet and greet prior to the performance with Newton and a signed souvenir package. There are a limited number of tickets allocated to each show, book early advised.

“The VIP tickets will give you the opportunity to peek behind the curtain and see me soundcheck and ask any questions you like. They’ll even be a handshake or hug in it for you, if you’re into that kind of thing.” Newton Faulkner

To purchase a VIP ticket, buy a blue (Zone B) seat in the balcony.

Guitar Workshop Tickets – £152 (inc fees)

A unique guitar workshop experience with Newton – very limited in number, plus everything included in the VIP package and access to the concert.

“Whether you’ve just started playing or have been playing for years and want to try something different, I’ll let you see how I approach everything from arrangements to composition to warm up my fingers.” Newton Faulkner

To purchase a Guitar Workshop ticket, buy a purple (Zone C) seat in the balcony.

Dates & Times

Tickets on-sale Wednesday 29 November @ 10am

Ages 14+ only

VIP and Guitar Workshop bookers admitted at 4pm Guitar workshop starts 5:30pm Doors open for general bookers 7pm Newton Faulkner on stage 7:30pm

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Acoustic Review Music: Interviewed – Newton Faulkner

Newton Faulkner is a rare commodity; an acoustic musician who has enjoyed massive mainstream success – his debut album Hand Built By Robots has been certified double platinum, topping the UK Album Charts on its release in 2007.

Since then, Faulkner has completed a series of studio album recordings, and toured regularly to huge acclaim.

Following the release of his latest studio album The Interference (Of Light) in 2021, Newton Faulkner guested at The UK Bass & Guitar Show in April this year, and AR’s Andy Hughes enjoyed an in-depth chat with him.

You have had phenomenal success as an acoustic musician, which is not a genre known for producing huge sales. Your first album is double platinum, do you have any thoughts on what your appeal is?

I have thought about that a lot. When something goes well, it is quite hard not to try and pin down what it was about that song, or that musical style, that made it work for so many people. What I have come round to understanding, is that you need to do what you believe in for yourself. If you know that you have done something you feel good about, then it matters a lot less if it’s a big success in the charts, or if loads of other people like it or not. You have to like it and believe it, then you can enjoy playing it in concerts.

When you first broke big as an artist, did you find it difficult to establish a style for yourself, something that would make you identifiable?

When Dream Catch Me was released, I wasn’t too sure exactly where it fitted in to what I was doing then. I was keen on emphasising the more technical aspects of my guitar playing, and then along comes Dream Catch Me , and people are thinking, what’s going on now? He was playing technical stuff and now he’s just going dang dang dang! What’s all that about!

I think at that time there were singers, and there were musicians who played quite complex arrangements on acoustics, but no-one really seemed to be doing both of them together and I saw that as a particular niche I could fit into.

You are known as a musician who is very keen to push boundaries, to be an innovator. But does that make it difficult to develop, without alienating your core audience?  

It comes back to what I said a moment ago, about doing what I believe is right and works for me on a personal level, and sticking with that. I know that if I take something out on tour and play it to my audience, they have an inkling of what is going to be coming down the line when the next album arrives.

I am aware of the limitations of having an appeal for a certain sound and style can put onto any musician, not just me. But on my last album, I think I went quite a long way down roads that I am not entirely sure I was supposed to go down. I think that was partly the effect of the lockdown, which isolated everyone, and I couldn’t go out and play gigs. The last tour I did, I was shouting down a megaphone and playing electric guitar, and looping masses of PDX sounds and doing things like that.

Do you ever find that a song you were not sure about, finished up working better than you thought it would?

I have, and the song is Killing Time . I remember working on it, and I played it to my fiancée when it was partly written, and she said she didn’t like it. I told her it would work out when I finished it. So, I finished it, and played it to her, and she still said she didn’t like it. But when I took it out on tour and played it as part of my set, she told me that it was her favourite song of the whole evening by a long way, and I was right and she was wrong and she was very sorry!

It was different when I was putting it together, but when I first played it live, I could really feel the vibe it created in the room. I ran it through a mini-rig, and it goes through the SY1000, and it changes tuning all over the place. I layered it through the Headrush Loop Pedal that I use, and I really went to town on it. It was one of those times that felt like it was a massive risk, but it really paid off and I was delighted with the way it went down on the tour.

The appeal of the acoustic guitar is timeless, have you any thoughts on why it still works for so many people?

For me, it’s the versatility of it. You can grab sections and tune them up and down as you play them. I have done songs where I do that, but it does take a lot of rehearsal because it’s something can’t risk getting wrong.

I love the intimacy of an acoustic guitar. It feels as though, because of the way it’s designed, that you are playing for whoever is there listening. The way the sound hole carries the music forward to the listener, I think is very appealing. It’s virtually the opposite of the violin, where the sound hole is next to your ear, almost as though you are playing for yourself.

I think the percussive aspect of a guitar is incredible as well. If you give a small child an acoustic guitar, they don’t start plucking the strings and seeing what sounds they can get. Their first reaction is to hit it, and hear what sort of a sound it makes. That’s what kids do instinctively, and I love that. I love that I still find new sounds and experience new feelings all the time, and I wonder why I never found that sound or that feeling before. That’s an endless enjoyment for me as a musician.

What’s your writing process, is it music first or lyrics, or does it vary?

It’s literally different all the time, and that is absolutely intentional. Sometimes I like limiting myself to see what happens. I wrote a load of material using only bass pedals. It’s limiting because you can only ever play two notes, so I sat down with a notepad and waited to see what would develop.

I find the same thing with altered tunings. If I try and write in standard tunings, I find myself ambling down the same paths all the time. But with altered tunings, I make a real effort not to remember what works, so I can avoid that same trap of going the same way all the time.

Does it work?

It does yes. Any writer will tell you that when you find a certain chord or sequence, you start to put them together in a certain way – this note follows that one, and this chord leads here, and then there, and then there, it’s instinctive, so you have to make yourself find ways to avoid doing it.

What’s your quality control – how do you know when a song is finished, and when one needs more work and it’s not ready yet?

I do have trusted people around me that I can bounce ideas off, and get honest opinions, and that is very useful for any writer.

I really recommend recording ideas as you write, because when you hear something back, you get a ‘listener’ view of it, from the other side. I can write something and think it’s all fine and finished, and when then I pay it back, I can hear that this bit sounds exactly like that bit, and this chord doesn’t actually fit with that one like I thought it did when I was putting them together. So, I do advise any people new to song writing to do that, record yourself and listen back objectively to what you are hearing.

What about playing back something to get a feel and an idea for lyrics?

That’s a really good point. If I write a complex guitar part for a song, I can’t really put my mind to the words because I am too busy keeping the guitar line going. If I record it and then play it back and listen, I can think separately about the lyric that’s going to fit and work. It engages a different part of your brain, and you need to have each part free to do its best work.

Do you write a song with your mind on how it’s going to sound in concert when you play it for an audience?

Sometimes, but not often to be honest. I rarely write thinking about how it’s going to sound when I perform it, but I do absolutely concentrate on how it’s going to feel.

When I wrote the song Killing Time , I had in mind that it would be me and a full band playing it, and each part would be covered by either myself, or one of the band playing it. Then when I had to actually work out how to do it all on my own, it become something of a challenge! The erratic drum part I evolved into a percussive guitar part, and the bass line was out through a phaser, but yes, it was a bit of a struggle to get it to sound how I thought it should without the band to play it with me.

How good a technical guitarist are you?

The honest answer is, I don’t actually know! Let me put it this way, I can do loads of really complex things on a guitar that not many other people can do, but there are loads of really simple basic things that everyone else can do, and I can’t! So I’m not too sure if that just leaves me somewhere in the middle. I can do really difficult and complicated things that as I say, most players would struggle with, but ask me to play something like Wonderwall , and I can’t do that. I do find that after a layoff, I have to rehearse pretty hard to get the complex stuff back up to the right level again.

How did the lockdown influence your writing, did you slow down, or do more?

I just became a studio person, for a time. I spoke to someone and said I had made most of the new album on my own, in the studio and he thought it was just going to be me and a guitar, pretty much a Nebraska- style of album, and when he played it, he came back and said he was amazed at how huge it was! I spent four months just working on one song at one time. I went much more deeply into production and technology, which is why my new deal signs me as a producer as well as a writer and recording artist. It’s not what I planned to do, it’s come about by necessity. I have had to learn to do these things, and now I can, and it has led to all kids of spin-off projects that I am looking into.

I have done some writing for other artists which I have enjoyed, and I have done some film soundtrack work and enjoyed that, so there are areas there to explore. I think now it’s about finding other ways to make money that don’t involve touring constantly. I do earn most of my income from touring, but I do get a reasonable income from PRS payments, when my songs are played on the radio and television. But it is about maximising the new skills I have picked up and putting them to good use.

Do you have any other projects in preparation at the moment?

One thing I am really excited about, is starting up my own Guitar Academy and doing online education.

As I mentioned, I can do loads of stuff that other people can’t, and not do stuff that other people can, and that was a result of my education. I was all for picking up something that I felt I needed, and then just ignoring something if I thought I didn’t really need it, or see myself needing it in the immediate future, so I would just skip those bits.

I do think that the standard model for guitar training is kind of a ‘too much too soon’ kind of approach. I want to get people straight into the enjoyment of playing the guitar. I think there are shorter ways of doing that. So I want to get from picking up a guitar for the first time, to learning to pick things up by ear, which I think is actually undervalued, and then picking out songs you can hear on the radio. It’s rather like getting the basic building bricks of what you need to start playing, and then you can go back and build up the rest of those bits of you need them. My approach is to making learning to play the guitar as much fun as possible, from the start. I was given exercises that I thought were really boring, so right away I’d find a way of making it more fun and more enjoyable for me to do. When I started practising scales for example which is not much fun, I did them with a swing rhythm, which is much more interesting and enjoyable. One of the ways I have always pushed my guitar paying forward, is to write stuff that I can’t play, and then figure out how to work it out, and get to there from here. If you can hear the finished article in your head, and then figure out how to construct it so you can get to play what you can hear in your head, that’s a great way to write songs.

Tell me about ‘Frank’?

‘Frank’ is an electric guitar built by Nick Benjamin who builds all my acoustics, and I am still only scratching the surface of the things I know it can do.

It has a dedicated mini-rig for the bottom two strings, and it has mini-triggers on all the threshold points where I usually hit it. It has a pickup system that he’s designed for playing fingerstyle. It has one setting which is half of one pickup and half of another. It’s impossible to do on other guitars, but it’s ideal for playing guitar with acrylic nails. It lines out some of the sound impurities that you get paying with acrylic nails. Recently I put a GK3 pickup on it and made it fully Midi as well, so it has Midi triggers and Midi notes, so just the things you can do with those things is incredible.

It also has an acoustic neck on it, which is quite wide, so it means I don’t have to adapt my style of playing too much to use it. I was asked for a request one night, and I said I don’t have the correct guitar to play it, but I’ll try it on this, and it sounded absolutely amazing, like a completely different song. It went from being a dinky polite pop song into a full on dirty in-your-face blues noise, it was wonderful and I played it every night from then on to the end of that tour.

The guitar is called ‘Frank’ because it’s a Frankenstein, it’s a monster of a thing. There’s probably a whole tour just in that one guitar.

I am planning an acoustic and vocal EP to go with the Guitar Academy stuff, which will force me to play guitar and sing for a while and not get sucked into the whole production thing.

What’s one song that would work as a good introduction to your work?  

That’s a really good question. I think every album has a sort of ‘acoustic troubadour’ style song in it, which is a big part of what I do. I think the songs There Is Still Time from the Hit The Ground Running album, and Here Tonight from the latest album Interference (Of Light) . Start there with those two and kind of work your way out from there.

I think in a way, I’ve become quite hard to understand, so the very best thing you do as an acoustic player, is come and see me on tour, and watch what I do, and work out how I do it. That should give you some ideas to work with.

Newton Faulkner’s “Feels Like Home” 2022 UK Tour with special guest Sam Richardson runs from September 17 th  until October 18 th .

Tickets are available from  www.newtonfaulkner.com  and  www.thegigcartel.com

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Newton Faulkner: “Being able to trust my voice has made my guitar playing better”

Acoustic ace talks songwriting and gear behind Hit The Ground Running

After 10 years of backing bands, co-writers and lavish production, Newton Faulkner is back with renewed confidence and this time, he’s going it alone...

It’s strange to hear an artist with a decade-long career behind him say he’s only just found his niche, but for Newton Faulkner, his new album represents a renaissance born not from fancy production or following trends, but stripping things back to the core. This is the overarching theme on Newton’s sixth album, Hit The Ground Running.

The essence of his sound has always been him and his Nick Benjamin-built guitars - he now owns seven - but looking back over his previous albums, he realised that his vocals were unintentionally taking a back seat to production. 

The songs that had lots of space and were very vocally-driven stood out to me

“This time, I just wanted to do what I was good at,” he says. “If you listen to the album before, there are very few single vocals and everything is tracked at least three or four times. That’s a sound that I like and it’s Peter Gabriel-esque but it was kind of due to a lack of trust in my own voice.”

From his home studio, and with a little tough love from his co-writer brother (“He told me to write on my own this time, because I’d forgotten how!”) he began to build the foundations of Hit The Ground Running, writing songs that needed no production to carry them. 

“The songs that had lots of space and were very vocally-driven stood out to me,” he explains.

“Vocally, I’ve pushed myself further and in different directions than I’ve done on any of the albums. The biggest leap is trusting myself to carry songs as a singer and not rely on production and guitar playing.”

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Low-tuning fan Faulkner discovered that thicker strings enhanced his sound.

“I’ve increased my string gauges and it sounds great. I’m tuned very low; my sixth string is a C. I’ve got a baritone that’s down in A, and at one point I was just using strings that you get over the counter and it was getting a bit rattly. We went up to 75s and its crazy string gauges; wound B-strings.

“The way that the pickup and the mic reacts to that is such a good sound. I now have a completely custom-gauge sets of strings which, to be honest, is a pain in the arse! I have to have a database for what strings are on what guitar, like an Excel spreadsheet.”

Fans might be a little surprised to hear that, after years of touring and releasing albums, Faulkner felt unsure of himself. He admits that he was wary of trying to compete in such a saturated market.

“There was way too many male soul singers at one point and that kind of edged me away from that style of singing. I just didn’t want to get involved in that; I didn’t think I was a good enough singer to compete,” he admits. It was his fans, though, that inspired him to do the very thing he was afraid of and go back to basics.

“I’ve had a few different setups and different bands but what people have always come back to saying is that it’s better on my own,” he says. “I think what that comes down to in the end is communication.”

During the live shows his new material will, says Newton, have a much more intimate quality.

“I’ll have the ability to improvise and make up the set as a whole. I can completely adapt that if it’s just me,” he says.

“A gig I did recently was seated, so I built things up a bit slower. Other gigs were the polar opposite where I’ve gone for maximum noise. You can’t do that with a band because people would look at you like, what the fuck are you doing?”

Stripping it down

Stripping things back hasn’t only improved Faulkner’s confidence in his own voice, but it’s improved his technical ability.

“I found I could sing!” he laughs.

“I’ve been working on it solidly for years. My tone’s been getting better, I’ve gained maybe an octave and a half. I don’t know what’s happened, but it’s considerably better than it has been. Being able to trust my voice has made my playing better; it’s more natural because I’m not trying to work too hard. 

“I did some writing with a friend of mine who’s a really serious backing vocalist called Kristin Hosein, and she’s an equivalent level of nerdiness, but with vocals. When I tried to do some of the stuff she suggested, I was like, ‘Shit, I can do all of this!’”

10 questions for Newton Faulkner

Faulkner may have re-emerged with only his guitar as company, but that doesn’t mean he’s scaling down his live setup.

“I’ve got an electric Nick Benjamin with MIDI triggers on all the percussive points. That’s got a separate output for the bottom two strings so I can run that through a bass amp with an octave pedal and make a huge amount of noise,” he says gleefully. 

“And a Pigtronix Infinity Looper and Roland PK-5; some of the stuff on them is locked to the click, so [the loops] are mathematically perfect. For the next tour I’m looking at having two different setups: one complicated all-feet-all-hands one to do stuff from earlier albums, then I’m also going to have a proper purist one,” he explains, “one mic and one line coming out, just guitar and vocal.”

Not only does 2017 mark 10 years since Faulkner released his debut, but it’s also the year that he found himself musically, and discovered that sometimes, less really is more.

Newton’s latest album Hit The Ground Running is out now on PledgeMusic.

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We caught up with Newton Faulkner, just as he’s about to head out on the road for the stripped back, Feels Like Home Tour 2 . There are a couple of false starts as the signal is bad and the call drops out, but with better wifi and WhatsApp to the rescue, we finally got to chat about all things tour, technical and teaching – and how much those things inspire this creative artist.

Faulkner has just returned from New Zealand having completed a few dates there and in Australia. For me, he’s always connected with that part of the world. Dream Catch Me is part of the soundtrack of my life when I lived in Sydney. The double-platinum album Hand Built By Robots was a big hit down there in 2007-8 and it’s still a place Faulkner likes to visit.

“It [the first album] went nuts in Australia, it was crazy! And it was so weird, because I was like “how is it so big somewhere I’ve never been?” and then I got there and…it doesn’t make any sense to me!”

He’s just shared the bill at the Blues Fest Byron Bay festival with the likes of Tom Jones, Katie Melua, The Teskey Brothers and Little Quirks. And it’s clearly a place he loves to visit

“I love it there, it’s great. Blues Fest is so good – it’s such a well curated festival and in such an incredible location”

If you’ve listened to much of Faulkner’s output over the years, you can’t fail to notice the beautiful complexity, rhythm and arrangements that he can produce. But, how does that translate to the stage? I was interested in the reasoning behind this kind of solo tour and how it’s produced.

“I get very carried away with the technology and production and just kind of losing my mind a bit in the robotics of music. The last time I toured, It was three of us, so I had one person on keys and vocals and then the other was drums, samples and vocals. And I played my midi-electric more than I played the acoustics and no-one noticed, but I did think this has gone very far down this route.

“So, I think every few years, it’s really nice to strip it right back to where I came from and go back to my roots…to acoustic instruments. It pushes my playing hugely – and it’s almost like a reset before delving into the next set of material”

It sounds like this is needed, as there’s a new album on the horizon towards the end of the year, and Faulkner elaborates on the process behind this new material.

“There will be multiple releases, which will eventually form an album at some point. It literally covers ground I’ve never even dipped my toes into before, which is really exciting. I must admit, the new material is pretty nuts, by anyone’s standards!”

Sounds complicated, but a lot of fun, I thought! It makes me wonder about the process of getting from record to stage. 

“I don’t know if it’s even possible!” he explains. “I’ve pushed the boundaries of what’s possible on your own before, like really dug in and thought “right, OK, this track’s made up of these elements – is there a way of physically doing these at the same time and if not, what’s the minimum that you can loop to make it work?”

Now, I’m sure we’ve all seen artists intricately using loops to create a sound on stage, and it’s very clever, but it can slow things down. I’m impressed that Faulkner is not so lost in the process that he’s acutely aware of the impact this can have on an audience. 

“I’m a very self-conscious looper!” he laughs. “I don’t want the first minute of a track to be building the track before the vocal comes in. It’s like – get going! Get to the point! But it’s not something I want to spend the whole gig doing”

Is that about a connection with the audience? Building that rapport perhaps? 

Faulkner laughs. “It’s the difference between sound checking for 5 hours and sound checking for 20 minutes!” 

In all seriousness, Faulkner feels there’s a greater connection with the music, the storytelling of the songs when they can be played more organically.

“I find there are limitations in the freedom [using looping] – it’s quite hard when a song gets going. I don’t want to have to sit in where the song started. I want to be able to move around. It’s the vocal, the storytelling that suffers a bit when it gets past a certain level of complication. I don’t think people want to see a whole gig of someone on the edge of going wrong, maximum human concentration! I’ve stripped it back and it’s totally the opposite.”

I love that he is so aware of the impact on the audience, and how he can produce and arrange the live sound to make sure it creates the maximum effect. Previously, Faulkner has felt that the midi-electric, samples and loop mixes have only gone so far. He’s keen to make a more visceral experience for the audience.

“When it’s more complicated, people’s movement is kind of limited. It’s just heads and shoulders really. Then, there’s this very strange thing that happened when I first bought this junk hat”

The “junk hat” is a kind of inverted dustbin lid with chains poked through, fitted to a hi-hat stand that makes a totally different noise alongside the usual Faulkner percussion set up.

“I’ve put the junk hat in place and as soon as I started playing something, the weird dustbin lid and the guitar…it had such an immediate, physical effect on everyone in the room! For some reason, add a dustbin lid and you can get full dancing and I am fascinated by the science of this! I’ve tried so many things over the years, but dustbin lids just make people dance and I don’t know why!”

Also on this tour, Faulkner is offering exclusive guitar workshop sessions. He’s got a lot on his plate already, I suggest, what with the album and the tour, and a young family (he and his wife have two children, one of whom is just 9 months old!). Why, then, would you want to add another element to the mix?

“Stripping it back to acoustic guitars makes me play better. But one of the other things that makes me play better is teaching other people my stuff,” he explains.

“It is, weirdly, kind of educational for me. I don’t think about it – a lot of the things I do just happen. When someone asks “how are you doing that?” or “where is that coming from?”, I’m like “no fucking idea! Let’s find out together!”

I won’t mention the track that Faulkner is going to use for the workshops this time (other than it’s a belter), but it’s a phenomenal opportunity to work alongside a platinum selling artist for a while to learn and improve your playing. There can’t be many artists out there who are prepared to set that time aside to inspire their fans to be better players. 

And that epitomises Faulkner’s passion for his art. He is a songwriter that loves to push the boundaries of what’s possible with instrumentation and arrangement. There’s a genuine energy about how he is putting his show together, with the experience of the crowd at the forefront of his mind. The warmth and the connection he will bring, really will make it feel like home.

The tour kicked off in Guildford tonight, and continues all over the UK:

26.04 – Clitheroe, The Grand 27.04 – Liverpool, Hangar 34 28.04 – Lincoln, Drill Hall 30.04 – Farsley, Old Woollen 02.05 – Stockton, ARC 03.05 – Carlisle, Old Fire Station 04.05 – Galashiels, MacArts 05.05 – Bury, The Met 09.05 – Southend, Chimneys 10.05 – Cambridge, The Junction 12.05 – Shoreham-By-Sea, Ropetackle Arts Centre 14.05 – Shrewsbury, Theatre Severn 15.05 – Newbury, Arlington Arts Centre 17.05 – Southampton, 1865 18.05 – Exeter, Phoenix 19.05 – Bath, Komedia 21.05 – Buxton, Opera House 22.05 – Southport, The Atkinson 29.05 – Grimsby, Docks Academy 30.05 – Harrogate Theatre 01.06 – Holmfirth Picturedrome 19.07 – Castleton, The Devil’s Arse

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• April 25, 2024 Setlist

Newton Faulkner Setlist at Guildhall Arts Centre, Gloucester, England

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• Been Here Before Play Video
• Never Alone Play Video
• Take What You Want Play Video
• Clouds ( New arrangement ) Play Video
• Teardrop ( Massive Attack  cover) Play Video
• Where to Start Play Video
• Hit the Ground Running Play Video
• Four Leaf Clover Play Video
• Full Fat Play Video
• Finger Tips Play Video
• Dream Catch Me Play Video
• Smoked Ice Cream Play Video
• At the Seams Play Video
• Gone in the Morning Play Video
• Write It on Your Skin Play Video

Edits and Comments

5 activities (last edit by Numeropa , 25 Apr 2024, 21:47 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Been Here Before
• Finger Tips
• Hit the Ground Running
• Never Alone
• Smoked Ice Cream
• Dream Catch Me
• Gone in the Morning
• At the Seams
• Where to Start
• Write It on Your Skin
• Four Leaf Clover
• Take What You Want
• Teardrop by Massive Attack

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Newton Faulkner

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Newton Faulkner Gig Timeline

• Mar 31 2024 Byron Bay Bluesfest 2024 Byron Bay, Australia Add time Add time
• Apr 01 2024 Byron Bay Bluesfest 2024 Byron Bay, Australia Add time Add time
• Apr 25 2024 Guildhall Arts Centre This Setlist Gloucester, England Start time: 8:00 PM 8:00 PM
• Apr 27 2024 Hangar 34 Liverpool, England Start time: 8:00 PM 8:00 PM
• Apr 28 2024 The Drill Lincoln, England Start time: 8:00 PM 8:00 PM

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Newton Faulkner

Newton Faulkner makes soulful and heartfelt acoustic blues with a pop edge and a distinctively laid-back style. His music covers many genres more...

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Newton Faulkner Announces New Zealand Tour

The 13th Floor 0

Newton Faulkner , the acclaimed singer-songwriter known for his soulful melodies and captivating performances, is gearing up to embark on a thrilling tour across New Zealand.

This highly anticipated tour promises to bring Faulkner’s unique blend of folk, blues, and indie rock to fans in a series of unforgettable live shows.

“ I’m beyond excited to bring my music to the beautiful landscapes and warm hearts of New Zealand ,” says Faulkner. “ There’s something magical about performing live, and I can’t wait to share these moments with my Kiwi fans .”

Known for hits such as ‘Dream Catch Me’ ‘Gone In The Morning’, and ‘Write It On Your Skin’ Newton Faulkner has a discography that resonates with fans of all ages. His ability to connect with audiences on a personal level through his heartfelt lyrics and soulful melodies is what sets him apart as a true musical storyteller.

Concertgoers can expect an evening filled with soulful tunes, electrifying performances, and an opportunity to witness Faulkner’s musical prowess up close and personal.

Tickets for the Newtown Faulkner New Zealand tour go on sale Monday 20 November Fans are encouraged to secure their tickets early to ensure they don’t miss out on this extraordinary musical journey.

NEWTON FAULKNER New Zealand Tour April 2024

THU 4 APRIL Loons | Christchurch moshtix.co.nz

FRI 5 APRIL Meow | Wellington moshtix.co.nz

SAT 6 APRIL Galatos | Auckland galatos.co.nz

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