LAST month Roddy Woomble released The Deluder, his fourth solo album. This month the Hebrides-based singer-songwriter heads out on tour.
The Deluder comes a couple of years after Idlewild’s album Everything Ever Written. The press release says the band were set on doing another album quite quickly afterwards but people’s “lives took over”. Do you think you still will?
Yes, we’ve recorded eight songs already and are going to get back to work on in January and February. It’s very good and different. It seemed that the Idlewild album might take some time to get right and I had quite a few songs ready that weren’t suitable for it. So I got on with making a new album.
The Deluder features Andrew Mitchell and Luciano Rossi, as did Everything Ever Written. Did that make sessions for this record feel familiar, or were they different in a way, with it being your solo record?
The three of us work well together and most songs on the deluder were written by the three of us.
When Rod and Colin are there it becomes Idlewild. It’s always familiar but different, the way it should be.
The Deluder takes its name from the track First Love Never Returned, a track that reminds me of John Gray’s book Straw Dogs, in which he says that morality is an illusion and we’re basically animals.
I love John Gray so yes, perhaps subconsciously I’m exploring the same ideas. I guess I’m interested in clarity and trying to work things out, and so often external influences, the modern world basically cloud this, make it unclear, fuzzy – and we begin to believe the delusions. Something like that anyway! I’m trying to work out what’s real. In songs.
The track Like Caruso has the line “no-one has a life that worked out the way they wanted”. What’s the significance of Caruso here?
He was the first global superstar.
I never met him of course, but I’m interested in fame and the idea of fame. I’ve never met a famous person that wasn’t looking over their shoulder. They always seems disappointed. I think everyone always imagines something else for themselves.
You turned 40 when you wrote this record. Is that what’s current single is On N’a Plus De Temps about? And I’ll Meet You By The Memorial, getting older?
Hannah Fisher, my bandmate does the vocals [on On N’a Plus De Temps]. Yes, it’s roughly about running out of time! I’ll meet you by the memorial is about hanging around in graveyards.
You used to write a bit for the Sunday Herald and other publications and once said you enjoyed it as much as making music. Do you still write anything that’s not songwriting? Do you pretty much write songs all the time?
Each year there is generally an album I’m working on. I do write other things but don’t get anywhere with them. I’d like to write a book at some point. For now songs are my main interest.
Aberdeen Lemon Tree (Oct 12), Edinburgh Pleasance (Oct 13), Glasgow City Halls (Oct 14), Birnam Arts Centre (Oct 16), Airdrie Encounters Festival (Oct 27), Isle of Mull An Tobar (Oct 28).
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