Maverick Sabre told David Hennessy about how being born in Hackney and raised in New Ross makes him feel like he has two homes, his new album that urges people not to miss life by being on their phones all the time and how a lot of trust has been lost in the government during this pandemic.
It is ten years since Maverick Sabre burst onto the scene in 2012 with his debut album Lonely are the Brave.
Drawing on elements from hip-hop, soul and folk, his unique sound took him to number two in the UK album charts and number three in Ireland.
But Maverick, whose real name is Michael Stafford, should have connected on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Born in Hackney, his family relocated to New Ross in Wexford when he was four.
He would return to London as a teenager to pursue a career in music and is in North London when he speaks to The Irish World about his recently released fourth album, Don’t Forget to Look Up.
Maverick told The Irish World: “I suppose for me, it was kind of like growing up with two homes.
“I’m very much attached to London and I very much feel like a Londoner.
“But I’m very much Irish and my upbringing is very much Irish.
“So London Irish is the closest thing that I could feel as a title if that makes any f*8king sense.”
With an accent that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than Irish, was he ever made to feel an outsider in New Ross for not being born there or was he spared this by making the move so young?
“I definitely felt like there was a split and there was a divide in the sense I felt very attached to London and the music and the culture as well as being very attached to the environment that was around.
“Maybe if I would have just been born and raised in London, I would have felt differently.
“And if I would have been born raised in Ireland, there wouldn’t have been that kind of split in attachment.”
Sabre was still a teenager when he started his career. After featuring on other artists’ tracks, he released his debut mixtape The Travelling Man in 2010.
After working with acts like Professor Green, it was Plan B who advised him to make the move back to London.
“I was 16 going on 17. I had finished school. Music was my only real passion.
“It was the only thing I really felt good at so moving to London at that point just felt like the only move for me at that age.
“And then there were a couple of people that I had met, Plan B being one of them, along the way that kind of pointed me in the direction of, ‘There’s a home here for you. There’s a studio here for you. There’s a path here for you in that sense’.
“So I just kind of jumped at it, I packed my bags and got on a boat.
“And that was it.”
Maverick would follow Only the Brave with Innerstanding in 2015 and then When I Wake Up in 2018.
“It’s been an interesting journey.
“I remember I ended up having to come back to Ireland for maybe six to eight months, when I was 18.
“And I remember being back in town and had to stay around for a bit working a job.
“I’d already back in London for a year and a half and I remember coming back and I just independently put out a video.
“I remember being at home in this job but seeing this video circulating.
“Then I moved back to London and I vowed to myself that any mistakes I’ve made were in the past, ‘Now I need to move back to London with a fresh start’.
“It kick started from there.
“Two months after I moved back, I was on my first ever tour.
“I turned 19. I was on the plan B tour after The Strickland Banks album.
“And then not too long after that I got signed and in between I was doing open mic nights and kind of just grafting, meeting people.
“And then it kind of went a bit crazy from there and it’s been an interesting journey.
“I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change it for the world, and it’s taught me a lot.”
The new album’s title came to Maverick after he and someone else nearly bumped into each other because they were both too preoccupied looking at their phones.
It got him thinking about all the things you can miss by being fixated on the technology in your hand.
“I was going for a walk one day when I had a moment where I looked up nearly bumping into people realising that we’re all on our phones, not everyone but the majority of us are kind of locked into this.
“I’ve got my concerns about my own attachment to technology. The positives are great but the negatives are a concern if we don’t get a hold on it, and I think that just sparked off an internal conversation, Don’t forget to look up.
“Don’t forget to look around, look into the distance, look up to the sky, look around the street, look at people in their eyes, make sure we keep eye contact, socialise.
“And it just made me think about loads of things.”
Don’t Forget to Look Up also has another political meaning for Maverick about keeping your eyes on the ruling classes.
“In drastic times, you would hope that people in positions of responsibility are acting responsibly.
“I can only talk about the UK Government. I think we all know how they acted in that time (lockdown). It was more to fill their own pockets and to solve their own needs than it was the general public.
“When we’re told by everyone to look at immigrants or your neighbour or people on benefits, that they should be the source of our rage.
“No, look up because the people who are supposed to be in positions of power are the ones we should be venting our criticism to so it had many different meanings.”
Isn’t it a shame that the people of this country have lost so much trust in its government? “It is a shame.
“These governments, like the one we have in place here at the moment, don’t just pop up out of nowhere.
“They’re built over time, they’re accepted over time. There’s legwork that’s been put in to allow the public to be desensitized to even allow these people into power in the first place.
“He didn’t just pop into power off his own regard.
“You know, I think we need to look into the dangers of maybe not being engaged enough in the politics of a country in the run up to governments getting elected, and politicians getting into power.
“So that we can hopefully foresee the potential of something like this happening again, a government getting in like this again.
“Yeah, I think people have had enough.
“And yeah, you’re right, it is it is shame at a time where fake news and fake everything is kind of difficult for us to wade through.
“We’re all new to technology, new to fake news.
“And the idea that we’re kind of being lied to on loads of different quarters of where we get our news sources from.
“So I think to add on top of that, to have a blatantly corrupt political system is difficult for a lot of people to swallow.
“A lot of people don’t know where to go and where to align themselves.
“It’s a scary and sad time at the moment.
“But hopefully this just empowers us to look at what is the benefit for us as people and what can be changed?”
How does Maverick align himself? He publicly supported the Labour Party in the election of a few years ago but does not want this to be misunderstood.
“I don’t like to align myself particularly with any party because leaders change, attitudes change.
“I think it’s dangerous.
“And the reason I aligned myself with Labour at the time was because I was, I still am a Jeremy Corbyn fan and I liked the ethics of what he was proposing, his perspective on Labour and where that Labour government potentially could have taken this country.
“I felt like he was a more of a drastic change. He might not have worked out, or he might have done some really radical, positive changes for the country here.
“That’s why I threw my support in.
“I’m not a die hard Labour fan for whatever Labour throws at us.
“It was getting people out to vote in general, whether they were voting for Tories or Labour or the Lib Dems, or whoever.
“It was more I just wanted to engage people to go and have your vote and have your voice, but even that’s in question at the moment.
“It’s an interesting, interesting landscape at the moment.”
His latest album is noticeably more introspective than his other offerings but Maverick likes to keep people guessing.
“I think the first two albums of mine maybe had a bit more of a sonic connection together and then when I went and did When I Wake Up, the whole purpose of my third album was to make something completely different than I’ve made before and experiment in a beautiful way and find myself in a different way.
“And in this record, these were just the songs and the natural kind of moves I was coming out with.
“And the next record is going to be different again, and then the record after that, different again.
“I want to tell a longer tale so that you can listen back to my albums in 15 years and go, ‘Ah, I can see a story that runs through and I got that moment. I didn’t get that moment but now I know this is an overall picture’.”
The album came together over lockdown. When he started, it was intended to be an EP.
How did he get through the lockdown?
“I think for most people, especially in a creative sense, I think it was a split.
“Half the time was ultra creative and being able to use the time to make stuff and then the other half was not really being that inspired because you’re not around people and you’re not making music, you’re not gigging, you’re not kind of doing the normal run of things.
“It was kind of a mixture of both and the album probably wouldn’t have been an album if lockdown hadn’t persisted.
“It would have stayed as an EP, so some of the songs might never have been written.
“I made a lot of music in lockdown.
“There’s probably another two albums that I made in lockdown that are a completely different tone, and a different feeling and different subject matter.
“So this was one of the conversations and it was just a discussion with me of where I’m at in my life now with love and how I feel about it.”
Now aged 31, Maverick is not married but ‘contentedly’ in a relationship.
“I suppose I’ve always been a hopeless romantic and I’ve always lead with passion whether it’s my career or if it’s love life or anything like that.
“An earlier version of myself would have been like, ‘There’s too many love songs on this’.
“At a point on this I was like, ‘There’s too many love songs on this’.
“But then I was like, ‘They’re the songs that I made and they’re the stories that came out of me so why am I stopping myself from telling these stories?’
Maverick joined with Joel Culpepper to address the similar struggles of both their ancestors in London producer Swindle’s No Black, No Irish.
“It was lockdown. There was George Floyd’s death.
“A lot of the conversations were really in depth and needed to be had at the time and, and Joel Culpepper and me were having conversations about our families’ history in the UK and, and history beyond that, and the connection of it, and the connection of the stories.
“And I think it’s an interesting story that’s not particularly told quite a lot.
“And I think there’s a beautiful connection and understanding with that.
“And I think stories like that need to be told a lot more to connect people.
“It’s an interesting, connected story and there’s a universal message within that.”
Amazingly, the album features Nile Rodgers who plays guitar on Get Down.
How did this collaboration come about? “Nile has been made the musical director of Abbey Road over the last couple of years, and I’d done some sessions with him for a couple of other artists.
“And I just thought, I might as well send it to him and see what he thinks just as a shot in the dark.
“And he really liked it.
“And he laid down some guitar on it.
“It was just as simple as that really.
“I have got a hell of a lot of time for him.
“As much of a legend as he is, he still brings a kind of youthful energy into studio sessions which is beautiful to kind of be inspired by.
“Nile Rodgers for me is one of the most appreciated and respected songwriters that has always remained consistent so to kind of work with him, it’s definitely a highlight.”
Maverick feels very connected to the Irish community in London.
“I’ve gone down to the Irish Centre in Camden a couple of times, and done a couple of their evenings which has been beautiful, to kind of feel the elder and younger generation, the community still together.
“Not to fall into the stereotypes, but I do I frequent Irish pubs as much as I can.
“The Auld Shillelagh in Stoke Newington is a firm home place for me.
“I always need a recharging of the batteries and whether that’s going home, or whether that’s going down to a local pub and having a couple of chats and a couple of pints, That’s kind of where my heart is.”
Maverick is looking forward to what is sure to be a euphoric Paddy’s Day with traditional celebrations ruled out for two years.
“People deserve some fun and deserve to be back together.
“The sad thing I remember is going down to a pub when lockdown restrictions were eased.
“I remember seeing the barriers between tables, the plastic see through barriers and I saw some old men just sitting by themselves and I thought it’s a horrible thing for people to lose that element of being able to socialize.
“I think like that’s what we’re down here for if there’s anything that humans are down here for.
“There would have only been one of us if we were the only if we were meant to be by ourselves.
“And it was a sad sight.
“Hopefully Paddy’s Day will just be a reminder of why we need to be together and singing and dancing and, and laughing.”
Don’t Forget to Look Up is out now.
Maverick Sabre tours the UK and Ireland from this week.
Maverick plays Metronome, Nottingham on Thursday 24 February, O2 Academy 2, Oxford on Friday 25 February, Concorde 2, Brighton on Saturday 26 February, Wylam Brewery, Newcastle on 3 March, Arts Club Theatre, Liverpool on 4 March, Band on the Wall, Manchester on 5 March, Alexandra Palace Theatre, London on 10 Mar, Cyprus Avenue, Cork on 7 March, The Academy, Dublin on 8 March.
For more information, click here.