Sean Taylor told David Hennessy about his new album that reacts to the current political climate with Trump, Farage etc.
Kilburn singer- songwriter Sean Taylor recently released his latest album, First Light.
It is a political album with songs aimed at Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.
The album has already earned positive reviews and reached number 3 in the chart of most played blues albums
Sean has also been nominated for three UK Blues Awards. For the awards in April he is up for Best Contemporary Artist of the Year, Acoustic Act of the Year and Traditional Act of the Year.
Sean took time to chat to the Irish World about the new album.
I remember the last time we spoke you talking about characters like Trump and Farage, how scary their supporters were so these themes have really come into this record. It seems they are as much on your mind now, more so perhaps…
“Yeah, unfortunately all those people haven’t gone away.
“I very rarely seek out to write a political song.
“But you know what? I didn’t actually wake up and think, ‘I’m going to write a song about Trump’.
“I just woke up, turned the television on and there he is.
“I just started writing things about the guy and what he does.
“I wouldn’t say it’s planned, me writing political songs.
“It’s just the world we have and what’s around us.
“It’s scary.
“I’m really scared the way it’s moving to the far right.
“Yeah, I remember our last conversation but it feels like it’s sped up and it’s speeding up.
“I think America is just absolutely terrifying what Trump is doing.
“The words fascism and dictatorship are overused massively but I think when you look at what he’s doing and what ICE are doing, it ticks a lot of boxes and that’s certainly where it’s going.
“Is it there now? Very close.
“It’s terrifying: Unaccountable muscle for hire kill squads.
“It’s like there’s no accountability and that is just terrifying.”
What strikes me about ICE and the shooting of Renee Good in particular is although it was captured on video, people can spin that footage whichever way they want to..
“The truth doesn’t really matter anymore.
“It was started a long time ago, that idea of it’s not about the truth, it’s about how much you can gain out of a lie.
“I just think Trump is such an obvious liar about everything.
“He just lies and it doesn’t matter anymore.
“He can say anything he wants and he’s kind of said that, ‘I can do what I want. I can say whatever I want’.
“It kind of reminds me of Johnny Cash ‘I shot a man down in Reno just to watch him die’ kind of thing.
“It’s like he can do whatever he wants and no one’s fronting him because he’s got the backing at the moment.
“I wish Europe would do more.
“When he threatens tariffs, we should come back with tariffs.
“Because he’s not popular domestically, I think there’s an opportunity to do that.
“I’m not a politician but all I can do is write songs, document how I feel, how I see it and this album is about that but there’s some hope as well.
“But when I’m writing about political stuff at the moment, I think it is pretty doom and gloom.
“The world is in a bad place.”
Speaking of ICE, what is going on in Minnesota may seem like it’s a remove but it could come over. Those sentiments are very much here also..
“Farage wants that.
“And Tommy Robinson also wants that.
“They’re part of that.
“I think there’s a lot in this country which is very, very scary.
“I thought the flag campaign in the summer was very scary.
“Songs are my outlet.
“That’s my small little contribution, to challenge what is wrong.
“I go and sing to these places that don’t agree with me and I’m singing songs about making migrants feel welcome and I could feel them thinking, ‘What is this guy about?’
“But I didn’t insult them.
“I wasn’t rude.
“I was super polite and super respectful but I just brought forward a different point of view.
“If you can make people have a conversation, make people think about things: For me it’s job done really in terms of the political song.”
Was the song Britain’s Got Talent about juxtaposing that slogan/ show title with what we’re seeing at the moment?
“I always wanted to write a song called that because I hate those shows.
“I absolutely hate them with a vengeance.
“I hate Simon Cowell.
“I hate manufactured karaoke shows.
“Every so often you’ll get someone on it who’s probably got a bit of talent and they get smashed to pieces because they’re humiliated and turned into just a product when they should just be playing, they should be enjoying the music and developing that.
“I have no problem saying how much I despise those shows and they’ve done a huge amount of damage and they are doing a huge amount of damage to what people’s expectations are of music.
“It’s like, ‘Give me a song we’ve heard already, just give me a terrible version of it’.
“That was a good starting point and then you can just play around with where England is at.
“And it is England really.
“Britain is a forced union and a lot of it does come from England.
“In a dark way it was a lot of fun to write because you can just go anywhere with it.
“I think there’s always been a hierarchy of racism, how racism is viewed, the importance of racism.
“I love the TV show Only Fools and Horses.
“I do love it but there are all kinds of issues with it in terms of the language and a lot of it’s dated.
“Recently they had on reruns of it and they’ve edited out some of the racism but they’ve left in all of the anti-Irish racism.
“And the stupid Irish stereotype, that’s in all the time but then they take out a racist term they use towards Asian people which is obviously racist.
“But at the same time I’m thinking, ‘Well why not just keep it all in and say ‘this is of the time’?’
“Of course it’s wrong.
“It was always wrong but it’s of a time and I find it fascinating that there is a hierarchy of racism.
“People don’t seem to take Irish racism seriously in England.
“It’s really shocking.
“But you have to just challenge these things.
“But I find that really interesting in a dark way.
“But going back to Britain’s Got Talent I think it’s a song that is of now.
“I put a video out when it was the Tommy Robinson marches.
“I mean to get 100,000 fascists in London is terrifying.
“And on the back of that, I go to blues jams sometimes and quite soon after that day, a guy turned up at a blues jam with a ‘Stop the Boats’ t-shirt, a musician.
“I mean the blues began on a slave ship.
“That is literally the beginning of the blues, of slaves being moved from Africa to the plantations in America.
“That’s the beginning of the blues and the Chicago blues, loads of the Chicago blues musicians moved over from the South for work into the industrial north so the blues is the history of the movement of people.
“So, like I said, this guy at a blues jam turns up with a ‘Stop the Boats’ t-shirt which is the most astonishing, shocking, depressing moment, I think one of my worst moments ever at gig.
“I just walked off stage and said, ‘I’m not playing with him’.
“But it was the fact he thought he could do that.
“I was too angry to be rational.
“I just said, ‘I’m not playing with him’.
“The pub dealt with it brilliantly but it was still the fact he thought he could do that.
“I mean there’s always going to be lone racists but to walk into a pub like that with that T shirt.
“I was just shocked.”
Tell us where the title track First Light came from..
“I live on the Downs now in Brighton and we have a spaniel puppy.
“First light is when we take him out for a walk.
“I think there’s something magical about that time of day.
“I really do.
“It’s a positive song.
“It’s a happy song to begin the album.
“The album begins happy and it ends happy.
“Murmurations is the last song.
“I don’t want it to just be like a dreary, ‘Everything is terrible’.
“I want there to be moments of hope because life can be great, magical. Even now.
“There’s always magical things you see that are worth getting up for.”
That is followed by the track Artificial Intelligence, did you want to say something about this new technology that is quite worrying for musicians and other creatives?
“I have to say, as someone who’s rubbish at it (technology), and I am: I don’t fully understand AI and I’m not going to pretend to.
“It was kind of more of a play on words, the idea of artificial intelligence and it had a picture of Elon Musk. I just thought it was funny.
“It’s all about Elon Musk and it’s all about the internet and, the phone.
“I’m addicted to my mobile phone.
“I’m not going to pretend I’m any better.
“I’m every bit as bad as everyone else.
“It’s a total addiction and a bad one at that but the Artificial Intelligence, it was the idea that you get these egos and they’re nearly always men: The Kanye Wests, the Elon Musks, the Donald Trumps who just sort of see themselves with this kind of Messiah/ God complex.
“And they’re really thick, they’re really stupid.
“Musk’s meant to be this really intelligent guy but I’ve seen him interviewed and I’ve listened to his ideas.
“They’re just monstrous.
“They’re just egos these guys and it is artificial intelligence.
“I don’t see them as intelligent at all so it’s more about that.”
That’s funny what you say about the phone because Musk and Zuckerberg, who is also mentioned on the album, and their apps have people wasting a lot of time..
“Absolutely.
“It’s funny, because there are things on your phone that are great.
“It’s just when you get lost in this kind of echo chamber of just constant misinformation, that is terrifying.
“I think it’s quite unfair.
“People constantly go on about children being addicted to their phones and I’m just like, look at the adults.
“They’re every bit as bad or worse.
“It’s not just kids addicted to them, it’s adults.”
What inspired the song Poverty?
“I’m working class from Kilburn and proud of that, I think we do have a real issue with a lot of the arts being dominated by rich people.
“I’m not saying there’s not good people who are rich, I’m not one of them.
“It’s what you are as a person that matters but when you feel there’s an overwhelming dominance of people who are Oxbridge and whatnot, it kind of creates the same art and it creates, for me, a lack of edge and a lack of inventiveness and a lack of soul.
“I think that it’s very much about that, Poverty.
“It’s also laughing at my own things.
“I am always worried about money.
“I’m never going to not be worried about money because I don’t have much money and I’ve grown up not having much money.
“And that is a real thing.
“When I see homeless people on the street, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I could be that’ and that scares me.
“And every working class person feels that you’re one pay cheque away from the street.
“And COVID showed that.
“I sold about 5, 6 guitars during COVID, loads of equipment because I lost a load of work.
“I lost a year and a half’s work.
“And then you realise how precarious it is being an artist as well as a working class artist.
“Poverty is very much about that and also, I think it celebrates working class culture.
“It’s hard and it’s funny and it’s dark but I think it’s a celebration in its own way.
“It’s meant to be anyway.”
The album also includes two covers..
“Manifiesto is a cover of a song by Victor Jara, Chilean songwriter who was tragically killed by Pinochet.
“I’m not playing any guitar in it, I’m just singing.
“I love bringing in other musicians.
“I’ve always been very excited about that.
“It’s a magical thing for me bringing in different kind of tradesmen and women to sort of sprinkle their magic on my songs.
“For me it’s one of the thrills of the record always and I love giving space to other musicians.
“I find that really exciting, exciting to be around.
“And then All Along the Watchtower is one of my favourite songs ever written.
“If you’re a songwriter, I think he (Bob Dylan)’s the guy and that song, I love it.
“I just love everything about it.
“I love the fact that it kind of breaks a lot of the rules.
“You get these ridiculous songwriting books that say you have to have this many hooks, you have to have this many chords and there has to be a big chorus.
“There’s three verses, think three chords, there’s no chorus and it just goes round and round but is one of the best songs ever written, I don’t care what anyone says.
“It’s just brilliant.
“I just love it.
“It’s just a great song and I just thought, ‘Yeah, I want to do that. I want to do that for sure’.”
You have just released the album but songs like Britain’s Got Talent have been out a while, did you find that hit a nerve when you put it out?
“I was waiting.
“I’ve got Britain’s Got Talent on the new album and then I’ve got Little Donny Returns which attacks Trump and I was waiting on both of them.
“I posted online.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to get a couple of people have a go’.
“No one had a go.
“Literally no one and I’ve had people criticise my politics loads online.
“If you’re going to put yourself out there, it happens.
“So I was getting ready for someone to go but everyone either said nothing or absolutely loved it.
“There was so much praise and so much positivity shared all over the internet.
“No criticism.
“None, absolutely none.
“And it was like, ‘Wow’.
“I think that that makes me feel optimistic that we’re not as brainwashed as they want us to believe because both those songs are unapologetically left wing, unapologetically anti- Trump, unapologetically anti-Farage but it’s just the media and social media is dominated by the right and the far right so I think we just need to challenge that, keep challenging it and I think songwriters are.
“This is the time to write political songs, for sure.
“It’s in fashion.”
You mention Farage, is it a concern to you that we could see him in power?
“He’s been a consistent racist Farage.
“That’s the one thing that’s been consistent in his life, is hatred of anyone who’s non-white, non-English even though I think he’s married to someone from another country anyway.
“But there’s contradictions in all these people.
“Elon Musk moaning about immigration- His family are South African.
“Trump moaning about immigration, his wife is from another country so all of the contradictions with these people, there’s just no shame at all.
“But I love multiculturalism.
“It’s the best thing about this country.
“Whenever I’m away from England and I come back to it, it’s the thing that makes me feel happiest is seeing all the different cultures.
“It’s just wonderful.”
First Light by Sean Taylor is out now.
Sean Taylor is touring Europe and coming to the UK in May.
For more information, click here.
