Flying Solo: Mark Morriss Strikes Out On His Own Again

Back in the mid-‘90s, the Bluetones were riding high on the crest of the Britpop wave. A string of top 10 singles and a debut album, ‘Expecting To Fly’, that briefly unseated Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? at the summit of the album charts secured a loyal following for the band, which in turn gave their frontman, Mark Morriss, just the platform he needed to launch his solo career in 2008 with ‘Memory Muscle’.

Almost six years later, following the release of his band’s final record, ‘A New Athens’, and after signing on the dotted line with label Acid Jazz, Morriss will release its follow up, ‘A Flash of Darkness’, on February 24. Perhaps even more than his first solo effort, this record finds Morriss out on his own.

“The almost six year break was just how it panned out,” he said. “I wouldn’t have intended it to be that long. There were a couple of things I had to deal with inbetween. There was a Bluetones album that was made and there was the disbanding of the Bluetones, so it was a bit of a readjustment for me if I’m honest, getting used to life without the band.

“It was quite a change, my social life as well as my work life. I think there’s an element of that that’s made it onto the album. When I was writing it, I wasn’t aware that it was a particularly reflective record. Once things are recorded, you get a chance to step back and listen to it slightly more objectively and it did seem to be that a lot of the songs were about reflection and moving away onto new beginnings, that sort of stuff. I do think those things kind of colour that record. It had been kind of a comfort blanket for so long, being in the band.”

The album started life as a project through the increasingly popular PledgeMusic. By offering exclusives, such as appearing on the record and even owning one of his guitars, alongside standard packages of the finished article, Morriss more than doubled his target and set about putting together a collection that began life as something quite different.

“The quick answer as to why did I choose that route is that it paid for it,” he said. “It paid for the recording and the manufacturing of the CDs, and also the distribution to those people. It was something I kind of fell into more than anything else, I hadn’t really given it much consideration, and then my manager at the time suggested I give it a thought.

“I’d written these songs and I was ready to try and get other people to sing them, but after a while it became clear to me that what I was doing was a bit idiosyncratic for that and I didn’t know if anyone else would want to sing the songs. I thought, well maybe I’ll make an album then.”

Towards the end of 2013, Morriss inked his label deal, giving him the opportunity to release ‘A Flash of Darkness’ to a wider audience through more traditional channels. Doing so, though, has reignited the nervous excitement that he first experienced last year when the album, a more complex listen than his debut, trickled down to his pledgers.

”It’s given me a fresh lease of life if anything,” he said. “It’s not quite the same feeling as last year when it was brand new, when no one had heard it. There’s still that anticipation about how it’s going to be received, and whether people will be pleased or disappointed.

“People have responded really well to it, but its exciting going out to the wider world where people might not have known that I was doing anything at all. There was a great sense of pressure with PledgeMusic, because those people had invested in it before it had even been recorded. I didn’t want to let people down. When I was making my first record I had a plan in terms of the way I wanted it to sound. I wanted it to sound very sparkly, very bright and very summery. With this record, I didn’t have that kind of design in mind. I wanted to make something that had a bit more variety in it. I recorded the last album like a folk-rock album, but this record, I wouldn’t know how to categorise it. There are a lot more elements reflected in it.”

Those lucky enough to have caught one of Morriss’ many live shows recently will know that he’s something of a dab hand at establishing a repartee with his crowd. Going it alone has given him the chance to enjoy it that little bit more, and to play it fast and loose with his setlists, even if part of him will always want a full band at his back.   

”I’ve certainly got used to it,” he said. “I started doing solo gigs around 2006, 2007 so I’m getting slightly better at it. I’m more accustomed to it than I was when I started out. If I get the option to have a whole band around me, I’ll always like that. There are good points and bad points about being a solo performer.

“I can be more reactive and flexible with the set that I play. When I go on stage, I tend to have a setlist written out, but it’s more of a guideline than anything else. It’s not like I adhere to it strictly, it’s just that if I dry up, I can go back to the setlist and play something from there. Sometimes I like to respond to requests from the crowd if something takes my fancy or I’ll just start playing a song I feel like, I just see where it goes. The songs are what they are, but the evening is something different, it’s a chance for the crowd to interact with you, and you with them. It’s a chance for the barriers to come down. There’s got to be unpredictability to it.”

Still, as happy as Morriss is to engage with his fans on that level, there can be times when some just can’t let things go. “Sometimes, I think if the audience really wants to hear a song, then I’ll play it. I won’t be a prick about it,” he said. “But if someone is going to badger me and badger me for a song - which is often Slight Return - then I just won’t play it. I think that’s a bit of petulance on my part. There are certain songs that I’m kind of bored of now. What I need to do is not play them for a while, and then I won’t be bored of them anymore.”

Life on the road is hard, particularly for solo acts, and Morriss has spent the last couple of years tirelessly touring the country both as a headliner and in support slots with the likes of Shed Seven and Tim Burgess, frontman of the Charlatans.

“It’s a double edged sword really,” Morriss said. “I go out because there’s a demand for the gigs and people are making the offers. I think, well this is what I do, let’s go out and play. But the other side of that is that I do spend a lot of my time travelling and that can prove, at times, to be quite draining, emotionally more than anything else.

"I’m away from my family and my friends, so sadly my social life is pretty much doing the gigs. That’s why I’ve got to be careful to not let that take over, as it’s work after all. It’s difficult and I’m not complaining by any means, but it’s a work/life balance that I’ve got to work out. It’s not easy.”

For his next set of shows, which slide into gear with a sold out gig at London’s Water Rats on February 22, Morriss has tackled this problem in part by roping in a few old hands to handle backing band duties. You may know them as the Bluetones.

“Well I’m taking the Bluetones out with me, they’re the backing band,” he said. “It’s not a reunion tour. It really is just a chance for us to hang out together, so they’re going to be my backing band. I’m sure we’ll slip one or two old songs in at the end, that would be pretty shitty not to, but it’s not a Bluetones set.

“The thing is, the thing we miss most is hanging out and playing music together, so this was a chance for us to rectify that and have a giggle in the process. It’s no pressure for them, they’ve just got to turn up and learn my album, which of course they all love! We’re not doing it for the money, because there isn’t any. We’re just spending time together and it’s a chance for them lot to get away from their families for a couple of weeks.”

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