We caught up with Lecaudé, the self-titled solo project of producer, songwriter and singer Lecaudé (Jack Durtnall), playing a blend of lyrically-driven electronic pop and soul. Critically acclaimed by Radio 1 as BBC introducing Track of The Week (2014) and Glastonbury Emerging Talent with nominations in 2014 and 2015.
Hi there, how are you and what are you up to today?
Good thanks! It’s late and I’ve just finished the launch gig for my debut Circles EP (coming out 03.06.2016) at Servant’s Jazz Quarters with Parallel Lines. I had a blast.
To those not familiar with you, how would you describe your sound?
Kind of alt-pop-soul… I like a lot of old stuff but there are a lot of newer genre influences that creep in there too undoubtedly.
What are the 5 most influential albums that have influenced you the most?
David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust…
Stevie Wonder – Songs in The Key of Life
Jonie Mitchell – Blue
Prince – Sign of The Times
Dire Straits – Dire Straits
Which other artists are you into at the moment and why?
Nao – she’s just incredible. Just incredible.
I like Mura Masa a lot for his really individual production sound and intuitive ears… It’s the first really groundbreaking production in that general producer/artist area I feel like I’ve personally heard since Jai Paul, who I also greatly respect.
London Grammar nailed the understated vibe in terms of their treatments of their very beautiful and engaging songs – I hope they bring something out soon and manage to kick the ‘difficult second album’ thing.
Are there any key pieces of equipment that you are using to define your sound?
Not really…. It’s a whole mixture of little bits and pieces – someone’s ‘sound’ should be more-or-less evident from their musical DNA or whatever you’d like to call that – say if you stripped a song back to acoustic guitar and vocals or had a massive big production on it, you should still be able to hear the common essence or thread, which for me is the ‘sound’.
What would you say some of the challenges artists face today in the music industry?
It’s so crazily diluted. Everyone wants their voice to be heard and the difficult thing is – everyone absolutely has a right to.
It’s just working out the tricky bit of second guessing to a certain extent what other human beings really want to hear, what turns humans on in terms of sounds, idea combinations, lyrical insights, interpersonal connections in music.
Also there’s the whole well-documented massive transition and upheaval of how people actually access music, what the contexts are that they’ll pay attention and listen to music in socially or personally.
Streaming is still finding its feet in terms of being a viable business model for small or new or niche artists (ie it’s not really at the moment), whereas with artists who were already successful before the upheaval majors can do the obvious thing and use all their catalogue to make more money on streaming. Kind of a no-brainer – but it doesn’t answer the question of how new music is going to fund itself.
Where do you gather songwriting inspiration?
Good question. People mainly – interaction with people.
I find trying to engage and really look at the natural world quite inspiring as well – for me everything’s already there in terms of the best, most successfully evolved designs and forms and colours and smells and sounds – once you start to look it’s pretty mind-blowing.
But yes it always comes back to other humans really and communicating with them – that’s what music is right? Trying to communicate something.
Take us through your songwriting process. Are there any particular steps you take when put music together?
I have no strict process – I’m quite disorganised like that.
I do like keeping a big folder of loose scrap paper though and that’s my ‘songwriting folder’ – I like starting song lyrics on there and seeing how far they get. Sometimes I’ll get lucky and have words and melody come into my head at once, or in reality just very close together. That’s great to grow something from that kind of seed. It’s the most immediate really.
A lot of the time I’ll have a general concept and think – that would be a really cool general idea or theme for a song – then I’ll just start taking pot shots at it from various angles and see if anything sticks.
Being able to record yourself nowadays is super useful for songwriting – it makes you able to be your own critic at the earliest stage, when everything’s still super fragile and it might harm an idea to play it out to someone straight away. It saves you having to ask some long-suffering friend or relative to listen to your song straight away to see if it’s good or not. But then again that can be good to do sometimes anyway. Also – you kind of know if something’s good or not deep down even if you don’t think you know at first.
What’s the best gig you have ever done and why?
Wow – good question! Probably the first gig I played as Lecaudé (le-co-day, which is my middle name) because it was wonderful to establish the project with a live show – musically it went great – and it was organised by a good friend of mine, and there was a whole tonne of friends and wonderful people there, it was an awesome atmosphere and a great night.
And the worst?
Probably this acoustic gig I played when I just started out very young. I had no idea of the ins and outs of the London music circuit and the promoter was an absolutely schmuck and I obviously didn’t get paid and he was just rude. I felt bad for asking people to be there as the atmosphere was awful.
If you weren’t a musician what would you be?
I think now I’d want to be a plant biologist with a cross-over into material sciences and chemistry or something like that. Something fancy anyway.
Do you have any particular gigs or festivals that you dream about playing?
Lots! I don’t know where to start. Jools Holland would be pretty damn cool, as his show is one of the last places where people actually really listen to music and take it in properly… Yeah that would be pretty cool.
If you could perform alongside any other band or artist, who would it be?
Lots of them have passed away now sadly.
But Nao would be pretty cool. Mura Masa. NZCA Lines. London Grammar and lots of others…
Do you have any information regarding upcoming releases, projects or gigs in the pipeline that you would like to tell us about?
My debut Circles EP is comes out on Friday 3rd June 2016 which is my first release as Lecaudé and I’m very excited.
Circles has already been used on Made in Chelsea this Monday ahead of the release which is great and I’m hoping for some more nice exposure like that. Yeah – please do go out and buy it and stream it!
The next gig is tomorrow 15th June at the Scoop amphitheatre near Tower Bridge next to the Gherkin. It’s being organised by the producer of the BBC London introducing show which is great and I think it’s free (!) but I need to check that!
Come down!
Listen to Lecaude- “Circles” below”
Listen to Lecaude- “Circles” below”
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