Back in the late 90’s, Conner Reeves was the UK byword for blue-eyed soul. His 1997 album ‘Earthbound’ is considered by many to be a modern classic. R&B fans keenly awaited his follow-up but then, nothing.
Crippling stage fright and significant life events both contributed to this extended absence from the limelight. That and his focus on being a successful songwriter for other artists, including the likes of Joss Stone, Joe Cocker and Tina Turner.
While Conner’s debut album was never officially released in the US, R&B fans may know him from his track ‘Something Beautiful’ which had previously been selected by Spotify for their ‘I Love My Neo-Soul’ public playlist.
27 years later (which is roughly 10,000 days), Conner has emerged with the announcement of his sophomore album. With the first single already released and a second one just about to drop, we spend some time to reintroduce or indeed introduce the UK soul institution.
Interview By: Daniel Bamber
YouKnowIGotSoul: Welcome back! How does it feel entering into the fray once again?
It feels about bloody time, that’s for sure! Maybe I’d say a mixture of excitement and slight trepidation, because one of the main reasons why I stepped away from the fray was stage fright.
We’ve got a show coming up in London supporting Young Gun Silver Fox on October 5th (at Koko in Camden). I don’t know how many people are going to be there, but it’s a 1,500 capacity venue, so I’m like “oh God!”. I’ve obviously done it before and did some really big shows in the past, including Party in the Park in front of 100,000, but that’s somehow easier. That’s like a sea of people and you’re quite far away from where the audience starts. However a 1,500 venue – that’s going to be a lot of close attention.
YouKnowIGotSoul: You’ve been away so long that you make D’Angelo look oversaturated. At which point during your time away did you begin to entertain the idea of releasing new music?
Well I’ve never stopped writing. I could always tell the difference between a general coverable song and an artist song. Songs that are for other people – you try and get them to the people. The artist song pile just started mounting up a bit.
It was always something I imagined would happen at some point. I was always writing songs and it wasn’t like I was just sat there waiting for someone to knock on the door. The songs that were always special to me were the artist songs, and I’ve got dozens of those.
This album only contains ten new songs with six musical segues/interludes, so we’ve got so many more. I could almost do another album next week. The difference to me though is the goosebump factor. It’s the ones that give you goosebumps. Usually that’s within the melody and the chord structure but often it’s what you can talk about. It’s the subject matter. The kind of real, raw, deep living that I’ve done (and I’m sure many others have too) over the past 27 years informs the album.
YouKnowIGotSoul: With the first single ‘Bones’ speaking about 10,000 days passing in one frame, how much was it a case of now or never in terms of releasing new music?
It was coming to the point of now or never, to be honest.
I’ve crossed over into my 50’s now, which is the weirdest thing. Part of me is like “that’s just too old – forget it” but I completely don’t feel like it. You’ve got people like Pharrell and then Madonna’s like the age of my nan (not quite), and then The Rolling Stones are now grandad age. I looked at that and thought “hang on a minute, everyone’s still doing it.” Plus, they’re still continuing to have success now that they’re older.
‘Bones’ was actually written a couple of years ago. I just picked out ‘10,000 days’ as a line because it sounded like a long time. I never actually had a concept of how long that really was. Then one day I thought about my first album and wondered “when did Earthbound actually come out?”. I knew it was 1997 but wasn’t sure of the exact date. Somebody online told me the UK release date and I added 10,000 days to that. Funnily enough it came to around mid-summer this year, just as the album was being finished. I thought “that’s so nuts!” I mean, what are the chances of that?
YouKnowIGotSoul: ‘Bones’ definitely showcases that famous Conner Reeves vocal, which hasn’t weakened at all over the past 27 years. However, there’s also a folksy influence with this song. Can we expect a multitude of musical influences in the new album?
There’s definitely a whole range.
The first album (Earthbound) was a bit like that. There was a gospel song, there was pop-style stuff, there was epic stuff and there was a piano ballad. So I felt like the first album had a bit of a range. It wasn’t all in the same lane but let’s say it was all in the same swimming pool, if you know what I mean. And the new album is similar in that way.
I’d say that the new album is a body of work rather than just having three hit singles and the rest being stuffing or filler. That’s not what this is. This is an entire journey that’s woven together with these little interludes between the songs. My manager calls them ‘palate cleansers’, almost like a sorbet between different dishes.
YouKnowIGotSoul: ‘The Sweetest Invasion’ makes up the double A-side with ‘Bones’. Can you give us a little insight into the inspiration behind this song and its sultry style?
Growing up in Peckham (in South London), on Sundays was when the front room was filled with my parents’ record collection. They worked really hard so that was the day that their music was the focus of attention. The Stylistics were a huge part of that and they have some really big records that start with a sitar at the front of the track. I wanted to do something that went through a progression and developed. Deliberately, I made the song quite in your face as an homage to The Stylistics. That’s the sitar that you hear on ‘The Sweetest Invasion’ that creates that sultry sound.
The song is really important to me. I used to send songs to my managers to get feedback. One of my managers, God rest his soul, has since died a couple of years ago. I’d sent him this song and when he came back to me he’d simply wrote ‘STUNNING! STUNNING! STUNNING!’ He wasn’t the type of guy to over-egg the omelet, so that was my single best review ever. Knowing that was his single favorite song, I really wanted to make it sound special.
YouKnowIGotSoul: The new album is called ‘Ten Thousand Days and the Church of the Restoration’. While we’ve covered the first part of the title, can you explain ‘the church of the restoration’?
A lot of the album interludes that I was talking about are snippets or shortened versions of fully-formed songs that I have in the vault. They give the album a lot more color and range from comedy elements to serious and dramatic, religious choral stuff that I’ve done. One of these segues is called ‘Restore Me’ which to me sums up the entire project as a whole. When you hear that, everything will make sense as to what this album is all about.
When you see the album cover (which I’m so excited about), it pictures the middle of a dilapidated cathedral or church. That ‘Restore Me’ interlude links to the album cover as a visual representation.
YouKnowIGotSoul: You previously talked about the amount of songs you’ve written over the years. Do you have any songwriting influences?
To this day it’s still a miracle to me that I had a friendship with Rod Temperton.
Growing up and reading the credits on record sleeves – that’s all that mattered to me on an album. Who wrote the song – that was always the thing. I saw this name kept cropping up; ‘Rod Temperton’. And I thought “that must be some big, cool dude from LA” or whatever. Over time I realized he was actually from Hull in the north of England!
By amazing events, the universe working in my favor, the law of attraction or whatever it may be, I ended up becoming somebody who spent a lot of time with him.
I once said to Rod “how many songs do you write in a year?”. He replied “about twelve.” I was shocked and couldn’t believe that was all. Rod then asked me “how many do you write?” to which I replied “about 100”. Knowing he worked all day long on his craft I asked “how is it you only get to twelve?”. Rod explained that in a month he does loads and loads and loads of songs but when he listens back, he only hones in on one. He just focused on one a month and shined it up. Naturally I was curious to understand how he knew which one to hone in on, and he gave me one word…”goosebumps”.
YouKnowIGotSoul: In terms of modern soul and R&B, are there any artists that have caught your ear and if so who?
There’s a girl that I’m really into right now called Griff. She’s a young, British artist and has a song called ‘Vertigo’ which is just genius. PJ Morton is another artist that I love. Alex Warren has a song that I think is amazing called ‘Ordinary’. I just love the production on that.
I’ve gotta say that quality is universal and timeless, so it doesn’t matter how old someone is or where they’re from.
YouKnowIGotSoul: ‘Talk You High’ is the next single due to be released from the forthcoming album. This is a pure slice of unadulterated, traditional, classic soul. Can you talk about the message behind the song.
This was one of the songs that would just not let me not write it.
The song is a recent one that I wrote where I live in Ibiza. It’s about a family member who was struggling with addiction. The premise was to point them in the right direction by reminding them they didn’t always have to look down, they could look up. There’s loads to be happy about.
I especially love how the song ends and gets all celebratory. I want the song to lift people, you know? The song also contains my favorite line in the whole album. It says:
“You are beautiful, gifted and loved. Ain’t no thing you can’t get above. Because you are made of man and God. Don’t you know that?”
I can’t wait to sing that live and look into some girl’s eyes and say that. You know, to try and give people that message.
YouKnowIGotSoul: Are there any plans to tour in the coming year or so?
All things being well then abso-flipping-lutely!
‘Talk You High’ by Conner Reeves is released on Friday 25th July and is the second single off the forthcoming album ’Ten Thousand Days and The Church of the Restoration’.