CityLife

Interview: Christopher Eatough

Christopher Eatough

You don’t expect to find important consumer advice on a folk music album, but then again, Christopher Eatough’s debut release A Creak In The Cold isn’t just any run-of-the-mill folk music album.

Placed on the album sleeve of the Manchester songwriter’s debut is a clearly worded instruction for the listener – it reads: ‘Please Listen Carefully’.

Rather than an act of pure artistic conceit, however, this instruction is a reference to the unique music contained within. Fragile, sparse, hauntingly skeletal, Christopher Eatough reveals himself as a strict advocate of the ‘less is more’ folk songwriter idiom.

“It’s an album I want listeners to give their complete attention to,” he explains between sips of whiskey in an Oxford Road bar. “The thing about singer-songwriter albums these days is that they can sound so nondescript. Singer-songwriter albums are everywhere – people can just have them on in the background, while they’re doing their chores.

"But with my album, I really want people to listen properly, to take in every track from beginning to end, and read the lyrics. You only get as much out of it as you put in. I mean, I don’t mind if people put my album on as background music. But in an ideal world, people would really take the time and engage with it, and digest all the little details.”

As you may have gathered already, 23-year-old Christopher Eatough is a man who speaks with deadly seriousness when it comes to his music. But then, so he should, having just written and recorded one of 2011’s standout Manchester albums, the wracked Americana-tinged folk masterpiece that is A Creak In The Cold. 

However, when it comes to his public role as a singer-songwriter, and what music bloggers frequently refer to as “a confessional troubadour”, Christopher Eatough is far less serious, almost mocking about that title.

Having, as he describes it, “accidentally fallen” into his role as a solo songwriter following years of gigging in rock bands, Eatough has never fully subscribed to the woolly mythology of the troubadour musician. Indeed, on one level, he’s keen to destroy such whimsical clichés.

“I do hate most singer-songwriters,” he rants, somewhat surprisingly. “That tradition of the confessional songwriter pouring his heart out on stage and exorcising all his demons. As much as I do love those songwriters like Dylan and Johnny Cash who completely embodied their music, I don’t feel like I’m like one of them. When I write my songs, it feels like they come from a different place; like they’re not even part of me. So I don’t feel particularly vulnerable or exposed when I’m singing my songs. It’s not like public therapy. I think that’s the biggest misconception you could make about me.”

Born and raised in Oswaldtwistle, just outside of Blackburn, the young Christopher Eatough (“it’s pronounced ‘Ee Toff’ – people are never quite sure,” he clarifies) was writing his own songs at the age of 12 and gigging them in bands not long after. Most notably, he recalls fronting a power-rock trio named, “The Quiet Fire – we were very Manic Street Preachers, Foo Fighters influenced. Lots of big, punchy choruses.”

Then, at the age of 16, Eatough had a breakthrough moment when he penned a solo acoustic number titled ‘Between The Trees’. Sparse, stripped-back and with lyrics of a more voyeuristic, character-based nature, the song opened Eatough’s eyes – and more crucially, his ears – to the inherent power in sonic restraint.  

“When I wrote that song, I wrote it with a band in mind,” he explains. “But as I played it back, it became obvious that other musicians could add nothing to it. It just needed a guitar and voice, and it struck me how there was so much more power in that. The song just had more resonance. I guess that’s what set me off on the singer-songwriter path. It was never a conscious plan.”

Seven years and a relocation to Manchester later – he moved here three years ago for work reasons – the grown-up Christopher Eatough is discovering how that songwriting clarity doesn’t just provide emotional punch, it also delivers plentiful adulation.

From impressing his musical peers such as Manc indie-pop darlings The Answering Machine (their guitarist Patrick Fogarty even helped out Eatough with his early recordings) to securing a record deal with indie fanzine Pull Yourself Together’s new DIY label, Eatough has emerged as a reluctant figurehead of the current Manchester nu-folk class – and, most significantly, one who’s neither had to fall back on muso gimmicks (the post-Mumford & Sons banjo’n’ukulele bandwagon) nor clichéd woe-is-me introspection in order to command such high praise.

Yet most striking is how audiences have responded to his live performances. We all know that Eatough is precious with how people engage with his studio recordings, but in the live arena, the effect has been even more satisfyingly intense. 

“I played a gig in the King’s Arms the other week,” he recalls excitedly. “And during one point, the whole room was deadly silent. I was midway through my song Wishing Box, and I just stared into the crowd and noticed how everyone was completely focussed and into it. In turn, that made my performance even more powerful. It’s so nice when that happens – it’s as if everything has just clicked into place and you know why you’re doing what you’re doing.”

One (very careful) listen to his stunning debut album A Creak In The Cold, released back on Valentine’s Day (“for all the lovers,” he deadpans), and it’s likely Eatough will have a similar hypnotizing effect on you too. 

Describing his own music as “sort of skeletal folk songs”, Eatough seems almost fixated upon songwriting in its most elemental form – a man working with what is only absolutely necessary in a digital age bombarded by all manner of musical bells and whistles.

Yes, there are musical nods to Poses-era Rufus Wainwright and early, heartbroken Ryan Adams (“a huge influence,” he says), but the over-riding impression is of Eatough’s own unfettered, untramelled expression, both lyrically and sonically: from the brittle acoustic guitars and violins to Eatough’s soul-clasping voice and lyrics, presenting him as a voyeur with his eye to the world’s keyhole; a chronicler of lives turning sour. 

But before we all go reaching for such phrases as ‘old head on young shoulders’, it’s worth noting how Christopher Eatough isn’t indulging in the anachronistic like so many of his folk songwriter peers – he’s simply in honest pursuit of the timeless.

“There are common themes throughout my album,” he explains hesitantly. “Many of the songs are like snapshots of people’s lives; people I know or I have known. If there’s a common feeling to those snapshots, then it’s people who have a sense of detachment and disappointment with life and love.

“But also, there’s a hope and optimism to those people. It might not seem evident at first, but if you listen carefully, you will find there’s always resolution and hope to these people and their situations. I’m not as bleak as first impressions might suggest.”  

A Creak In The Cold can be purchased now out at pullyourselftogetherzine.co.uk. Christopher Eatough plays Sacred Trinity Church (Salford), supporting Jo Rose on Thursday March 17. For more information visit myspace.com/christophereatough.