Newton Faulkner on touring, theme tunes and making his life difficult: “I love the fear of pushing myself”

Newton Faulker is never happier than when he’s making his life overly complicated. He explains why his current UK tour is strangely terrifying, and why he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Faulkner has been making lists and bribing taxi drivers. “I’m sitting in a pile of bags,” he immediately volunteers, speaking to Headliner the day he leaves for his 23-date Feels Like Home UK tour, which sees him return to basics with a stripped back set focusing on the songs that work best with just a vocal and guitar part, minus the usual musical multitasking and live looping which helped make his name.

“I leave tonight,” he says, “so I took most of my gear in yesterday. I had a very annoyed cab driver who I had to bribe to take all this stuff. About halfway through loading up he just gave me a look. I was like, ‘I've got some cash and I'll give you some sheets to protect the car?' So I had to bribe him, but he was very nice – pre and post bribe, to be fair.”

Faulkner’s last tour involved an immensely complicated setup, “like flying a musical helicopter,” he says, so this time around he was keen to take it back to basics.

“I do feel quite naked. Not now,” he quickly points out. “But in terms of the previous tour, I took the entire studio with me and was doing multi instrument looping. It was ridiculous and very hard work, but very fun. 

"This tour I'm just sitting in a chair with a guitar and yesterday it became very real that that was actually what I'm doing. Strangely, considering it's where I came from, I haven't done just what I do without loads of sprinkles and toys and distractions. 

"I was also on a click for the whole tour, so every song I had the tempo in my ear, and I just got used to it. Now it's just me. It's strangely terrifying.”

Normally each tour is new record-driven, whereas Faulkner’s current tour is named after a song from his debut album which was never even released as a single. 2007’s Hand Built by Robots’ big moments came courtesy of mega hits Dream Catch Me, I Need Something and a cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop. 

On choosing Feels Like Home as the tour’s namesake, he says he deliberately chose songs that he rarely plays on tour, like Long Shot, Against The Grain, I'm Not Giving Up Yet, Never Alone, Been Here Before and Waiting On You.

“The whole way people consume music has changed,” he acknowledges. “The nature of releasing albums has totally changed. I think with that, touring has to change as well. It can't be completely project-dependent, so this is more about going with a concept. 

"It's quite funny that I'm saying this because I'm also massively wobbling on the concept, like ‘Do you know what? Shall we just change it and take everything?’ But no, we’ll stick to the concept because there's been a press release, so I can't fuck that up,” he laughs, adding with mock confidence: “So now I am doing what I said I'm going to do, very happily, with no fear whatsoever.”

Seven albums down and despite gigging “relentlessly” since the age of 13, Faulkner shares that he still gets nervous before every show – although he mostly blames that on his tendency to make his life more stressful than it needs to be.

“I make my life very complicated,” he nods, “whether it's the technical guitar stuff or vocal acrobatics, or if it’s all harmonics and tuning pegs – it is truly terrifying. But it’s keeping everything interesting for the audience. Someone came up to me after a festival I did and they said, ‘Every time I've seen you, it's been completely different’ – and I like that. 

"I like the fact that it's just me, but I think even on my own, it's important that it's not the same every time. What I haven't done for a while is strip it right back and be quite strict and be like, ‘You know what? I'm just gonna play acoustic guitars, and I've got one thing on each foot’. I've also got a kick drum because I've done that since the very beginning.”

He has treated himself to one luxury item for this tour, however: a junk hat.

“Which is almost exactly what it sounds like,” he enthuses, itching to use it. “It is a dustbin lid and some wood and some chains, and it's on quite a long hydraulic cable. When I press down my foot it opens and closes and it makes this very trashy, wood, chains and dustbin-led noise on a hi hat stand. 

"It's totally changed everything and it's brought loads of songs back which I wouldn't have even thought about playing otherwise. It glues things together in a really nice way and steps everything up.”

Faulkner shares that he couldn’t resist adding that additional bit of pressure when first getting his hands on it:

“The first time I used it, I did something that I'd never recommend anyone do. It arrived on a Tuesday and it did its first gig on the Wednesday. That is a bad idea. Don't do that. But on this occasion, it worked brilliantly. 

"Something happened with this setup that I hadn't really seen that much before. In the opening track I came out and I started playing this thing, and everyone started dancing – and just me sitting in a chair on my own, that doesn't doesn't happen that often! 

"But there's something about the combination of the kick drum, the junk hat, the guitar, all of the words, strings, chains and the drums that just really works. It is such a direct communication of everything I'm trying to do. There's no looping things getting in the way and locking you in. It's very honest. It's got this real, genuine, actual groove to it, which I love.”

He assures Headliner that the fan favourites will be included this tour, in addition to some that he didn’t realise were fan favourites to begin with, including his debut album’s second to last track, Ageing Superhero.

“That dropped off the setlist quite a long time ago, and suddenly I had hundreds and hundreds of requests for it. I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I'll do that then’. Gotta give the people what they want. So that was surprising. 

"There's loads of tracks where I was like, ‘How did you even find that?’ There's songs that I can't not do, because people really like them, which is a nice problem to have. Then there's songs that I want to do for me – usually because they're bordering on impossible. 

"That's what I find the most exciting: how hard is this? Can I do it without feeling like my brain’s going to explode? If not, then I’m not really that bothered,” he laughs. “I love the fear of really pushing myself, technically and physically. Normally I have to tick those boxes and then promote whatever I've just released, but this is outside of the rules.”

Headliner has got this far into writing this without mentioning the obvious: Faulkner is funny. During the interview, he shares that he is “upon the Tik Tok, doing straight up dance and make up tips,” he’s forgotten to include Dream Catch Me multiple times during sets – “people haven't complained!”– and that he sometimes adapts the arrangements of his songs as he goes along – “which is probably a terrible idea”.

His self deprecating sense of humour is what makes him so likeable. Oh his recent early morning ritual of “noodling” on the guitar for two solid hours, he admits he got the idea from a cellist. “Yep, I totally stole it. This cellist, who is a friend of mine, gets up very early every morning and plays for two hours. I thought, ‘That sounds delicious. I'm having that’.”

He’s also a fan of leaving a gap in his set list for a mystery song, which could be anything from incorporating Kiss the Girl from Disney’s The Little Mermaid into the gig, to using the ‘80s X Men theme tune as his entrance music.

“I've got so many theme tunes in my head. I’m an encyclopaedia of useless theme tunes. I've never even seen The Littlest Hobo and I know the theme tune. Round The Twist,” he throws out, on a roll now. “It's a stone cold classic. 

"There is a mystery cover I've been bouncing around that I haven't haven't done live,” he ponders. “I've done bits of it, but I've never done the whole thing. I could just whip that out…”

Anyone that has seen Faulkner live will know that he has a knack of pulling people out of their shells. Even the most reserved audiences are no match for him.

“Crowd participation and some of the out and out stupidity really helps loosen up the room,” he smiles, recalling one particular night at the Royal Albert Hall.

“I've done such stupid things in such lovely places. I was opening for John Mayer and I was four songs in. Everyone was sitting very still, clapping very politely and stopping very abruptly. You could feel the pressure of the situation on the crowd itself, like, [his already well spoken voice kicks up a notch] ‘We have to behave. It's very serious, be serious’. 

"There was that kind of vibe, but I wanted them to get involved. I was like, ‘If you get involved with this, I'll do something really stupid. Then you've got something, I've got something – everyone's happy’. So they did amazing three-group crowd participation, which I wasn't expecting them to do as well as they did. 

"In exchange for that I played the SpongeBob SquarePants theme tune. When I did that, it was like the entire room changed shape. It had a tangible effect on the air in the room itself. Everyone relaxed and it was amazing.”

Theme tunes and big hits aside, Faulkner says this tour is a talky one.

“I don't really plan talky stuff, but that's part of the vibe for me. It’s kind of chilling out a little bit and also talking about the songs a little bit more, because generally my usual introduction to the next song is, ‘This is a song’, which obviously doesn't give you much information. 

"I don't really like being like, ‘I wrote this when the sun was in the sky, and my son was playing with Lego and I was like: oh, songy, song song’. I don't like explaining what songs are about because I think everyone decides what they want it to be. It’s almost better to just ask three people and pick your favourite thing that they've said and be like, ‘That’s what it's about. What she said’.”

When asked what the best UK crowds are, he doesn’t hesitate: “Manchester's always good. Dublin's always amazing. London…I don't want to jinx this, but it has been consistently one of the best shows for the last however many tours, which is not what anyone else says, ever.

“There are sections in songs that I put in just for the crowd to sing,” he adds. “It's amazing when I don't say anything and people just start doing bits because it makes me sound amazing, because I'm just sitting playing guitar and people are literally doing BVs for me. 

"Everyone approaches live performance differently though. With me, my set list always has loads of question marks and gaps where I'm like, ‘I don't know what's gonna happen here, but let's leave a gap and see what transpires’,” he laughs.

That reminds him, he’s got some last minute planning to do:

“I need to finish my list. I need to get out the door. I've got a whole satchel – I've never said satchel in my life – of effects pedals to go and play with. I’m off to bribe some more taxi drivers and fill up my satchel. I’ll take my lunch pail.”

Catch Newton Faulkner on his Feels Like Home UK tour this October.