Furtively writing songs to alleviate the pain of existence, tortured songwriter Keaton Henson penned songs under Heathrow’s flight path that only he was meant to hear. Here he makes a statement about his emotional songs and his inability to connect with society:
“Ironically, living most of one’s life inside does tend to make you an outsider ‘outside’ of the outside as it were, but eternally looking in.
This affects my music only in the fact that I have an objective outlook, on relationships, on people, on the smell of coffee shops and sticky trains. Far more so than those taking part in it, drinking the coffee and reaching their destinations. But whether my observations are accurate is up for discussion, and, in all honesty, what use is objectivity really when trying to move people?
This, unfortunately, also applies to my personal relationships and social interactions. Though this just supplies more fodder for songwriting, leaving me socially inept, with an album of songs.
Though in reality, I feel, the self-involved, adolescent condition of being an artist is a result, in my case, of isolation and growing up outside the football team-supporting, Peter Kay-enjoying world. Only an artist - arrogant enough to believe the world wants to know what they think - would take such pride in being an outsider.I wrote my album after the fact. With a clear, if slightly altered, mind. I struggle to write when it still hurts. It would be like a war reporter trying to write in the midst of the fire and confusion. Emotionally speaking, I wait until the battle is over and the bodies have been counted. I get more done that way.
The real question is whether releasing my work to the world is a proud declaration of me being outside, or a desperate attempt to get in.”
Words by Matthew Bennett
What: Tortured folk
Where: London
Get 3 songs: ‘Charon’, ‘Small Hands’, ‘Nests’
Unique Fact: Keaton is so shy he performs via a video link buried deep within a twee, tiny house filled with trees that the audience peers into.
This feature appears in issue 74 of Clash magazine, out 3rd May 2012. Find out more about the issue HERE.