 Fred Abbott is a London-based musician best known as lead guitarist and keyboardist for Noah And The Whale. Recently Abbott recorded his solo album, SERIOUS POKE, due out July 20th. With ten songs all penned by Abbott, the album was co-produced by Fred and Martin Hollis and recorded at the legendary British Grove Studios in London. Abbott kindly took the time to talk about the new album via email. With the incredible success of NATW, did you always have a desire to put out a solo project and why was now the best time to do so? I've been writing and recording my own songs for almost 20 years so yes the desire has probably always been there to do an album of my own material. It happened at this time because NATW was on hiatus last year so I had the time to get some songs together, some of which had been hanging around for 10 years or more, and finally record them properly. Also, one of Cliff Richard's backing singers once told me not to make a solo album until I was over 30! How is the music, both lyrically and sonically, similar to or different from Noah and the Whale? The music is similar in that a lot of the personnel are the same - it's got the drummer, bassist and violinist from Noah on it and obviously myself playing guitar and keyboards. NATW had sort of become a guitar-based pop/rock band by the end of the band so this isn't a million miles away musically, it's just more rocky I think. Were you able to put more of “you” into this record in terms of influences, and inspiration as well as your likes and dislikes? Absolutely, there was nobody telling me what to do on this record so everything that you hear is how I wanted it to be - or as close as I could get. I essentially made the record for myself, to see if I could create something that I liked. If other people like it, that's a bonus! Having been the guitarist for NATW, how is it having your vocals at the forefront on the project?
When we recorded the songs I was always intending to get another singer to do the vocals on them, somebody better than me. But I just never found the right person so we ended up keeping my vocals on there and it's become a "solo" album rather than a "band" album. It is strange as the singing is what I'm least confident at - I'd much rather have people listen to my guitar playing or piano playing. As a producer, what did Martin Hollis bring to the record? Martin is a very good engineer so first and foremost he made sure everything sounded great. And he had some excellent ideas on the production/mix as well. Having worked for years at British Grove studios engineering for legendary producers like Glyn Johns, Don Was etc. he has a great understanding of all the vintage consoles, microphones, outboard, tape machines etc. so we were able to get close to the sound of the classic records that I love and wanted to emulate. If we'd mixed the album on pro tools I don't think it would have sounded the same, Martin brought the expertise and confidence to do it "for real". What’s the significance of the title, Serious Poke? "Serious Poke" is a phrase used to imply that something has some real power. The father of a friend of mine used to use it the whole time - but to refer to the most inappropriate things. He would show you a new broom he'd bought and say "check out this baby, she's got some serious poke!" It always made me laugh. How would you describe the overall vibe of the record? To me it's nostalgic, good-time, roof-down on the highway, hair in the wind rock'n'roll. But a friend of mine said he thought it was an album of love songs, so I guess everyone's going to get their own vibe from it. What are you professional plans for the remainder of 2015? My plan is just to keep doing as much music as possible. I've been playing guitar and keys with a number of different acts in the last year, on recordings and live, including several projects with my Noah bandmates. And I'm going to play some shows doing my own material from the album soon which should be great fun. If it goes well who knows, a tour might happen. Finally, is there one recording that was recently released that you cannot stop listening to? The album Southeastern by Jason Isbell. And the new Ryan Adams album. For more information visit his official website Find him on Facebook Follow him on Twitter & Instagram Grab a FREE download of "Funny How Good It Feels" from Serious Poke here
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