Music > Interviews
The Pictish Trail
27/09/16
Meet Johnny Lynch, AKA The Pictish Trail. Hailing from the tiny, nature-powered Isle of Eigg, not only did he run the Fence Collective for years and now Lost Map Records but he’s got a successful recording career of his own. His latest album, Future Echoes is just about to come out, so I spoke to this lovely man about his DIY ethic, monikers and working with Adem and Sweet Baboo.
Do you remember the first time you wrote a song you were proud of, and what that felt like?
I put out a little mini album of home recordings in 2002, and I wrote a song called Going Down To The Water but I didn’t think much of it. They were just things that I tried to make and I didn’t really think about what impact they would have on me. It was only when I played them live and people told me it was a great song that I thought oh, that IS quite a good song! I remember feeling a bit of pride after some good feedback from my mentor at the time, King Creosote. To be honest, having that affirmation kick-started my whole career in music really.
The Pictish Trail was born in 2002 –were you in groups before that?
I was at St Andrews University and my friend and I started a band which we wanted to be the quintessential St Andrews band. We were called the Prince William Golf Band - a really unimaginative name but a fun, stupid band! Through that I met the guys from Fence and that put me in touch with the whole collective that was happening at St Andrews and I started playing with other people from there. With the Fence Collective you never really felt like you were playing in someone else’s band, you were just helping each other out with your songs and that’s what made it work so well.
You ran Fence Collective for 10 years, now you run Lost Map Records - what have you learnt along the way that has helped you in your own career as a musician?
The power of numbers - of doing your own thing but having people help you along with it..being involved with other people’s music and them being involved in yours. For me, my career as a musician isn’t just limited to me making my own music, I can feel as much of a musician by helping someone else release their music. In this day and age where there’s less label structure and less people buying music in physical formats, part of being a musician now is engaging with how best to release your music.
One thing I really love about your label, other than the music obviously, are the record covers – they are all so beautiful and unique.
A lot of it comes from the artist directly – you want their vision and for the cover to represent what their music is about, but I definitely give them guidance. I’ve turned some covers down in the past for not being so good. We’ve got a really good in-house designer at Lost Map who did our logo and website and he does all the layout for our records. Sometimes what happens is a band will come to us with a photo or an image or a drawing and they’ll hand it to David and he’ll tart it up and makes it look really nice. It’s really exciting.
You had a side project, Silver Columns, with Adem who’s a great solo artist and also in Fridge –and you didn’t reveal your identities. And obviously The Pictish Trail isn’t your real name! Do you like to keep yourself separate from your music?
Yes. There are a lot of singer songwriters who use their own name to be earnest and honest, but for me there’s something a little bit fake about that, a bit over earnest or artificial. If you use a silly name, though, there’s a persona there, and you can kind of separate the music you make and the person you are in everyday life. You want to make it special - this isn’t just Johnny Lynch making songs on his guitar, although that’s not to say the songs aren’t personal..they are. When it comes to performing them you have to have a little bit more than just “so this is me’..it’s just not imaginative enough. If you go with your own name, that’s it – if you choose to change musical direction and do a different project if you’re stuck with your name then which part of you is the true you, the true artist? If you look at someone like David Bowie who used that name for pretty much all of his career, and not his real name, he knew that it wasn’t his real name so he always had that veneer to hide behind a little bit and I think that’s liberating in a way.
You live on the Isle of Eigg, a really a tiny island powered only by renewable energy. What’s it like there, and how do your isolated surroundings and the island’s rich and ancient heritage have an effect on your music do you think?
It’s an incredible island. When I moved there about six years ago the community made me feel so welcome immediately. It’s one of the most serene and tranquil environments I’ve ever lived in. I was living in a fishing village before I moved there and it seemed metropolitan compared to the island! It’s so quiet, still and dark at night, its amazing in terms of living with your thoughts and it’s a very conducive environment in which to create as there are no distractions.
Your album Secret Soundz Vol 2 was produced by the rather excellent Sweet Baboo – how did that collaboration come about?
These are the best researched questions I’ve had! I’ve known Sweet Baboo for a long time; I asked him play at a festival I used to put on in Fife. He produced a record for Euros Child who was in Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, and it’s a really odd, surreal album recorded on a four-track, really DIY and it sounds really beautiful. So when I heard that record and realised who had recorded it I got in touch with him and asked if he’d come over and help me produce it. So he came over and we spent two weeks together recording it together. I had a lot of songs all ready to go for that album, they’d been around for a while se we had to work out how to jigsaw them together.
Your album Future Echoes is out really soon! How does it sound compared to Secret Soundz Vol 2?
My time with Fence Collective came to an end and it was a bit of a tricky period. I started a new label so there was a lot of work to do and I was increasingly finding it hard to find time to put into making my own music. I was having ideas for songs but hadn’t written one for ages. When I spoke to Adem, who produced most of the album, he said bring your ideas to me and we’ll record them and it’ll be a start. We recorded some of the start of songs together over three days in London and that really kick started the whole thing. The whole writing and recording was based on those specific 10 songs for the album whereas the previous record was a case of having 30 songs and whittling them down. I started off thinking maybe I didn’t have any more songs, but instead I’ve created the record that I’m the most proud of because I feel like I’ve spent time with and poured my heart into every single one of those songs.
The first single from it. Far Gone (Don’t Leave) was written as a tribute to Fargo, the excellent TV series and film. Was there something about the desolation of the American mid West that you could relate to?
Definitely, it’s very dramatic. The song itself is very tongue in cheek, it uses Fargo as a reference point but really it’s about not wanting to see someone again and being quite angry. Fargo’s my favourite film of all time, everything’s so isolated and it’s really dark but it’s also so stupidly, utterly funny! It’s just one of the best slapstick thrillers that ever existed! I think the characters and writing are so good, so much that’s unresolved. I love the Coen brothers take on American characters. I lived in Wisconsin for a while and it’s the sort of place that’s a good place to go if you’ve got a terminal illness because every day is like an eternity!
Are there any themes or particular subjects that you have considered through the music and lyrics on the new album?
Well there was a lot of anger to start off with, and initially the songs started off quite reactionary. Becoming a father fed into the making of the songs. My mother passed away during the making of the previous record and so this new one looks at mortality; the arrival of my son has meant I’ve been looking at it in a slightly different way. So it’s an album about death and the end of things but also about new beginnings and life, and for me it’s been cathartic.
Your whole world is filled with music, Johnny – making music, helping others to make music, delivering music to the world at large. What do you think you’d be doing if you had never gotten into music?
I used to do stand up with a friend when I was at uni, I was in a few plays and started writing stuff. I’ve toured with Josie Long since I’ve been a musician. I’d like to do something like that in the future, maybe not stand up but along those lines. I definitely don’t think I could get a proper job! The horrible thing now is I’m unemployable! I’ve been a musician for 14 years so far, so that’s not too bad. It’s all been very DIY and I’ve learnt from my mistakes, but I feel that I’ve stayed true to who I am and what I want to do.
Folk That presents The Pictish Trail at Norwich Arts Centre on 8th October. Tickets available from norwichartscentre.co.uk.