Listen Here: Newton Faulkner "I Need Something"
Aboard a crowded subway train racing out of London, Newton Faulkner rests his head on a pile of auburn dreadlocks that he’s maintained for 10 years for no other reason than to make himself more comfortable in the vans, cars, and planes where he spends most of his days. With his feet propped on his guitar case, Faulkner ― a bonafide pop star in the U.K. ― looks spectacularly at ease, having bagged a rare few days off, which he plans to spend “having a proper geek out” at an amusement park and an anime film festival.
After developing the percussive playing style for which he’s become known, Faulkner, 23, gigged regularly around his native England, but only in the last year has he become a true globetrotter. In just the last month, he’s traipsed from Japan to Switzerland to the U.K to the U.S. in support of his debut album Hand Built By Robots, which reached No. 1 on the U.K. charts a year ago this week, hitting stores in Canada and the U.S. only four months ago.
Now that Faulkner’s music ― especially
his hit “Dream Catch Me” ― is heard on radio stations around the world, his waist-long knotted hairdo doesn’t just function as “a blindfold and a pillow attached to your head at all times” but as a very real part of his international persona. But that’s not Faulkner’s only trait of note …
What’s this about you wearing acrylic nails? Do your friends give you hell about them?
My friends aren’t too hard on me about them these days. Most of them are guitarists anyway so they kind of understand. It does kind of weird out my girlfriend now and then. The longest fake nails I’ve ever come across is John Butler. John Butler’s got scary nails. At least I think they’re fake; I hope they’re not real ― that would be even scarier. Mine are pretty short because I’m using them for percussion, and I’m using a lot of slaps. They can’t be too long, otherwise they’d just snap off. I mainly have the fakes on just because I kept breaking my real nails and actually doing damage and causing myself large amounts of physical pain. But it makes my playing twice as loud; it’s as loud as playing with a pick but it’s fingerstyle and it avoids using fingerpicks, which I can’t use to save my life.
Your playing style is as interesting to watch as it is to hear. How did you develop it?
I was kind of just messing around to begin with, and I did something that wasn’t really particularly good musically but it was just something that not many people do ― a strange kind of pattern of hitting my guitar and slapping it. I’m kind of using the body of the guitar as a percussion instrument ― a lot of tapping on the strings. I also use a lot of open tunings and tune down kind of low to make it nice and chunky.
For about two months, I thought I invented it and then slowly started finding millions of others players in the same kind of area. The main thing for me is multi-tasking so I ended up playing another instrument with my feet. I use Taurus pedals, which are basically like the bass pedals of an organ. At the moment, they’re linked up to the laptop so I’m juggling bass and guitar. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s bloody hard work and I’ve had some lower back issues because I’ve been standing on one leg for a month.
Can you play an electric guitar like that, too?
I suck at playing electric guitar. I’m actually terrible. I’m really bad. I don’t know why. I find them limiting because you can’t hit them anywhere and the strings are all floppy. I’ve really kind of specialized.
To what extend did you use GarageBand to write and record Hand Built By Robots?
I don’t use it so much for recording but just for throwing down ideas it’s awesome. I’ve also got a USB mic to get slightly better quality without very much hassle. I didn’t use the actual GarageBand recordings on the album because most of them were too weird and fuzzy and bizarre, but there are songs I’ve written recently with GarageBand that will definitely be on the next album just because I can’t create them again. It’s a creation of circumstance.
Yours is the sort of overnight success story that most musicians only fantasize about. How did you do it?
I just did a lot of gigs, just relentless gigging. Everyone who’s ever wanted to take things further with my music is someone who’s seen me live. The way I got my publishing deal is through someone who saw me playing live, and the way I got signed to a record deal is through someone else who saw me live. If you can put on a really good live show, it sticks in people’s heads.