It might be hard to find an artist with the city of Sheffield more indelibly inked on their output than Richard Hawley. Cast an eye over his discography, and you’ll find reference after reference to the city he grew up in (‘Naked in Pitsmoor’, ‘Kelham Island’), and he’s a fixture in the local consciousness – former member of Pulp, former housemate of local artist Pete McKee, a guest DJ set here, a special edition bottle of Henderson’s Relish there – and he will be playing two intimate gigs in the surrounds of The Crucible to mark its ‘housewarming’ after its closure for refurbishment.
Ostensibly, he’s meant to be talking about the release of his sixth long player, Truelove’s Gutter, but it doesn’t take much for him to rhapsodise about his beloved home. It was returning to here from touring last December that prompted Hawley to make new lifestyle choices, and in turn provided the lyrical fodder for the album.
“I made quite fundamental decisions to not spend too much time watching telly, on the internet or mobile, and I was trying to spend time with people around me. And I discovered that when I was away having a good time or whatever, they were not having such a great time”, he says, with trademark honesty, adding that the “profound effect” of not running away to the internet to avoid tough real-life situations is definitely something that was brought to the record.
Truelove’s Gutter is permeated with a distinct sense of sadness. A glance at the tracklisting reveals imperative after imperative – ‘Don’t Get Hung Up In Your Soul’, ‘For Your Lover Give Some Time’ – that leaves you unsure as to whether Hawley means it as universal advice or as a reminder to himself.
With the album due for release (on the back of already positive reviews), and the beginning of yet another tour on the horizon, it might be reasonable to expect some nerves, but Hawley is remarkably laid back and even a tad nonchalant about what people will think of it. He seems totally content with how he’s “just happened” to make his living, and so seems unconcerned by critics’ responses.
“You can’t control people’s reactions, and I wouldn’t want to if I could. Obviously I hope it does well, but if it doesn’t, I can’t make that happen, y’know”, he says. “From experience, the important part is to satisfy yourself with what you wanted to achieve musically.”
True to form, Hawley recorded, produced and mixed the record on home turf, returning to Yellow Arch Studios and Axis Studies. The idea of taking his work elsewhere seems, understandably, to be totally ridiculous to him: “Y’know I played guitar on Jarvis’s (Cocker, former bandmate from Hawley’s stint in Pulp) record for his first solo album -there were considerations to record that in Paris or New York or wherever, and I said ‘Fuck it, no way’”, he laughs, before turning slightly more serious.
“We’ve got to bring it back home, things disappear quite easily to London, and it’s the city that formed you and made you who you are. And then all of a sudden you get successful and take it back to London, and that’s wrong to me, fundamentally, that’s not right.
“And Yellow Arch is such a great place to work and Axis has probably got the best live room in the country. Such a superb place to work and with the people that I’ve known all my life – why would I suddenly abandon them? That’d be wrong. It’s all about making sure that the money or whatever success, whatever I’ve got still comes back home – you don’t run away to London, imagine the streets paved with gold – it doesn’t exist, it’s bollocks.”
Unsurprisingly, Hawley holds extremely strong views on what he considers to be ‘right’ when it comes to the fierce pride he holds in being from Sheffield. It upsets him that what were previously Sheffield fixtures, such as the Coles Brothers department store that gave its name to Coles Corner and Jack’s Records where he once worked, are disappearing – that the city is at risk of homogenization, and that the local shops such as Beanies the grocers are threatened by “big corporate wankers – fuck Tesco, go to Beanies. They’re massively important these independent traders – great shops like Record Collector and Rare and Racy – and that’s what I am, it’s just me and my manager and that’s it.”
The sense of his romantic, slightly nostalgic view of life from his songs surfaces as he talks passionately in defence of what could vanish.
“Y’know, Sheffield used to be the Socialist capital of Britain, probably the world at one time or another, and I’m pleased to see that what Thatcher tried to do, she didn’t achieve it wholly in Sheffield, because people do look out for each other a bit more, and it’s got that sense of union.
“Not ‘union’ politically, though it is political I suppose. I mean community – my family, they’re all steelworkers and my mum and dad got divorced ‘cos of (the industry) getting destroyed, nearly fucked everything up. It’s not just my family, but hundreds and thousands of families were just wiped out, the sense of communities, and I just hope that that doesn’t totally disappear.
“There’s a spirit in this city that’s unique and not like anywhere else. It’s a fucking great city, and it’s about time for some hope and belief in each other.”
He was extremely honoured when Sheffield institutions such as Kelham Island Brewery chose to have him on their labels. Henderson’s Relish produced a batch of bottles with his album art on, and he recalls how impressed his dad was: “He said ‘You’ve fuckin’ cacked it now, kid!”, before bursting into laughter again. “A bottle of Hendo’s that’s got your name on it, with my kids putting it on their sausage and mash…fucking hell. That means more than any award to me.”
Hawley wants to do what he can with his tremendous luck. He talks of being thrilled when people from Sheffield do great things – from the success of his former flatmate and artist Pete McKee, to the worldwide domination by Arctic Monkeys. He talks of wanting to produce bands for free, like he does currently with local upstarts The Hosts, but time is an obvious constraint. For now, he’ll just have to carry on being Richard – the Pitsmoor bloke who just happens to be a bit famous and still eats his chips at the Full Stop Cafe. No-one around him would let him forget his roots and be bigheaded, even if he wanted to.
“I’ve never chased the dream”, he says. And you believe him, and know that that’s the way he’d prefer it to be.
Hawley’s Sheffield – the landmarks:
Late Night Final (2001): Album number two took its title from the shout of street vendors of the Sheffield Star newspaper.
Lowedges (2003): Number three was named after an area on the A61 heading south out of the city.
Coles Corner (2005): A plague marks the spot of the old Coles Brothers department store at the bottom of Fargate, which was known as the place to meet up with your date for the evening. It’s now a branch of HSBC and a bus stop.
Lady’s Bridge (2007): Turn right out of the Waingate entrance to Castle Market, and you’ll head over the River Don on Lady’s Bridge. It’s the oldest bridge on the river, is Grade II listed, and has so far survived both The Great Sheffield Flood of 1864 and the floodings during the summer of 2007.
Truelove’s Gutter (2009): Hawley: “It’s an ancient Sheffield street, named after a guy called Thomas Truelove. It’s now Castle Street, which joins where the Boardwalk is if you’re walking up that little street from Castle Market.”