Annie Hogan - Interview

by Eoghan Lyng

published: 19 / 12 / 2024

Multi-talented musician, songwriter and producer Annie Hogan has a wide-ranging chat about her new album with Eoghan Lyng

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"We haven't gotten onto James Bond yet," Annie Hogan says loudly over my Zoom call with her. "I mean, Live and Let Die, I adore that film. Paul and George Martin. Love that soundtrack." "I was watching Persuaders and The Saint as a kid, so I love [Roger Moore]." Hogan and I disagree on our favourite Bonds - I'm Dalton, she's Moore - but both of us agree that Lazenby was the most handsome of the six. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service is just a great film all round." No arguments here: George Lazenby was a superb Bond. I say that I’d like Anne Dudley to do the next film’s soundtrack. "She would be very good," Hogan says. "I would be happy to do it." We're both cinephiles, which is why Hogan is anxious to know what my time at Cannes was like. "The history of the festival," she says, "soaking in all those people." It's a sidetrack: we're meant to be discussing Depths Of Disturbances, Annie Hogan’s latest album. But it says everything about her character: bouncy in spirit, ambitious in execution. She lives a "few minutes from Liverpool" and admits she's more "nervous than excited" when it comes to the new release. "I really enjoy doing it, and it’s great that it’s out on vinyl" she says. She admits she can't help wondering what people think, no matter how much she tells herself not to. "To me, I'm doing some sort of soundtrack. I just played it downstairs on my Julie Ann record player. It sounds good: so nice. Martin Bowes mastered it at The Cage studios. It was only me doing the music. I was just on my own the whole time." Her lo-fi, holistic approach is comparable to Paul McCartney’s philosophy on his most enduring work, the three self-titled albums that bookend his career to date. I pose a question to Hogan: do audiences gravitate to artists who produce the work sans autre? "I never thought of that," she laughs. "I certainly engage with artists on their own in that sort of situation. Early stuff, and on your own, it's a little bit more liberating, and you're not so set in your ways. It's quite explorative." She sees The Wirral in “a very different light" having returned to it, recognising the beauty that surrounds her. "Ireland looks so beautiful," she admits. "Beautiful countryside: I could almost imagine living there." She's taken with Wales, which leads me to ask if John Cale inspired her. "As in Velvet Underground?" The very one. "Yeah, of course. The stuff he did with Nico I adore. His playing and production, and letting her be her, is amazing. But I'm not really listening to the new stuff." Hogan worked with Nico on a Marc Almond album in the 1980s, and briefly toured with Paul Weller & The Style Council. Would she consider collaborating with Weller again? "I don't think he would consider working with me," she giggles. "I did meet the great jazz piano-player Mark Edwards on that tour. I'd never sessioned in my life, so Weller phoned me personally, and I said 'yes'. When I was onstage playing vibes and tambo-bloody-rine, I felt like a fish-out-of-water' It's not something that interested me at all as a musical thing." Who would she like to work with? "A film director. Somebody like Robert Eggers. I adore The Witch and The Lighthouse. I've been obsessing over 'lighthouse' films, and I came across his: 'WOW!' So, someone like him. It might be a certain skill that I might not even have. You've got to be so precise to what they want. I'd love to have a brilliant relationship with a director. Morricone had a few collaborations with directors. I would love to work with Barry Adamson again, because he's such a genius." She wouldn't be the first to pivot from rock to film: Stewart Copeland, Robbie Robertson and Jonny Greenwood are three artists who have done just that. "Jonny Greenwood's soundtracks are great," Hogan agrees. "I didn't realise it was him. Do you know who John Charles is? His soundtrack to the New Zealand film The Quiet Earth is pretty good." I counter with Mark Knopfler's guitar work on Cal, a melting pot of hooks that leans on Celtic music as readily as it does the blues. "Yeah," she mutters. "I guess it's just another way of expression. If you're a trusted pair of hands, like these people are going to be, then it's going to be better than what a million producers could provide." She qualifies this statement by saying "these are only my knee-jerk reactions." A quick-fire question I ask people is: studio or stage? Denny Laine replied "stage" when I asked him, but Hogan says she "miles prefers" the studio. "I did love playing live back in the 1980s, because when you're performing with someone like Marc Almond then that's already fantastic. I loved that, but after? No." She says she enjoyed performing for Richard Strange’s event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. "It was a William Burroughs night, and I went on first to play the Steinway. I hadn't played live for like a million years, but something kicked in." But she feels more comfortable in "environments where I can be recording." Well, that's alright: John Lennon felt the same. "Yeah, he really didn't do anything live after The Beatles, did he?" She's not wrong - Lennon told Bob Harris that he fancied reuniting with The Beatles in the studio (a dream that was quixotically realised in 1995 with 'Free As A Bird'.) Annie says: "I sometimes come off stage thinking that was the worst gig, and somebody says: 'That was amazing.'" Two people can listen to a gig differently. Gene Pitney must have heard something different in 'Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart', because he re-recorded it with Almond. "I co-produced that whole album (‘The Stars We Are’). Bob Kraushaar was another producer, but he was a nightmare. My first two or three takes are always best, because there's so much heart. He made us do something like 100 takes!" And Pitney? "Lovely. Proper American Entertainer. I saw him in the booth: stripping his shirt off, and getting into it. So into it. When it was all finished, he signed a few records for me. I'd been listening to him since the 1960s, since I was a kid. Pretty amazing." We return to the album. Like McCartney before her, she created the recordings all by herself. "It's all me: doing solo piano. Inspiration at the time of feeling." What are the instruments she feels most comfortable with? "Proficiently, it's keyboards. And the other stuff is just getting notes out of things. I have a dulcimer." Her friend Ian gave her one for her last birthday, and she quickly learned how to use it. She played one in a weather cabin: "Unbelievable in there. Because it was Autumn and Winter, it was so stormy, so I took the dulcimer in and started playing to the sound coming through the walls. It immediately sounded like a film soundtrack. A few notes here and there sounded really great." She tried harmonicas, synths, mandolins: "I can get something out [of a mandolin] that sounds musical," she beams. "Expressing what's coming out of me anyway. I mean, it's not coming out Robbie Krieger." Jokes aside, she can "manipulate" everything. "There were some mics set up, but it was mostly field recorders. The acoustics were so pure, like something from a church." The album follows the ‘Tubular Bells’ example, and positions two disparate instrumentals over the vinyl. Simply titled 'Depths Of Disturbances A' and 'Depths Of Disturbances B', the work proves to be ambient, abstract and deeply involved in the geography. Indeed, it's a deeply meditative listen, capturing tolling bells, footsteps and solitary breaths during the production. Suddenly, there comes an instrument that sounds suspiciously like an organ. A nod to Procol Harum? "I do like Procol Harum, but that wasn't in my mind," she reveals. "Hadn't clicked on that, but I love hearing the organ with The Animals and The Doors. Even Billy Preston playing with The Beatles." Would she describe the record as "pastoral"? "I never know how to describe any of these things," she replies. "I only describe them as: 'Imaginary Soundtracks'. I have visuals in my head that are going on at the time. It might have a touch of 'pastoral' in there. I like all these terms: pastoral, modern classical." Ultimately, the sounds reflect the inner workings of her "heart more than my head". "The mixes are usually done in headphones in one sweep," she says. "I just get into the sounds, and it takes me where it takes me. I am very privileged to have the freedom to do that." "I just love nature; nature's everything." She returns to a quote she spotted on Twitter: 'I believe in God, but I call it nature.' That's quite a Japanese philosophy. Hogan nods her head. She's immersed in Japanese culture, stating that her mind turned to the country's philosophy when she turned 60. "When you're 60 in Japan, it's like you're reborn. I don't know if I'm reborn, but I definitely look at things differently, and try not to be so caught up in things." "There were a lot of fantastic bands from there, like Yellow Magic Orchestra," she elaborates. "It's another world: lots of amazing films coming out of there. It's so not-European, or non-American. A very distinct culture, and a lot of inspiration from there. Japan is very disciplined and rigid in a lot of ways." Hogan recalls a conversation where an acquaintance of hers elected to take two weeks for a holiday, because "it's not fair to take on your [work colleagues] to take more than that." Hogan laughs: "I want a big, long time off. Certainly, the thoughtfulness and the philosophy in Japan I find very interesting.” "People try to pick one awful thing about a country," she laughs; "Who throws the first stone?" By the sounds of things, Hogan won't be throwing the first stone, unless she intends to use it for esoteric effect in the future. And if she ever works with Robert Eggers, he most certainly wouldn't object to a stone being thrown in the mix.