So if I’ve got a riff in my head I’m hearing his voice. “Well, when I used to write songs for Dr Feelgood I would have his voice in my head. You mentioned Lee Brilleaux, has your songwriting method changed from writing songs for Lee to sing, to now writing songs that you’ll sing? As I say, the whole thing came together.” I’m going to go over there, sit down and watch the sun go down and then….I don’t know hara-kiri? This is just an image.
If ever I think about committing suicide, I was always think it’s going to be over there. I imagine myself over in Canvey Island there’s these flatlands, and if you look westwards you see – or you used to, the oil refinery’s have gone now – the sun going down by the refineries. “It becomes more publicity or more stories, and what. Being famous and then crashing down in flames. Got to start again!” and I actually finished it off there. In fact, I was trying to write this thing and I was actually in the vocal booth doing the vocal, and I’ve still got the last couple of lines. And then I wrote the final verse which is about suicide, I think. And there’s all this stuff about somebody crashing in flames, really. “Then Hugo I think wrote the first two verses. And I went “Wow! that sounds great!” And I thought of a line from Milton: “Dr Dupree and his Memphian chivalry.” You see the kind of way we’re going. We was sitting talking about this thing, Hugo said he had once written a song – or tried to write a song – called Dr Dupree. And this was all in the aftermath of Dr Feelgood breaking up. And I asked my friend – Hugo Williams, the poet – to see if he could make anything of it. “And anyway the band broke up and so I had this tune. But I had this song when we went in to do what proved to be my final album with them, Sneakin’ Suspicion. I couldn’t write anything around this thing that Lee Brilleaux could’ve done. And this is back in the Dr Feelgood times. And then the melody comes out of the riff.
That one, again, it did actually start with the riff right. You know, I’ve never written anything that could be described in any way as complicated.” What is your songwriting process? Do you write the riffs first? We’re doing the Albert Hall, then we’re going to Japan and then we’re probably going to make an album.” What do you do? Just stop doing gigs and everyone forgets about you. You know, you can’t retire really when you’re a musician. So yeah, you know, what else can you do? I was seventy this year and normally people have retired and that, I think. “Well, honestly I’ve kind of found I’m a miserable so and so actually and now, the only time I’m actually happy is when I’m playing. Do you think you’ll ever slow down or are you going to keep this pace up? The last year or two has been busy for you: autobiography, release of your compilation I Keep It To Myself, tours and preparation for the Royal Albert Hall show. I like to look at the sun.” He gestures to the window, as rain drizzles down the pane. “This is actually a lunar telescope,” Wilko Johnson says, pointing to the large instrument near his window. We met with Wilko Johnson ahead of this show to discuss his songwriting process, recording philosophy and influences. Since then he’s released an autobiography and is now preparing for his first headline show at the Royal Albert Hall (26 Sept). During this time, Johnson recorded and released an acclaimed album, Going Back Home, with Roger Daltrey. However, if you’re not familiar with his music, the name will ring a bell following the terminal cancer diagnosis he received in 2012, and subsequent recovery. You might recognise his distinctive choppy guitar style, in which he simultaneously plays the lead and rhythm sections. Listen to She Does It Right the riff, the simplicity, the drive – it’s three and a half minutes of proto-punk heaven. The fast-paced songs he created in the 1970’s with Dr Feelgood, along with his guitar playing style, energy, attitude and stage persona, undeniably influenced the punk movement. I’m sitting across from someone who unexpectedly changed the course of music. Image by Quercusrobur1 We caught up with a songwriting legend, one whose influence began over 40 years ago and is still felt today Wilko Johnson is one of the most influential songwriters to pick up a guitar, and feature in the sign of a bar.
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