MUSIC Richard Hawley Sheffield. Sky Edge. Yellow Arch Studios. Longpigs. Love Is All. George Yardley. Words Andy Thomas Photographs Ross Trevail Richard Hawley’s Mercury Hawley Sr died during the making relocated to a nearby pub on the banks nominated LP of 2012, Standing at the of his son’s 2007 LP Lady’s Bridge. The of the River Don. Sky’s Edge, took its title from a ridge album was named after the oldest overlooking the city, where Sheffield’s bridge in Sheffield and an old fording When did you start writing songs? razor gangs waged war in the 1920s. On point that connected the rich and poor I was nine years old, my dad came the walks around Sheffield that inspired parts of town. He also wrote about the upstairs and I was sat in my bed playing the LP, he discovered other elements of wider metaphorical meaning of the title my guitar. I can’t remember what time the city’s past, such as the 17th-century in the sleeve notes: “We all have to of night it was but I was supposed headstone of charcoal burner George cross bridges in our lives and we all to have been asleep a long time ago. Yardley, the subject of folkloric tales have to leave things behind that are He asked me what I was still doing up. and source for Hawley’s song ‘The hard to let go sometimes, pause though I told him that I’d got this song and Wood Collier’s Grave’. The ancient before you cross and watch the ancient I didn’t know whose it was. So I played and modern history of Sheffield and river flow.” The past is a theme that it to him. “It’s thine,” he said. “What its people has been central to Hawley’s recurs in Hawley’s music. His nostalgic do you mean it’s mine?” I asked. “Well, work since he left alternative rock band songs of union were used to beautiful it’s yours. I’ve never heard that before,” Longpigs at the end of the 1990s. effect on the soundtrack to Kim he said. And he really was like a library After joining Pulp for three hectic Longinotto’s recent documentary film, when it came to songs. So he turned years of touring, he was encouraged Love is All. It’s a melancholic but the light off and told me to go to sleep. by Jarvis Cocker to release his own elevating sound that is unashamedly out I lay there with the sudden realisation music after he heard a demo. The sleeve of step, in keeping with much of the that I had written a song. And it’s been photography of the resulting debut great music to emerge from Sheffield. like that ever since. At any given L P, Richard Hawley of 2001, was taken From the electronic post punk moment in my head it’s chaos in there, outside a bingo hall in Cleethorpes, innovations of Cabaret Voltaire to the just ideas for tunes all the time. where his gran took him on holiday. 1990s bleep techno of LFO, Sheffield Similarly rooted in childhood musicians have always trodden their What do you do when you get ideas memories, his Late Night Final album own path. As someone who has lived for songs? Do you write them down? of the same year took its name from the in the city through punk, rave and No, it’s best not to. I remember toying call of Sheffield Star newspaper vendors. Britpop, Hawley has his own theory with the idea of being some kind of Its sleeve featured Sharon’s Snack Bar on this dislocation from the rest of artist, where you’d have a notebook in Castle Market, a favourite childhood the country. “You can link it to the little and pad. I tried that and it didn’t really haunt of Hawley. Released two years mesters who used to make the knives work. Basically the good ones survive. later, the LP Lowedges was named and forks here,” he told The Yorkshire It’s like the survival of the fittest in after a part of the city he had first Post newspaper. “They were fiercely my head. It’s like Jurassic Park in there. encountered on the front of a bus. independent and I think that somehow “I see romance in fairly fucking rubbed off onto the music. Sheffield Did your dad encourage you to play ordinary things,” he once said. always throws up the real mavericks the guitar? Born in 1967, Hawley grew up that don’t want to be part of a scene He was so desperate for me to pick in Pitsmoor in the north of Sheffield. and it’s something to do with the up and play that he borrowed as many His steel-worker father Dave worked mentality of the people here.” guitars as he could and left them in the foundries by day and played Hawley’s own music is very much around the house. And I remember him guitar by night, fronting his own combo a part of that heritage. And as he made getting really excited because I brushed in the 1960s and appearing with blues clear prior to the recent re-release of his against a guitar one day with my Action greats such as John Lee Hooker and first three LPs, he has no intention of Man’s head and he thought I had Little Walter. Picking up the guitar leaving the city that inspires him. With picked one up. when he was just six, the young Richard this in mind we headed up to Sheffield Hawley was guided by his dad as well to meet him at the famous Yellow Arch As you learned how to play guitar as his uncle, Frank White, a well- Studios in Neepsend, where he is did he mentor you? known Sheffield blues guitarist. recording his new LP. We have soon No, he didn’t do that at all. What he > 142 MUSIC | Richard Hawley would do was show me a third of the She had already practised on the steel are really clever coming up with some is this world with them above thing and then go off and do something workers. When Ian MacGregor [head band name, and it’s just something to everything else, like an upside down else. So he left me to work it out. And of British Steel and then the National hang your identity on. I never realised pyramid. Have you known any pyramid that was genius, because it hooked you Coal Board] came in, he became her the importance of that identity until to stand up on its top end? They think and you’d have to go and figure it out henchman and they used the police as I got to a certain age and I saw things we’ll cut the NHS, and then we’ll cut for yourself. It was a bit like doing a military force against its own people. slipping away. And I suddenly felt the army, the police force. So they are the first bit of a jigsaw for you and then And that is a well-documented fact. it was important for me to preserve kind of forcing a revolution. It will getting you to do the rest. So you had I was there although I was only a young things. Like with folk music. come to that point. Their strength to figure out the shit on your own. And boy. When it all kicked off I was about comes from dividing us, but one of that’s like life. From my perspective 12. I remember because [British TV You’ve been at Yellow Arch Studios the most powerful things in the world there was never any life plan. I just show] Grange Hill had just started. So since the first album. Walking around is union and our sense of togetherness. knew that I didn’t want to do what my when I went to comprehensive school I here you can see you’ve got a great And if we stick together we can bring dad and grandfather and all my uncles was with [Grange Hill character] Tucker affinity for the area. about change. It’s like all the online did, which was work for the man. And Jenkins all the way. And I remember I really wanted to bring you here to petitioning – that’s amazing and I sign then at the end of it get pissed on from watching avidly to see how you should Neepsend because we are in the lowest a lot of that. It’s a bit like using all the a great height. The only thing I had to be at that age. And then I looked at point in the city geographically, but tools that they control us with, by being take me away from that was the guitar. Thatcher and it was pretty apparent actually it’s one of the highest points. addicted to phones and the internet and that whatever plans she had for this It is still industrially important and all that, against them. What was it like growing up as the son country it didn’t include this little kid is one of the last of the increasingly of a well-known local musician? from Sheffield. If you were northern shrinking places here to have that. What do you think about the advance My dad was never famous, but it was and from my kind of area, you definitely And when I get my fish and chips or of technology? still quite hard to live up to a musician were not included in her plans.