Jack Savoretti: How to Build a Music Career Without Depending on the Industry

0:00Ben Hanlin: I've just got into a studio with Kylie Minogue.

0:02Jack Savoretti: Later I saw what she's got. That's really depressing. You do learn more from failure than you do from success and I invite it. Like I look forward to it.

0:10Ben Hanlin: Welcome back to What's The Trick. I am your host Ben Hanlin and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people and try and understand their creative process. And today's guest is singer, songwriter, musician Jack Savoretti. So I'll bring you up to speed about Jack and why I really want to chat to him on this pod so Jack is a British Italian born in London and then in his in his teenage early teenage years he moved to Switzerland and he went to an American school and that's when his friends introduced him to old school American music things like Bruce Springsteen Simon and Garfunkel and then at 15 he got into poetry and he was people saying he was really good and his mom pulled him to one side and said hey why don't you turn these into songs and just like that that's when his journey into songwriting and being a musician started and the reason I wanted to sit down with Jack is because he's had this brilliant successful career but it's taken him a while he hasn't done this in the traditional get signed big label and the rest is history he's done it a different route and he's done it his own way which we find out about so to kind of bring you up to speed on that he was signed early on his career and then he left that label and he started working independently and creating his own music and his own albums with his manager and then other small indie labels and he basically went up and down the UK hustling doing whatever gigs he could do and building an organic audience before social media this is properly each gig at a time type building audiences and eventually he got a deal with cafe nero to go and do a cafe nero tour and go up and down the country there fast forward to 2019 and eventually all that hard work and graft paid off and he got signed by bmg and his album singing to strangers went to number one for the first time ever and then in 2021 his follow-up album europiana went to number one as well so you can see how all that work paid off he's done other amazing things as well he's worked with people like shania twain niall rogers he's worked with kylie minogue we chat about all of that as well and cutting to present day what's he up to right now well he's on the middle of a tour at the moment for his album we will always be the way we were and that tour is the biggest he's ever done he's just sold out the royal albert hall he's got another date on sale and he took some time off of that to uh have a chat with us and we filmed this i was in london he was in oxfordshire we filmed this remotely and this is a great great episode all about his mindset and how he basically took control of his own career which you're going to hear about so i'm going to shut up this is what's the trick with jack serretti

2:48Jack Savoretti: I'd been a songwriter in my own little world in my head since I was about 16, 15, after discovering Simon and Garfunkel and realizing that in three minutes you could write a novel, which for somebody with a short attention span was an amazing magic trick to figure out. But it was only when I moved to London that I sort of, I was going to pubs and like hanging out with people and they were like, I would ask them what they did and they were like, I'm a graffiti artist or I'm a poet. and I was like yeah but what do you do like what's your job and they were like no no that's what I do and I was like that's an option and so when I kind of learned that that was an option that was a possibility the way I approached music changed completely because I started looking at it as this is going to be what I am and what I do from now on it's not going to be something I tried to do it's not gonna be something i attempt it is this is it like it's kind of like a real commitment

3:44Ben Hanlin: to it so so let's start there then the day you decided i'm gonna be a musician what were you doing were you doing a bar job were you doing any other jobs and then what do you what do you do to

3:55Jack Savoretti: then start making money out of that right so i was making falafels in a place called tazawan cafe on the gold hawk road for a wonderful egyptian man called mimma who was a wonderful man who took care of me although paid me predominantly in falafels and not in cash which didn't really help um and it was around that time that i was starting to meet a lot of interesting people in london and it was actually through a really weird connection um my mother was kind of worried at this point i was about 19 i think and i went to meet this lady looking for advice and then ended up she ended up asking if she could represent me that relationship then didn't work out we didn't see eye to eye creatively and in many other ways and then i was truly on my own so i sort of saw the beginning of the industry through people that were in the industry and then kind of cut the cord immediately but i never wanted to need the music industry because i was very aware from the beginning that the music industry didn't need me so i wanted to always have a fair deal with the industry so if we work together something good could come from it but I don't want to be dependent on it because I know that the industry doesn't depend on me there'll be somebody else if it's not me so I wanted to create something on the side so in your

5:05Ben Hanlin: head even back then you're thinking hold on this maybe I'm not don't put words in your mouth but you're thinking this industry is a bit fickle if I if I rely everything on them at any point they can go thanks a lot kid see you later and you've got no control exactly that exactly and that killed

5:21Jack Savoretti: me because failure doesn't scare me I have I invite failure actually I mean I've always learned more from failure than from success it is that old cliche there's a cliche for a reason you do learn more from failure than you do from success and i invite it like i look forward to because it also i like the challenge of failure because that really sort of establishes if you do want to be better or if that's as good as it gets you know what i mean you're sort of given the real ultimate test it's like sport like you can't hide from it um but i think what i hated was the idea that somebody else could remove my what i loved doing because they failed or they didn't get it or they didn't like it right and and that was something i couldn't swallow like i can swallow my own failure but i didn't want to give it in the hands of somebody that would then drop something that was so valuable to me and then they would drop and break it i was like no no

6:11Ben Hanlin: i'm gonna hold on to this so then fast forward a bit so then the answer to that is to do things

6:17Jack Savoretti: more independently is that correct yeah but when i say independently i mean i'm always very delicate with that word because by being independent you actually have to become incredibly dependent on the right people so independently on a sort of uh capitalistic point of view i guess you could say but on a personal level i had to to become independent i had to start depending on a lot more people in a weird way um i had to start really building a team and who i surrounded myself with is the reason i love the life i have now not the career i have i mean but it all goes hand in hand because i just decided to i'm gonna pick it's like picking a football team like i'm gonna put everybody in the right position and make sure that i i trust and believe in the people out

7:04Ben Hanlin: there and with that so obviously when we see as outsiders look at the music industry you see these people that they they get a label they get on the radio and their career goes up and they play big big venues or whatever it is right but your strategy like you say was to take more control and do things your way so did you even back then i guess this was probably around what 2008 9 10 something like that did you guys set a strategy of like right we're going to go and play small venues and then do it again and play big like was there a plan there as how because eventually fast without giving away the ending 2019 you got to a number one album so i'm trying to work out how did we get there how those yeah from there to there you know well at rock bottom

7:45Jack Savoretti: it was actually my manager who's still my manager at the time who was a dear friend of mine he was one i i chose two managers once i walked away from people in the industry i asked a friend of mine a very dear friend of mine who to come and work with me and a wonderful uh my my manager nico misha and a wonderful woman called danielle livsey who she had actually done a charity event with me um and i had seen her at work and she was amazing so i brought them together and asked if they would both manage me. And it was actually one of them, Nico, when we were really at rock bottom and the industry had literally slammed the door in my face, I had wanted nothing to do with it.

8:20Jack Savoretti: He, I did something, my wife was pregnant. We were expecting our first child, my daughter. And there was a real moment. And I did pick up the phone and phone many friends of mine in other industries and said, you need someone to come and make coffee in your office. I was looking for work. and he actually said why don't we just you know get in a car you and me and go up and down the country and play man do what you're supposed to do go and play go to work um and i very early on had always said if i work really really hard i'll never have to get a job that was always my philosophy when it came to doing this and he kind of reminded me of that he's like we got to go back to work you can't just sit here trying to you know outsmart the industry or outside like just go to work go play music that's what you want to do go play your music people so we did so we spent like a good two or three years in every different form i mean we did even a partnership with her we did a wonderful partnership with cafe nero where we were we played 63 i think or 53 or 62 i forget we still have the record apparently because they still do it cafe nero's across the country i mean we were doing three a day for one month and that was an experience and and but that was your thought then

9:27Ben Hanlin: what every single crowd that sees me is a way of converting them to be a fan and just the more people i get in front of that's like essentially one by one you're creating this army of jacks of retty fans was it almost as simple as that you know it really was man it was pretty i mean when

9:43Jack Savoretti: you say like it looked like in this day and age to look at it that way it's like what that's like literally putting granules of sand to make us egg but that's how we did it it was it was the myspace i mean myspace was kind of there but it already like within seconds that already became kind of mainstream and really competitive and i wasn't good at that and i'm also just not inclined that way like i was good at grabbing a guitar and standing in a room and

10:06Ben Hanlin: playing like i liked doing that yeah and then i mean yeah like you say now if you're doing it now you'd probably just make a video and it would get to a million people you don't have to go to a nero in reading or wherever it is but but then here's the other thing that i think is so i've had a lot of conversations with music people about the industry and where it is at the moment and you've got these people who are doing it differently they're blowing up online and they're sitting in their bedrooms and they're creating these songs and then they're becoming superstars overnight it but the way you've done it is and a comedian mentioned this to me scott bennett is about craft doing that every single gig i mean you've got how many thousand shows under your belt i suppose i

10:44Jack Savoretti: mean i learned how to sing really help you i learned how to sing then like not when i say i learned how to sing that sounds a bit um i mean i loved singing and i could sort of sing and all that but i learned what i wanted to sing like i learned i found my voice you know miles miles davis always says it takes years of imitating to find out what you truly sound like and i i i imitated i started imitating i still occasionally of course i'm influenced by stuff i listen to and i'll sing in a certain way or i'll write because i'm you know i've been listening to something and it it seeps its way in but when you go out there and you put yourself out there when you stand in a pub with a hundred people who aren't there to see you they're there to see their mates they're They're to have a good time and drink and talk and catch up and talk about their marriage, divorce, their work.

11:29Jack Savoretti: They've been fired or something's going on in their life. And you got to sort of have a moment in the corner. You learn what you can and cannot do. And you learn the limitations. You're like, OK, I shouldn't do that. That's not going to work. But I used to be really soft spoken. I used to sing very quiet. It's funny. If you listen to my first record, it's I mean, apart from the fact that was only like 20 or 21 when I made it. it's so soft i had never done a gig in my life when i made that record i think i'd done like one gig at school in high school you know what i mean like at a talent show or something or but i'd never even played a pub i don't think by that point um after that sort of didn't work i hit the road for about two or three years and then if you hear the next record it's like suddenly there's this i mean i think there was a bit of anger and frustration and like there was something there was a grit suddenly that showed up but also i was trying to grab i was trying to like get the room get people to listen like i was really trying to grab people by their

12:28Ben Hanlin: shirts and go i got something to say here something you've said twice that imitation so let's let's dive into that so this is that i think we i've not actually spoken about this on this show i don't think but i think it's really really important so first of all with you who are you trying to imitate on you know jack savretti on stage day one i mean as a songwriter i was trying to imitate

12:47Jack Savoretti: Paul Simon. I was trying to find the beauty within colloquialisms. Make a park bench the most romantic place on earth. Talk about toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my ring coat. That is a lyric of Simon and Garfunkel. That's amazing to me. The colloquialism of that lyric. We all just go oh, I want to be in that moment. And so that's what I've tried to imitate. As a performer um i think there's a guy called kelly joe phelps who probably in the uk nobody will he's not that known he's quite known but in the states he's quite big i heard that voice for the first time and i thought that's why i want to start everyone was so clean everyone is still so clean like when you hear a lot of especially in the sort of singer songwriter world there is a sort of tendency for these very clean voices and i was always more drawn i think very much because i grew up on italian music and italian singer-songwriters always had a little bit more grit i don't know why it was just that's what it was the trend of the 60s and 70s that my dad listened to so i grew up with and but i like these kind of more rugged voices voices that i felt like had lived what they were singing about um yeah and so i guess i was imitating that i would say van morrison the

14:03Ben Hanlin: springsteins uh but yeah but the thing is with imitation i think is that it seemed it seemed like as a dirty word like oh you're imitating but my and this so this happens a lot with magic right so obviously i grew up as a magician yeah the magician that the i know you've talked about bruce springsteen being the one of the catalysts and the and that kind of music for me it was david blaine in the late 90s right i love that with my it was my springsteen and i imitated him you know the first time i learned a magic trick he'd use his very little words and i would be like watch pick a card i think i even started to have the same kind of tonal voice totally i used to do

14:40Jack Savoretti: that in between songs i used to speak i went to see rayla montaigne and he was so quiet yeah right exactly and it was like that was a religious experience and he was so quiet in between songs like thank you thank you and i remember doing a show at a pub and doing the same thing and my wife was my girlfriend at the time she goes what are you doing she's like what's this like fake humble thank you she's like you're the you never shut up don't be that guy be yourself yeah but but then i

15:04Ben Hanlin: think looking back and even i've heard derren brown talk about this but from my world it's like go and imitate to begin with because at least it gets you on the stage it gets you so so you know

15:15Jack Savoretti: learn a magic show and do it it gives you confidence it's sort of because you because you know how good that is you know what i mean yeah yeah and then like you say now you've got

15:24Ben Hanlin: the now you're in the space then slowly strip that away and don't be imitating five years ten years

15:30Jack Savoretti: on no i agree you've got to you've got to fight i mean some people do and some people make a great career out of image you know they find their reach i don't think it's a dirty word i agree with you that it is considered a dirty word but um i wish there was a better word than imitate because i guess you could say be inspired by but that also doesn't really cut the yeah i mean you know i have children i have three children and they imitate when they're starting they look at you they sit like you they they don't to begin with but then slowly slowly they grow out of it and their own personality and their own character is brought through but yeah the confidence to discover their character this the confidence to find that person that in that inner who they are initiates through like through your behavior sometimes bad and good which is the pressure

16:14Ben Hanlin: of being a parent but it's the same in creativity going back to that kind of era the all that time in your life where you were going up and down the country you were building this you know one gig at a time and learning your craft something that that resonated with me or question that that i think is interesting to ask is what was the thing there that kept you going and was there signals or things that you went i know because eventually we know the ending of the story it's all worked out but when you're in it and you're going god i've just driven there to play to 50 people or 100 people what were the things but what were the signals and the things you went i know this is

16:53Jack Savoretti: going to work because x y and z part of it was youth for my evie day and and like yeah arrogance to a degree but also i think the real without being it was my daughter my my it was no longer

17:08Ben Hanlin: just for me it was like and and and the brutal i think truth that i had to come up with to face

17:17Jack Savoretti: at that point was i don't know how to do anything else like i've been so narcissistically naive and arrogant to think that this is something I should do. I haven't really put much effort into learning how to do anything else. And what, you're going to just stop now because it ain't working out how you thought? I was like, come on, mate, then go with how it goes. Okay, the wave isn't the wave you thought you were going to be surfing, but there's still waves out there. Like, get back out. Go find it. I tell you what also, what really was the, another amazing awakening moment was when COVID happened, when lockdown happened.

17:50Jack Savoretti: I kind of hadn't realized that because it was always a grind and it was something i i had always felt like i'd been pushed into this um i have to be a live working musician because i don't have that hit single i'm not streaming the numbers that are crazy i don't have that online presence or connection that other artists have like i have songs on radio but they don't connect but live it was working it kept growing every time we went to a city that the audience doubled so i could see it i could actually viscerally physically like okay this is working nobody needs to tell me i can see it but i was i don't want to say i was bitter but i was like oh man this is exhausting like i don't know how much longer i can do this it was it wasn't the healthiest lifestyle it was grueling it was brutal and it was only when covid came and suddenly the university went and took it away from me that i was like oh whoa i really missed that like where's it gone it had become such a part of my life by that point that once it got taken away from me i was like oh my god actually i was so grateful because seeing how the worlds work and seeing other friends of mine who work in this who do have tremendous success on streaming and all that they don't get that thing that we get like you know what i mean we've really actually i really realized the value of what we had built when it got taken away from me so since lockdown since our return coming back in the last five five four five years it's been a whole new love for something that i kind of used to resent

19:17Ben Hanlin: no do you know i i had a very well as soon as lockdown happened and i would speak to a friends of mine in the industry and i i was really out of love with with performing and mad and that and every month i was like yeah tired and i was like do you know what do you know i also used to question i used to question what like so so you as you get a bit older you try and think okay I need my life to have a bit of purpose and ideally not just about me right because standing on stage getting rounds of applause is lovely but it's quite selfish right and you know and you kind of think I got to a point of like well what who am I actually helping and there's people out there doctors nurses what am I actually bringing to the world and then when it got taken away two things happened the first thing I thought I remembered is it gave me a love for it again and then I actually weirdly and this I might be wrong and you might be going god Ben you're a bit self-indulgent but i actually realized i'll go into rooms and making people happy and smiling actually is a is a nice thing and i it completely reset how i thought about my job in that sense

20:17Jack Savoretti: 100 during lockdown i learned to not to go crazy i just bought a piano beautiful little baby grand piano backstine which i couldn't afford but i went for it i was having it had been a really good year but just before lockdown was our best year we had like reached the pinnacle we had number one we sold out Wembley. It was like, it was like, and then study the world. It was like the ending of a movie. Um, but to keep myself from going absolutely insane, I learned to cover a day. I learned a song a day on the piano also because I was trying to learn the piano and I did it on, on Instagram and it is mad still today, five years later.

20:52Jack Savoretti: Like I was doing that totally for me, to be honest, not to go crazy. I mean, of course I love that it was entertaining and it was something that people could turn to but i really needed it too i wasn't just doing it as a service for others it was very much for me but still today six years later five years later people come up to me like oh man thank you so much for those songs today and it got me through covid and that i i totally took that for granted before lockdown and i i really did because it maybe also it's an age thing it's wisdom it's experience and all that but i really had a yeah like you're saying i was i was i was becoming quite resentful of it because i didn't i was like what do you need this do you really need the applause like what are you doing this for what is this and i hadn't really ever taken into consideration what it does how people receive it

21:39Ben Hanlin: and now i really do hello it's ben and this is our commercial break or as regular listeners know this is not really a commercial break because i've got no sponsors still but this is a chance take a little stop and i can tell you about a few things that we're doing so first of all this is jack savretti really really nice guy really passionate musician and if you want to support jack obviously he's jack savretti on all social media and we will always be the way we were is releasing 10th of april so you can go and have a listen to the album there the tour it's his biggest tour that he's ever done across uk and europe tickets are on sale now i think he's playing in the royal albert hall in a few weeks time there is one more date there that you can go and see him at that incredible venue all the tour information is at jacksofretti.com so give him a like a follow and if you can buy a ticket and from my point of view let's have a quick recap last week's episode dom jolly you lot loved it on social media it did one and a half million views so thank you to everyone who shared that and told people and laughed about it and sent me a dm dom jolly is a truly interesting guy so you can go and have a listen to that if you are a new listener by the way we have these conversations every week and if you're enjoying this episode you might like to go back and listen to owen cuttsy's episode he's a music producer so if you're into music you can do that and thank you for being here and i'm going to tell you something that i say to people every week is uh i'm trying to grow the biggest creativity podcast in the world from scratch so i'd really need everybody's help so if you can subscribe give it a five-star review and most importantly think about who would like this podcast who is your friend your family take out your phone and drop them a whatsapp and go hey listen to this if every single person can share this to their community this thing is going to keep growing and i wasn't gonna i'm gonna share some news with you i don't know if i should it's not been 100 confirmed but i've had a tv show that have um seen what we're doing and has asked me to come on the show and promote the podcast so we're slowly getting there so all of this is really really helping thank you and other things you might be wondering what do i do as a job because as i've been very clear this is more of a passion project at the moment so i had a busy week last week i'll tell you this is genuinely true i was in belfast i was in wales i was in london i was in brighton all in the same week and that was going up and down doing either evening corporate events hosting corporate awards or i was doing my keynote about human connection which i am loving telling people how i've built a career on communicating and showing people how it is easier than you think and giving people actionable ways of doing that all that information is on my website benhanlin.com and who knows i could be coming to a corporate event near you anyway right that's enough of my spiel for this week as always though i will always say i always appreciate every single dm and message that people are sending me so if you're on board if you're a new listener if you're an original listener an og just drop me a message and i'd love to hear from you okay this is what's the trick with jack Cerretti.

24:39Ben Hanlin: I want to move on to creativity and I think the easiest way to tackle this because again I've never really heard or been able to unpick a musician like this. So how does a Jack Cerretti album start? So let's you can start with does it start with a genre an idea and then we can unpick it and then work out I want to understand then how do songs get made within that process so however you want to unpick that answer i mean every album has been different

25:09Jack Savoretti: um so i i i love making records um i love songwriting but songwriting is something i do just out of survival but i love when it comes to work um songwriting to me isn't work making an album is work like a body of work like literally i like to sort of put it together when you say you

25:29Ben Hanlin: do songwriting is that so i speak to comedians some comedians write every single day and they say it's just like a muscle is that similar with you are you always on or are there moments in your

25:38Jack Savoretti: life where you're feeling more inspired to write oh for sure i'm always on but i'm not always writing in the sense that like i'm always open to receive i'm like everything's open to receive so that like i'm sort of storing i feel like i'm you know taking it in but i don't i'm not somebody who has to write every day i don't like panic if today i've got nothing to write i got nothing to write

25:58Ben Hanlin: i'm gonna wait but when you say you're open to receive so if you mean you're walking around london today or something and something sparked you do you take out your phone and make a note

26:08Jack Savoretti: or is it a lyric or is it a thought of like it'll it'll if i feel it it'll come out later it's kind of how i i don't i don't have to jot it down i don't i never write anything down that's kind of people accuse me of being lazy but it's what i call my editing process if i don't remember

26:23Ben Hanlin: it wasn't worth it right okay that's kind of my thing yeah it means it hasn't really like

26:29Jack Savoretti: tattooed itself onto my soul exactly so then why should i think about it um okay but the process my songwriting process is i never wake up in the morning and go today i'm going to write a love song or today i'm going to write a protest song i never do that i usually sit down and out of the most magical thing that life has to give us, which I think is boredom, I find myself looking for something. There's nothing more inspiring than boredom. And so I will grab a guitar and I will, you know, grab a, play one note or play other piano. And that one chord will ignite whatever it is I've been open to receive in the last period of my life.

27:10Jack Savoretti: You know what I mean? That's usually, that's how the songwriting happens. But the album has been different every time. I like the last few albums, but my career really struggled. And I decided to really get the craft of making albums rather than worrying about the song or like, do you have the song? Because that's what they always say in the industry. Oh, you're just missing that one song. And I hate that. I'm like, what? Missing it for what? For my bank account or for what we're creating here? Because one song does help your bank account. I'm not going to lie. But when it comes to craft and process, I don't give a crap about one song.

27:45Jack Savoretti: i want the whole body of work and um i used to put a lot of emphasis on concepts so i mean i i've made albums with very strong concepts where i actually come up with the whole concept before i even start writing i'm going to do an album about this i've done it like proper i did one called europeana which was celebrating european music i did one called singing to strangers which was all about i wanted to have a lot of italian i wanted i wanted to basically be an italian album in English, like a classical Italian album. We recorded it in Rome at Inge Morricone's studio. I wanted, the way we dressed, I wanted, I told the band how to dress in the studio.

28:20Jack Savoretti: Like we really went, it was like making a movie. Like I want it to be real. But my last album, We Will Always Be The Way We Were, was the complete opposite. I wanted to remove all concept from it and just go straight to the jugular. And like really kind of, because it's an album that I almost called it Midlife Crisis, it was a total self-reflecting like in i mean at the peak of a midlife crisis i decided like this was my survival mechanism through it was making this record i really had to look inwards i really had to like do some soul searching and get to know myself rather than who people think i am or what i want people to see or what i want people to think i am like do i actually know who i really am was kind of the approach of this album so to do that i was like remove the outfits remove the nice clothes remove everything you're putting on perception go and actually go in go

29:10Ben Hanlin: inwards so do you have that theme for in your head of going this is where i think i'm at in my life and this is the the big theme that i keep thinking about and then every day when you're writing or you're waking up and because you know that's your north star is it those kind of thoughts that then start to trickle in as you then pick up the guitar and go oh and it just happens to because ultimately me that's the the big thought and then that leads to lots of little random spin-offs is that right

29:39Jack Savoretti: am i explaining that totally but for me there's two songs that i write all the time one is like a game it's like a riddle where you're like okay i love this oh i've just really this is what i've just figured out in life have you ever noticed it let's write a song about that so then it becomes like how do we get this to fit oh i felt this emotion i want to describe that or i saw this happen i want to describe that so you're like okay let's start like this and you sort of construct it And then there's the, in Italian, I would say, Anima Cora, like heart and soul song, where you literally surrender to a premonition.

30:13Jack Savoretti: Like songs can be like premonitions, because if you do that type of songwriting, no, it's a craft. You're building a little building. You're putting everything in that place. Then you turn this way and you're like, I'm just going to close my eyes and jump and say what comes, like just let it out.

30:30Ben Hanlin: The rawest, honest thing right now is I am in love with you or I'm not in love with you. Who knows?

30:37Jack Savoretti: You don't, like no thinking, no thinking, just feeling. Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel. Like out, out, out, out, out. And then you can think about it afterwards. I mean, it's crazy. I get scared when I write songs because sometimes I'm like, ooh, that's not, what is that about? I don't know what some songs are about until years later. There are some songs I know exactly how they were crafted. I know exactly why I put that the weight of that word there because I'm trying to tell that story but then there are others that are total you know they just they just happen some of them you hold the lightning running way to be struck as Tom Petty others you build like an architect for days

31:14Ben Hanlin: and so I felt it's quite interesting when you said about you pick up the guitar and you play a chord so um does that then in general it might change do you do you start with melodies and you just tinker with melodies or do you just start putting words straight out there it kind of goes together

31:29Jack Savoretti: i think it's always fascinating music has this amazing magic of removing you from yourself that's quite kind of what it does um and allowing by removing you from yourself you sort of discover your true self in a sense you sort of give in you surrender to it kind of it like scoops into your soul and carries it out and then you get to look at it and go oh i didn't know i was feeling that way you know it's like when a certain song comes on and suddenly your eyes are watching like what's going on why am i feeling or goosebumps you don't say to yourself now let's have goosebumps it just something it scoops you up you know it gets into your soul it's the same when you're writing like one chord you know a diddy-de-dee will suddenly make you think of when i was young like that digga-da-dum that like it'll just throw a riff like it'll release something that and then the minute you say when i was young that when i was young take that suddenly opens up whoa boom and then and so it begins but it's like as simple as that do do do do that makes you and that opens opens opens the world in front of you so here's a question which song do you wish

32:36Ben Hanlin: you'd written oh my god how long do you have i know i know i know we could do a whole episode on that but i just thought i cannot ask you about songwriting and you know without going come on what's the song that you go oh my god how does that person write that song i'm gonna i'm gonna

32:53Jack Savoretti: give you a ray lamontane song actually because i never do this uh i never i i usually i would sort of go to simon and garfunkel always but yeah yeah but um i heard it just because i heard it last night and it's called empty um and it's it's almost depressing when i hear it because it's like ah back to the drawing board like that's the opening lyric it's it's yeah yeah he opens up with she lifts her skirt up to her knees runs through the garden of roses bare feet laughing like that's the opening line like it's a it's the opening to an oscar-winning movie it is an it's the opening to an epic it's so cinematographic like um it's just incredible um yeah and so lyrically this is more lyrically lyrically i wish i had written that

33:44Ben Hanlin: wow that's a great answer and joe that's just a question just popped up um i don't know how you might answer this but why can some singers because the way you said that you said that singer is like well that lyric is transported you when it comes to standing on stage how come some singers connect with an entire audience and some don't i i think that is a craft in itself

34:06Jack Savoretti: I think authenticity has a lot to do with it because there's performative connection and authentic connection and by the way I don't think one is better than the other I respect performative connection as much as I do authentic I know some people will be like ah it's don't don't don't don't shoot it down until you've tried it because it is just as hard to connect performatively as it is authentically like they're two different crafts but crafts nonetheless um personally i'm always searching for an authentic because i i enjoy it more i don't get off on the performative connection some people really do i don't i it doesn't it doesn't do it for me i love an authentic connection but sometimes i have to be performative to get there in a certain way i don't know how to explain it you have to kind of fake it till you make it even it's a bit like in a relationship you know what i mean sometimes that day you're just not feeling it or you're not feeling each other and then you say you know what i'm going to walk up and i'm going or hold her and you go and you hold her and then suddenly you reconnect and then then there's an authentic connection but there is a performative element which then gives an authentic it's the same with a crowd sometimes you've got to put yourself out there i don't know why some can and can't i i think it does go back to it freaks me out when i see it happen with really young artists that they just naturally have it that does scare me and i think it scares them and what do they

35:25Ben Hanlin: again it's drilled out so when there's a young artist there and they're doing something what

35:29Jack Savoretti: is it you see they're going oh that's great well i think there's the the most dangerous one is a genuine authentic gift of connection from an artist and i when i think of people like jeff buckley when i say that i think of people like elliot smith i think of people like amy weiner i it doesn't it can be terrifying i think for or janice joplin's people like that because i think I don't know if that's necessarily, it's a very powerful thing to then have. And if you don't want it, you don't really have the choice to turn it off or on. And I think it can be very overwhelming. And in all of those cases, I think it was very overwhelming.

36:08Ben Hanlin: Let's talk about collaboration. So you have collaborated with some brilliant artists. I'll just name three off the bat, the rule of three. You've got Shania Twain, Kylie, Nile Rodgers. Now, I know you've spoken about these before and how they've come about. But the thing I was interested in is the idea that that day you're waking up and you're driving to the studio and you're going to go in the studio with Shania Twain. Now, and this is the thing I think we can all relate to. And I've been here is you've got to turn up. It's a big name. It's pressure. You've got to perform. How do you keep yourself from going a bit nuts that day and on the lead up to it?

36:47Ben Hanlin: do you do anything to your head to go okay i'm gonna get through this by do you have a little strategy of making you know getting on with them building rapport with them and getting the best

36:57Jack Savoretti: out of that experience oh first of all i always try to eat with them first food like that's my italian side do you yeah yeah yeah first we eat we go for lunch and then we make because that is so italian but it's lovely it's great because i want to know who you are like and then and 99 percent you end up writing about what you spoke at lunch which is great so you don't have to like go through this sort of like weird you know hi how you doing we've never met before let's write a really beautiful song like you you get to know each other you get to sort of figure out each other's thing also intention though like i go in with i change the intention and i try to do this i hate the word nervous when people go are you nervous i'm like i'm excited that's what i always say and i would try to shift it to that like to do that um but it's funny i mean the Kylie one was really was quite amusing because that was one of the first proper like big things i ever really did of working with somebody of that you know like a legendary status and i was i remember i was actually we were living here and i was in the kitchen with my wife and i was like i'm going to write with like actually sorry i hadn't we weren't asked to write together we were asked to do a cover of rivers of babylon by boney m and they because they were doing this movie an irish independent movie called halal daddy and the director was a fan of both of us wanted to used this song rivers of babylon and he's wanted me and kylie to do a duet an acoustic version of it so he prepared it but for some reason that morning i was like i'm gonna go in with something because i think of kylie as a sort of modern day edith pf like there is something so she is the ultimate when we talk about the craft of performance and really living that she reminds me of this edith pf this parisian sort of the performance and the stage is life like that real like wow um and i but i've i've never really heard her sing about she's an amazingly strong woman who's been through an amazingly you know challenging life and i've never really heard her sing about that so i i i sort of had this little idea that i wrote and it was called music's too sad without you and i took it to the studio and kylie and i were about to do bonnie and she goes do you like this song and i was like yeah i do she's like should we maybe write something else of our own and i was like well it's funny you say that because i have this little idea i thought would be quite nice uh and i played it to her and she the i just sang this i only had like a verse and a chorus written and then she wrote the rest with me um and i and i played this thing music to say without and she goes that's really depressing and i was like oh man i've just got into a studio with kylie minogue later i saw it she's gone that's really depressing i was like nailed it buddy that was a really good idea and she goes give me the mic and i get for the microphone and she goes play it again i had only played it through her once then like and she sang it back to me like perfectly and then she added this whole other section while i was playing and within 10 minutes we had a this beautiful song not 10 minutes because then we sort of worked on it but the idea of it um but that was a funny moment where maybe my i mean it ended up it ended up being wonderful and it's one of my favorite songs i've ever been involved with but yeah that was a terrifying moment when i thought

40:16Ben Hanlin: i had depressed kylie we're gonna wrap things up with upcoming you've got the live tour it's selling really well and you've just sold out the royal albert hall which that don't sound good i'm not And you've got another day on sale there as well. And as we record this, you're probably, I don't know, six, seven weeks away maybe from that performance. No pressure. And that is, for those that don't know, the Royal Albert Hall is one of, if not the largest venue in the UK that is not an arena. And it's specifically 5 ,200 seats, Jack.

40:53Jack Savoretti: I think we might have a bit more because we're standing. We're keeping it standing in the pit, which would be nice.

40:57Ben Hanlin: just gives it a little bit more energy so so you got more than four five thousand two hundred and which is incredible and especially if we look at this you know we started talking about where you started going from cafe nero's and the tours to this it's amazing but the thing i wanted to talk about and you mentioned briefly about nerves earlier but to some people if i said to you you've got to stand out in front of five thousand people the thought leading up to it and doing it would paralyze some people because so how do you deal with this big moment coming up do you again do you have a strategy or do you go or do you just back yourself that the work's been done

41:36Jack Savoretti: and it's going to be fine anyway i really just want to enjoy it like this might never happen again you know like this is a this is i'm not somebody who sets standards like i don't believe in finish lines i try never to look up or down i always try to focus on where i'm putting my hands on the climb and not really get caught up by, you know, where I'm trying to get to or where I don't want to go back to. And so, but this is one of those kind of like pinch me moments brought up at Hall. I genuinely never thought we'd really get there. So I'm like, this is pretty cool. And it's one of those buildings that I used to see on the school run when I was a kid.

42:12Jack Savoretti: It's one of those buildings that when I moved back to London in my twenties, there was that like, man, it would be what I remember. I've seen everybody there. I've seen Beck, Jackson Brown, Crosby, Thiel, and Nash. I've seen some amazing shows there. So to just be on the stage, just to have that, you know. I don't want to be worrying about my nerves on that day. I don't want to be worrying about, I want to really just be there and really like, you know, I'm just really looking forward to it, if I'm honest, yeah.

42:41Ben Hanlin: That's a really healthy view, isn't it? That like, let's forget everything and just remember to enjoy the bloody day. Yeah, man. Because it can come and go. It's a bit like when people say about their wedding day. Totally. All this build and they forget to actually enjoy it. Like just try and enjoy every moment of it.

42:59Jack Savoretti: I always say this to friends of mine that are getting married, who got married after me. They're like, what's one word of advice for the wedding day? And I said, dance. Just make sure that the bride and groom are dancing. Because if you guys are dancing, everybody's present. Everybody's there. I think that's also the thing with age. I wish I'd had that approach a bit more when I was younger, but you're just so terrified and desperate to get everything right but now i'm like this is it like really yeah take it all in i i don't want it to happen and be like whoa i can't believe that happened i really want to be as present as possible for that whole i want to be as yeah self-aware of of my environment in that moment well thank you jack look we are coming to the end

43:41Ben Hanlin: of the the podcast and i've got to finish with the same five questions called ben's fast five

43:46Jack Savoretti: are you ready for my fast five jack do i have a choice no you don't because um it's a format point that is sticking crucial to the show i mean this is this is what they've tuned in for jack

44:00Ben Hanlin: all right they fast forwarded the whole episode for they haven't um so here's the deal uh question number one is my highlander question in the film highlander when they killed another immortal they stole all their knowledge and expertise. You have the power right now to steal anyone on the planet, dead or alive, skills and expertise. If you could take anyone's skills and expertise, who would it be?

44:24Jack Savoretti: Probably Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet.

44:29Ben Hanlin: Really? I thought you were going to say Simon or Garfunkel or Springsteen.

44:34Jack Savoretti: Pablo Neruda. I would say Pablo Neruda because he just saw beauty and everything and then had the gift of grabbing a pen and making everybody else see it.

44:43Ben Hanlin: thank you right time capsule uh i deliberately have been saving not asking you which one's your favorite song but essentially we've got a time capsule and we're only going to put one of your songs in there forever one of mine and that's going to be one of yours or it could be we can do one of yours and one of somebody else's if you want i'll give you two in this i'll give you a bonus one and the rest are going to be incinerated so which one are you keeping around

45:09Jack Savoretti: forever oh my gosh that's a tough question i know i'm gonna go with a song from the new album called if i get the chance if i get the chance and why is that one just because it's a it's a very personal it's like if if tombstones were bigger it's what i would have written on my if i could fit it if i get the chance fine uh okay great and next question uh culture

45:39Ben Hanlin: vulture what have you seen lately it could be a book a film music anything you want that you've

45:44Jack Savoretti: loved that you want to share hamlet i'm gonna go with hamlet uh the movie is that boring do you want me to change it is that no no no so no they haven't but actually i'm glad you said because i haven't seen it and it's on my list it's worth seeing oh it's 100 worth seeing i mean don't go looking at it for historical references because i know it's been given a hard time a bit like you Shakespeare love it was it was massacred because it's not the historical documentary it's just a beautiful take it's a very wonderful story about grief and having experienced grief very recently losing my father a couple years back I've had a fascination with grief because I find it one of the most exuberantly painful yet liberating and powerful things I've ever experienced um in many words in many ways um and I think Hamnet this film really does capture the the magnitude beauty pain suffering and wonder that grief can bring and also when it comes to craft its performances

46:42Ben Hanlin: to leave you spellbound fantastic hamlet okay well i will put that on my list next question the fourth question magic wand i am going to give you my magic wand and the power you can have with this magic wand is you can make anything in the music industry vanish it can be a genre a style anything you want you got to control a few people yeah give us the names no i can't i would never

47:07Jack Savoretti: i would never i'm joking i'm joking the unfairness of i would get rid of the unfairness the distribution of wealth um um that is lacking between the people that actually make the music and the people that sell or take advantage of the music and very quickly and just so that's when you talk you're

47:27Ben Hanlin: about labels and people creators and writers and things like that yeah and streaming services

47:31Jack Savoretti: everywhere a lot of people there's a lot money out there and the writers um the writers and the people actually writing the music in particular are probably at the bottom of the food chain which

47:41Ben Hanlin: is absurd okay right and the final question of the show is what's the trick jack what's the trick to having a long career in music? If you could give one piece of advice there.

47:57Jack Savoretti: You can repeat what you said if you want. People, there's no trick. Surround yourself by people. The people that you can, people that will challenge you, but not criticize you. People that will believe in you,

48:09Ben Hanlin: but not, what's the word?

48:13Jack Savoretti: Revere you in fantasies and compliments, but respect you and believe in you. and yeah people that'll stick with you and people that you will stick with people that you will learn from and people that you can teach make sure that you put a lot of time and effort into the people you surround yourself with that's that's my but i would say that in life in general it's all about people fantastic thank you so much jack it's been a fantastic thank you so much ben

48:41Ben Hanlin: And I've loved this.

48:42Jack Savoretti: Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

48:46Ben Hanlin: So there we go. That was Jack Savretti. And on reflection, listening back to that, there's a couple of things that I suppose jump out at me. I think, first of all, the way he shaped his career has been built on graft, hasn't it? He was not scared to get in a van and just get up and down the country and get in front of crowds. So that reminded me a little bit of the Scott Bennett episode as a comedian, how he is just really all about getting in front of audiences. So you might like that episode. but the other thing really that i don't think anyone else has spoken about as much as he has is he identified really early on that he didn't want to have his life controlled by a handful of people and he saw that as a problem and if you go down the traditional music route you're essentially everybody else can control what they do with you how much you work how much you don't work and he didn't want that he wanted to do a harder route but at the end of it was more control and that That is something, if I'm going to talk personally for a moment, I've resonated with is I've moved away from telly a bit more now because the highs are high, but you have very little control over your days, your weeks, your years or your whole career.

49:49Ben Hanlin: And doing other things takes longer. It's slower. It's a real grind. It's less glamorous at times, but you end up with more control at the end of it, which for me equals then peace of mind and consistency and stability, which is all very boring, but keeps you from going bonkers anyway. Anyway, so that is that episode. As always, if you've enjoyed it, if you think anyone else would enjoy it, give it a share, share it over to them. I'm going to say a couple of thank yous. Jack from Create Social, who makes this pod, him and his team. My podcast producer, Bryony, who is also my wife. Thank you. And Jen and Annika, who deal with all our socials as well.

50:24Ben Hanlin: You're doing a smashing job. And thank you to you, the listener, for talking about this, sharing it. I really, really appreciate it. I'll see you next time we drop an episode every Friday. and this has been What's the Trick with me, Ben Hamlet.