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I'm so glad I left Scunthorpe
Conrad Astley6/ 1/2006
Manchester-based songwriter Stephen Fretwell is kicking off the new year with a national tour. He told Conrad Astley about how 2005 was for him, and about how he did not regret his decision to leave Lincolnshire.
LAST year turned out to be quite a good one for Stephen
Fretwell.
Although his debut album Magpie was released in the closing months
of 2004, its delayed success saw it rising into the charts last
summer.
The year also saw a sell-out tour and a TV advertising campaign
hailing him as "the songwriter's songwriter", while radio stations
and magazines fell over themselves to praise the single Emily, and
he was asked to write songs for the new Cameron Crowe movie.
"It's been a weird year and the success has been pretty surreal,"
he admitted. "But it doesn't feel overwhelming. It just feels like
I'm doing what I've always done. I suppose all those TV adverts
helped."
The songwriter has no doubt about the most important step in his
musical development - his decision to move to Manchester.
Having grown up in the Lincolnshire town of Scunthorpe, the young
Stephen was desperate to get out - looking to the big city which
had produced bands he had always admired.
His chance came when he left to go to Salford University, but he
admits he did not have the most distinguished academic
career.
"I enrolled and didn't go to any classes," he said. "I lasted a
couple of weeks. I just wanted to go and play music, but I used the
whole student loan thing as a way of getting out of a small
town.
"As soon as I arrived in Manchester I knew I'd made the right
choice. I remember sitting on the bus looking at people and
thinking if they wore that in Scunthorpe, they'd get their heads
kicked in."
Instead Stephen, who had taught himself Bob Dylan songs on his
granddad's old guitar, concentrated on his musical education -
writing songs and playing them at acoustic nights in city centre
bars such as Night And Day.
Stephen said the city became his main source of inspiration.
"I'd say coming to Manchester was probably the most important part
of the whole thing," he said. "I don't think I'd be doing now if I
didn't come here.
"People talk about coming to Manchester like people in the US talk
about going to New York, like going to Greenwich Village. There's
so many people that gravitate towards those sorts of places.
"Manchester has something that no other city has got, in terms of
going to set your stall out as a musician. The heritage of the
place is something you don't get anywhere else."
Years later, the songwriter is still based in Manchester, but
accepts his status as an outsider.
"I prefer to think of myself as a plastic Manc rather than some
idiot who thinks he's from Manchester. But when you start playing
music here, if you've got the right attitude people want to accept
you and help you out, regardless of where you're from."
While the term "singer-songwriter" has returned to the charts over
the last year, with mournful artists like James Blunt and Daniel
Powter having had huge successes, Stephen is not impressed with the
recent batch.
However, he thinks a new wave of Manchester-based songwriters, like
Liam Frost, is set for success in 2006.
"Daniel Powter - they call him a songwriter but I don't really know
what he's about," he said. "He sings about buying latte coffees in
the morning and people crying on the bus.
"I don't know whether I get lumped in with all that lot - I don't
think I've got anything to do with them.
"But there's plenty of talent about and I think there'll be a
resurgence. Maybe there's a new crowd that'll come up and show them
how it's meant to be done."
This year promises to be another good one for Stephen, who says he
will be recording his second album after the current tour. The
singer, who played at last year's South by Southwest festival in
Texas, also says there is talk of a US tour.
"Every musician is supposed to want to go and break America," he
said. "South by Southwest was a really good vibe but I still more
at home falling out of the Night And Day at the end of an evening,
rather than some bar in Texas."
Stephen Fretwell plays The Ritz on Thursday (January
12).
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