Milburn’s Tom Rowley has spoken to NME about how his time as a touring member of Arctic Monkeys inspired his debut solo album ‘Moses And The Drones’, which features a song produced by Alex Turner.
As a founding member of Milburn in the early ’00s, Rowley was a central figure in the Sheffield indie scene that also birthed the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Reverend & The Makers.
“Everything was unknown back then at that age,” Rowley told NME when he met us in a pub near King’s Cross in London. “It was just, ‘I like playing music, you like playing music, shall we just hang out together?’ It was just exciting. People did look out for each other. Then things started kicking off. It’s all a bit of a blur after that.”
After releasing their first two albums, ‘Well Well Well’ and ‘These Are The Facts’, Milburn split in 2008, leaving Rowley at something of a loose end.
“I did various other things, like playing with Reverend [& The Makers] and being in a few bands of my own for a bit, but I had to get a job so I was working as an electrician; PAT testing, just putting stickers on kettles – rate boring,” he recalled. “I was working in this scruffy fucking factory in Leeds, then got a phone call from Jamie [Cook, Arctic Monkeys guitarist] saying, ‘We need a keyboard player for the tour for this album’, which was ‘AM’.
“The week after, I was in America trying to figure out the songs then that went on for 10 years.”
Rowley then spent 12 years as as a key touring member and collaborator of Arctic Monkeys – performing on their last two albums and with co-writing credits on ‘The Car‘ – providing guitar, keyboards and backing vocals, as well as auxiliary support for the band’s ongoing evolution. During that whole period, he was working on his own material in backrooms while on the road with the Sheffield indie giants.
“In the space between ‘AM’ and ‘The Car’, I carried on writing for myself, ” he said. “I’ve always been writing songs, but over the last two years I finally got an idea of what it would be. We were on tour and there was this piano and instruments knocking about, so I got this body of work together. At the end of ‘The Car’ tour I thought, ‘Reet, what can I do with this?’”
After years of knocking ideas back and forth with acclaimed producer and musician Loren Humphrey (Tame Impala, Lana Del Rey, Cameron Winter), they decamped to Los Angeles and New York to produce ‘Moses And The Drones’ – released yesterday (Friday April 23). It’s an album with a loungey cinematic mood as well as bags of attitude and swagger.
“There’s one song called ‘Something Strange’, when after I wrote that I knew that was what it should all sound like,” said Rowley. “I’ve never had a piano in the house, but there was always a piano in the tune-up room on tour. If you were bored, you could go and sit at that and start messing about. ‘Something Strange’ was the first song and then everything had to sound like that.”
Not only that, but ‘Something Strange’ was also produced by Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner.
“I played him that song ages ago when I first wrote it and he really liked it,” Rowley remembered. “The version that we did while we were in LA was quite different. He wanted to get involved so he came along and we did another version which made it onto the album. He said, ‘I just want it to be better than it is and the version that you’ve done’, and he was right in the end.”
Describing the sound of the album as a whole, Rowley said that it was “definitely rooted in the past”.
“You don’t want it to sound like a cover band and it needs to sound relevant now, which is hard to do,” he admitted. “We were trying to find a balance, and I feel like we’ve accomplished that.
“It’s called ‘Moses And The Drones’, which is almost like a made-up band. It’s like an exaggerated version of the life I was living at the time. You come across some fucking mad people, so the obvious thing to is to write about them. It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek at the same time. You can’t take it too seriously.”
As for what Humphrey brought to the table, Rowley explained that his eccentricity and attention to detail brought out the best in him.
“I’ve always been an admirer of the way he plays drums and produces, so who else was I going to do it with?” said Rowley. “It was the obvious thing to do. He’s mad, but in a good way. He knows what he wants it to sound like and he won’t be happy until he gets that sound – which when you’re ready to do a guitar part can sometimes be frustrating. But ultimately it ends up being worth it. He always gets the right sound and I can’t say enough about it.”
It’s been quite the journey for Rowley, from Milburn to being an electrician to filling stadiums with Arctic Monkeys and now to be landing his solo debut. Now, he’s driven and set on the future.
“I feel like I just want the album to be out,” he said. “It feels like it’s been forever. We’ve been playing gigs now for about a year and I’m just happy to release it. Once it’s out, it’s there for everyone.
“I constantly write. In the space between finishing this album and now, I’ve got another album’s worth. I’d gladly go and do it now, but it just doesn’t work like that.”
As well as some solo headline gigs and dates lined up supporting Inhaler, you’ll also find Rowley back on stage with Milburn this summer, playing a smattering of festival shows as they roll on low-key touring since their 2016 reunion – but don’t expect any new material from them.
“It’s just about doing them shows,” he revealed. “Everyone is doing a 20th anniversary show. I was looking at the line-up of this festival we’re doing and it was The Kooks, The Vaccines, The Fratellis, all of them are doing albums in full after 20 years. We’re just doing a few gigs.”
Arctic Monkeys currently have nothing in diary since the surprise release of ‘Opening Night‘ from the ‘Help(2)’ charity album for War Child. Has Rowley been given leave from the band for the foreseeable future with no tour plans on the cards?
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I do know that until the end of the year it’s solo stuff, a few Milburn gigs and then we’ll see what happens next year.”
‘Moses And The Drones’ is out now. While Milburn will be playing London’s Lexington on Saturday May 30 before playing Rock’N’Roll Circus in Norwich and Sheffield in August, Rowley’s upcoming tour dates are below. Visit here for tickets and more information.
APRIL
25- Sheffield – Crookes WMC
30 – Manchester – YES
MAY
2 – Liverpool – Sound City Festival
3 – Glasgow – King Tuts
JUNE
20 – Gent De Vooruit with Inhaler
22 – Groningen Oosterport with Inhaler
23 – Heerlen Parkstad with Inhaler
AUGUST
2- Kendal Calling
28 – Victorious Festival