The punning name of Eg White might not ring any bells, but he has won an Ivor Novello and is a songwriter to the stars, including Kylie and Take That. Now, in search of a new kind of validation, he has released a fine solo album of rugged pop
JUST WHEN you reckon certain cultish names from the pop music past will never surface again, along comes someone as obscure as Eg White. We know what you're thinking – you haven't heard of him before, and why is The Irish Timesfeaturing him when it could be devoting precious space to yet another "hotly tipped" female singer who sounds like Kate Bush – or maybe even some hairy psych-folk act whose music is as threatening as the collected works of The Spinners (ask your grandma)? Well, if Eg White's punning name doesn't ring any bells, then his handiwork will. It's a safe bet that when you flick the buttons or swirl the dial on your radio that you'll hear one of his songs or his co-writes.
Ivor Novello Award winner White has, in the past 10 years, been responsible for writing or co-writing hits for acts as wide-ranging as (deep breath) Alison Moyet, Will Young, Natalie Imbruglia, Joss Stone, Charlotte Church, James Morrison, Jamelia, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Take That, Beverley Knight, James Blunt, former Sugababes singer Mutya Buena, Kylie, Adele, Duffy, Sam Sparro and Daniel Merriweather.
SO WHAT'S HE doing releasing a solo album, then? Hasn't he made enough money? It turns out that, in a loose-change sense, White doesn't need the money; his recently released solo record, Adventure Man, was made because he wanted – in a fast-approaching-middle-age way – to prove to himself that he had the guts to step outside the comfort zone of writing hits for other people. In other words, if he fails, or if the album receives poor reviews (so far it has been on the receiving end of nothing but justified praise), he'll only have his own solo career to fret about, and not the disapproval of certain people who might direct their gaze at the next hot, younger songwriter walking sprightly around the corner.
Dig beneath the surface, however, and you'll discover that the motivation behind Adventure Manwas more complex. "I write in a basement, in a cellar studio, from around 11am to 6pm, with many different people," explains White, a gregarious, enthusiastic chap. "It's great fun, really sociable, really fast work, but it's kinda dark. I figured it would be nice to remember what it was like to sing in public, or to feel what it's like to have my arse on the line, rather than somebody else's. So I wanted to know what would happen.
“Also, I’d done it so badly in the past – almost bottling it when things had got tough, not quite planning carefully enough, or having a general air of despair. I remember terrible various humiliations while on stage, not being very good, not quite holding people’s attention. So I thought it was time to make a significant repair.”
White makes reference to his past – back in 1991, when he was 24 (having previously done time in a pre-chart-topping incarnation of pop act Brother Beyond) he and model Alice Temple teamed up to record the critically acclaimed album 24 Years of Hunger. The album failed to chart, despite every effort from the massed ranks of the music press to encourage people to buy it, and before long White disappeared from view. He resurfaced again in 1996 with his debut solo album, Turn Me On, I'm a Rocket Man, which again scurried into the undergrowth, never to be seen again. Three years later, however, White popped his head over the parapet once more, this time as a songwriter to the stars. Which is where we came in.
The way White tells it, the "significant repair" he speaks of is to himself and no one else. He half agrees that Adventure Manis a modest validation of his songwriting skills, but undercuts this by stressing there is validation enough in getting one of his songs on to the radio. "It's bloody brilliant walking into a DIY store, and hearing something on the radio you've had a hand in writing," he says. "So the album wasn't a need for that kind of validation. Rather, it was an excuse for the other kind of validation – to stand up in front of people and sing these songs, and believe in myself."
If it all sounds vaguely midlife crisis, it's at least good to know that ego has taken a back seat. When asked which is the more satisfying, writing for himself and writing for others, White instantly plumps for the latter. "They're chalk and bloody cheese, mate! When you really nail a song with somebody, and it gets out into the world and is given a proper chance to be heard – that's the total best, the big win. I'm not denigrating Adventure Man, but had I written a monster hit for that album it wouldn't have gone on it – it would have gone to someone who can really deal it out."
How can he tell whether a song is going to be a monster hit, then? White says he can’t. “I think with some of my songs there’s no way they’re going to take, but they do. Sometimes I think we have a total killer and I’m wrong. Some songs I adore, yet they utterly fail the test when they’re played to other people. Then there’s a feeling I get when I come up from the basement for lunch – sometimes I just know what we’ve worked on is going to be a hit. It’s clear – straightforward, exciting human communication. When that happens, you’re in business. That said, it doesn’t make it easier to replicate those times, but I also know through experience when I’m making fundamental mistakes. It’s really clear. I still make them, and I weep as I do it.”
WHAT ABOUT THE cult classic status now afforded to 24 Years of Hunger? White is honest enough to say that, in many ways, the songs on the album "are more adventurous than anything I've done lately, more openly structured", and he's also quite pragmatic when talking about its cult appeal.
"It's easy for some people to trump something as a classic," he reasons, "when they can be damned certain that very few people are going to be able to say how good it actually is. So, just denigrating 24 Years of Hunger slightly: it's a good record, a nutritious record, I don't think anyone who buys it will be hugely disappointed, but it's a not a classic. It isn't a coherent body of work like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, or something like that. If instead of selling 8,000 copies, or whatever it has sold, it had sold over a million then I don't think it would be seen as a cult classic."
Which brings us back to Adventure Man– a very fine and rugged pop album that seems destined, according to White, to be something of a one-off.
It’s hard to imagine, he implies, a future where anyone would ask him to do another one. Again, White’s perspective on matters is utterly businesslike, and not at all midlife-crisis driven.
“Look,” he starts, as he lays it on the line, “I write a lot of songs, and most are not good. But some are good, and some are good without having any commercial nous or worth. And maybe – though I doubt it – there will be a wish to do another. But I just don’t know where that hunger would come from.”
And with that nugget of realistic self-appraisal, he’s off down to his basement studio to conjure up more hits to appease the belly of the beast that is pop music.
Adventure Manis on Parlophone/EMI