The moniker of Brighton-based singer-songwriter Fin Greenall, Fink started out as a club promoter and DJ, nurturing a passion for acid jazz and house music as he traversed the international live circuit.
Signing to Ninja Tune for dub-centric debut album ‘Fresh Produce’ in 2000, he later joined forces with bassist Guy Whittaker and drummer Tim Thorton on 2006 gem ‘Biscuits For Breakfast’. While retaining traces of the downtempo electronica that characterised his previous work, the LP saw Fink introduce a more prominent indie-rock strain into his music, an approach which he furthered in subsequent albums ‘Distance And Time’ and ‘Sort Of Revolution’, which were released in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
Having worked with the likes of Amy Winehouse and John Legend, Fink has also appeared by special request on albums by Bonobo and Professor Green, and is slated for a guest slot on Green’s upcoming long player ‘At Your Inconvenience’. Following the release of Fink’s own latest album ‘Perfect Darkness’ earlier this month, we caught up with the man himself to ask of him our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
My parents gave me their old seven-inches when I was a kid and my grandmother’s old Bluespot [record player] – out of all of these seven-inches I loved Chuck Berry, The Stones and ‘I Am The Walrus’ – rock, blues and pysch, I just naturally gravitated to them. I would regularly put together my top ten and drive my parents crazy – as it was always the same. John Peel was then my Music College (I really miss that guy, so much), and I started playing guitar and doing early mixtapes. At the beginning, I played to get laid, and then played to get paid, and now I play because I love it, and there’s nothing else I’m good at…
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Apart from just life generally inspiring everything all the time, and the healthy amount of really great music that gets thrown up every year, our main inspiration was all of our live shows on the Sort Of Revolution Tour – China, Oz, Europe, USA, a big tour – you really get to know your strengths and weaknesses. All that, plus the fact that for the first time we could justify the whole LA studio/producer, so we didn’t want to waste a single minute. We just played and played and played for two weeks. Billy Bush brought the ears, and we nailed the whole thing front to back in fourteen days, including b-sides and acoustic versions.
It was intense, but I think we really captured something of the moment in there. As Quincy would say. Stagnation comes through procrastination, we didn’t have time to think, we just played. Two of the tracks on the record were recorded totally live, and one was literally written on the spot – and the first take made the record!
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Normally, as a songwriter, on Fink stuff, I push myself into a space, normally down, but sometimes up, and stay in that space for as long as it takes to work through what I’m trying to do or say, and with a lot of emotions, that’s not always clear straight away. Sometimes it takes a year or so before I can process what exactly I am channelling and get it out and give it to the boys to make more interesting than a dude on a guitar “exploring his emotions”. The key is having an escape plan when you push yourself down there.
On this record, though, we did everything backwards. We started jamming all together, took the juicy riffs, broke them down to acoustic, wrote the songs, then built them back up again. The great thing about being on an indie label is the lack of ‘radio edit pressure’, we swapped easy money for creative freedom! And massive props to Ninja Tune, if it’s good they’ll put it out and we love that. That’s why we’ve done four albums in five years – sure we need material to tour – but – who stays in the same artistic space for five years at a time?
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
We love the old boys – me in particular – I love the linear courage of John Lee Hooker and John Martyn and Joni. We all love Radiohead and their whole approach to art and business – it’s really inspiring. We love modern bands, too. I do a radio show on Juice FM in Brighton every week that specialises in fresh indie – so I’m constantly inspired. I mean, I loved the Everything Everything record, Warpaint, totally loving the bravery of Esben And The Witch, and I can’t wait for the new Horrors record. The more I write the more I appreciate how hard it is to write a song that sounds like it was easy to write.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I’d say kinda get into the voice… the music… the vibe… don’t play it on Friday night to party with… pick a nice moment… we try and put a lot of “music” in our music… so, get into a musical mood first.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Our records take us all over the word, and we love that. We have a big tour and a big show planned – Europe, Oz, China, the USA, then bed! We really hope this record reaches people, and in the UK that’s really hard for the real independents, but we totally believe in every note on the record, and that good music is all the leverage you need – that and a few big syncs!
MORE>> www.finkworld.co.uk
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