The Shipbuilders Interview: “It’s about community, not just putting ten songs on an album”

While people will be quick to draw comparisons to the cosmic psych tropes that have dominated Liverpool for decades on end, there’s far more to The Shipbuilders than that.

Part of The Shipbuilders story and existence is Club Shipwrecked – the community-focused portal that sees the band hosting everything from gigs (including their own) and the Shipwrecked All Dayer festival to podcasts and Q&As.

Undoubtedly, the preservation of something like Club Shipwrecked takes a huge amount of time and effort: standard fare with all things DIY these days, of course. But in a new world where community spirit faces adversity at the hands of selfishness and greed, it’s inspiring that there are people behind a concept such as Club Shipwrecked who continue to help fight the good fight.

As an extension to these tireless endeavours is The Shipbuilders in ‘band mode’. Again, quite removed from your standard cosmic rock meanderings, not only do The Shipbuilders move beyond all of that with their Morricone echoes, but also what separates their melodic charm is the yarn spinning from singer/ guitarist, Matthew Loughlin-Day.

Following 2022’s Spring Tide, the band’s second full-length release, This Blue Earth, sees Loughlin-Day twisting narratives in similar ways that Sea Power has provoked thought since the turn of the century. And backed by Danny Lee (guitar), Tony Ferguson (bass), Graeme Sullivan (drums) and new Shipbuilder, ‘Pistol’ Pete Higham (trumpet), This Blue Earth sees the band reach new levels.

An undoubted Dylan disciple, however Loughlin-Day – like The Shipbuilders’ music – is not fully pronounced, adding tints of surf-rock and psych exotica to the folk pantheon. From Hills of Mexico, La Dolce Vita and Polynesia to the sunroof sway of Daydreaming and Metempsychosis, Loughlin-Day’s narratives take us all over the world. And it’s in a certain part of it where the journey begins: the jangle and chime of opening cut, 95 Miles, seeing The Shipbuilders dispense a bit of Flying Nun / Dean Wareham worship.

Not a world away from the Galaxie 500 singer’s own principles of the political song, Flagpole is the best one The Shipbuilders have written. A no-holds-barred romp through the lens of politics, but not in a preachy, lectured way. Like the best songs in the world of politics and dissent, there’s humour, and the further you dig through the band’s songs, it’s there for all to hear.

And that’s the beauty of This Blue Earth – so layered, there’s always something new that reveals itself with each listen, underlining how The Shipbuilders have grown as band. Their songwriting synergy, strengthened through panoramic views where nowhere is too far.

Ahead of the band’s album launch tomorrow night at Leaf (tickets here), earlier this week, Loughlin-Day answered some of our questions via email about the band’s history, Liverpool, and This Blue Earth.

S13: It’s been three years since Spring Tide, but the Shipbuilders have been staples of the city for a good decade now. Since COVID, how much do you think the scene in Liverpool has changed, and do you think it has become more difficult to function as a band?

Matthew Loughlin-Day: “The big thing is the venues we’ve lost, isn’t it? When we starting out, there were great sweatboxes that were like the Wild West, where you’d cut your teeth, like Sound on Duke Street, or the Caledonia; then there were the venues you’d hope to graduate to, that might be able to bag you a good support slot, or a big event on, like the Kaz or Studio Two and whatnot, but now, things seem tougher on that front – the loss of all of those venues, alongside other things we lost like Bido Lito! seemed to shatter a sense of community and dispersed a lot of the bands. I don’t know if there is quite that same sense of togetherness that there was around those early days – but there is a strong possibility I’m just too long in the tooth now!

“Not that it’s all doom and gloom of course – Future Yard in Birkenhead is obviously fantastic, and hopefully the new QUARRY works too, but it’s definitely felt harder to feel a sense of cohesion. Add to that the post-COVID slump in people going to gigs generally, and it’s a rum ol’ do at times, but these things often come in cycles don’t they, so I’m sure before long there’ll be something that kickstarts things again. Not least websites like this, so well played and hats off.”

S13: This Blue Earth is your finest record so far. Can you tell us about the process behind it?

MLD: “Thank you! We actually started recording it during the sessions for album one in 2021, which feels like a lifetime ago now. That album was derailed several times by COVID, so we made the most of the studio time we had and laid down the backing tracks for four or five songs for what was to become album two. The in-and-out nature of the various lockdowns we had meant that this was prolonged even further – and further complications awaited us as we lost not one but two bass players from the line-up (sheer carelessness on our part!) and the label we were on, Mai 68 ran aground and disbanded.

“But, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory, and in many ways, the extra time all the delays and setbacks forced upon us gave us more time to let the album grow in its own way and in a strange way, allowed us – or certainly myself – to take some pressure off ourselves to get it finished in a hurry. In doing that, a few things happened, not least of all we grew in confidence in using the studio as a tool in itself. Rather than just going in and playing the tracks as would do live, we spent more time with Danny Woodward (producer) thinking about the intricacies of each song.

“I’m still very proud of our first album, but with this, it was a lot more considered – Danny and I set a brief that we did not want anything to be predictable in any way, which meant minimal repetition and crucially, we didn’t [want] a single second to be boring or wasted, which I think we absolutely nailed.

“Most of the songs were written many moons ago, but happily, the two that seem to go down best live, Flagpole and Hills of Mexico were the newest – neither of them were even finished by the time we started recording it all.”

S13: I’m hearing some new influences in your music, too. Do you remember what you were listening to during the writing and recording process, and do you think these influenced how the record turned out?

MLD: “It’s definitely an album that has let me bring more of the influences that have always been there to the forefront, so I’m glad you noticed that, thank you.

“It’s a funny one, because as I said earlier, a lot of these songs are very old, that I’ve had in my locker for some time, so it’s not as if these are inspired by recent influences or things I’ve only just got into. But to keep drawing comparisons, most of the first album was made up of songs that we had been playing since the start, which, as is the case with most bands, are the charging, raucous ones that you need to absolutely thrash out and make a right clang, boom and steam, so that you can catch people’s attention.

“That’s great, and is what you need when you’re new, or you’re a support act, hoping to draw people in, but in doing that, there’s little room for the subtleties that being a bit more established (or stubborn) brings with it. If we’d have played La Dolce Vita or Metempsychosis in the early days for instance, chances are they’d have been lost amidst the other chaos – and we wouldn’t have had the time to catch our breath and think about how to flesh them out the way we have done now – but having the time to step back and bring the influences of, say, Charles Mingus, Burt Bacharach, or French chansons to the surface has really shaped the record, I think. Even songs that we did occasionally play live in the earlier years, like The River, needed time away from us to be able to come back and lean further into stuff like King Tubby or Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, which we’d never have allowed it to do back then.

“Not that it’s all chin scratching of course. A mate of mine has what he calls his ‘Inner Nigel’ filter on, in that when he’s writing, he will ask himself, ‘Would Nigel Blackwell take the piss out of me for this?’ – which I strongly adhere to, too.”

S13: Pete Higham joins the band, too, really making his make on tracks like La Dolce Vita and The River. Did the dynamics of your writing and recording process change at all?

MLD: “Oh, that was a game changer. We did have brass on some of our songs before, but having Pistol Pete join the band permanently has taken the sound into the stratosphere. He’s slotted right in, and it has changed the sound of the band completely – old songs and new. It’s a natural fit and I remember someone from another band asking me why we didn’t do it straight from the start, as now you hear it, it’s a bit, ‘oh of course these songs need trumpet – and they always have done!’

“He’s an amazing arranger, and also, along with Danny Woodward, helped in the arrangement of the strings on the record too, which is a world I’d never had the confidence to think about previously. Again, having Pistol meant we had to think about the minutiae of each song, as opposed to the, ‘Here’s the chords, whack a bit of delay on the lead guitar and bam, we’re done’. Now, each segment of the song is considered, and to use a cliché I’ve previously lampooned, [us] thinking about how to ensure the song goes on a journey, rather than staying static. My Nigel Blackwell alarm is sounding there at that, but I hope that makes sense!”

S13: In the press release, you mentioned being content, which is a hard thing to find, both as we get older and how the world is currently. As a result, do you see This Blue Earth as an escapist album?

MLD: “Yes, very much so. Although this isn’t by any stretch a concept album, there definitely is a concept, or at least theme, to most of these songs, and they naturally turn to escapism or the illusion of being to run away, elsewhere, anywhere! It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I guess the lyrics in particular do reflect a strong sense of wanderlust that I’ve always had, even from being a young boy, that is – by its very nature – never quite fulfilled. Of course, life gets in the way, bills need to be paid, and the world can be a very dark place, so perhaps writing these songs were ways of me trying to scratch my very itchy feet. But yes, I’ve always been one for looking out from the shore as opposed to looking inland – I adore maps, atlases and things like shortwave radios, things that allow you to get glimpses of other worlds – but only glimpses, because it’s those glimpses that allow you to build your own picture and imagine… ‘who lives there? What’s life like there?!’, which lets the mind wander and be creative, even idealistic. In many ways, that’s more enticing, because you’re never let down by the morbid reality of everyday life that’s a global truth!

“But with any luck, the Polynesian tourist board will hear our song Polynesia, decide to use it in their tourist promo and we all get a nice trip to the other side of the world. The Kava’s on me!”

S13: Hills of Mexico is said to be inspired by Ernest Hemingway, but also, on Metempsychosis there’s mentioned on a tolled bell. Was that a subtle nod to the Hem as well?

MLD: “Hah, yes, kind of! Hills of Mexico is me directly trying to write a sort of soundtrack to For Whom the Bell Tolls, but Metempsychosis is another literary one.

“The title comes from Ulysess and it means ‘the transmigration of the soul’ (more escapism, on an extreme level, there!), but the actual lyrics are based upon the Tom Joad speech in The Grapes of Wrath. The idea that ‘wherever there is injustice, I’ll be there’, and so on, which mixes the two ideas there – but yes, I’m sure the lyric ‘in all the dust in the bowl, in every bell that’s ever tolled’ is a blend of all three – I hadn’t realised until now!”

S13: The band has always looked afar, incorporating more exotic landscapes alongside local ones. Has this always been a natural inclination in your songwriting?

MLD: “Yes. I was only thinking about this today, and I’m not quite sure where it comes from. Although the radio would be on in our house, and we’d have the obvious albums like Oasis or Carry on Up the Charts by The Beautiful South, those albums everyone seemed to have, there wasn’t much delving, musically, growing up. My Uncle Al shaped my musical tastes in my teens by putting me on to Shack, Dexy’s and Big Audio Dynamite, stuff like that, but for the main part, I kind of found my own stuff, largely through the early days of the internet and the immediate wealth of music available to us, almost overnight.

“Although – like absolutely everyone my age – I was swept away by the remnants of Britpop and all that, once I actually stopped and thought about it, I realised it was not for me one jot, and so out went my Oasis CDs and in came anything I could get my hands on that was as far away from the lumpen plodding and small world mentality of so much of that scene. Each to their own of course, but once you hear something like Rain Dogs or In A Silent Way, you’re not going back, are you?

“I’m ravenous when it comes to this stuff though, I love apps and websites like Radiooooo! or Every Noise at Once, or radio shows like Late Junction that turn you on to stuff that you’d never in a million years hear otherwise. As part of our Club Shipwrecked project, I do occasional shows on this stuff, called Radio Shipwrecked International, and we’ll have shows dedicated to things like Cambodian garage Psych of the ’60s, Rastafarian Nyahbinghi drumming or South African Jazz. Whether that bleeds into The Shipbuilders stuff, I don’t know, but I’m a restless listener, I can’t get stuck in one genre or sound for very long.”

S13: Flagpole is one of the most direct songs you’ve written. How much do politics influence your songwriting?

MLD: “Very much so. From the word go we’ve played at benefit gigs, hosted anti-racism gigs, I’ve played on picket lines, we’ve raised money for charities and foodbanks and more – we’re very much a socialist band in our actions and unashamedly so. However, I’m not good at writing direct political songs – I’m no Billy Bragg – and any attempts to be so have been excruciatingly embarrassing and never made it past the notebook phase.

“That being said, my world beliefs bleed into nearly all of my songs, even if it’s in a more general or subtle way. Most of them are political, but maybe with a lower case p!

“Songs like Stranger’s Lament, written from the perspective of an exiled refugee come to mind, or Hanging Me at Dawn, raging against the feudal classes, The River, an ominous prediction of a forthcoming judgement and revolution, or yes, Flagpole, which is a more blatant diatribe about the dangers and stupidity of nationalism. Both The Moon and Hills of Mexico are about the Spanish Civil War (written from a republican point of view, of course!) and the already outlined Metempsychosis – it’s all there, but maybe just not in your face.

“I do find it maddening that more bands, of all sizes, don’t use their platform to shine a light on things, or be a force for good, but then, that’s life, isn’t it? Horses for courses. That said, undeniably, Free Palestine.”

S13: Are you someone who writes every day, and has your process changed at all over the years?

MLD: “Ah, no. I wish I was – but until someone can pay me to do this full time, adult life gets in the way. There was once a time when I could play guitar and practice all day, every day, but alas, those days are well gone. But that’s okay, although some songs pop out of me fully formed, some songs take time and I need to spend a while in between writing bursts to give them the room they need. On the Run, on this album, took me about ten years to finish, for instance – and there’s only three chords in the pigging thing!

“There’s a balance to be struck, for me, in waiting for the inspiration to come to you and actually getting on with it and writing a song. The last time I did say to myself, “Right, come on, write a song now, it’s been too long” was Flagpole however, which turned out more than alright, so maybe I should lock myself in a room once a month and force myself to write again!

“Then again, the next album is already written, and believe it or not, it’s a double. Twenty songs. Whether or not it sees the light of day is another thing, but I think I’ve got a safe cushion to fall back on, at least for a few more years…”

S13: Speaking about Liverpool earlier, it’s been a boon for the city that Michael Head has garnered so much praise from afar. Yourselves, also playing some major UK festivals outside of the city. How much does it mean to be a band from Liverpool?

MLD: “It might sound a bit of a cop-out, but it’s a mixed blessing. Obviously, coming from Liverpool, there is already a hot bed of people who want to hear you at least once, purely because you come from the city, so in many ways, your initial starting point is further ahead than a band from, I don’t know, Tewkesbury. There’ll always be people who’ll go, before they’ve heard a note, ‘A band from Liverpool? Well they’re likely to be good and sound like Love, or The La’s, so I’ll give them a listen’. So that’s good.

“The flipside of this though, is that it is very easy to get pigeonholed. If we did come from Tewkesbury, maybe we would stand out more on a national scene as opposed to being ‘another Liverpool band’ – I don’t know of course, but I have wondered in my more mournful days, whether our fate would have been different had the Liverpool stone around our neck not been there. Sometimes it can feel like it’s something that holds you back, in that people have a preconceived idea of you before they’ve heard you. Would we have had so many comparisons with bands like The La’s or The Coral if we’d not been from these ways? Maybe, maybe not. Of course, the sheer volume of bands that come from the city makes it harder to stand out anyway, so some of this stuff is inevitable, I guess.

“Ultimately, we’ve had no say in the matter, we didn’t choose to be from Liverpool, so it’s not something I really like to give much thought to. That’s not me denigrating or saying anything bad about Liverpool, it’s just not something I particularly think makes up much of the band’s identity. Reviews over the years have said different, and that’s more than fine, and understandable, as I can’t deny the Liverpool sound makes up a big part of it, but I haven’t chosen that, it’s just… there, in the same way I didn’t chose the colour of my eyes.”

S13: Releasing music under your own label, as well as running your own gigs, is DIY culture the focal point of the band or has it just happened that way?

MLD: “Early on, the advice we were given from a Liverpool music veteran was, ‘Do everything yourself and own everything’. We had a very early experience that I won’t go into that confirmed this, so we knew from very early on that we were going to plough our own furrow, unless something bigger, better and safer, could take over. When we were on the label Mai 68, that was in itself DIY and we were given free reign – we used any money we got from gigs to pay for the recording sessions so we could own the masters, we had a say in every detail – so when that label went, it was a natural conclusion that we’d strive out on our own, until something better came along. And although we had chats with people in the run up to This Blue Earth, nothing did, so we carry on.

“But we’ve always, always said that The Shipbuilders is about more than the band, it’s about creating a universe around it all. The natural extension of this has been Club Shipwrecked – a catch all project that we use to put our own gigs and all-day events on around the country, host podcasts, radio shows and Q&A sessions, release our record through and singles and albums by other bands we love, we’ve got a Patreon, we’ve even had film nights and book recommendations – it’s about community, not just putting ten songs on an album. That’s at the heart of it all, bringing good people together and building something greater than ourselves.”

This Blue Earth is out now via Shipwrecked Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.