Music Q&A: Barry Adamson

You’re about to release Memento Mori on 26 October. Tell us a bit about the album itself.
It’s an anthology covering 40 years of my time in music, from Magazine, Bad Seeds and solo and film work.

What informs your music and songwriting?
All kinds of stuff really. My take on the world. Bright lights followed by the neccessary foray into the dark night of the soul. Cultural meanings. The thrill of a great melody and a sex-fuelled beat, and so it goes.

How have you evolved as an artist over the years?
I guess experience pushes you into new discoveries and at the same time gives you something you can rely on to a certain extent and so I think you develop as an artist by the application of experience becoming knowledge, which then can become a sort of wisdom, which you can then glean from or lob out of the window.

What are you up to at the moment artistically?
Producing a Swedish band, Weeping Willows, writing orchestral parts for my upcoming shows and chiselling away on new songs at dawn to keep me moving into the future.

What’s on your rider?
The usual. Diet Coke, weed and females.

Tell us about one of your favourite experiences playing in Manchester over the years.
First gig really with Magazine at Rafters. Nine song blistering set and the week before I’d seen The Fall play there and I thougt I’d really arrived. Buzzed up for weeks.

What song do you wish you’d written?
None really, though the drum solo on Diamonds by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan is just spectacular.

What’s your worst lyric?
I’m sure there are plenty of corkers in the drawer. That’s why they’re in the drawer, I expect. The drawer of the forgotten and the rotten. Ill constructed sentences and cheesy, cheap sought meanings.

What can the fans expect from the Manchester show on 29 October?
Me pouring out 40 years of my life all over them like a hot cup of tea, which at first will seem appalling and then, once cooled down, will satisfy and eventually totally satisfy and elate in the most unexpected way.