M G Boulter catches up with us to discuss UFOs, Southend-on-Sea, the magic of suburbia and his new album Days of Shaking.

Your new album Days of Shaking (Hudson Records) explores the kitchen sink dramas and magical realism of the everyday. When did you first get the idea for this album and what did you want to capture about suburbia?

M G Boulter: I don’t think of themes generally when writing, they come later once the songs have arrived [...] the idea for the album didn’t come until about a year ago when we had made arrangements to go into the studio. That’s when I asked 'What are we recording here? What am I trying to say with this collection of songs?' I see Days of Shaking very much as a continuation of Clifftown (2021), my previous album, in that the whole thing is based in this suburban environment. Days of Shaking is more about what’s going on inside everybody’s heads as they navigate the neighbourhoods they know.

Suburbia is really important to me. It’s an environment that has shaped me and I think it influences a lot of thinking in the UK - it is the great post-war dream, to have space, safety, a piece of land to defend. That attitude towards it has changed as generations have come and gone. We have woken up and found ourselves in a new world bordered with picket fences and herbaceous borders….

In the title track and album opener, you sing about a possible UFO sighting and end the track with ‘Where is the party tonight? / To stand by a tiki bar with Christmas lights.’ These images really capture both the aimlessness and the sense of possibility, the power of dreams, in small towns. Were there particular songwriters who inspired these lyrics?

MGB: I’m really pleased you have used the term ‘power of dreams in small towns’ because I think that’s ultimately what the song and the album is getting at. When all you have to do is put the bins out every week, the brain occupies itself with other things. I latched onto [...] UFOs as a way people still dream of something so completely opposite their situation and experience. These lyrics weren’t inspired by any particular songwriters but it was inspired by the narrative style you find in novels and short stories. I really wanted to wrap this huge experience up in a very vivid opening scene of back garden kids looking up at this magnificent unknowable event but at the end having those same kids being older and driving around trying to find a party to go to trying to get the same joy they saw (or conjured up) when younger.

As a musician from Essex, did you feel that the media representation of the county was not reflective of your own experiences growing up in Southend-on-Sea? (I only ask because I am from an estuary town in Essex!)

MGB: 100%. I don’t identify with the Essex portrayed on TV shows and it’s not an aspect I have experienced. There is some wonderful literature out there at the moment that explores the Essex psyche (I can recommend Tim Burrows’s ’The Invention of Essex’ for a start or the Focal Point Gallery’s ‘Radical Essex’ publication). I hope that my Clifftown album and the companion podcast series went some way to show that Southend has meant so many things to so many different types of humans over the centuries. I understand that every county is generalised and stereotyped. That’s how people make sense of things. Essex has always had an easy relationship with city money and suburban growth but there is more than meets the eye.

Q Magazine described your previous band The Lucky Strikes as ‘The Waterboys on trucker pills.’ How did the Southend-on-Sea pub rock scene inform your approach to creativity?

MGB: When I started out performing my music, Southend had an incredibly vibrant and diverse music scene. This was a legacy from the 1960s and 70s when you had bands like Procul Harem, Dr Feelgood, Eddie and the Hot Rods and more. It’s continued with bands like The Horrors and These New Puritans. If you want to get analytical about it, I think this is probably due to the fact London is only 40 miles away, so you have enough access to influential industry but you’re far away enough to have to make your own entertainment. The pub rock scene really influenced me, not necessarily the music, but more the work ethic it demonstrated. I hooked my dreams on the idea that if you gigged locally, worked hard and grabbed the opportunities, you could get noticed and do something with it all.

With Wolves The Lamb Will Lie (2016) is an album which draws on the pastoral setting in Sheffield where it was recorded. Likewise, you recorded the EP Blood Moon in a Methodist fisherman’s chapel on the old seaside town of Leigh-on-Sea in just four days. It seems that the setting of where you record your albums is very important for you. What was the recording process like for Days of Shaking?

MGB: The environment in which I make my records is so important - the places bleed into the songs. We wanted to get out of the familiar for Days of Shaking so we went to a remote part of west Wales to get the focus we needed. It was quite a fraught process to start with as I was suffering with a cold in the first week of recording, so my vocals weren’t great and the album is very much based on the vocal harmony interplay between me, Lucy [Farrell] and Harriet [Bradshaw]. It was very discouraging and I left that first week feeling like we’d not achieved what we needed. The second week happened a few months later in a suburban garden in Sheffield. That was nice; we could overdub everything whilst squirrels busied themselves on the lawn outside - it was perfect.

Clifftown (2021) is an album based on your personal experiences and the wider histories of Southend-on-Sea. You collaborated with Andy Bell, Bellowhead and Spiritualised. What was your process for researching these hidden histories?

MGB: Having lived in the area for so long and being interested in that sort of thing, I naturally knew about a lot of the histories I wanted to cover. I simply dedicated some time to researching at Southend Central Library and talking to people in the know. As the podcast series continued, I had to do a bit more asking and digging around but it's incredible how stories just came to me. In the second series there is an episode about finding the remains of the HMS Beagle, and this came to me by way of a quick conversation in a pub.

With your next projects, which other landscapes and stories do you want to explore?

MGB: I’m just letting an idea about dreamscapes and sleep percolate in my mind at the moment. I’m not sure if it will come to be fully realised but, whatever I do next, landscape and environment will be important features.

You are touring for the rest of this year. Which venues or towns/cities are you most excited to perform in?

MGB: I’m returning to some old favourites and it's always a joy to revisit Middlesbrough Little Theatre and the Greystones in Sheffield. The Bluestone Brewery in Pembrokeshire is one I am especially excited to play because I’ve passed it a few times. It’s in the most idyllic, out of the way place. I can’t wait to return to that part of the world. I love Newcastle too and am excited to be back there on 17th May 2024.

Any recommendations for someone visiting Southend-on-Sea and wanting to find some hidden gems?

MGB: Southend Museum has on display the finds from the princely burial of Prittlewell Park, arguably the oldest and grandest Anglo-Saxon grave goods. It's reckoned they date from the 520s [AD], which makes whoever it was one of the very original Essex men. Southend beach is underrated. Go after 9pm mid-summer for its full effect. If you’re lucky to go when there’s a thunder storm you can see the lightning streak for miles above the estuary. If you’re down at a weekend, go for a walk on Foulness Island when the MOD open up sections to the public. You’ll soon get lost in the harrier calls and the utilitarian buildings.

Words by Angelica Krikler. Days of Shaking is available to pre-order now. Check it out here.