Busy Dave bustles to Newcastle (From The Northern Echo)

Busy Dave bustles to Newcastle

4:25pm Thursday 19th January 2012 in Features & Interviews By Matt Westcott

Matt Westcott speaks to InMe frontman and solo artist Dave McPherson ahead of his visit to the North-East.

DAVE McPherson has played more than 700 solo gigs. “That was up to last year, so I think you can add about 150 onto that,” he says, by way of an update.

Clearly at his best when in front of an audience, it is more than just a need for adulation for the InMe singer.

“I am not trying to prove anything, I just enjoy it,” he says. “I like being busy. I think it’s very important for someone like me who has got borderline OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and just can’t stay still, to have that constant focus and change and variety.

“The bare necessities of touring are you’re in a new place every day, and every day is somewhat different and that’s important to me. It keeps me moving forwards rather than twiddling my thumbs at home.”

What’s clear from speaking with McPherson is that his thumb-twiddling time must be minimal at best, for when he’s not performing with the Essex alternative rockers he’s on the road playing his solo works.

“It was bubbling under for years,” he says of the twopronged approach. “I started in 2000 when we began doing acoustic things at home because it was a lot easier to just pick it up and play.

“I had been working on things for a few years and it got to around 2007-2008 and we had just a got a new band line-up which was a lot healthier relationshipwise.

“Some people before might have thought this would have had a negative impact on the band, whereas the line-up now realise the band comes first and this is what I do in my spare time.

It just gives me an alternative to sitting at home waiting for the band to get busy.”

Watch McPherson, who released his debut album The Hardship Diaries last year, and you’ll witness the two sides to his onstage character.

“With the band it’s a unit, more of a joint effort, so while not exactly hiding behind them, it’s not all on my shoulders,” he said.

“With the solo stuff, if I am not entertaining them then no one else will. It’s all down to me.

“We have two tonnes of gear with the band, there’s the crew, we have to get hotels and there’s a lot more effort on the logistical side, whereas I just jump on a train, plug in the guitar and it’s a lot more relaxed.

“I still sing with as much passion as I can possibly squeeze in, but it’s much more loungy and intimate.

With the band there’s a more larger than life atmosphere – it’s all about the energy and it’s a lot louder. I enjoy both, but in completely different ways.”

Much of McPherson’s work is autobiographical, but he says he is past the stage of “worrying about wearing my heart on my sleeve”. “There’s so much of me out there already I have let go of being embarrassed or ashamed of certain things within the songs,”

he said. “When I listen to artists, I like it when they give me the goosebumps because they have touched a nerve emotionally or lyrically, that’s an important part of music for me.”

But what about those he has written about?

“I have written a couple of songs for my girlfriend, but there are songs in the past that have been about break-ups with other people, but that is just the nature of the beast.

“My girlfriend is very easy going and she doesn’t really concern herself with it, but sometimes it does get a little close to the bone and it can get embarrassing to listen to things in the company of others, but then I suppose if you are squirming and embarrassed about something then you have been honest about it.”

• Dave McPherson is at Cluny 2 in Newcastle on Wednesday.