Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble brings his solo tour to Staggeringly Good, Portsmouth | Interview

But for the past 20 years, Roddy Woomble has also conducted a solo career which has seen him carve a distinct path from the band.

And on Tuesday, April 29 he’s playing a gig at Staggeringly Good Brewery in Milton, Portsmouth.

When he released his folky debut album My Secret is My Silence in 2006, it was greeted with raised eyebrows from some of the band’s fans expecting more of the same rock-oriented fare.

But it was well received and Woomble has gone on to release a string of critically acclaimed albums. And late last year he released his eighth solo LP – Sometime During the Night We Fell Off the Map. After taking an electronic detour on his previous two releases, Sometime sees him return to a more acoustic sound.

Having lived in London and LA, Woomble, and his wife are back in their native Scotland. Along with their two children they live on the Hebridean isle of Iona – an island of less than 200 people.

"I've lived here for 15 years now,” says Roddy, “so it doesn't feel that remote now. I think that's the misconception sometimes with places that are far away from cities. There's more community here than when I lived in Glasgow or Edinburgh. You don't feel remote!”

The album was recorded on the neighbouring isle of Mull in a converted 19th century church with long-term collaborator, guitarist Sorren McLean and a cast of family and friends – Hannah Fisher on violin and vocals, Danny Grant on drums saxophonist Matt Carmichael and bassist Mike Gordon.

“Years ago I used to take my son to a toddlers' group there,” says Roddy of the studio. “Now it's been sold to local musicians who've turned it into… it’s not like a fancy studio, but it’s really atmospheric and lovely.”

And bringing things neatly full circle his son, Uist, 17, plays piano on the album too.

His previous two albums, Lo! Soul (2021) and Almost Nothing (2023) saw Woomble exploring more electronic sounds.

"The first one was done pretty much entirely remotely (during the pandemic lockdown) because I was at home in the Hebrides and my collaborator Andrew Mitchell lives in Dundee, he's got a little studio there. We were sending ideas back and forward, and I was recording the vocals here, sending them to him and he'd do the music.

“That whole record was done like that. It's got a weird, woozy kind of homemade charm about it because of that.

“The one after that is mainly an electronic record, and that wasn't because I wanted to genre change, it was literally because the people I was working with, Andrew, and Scott Patterson, they're more or less electronic producers.

“They were doing the music and I was doing the lyrics and the melodies. But at the same time it has a songwriter soul. It's not like a techno record – the songs are very much my melodies and words and recognisably my material, but just without the guitars and drums.

“I still think it's a really interesting record. It's two years since it came out, and it does sound unlike anything else I've done and that's quite good.”

With a total of 18 solo and band albums under his belt, Woomble says he lets the people he’s working with dictate the sound organically rather than setting out with a direction in mind.

“I certainly don't have a grand plan for anything,” he laughs. “Particularly not music! I think music is kind of mysterious and magical in the way that you can't really plan it.

“But I'm lucky that I've got lots of people that I know that play music that you want to collaborate with.

“Some of them are folk musicians and the material becomes more like that. Some of them are electronic musicians and the material becomes like that, and obviously with Idlewild, it's a long-established musical collaboration, which is basically a rock band.

"One thing I've realised is that my voice and my melodies and lyrics do suit different styles. It doesn't have to be in the indie-rock format, it can go in other ways as well.

“When I realised that about 20 years ago when I started making solo records, it suddenly got more interesting to me because Idlewild had done four records at that point of more or less similar sound, and I wanted to do something different.

"The other nice thing about working with all of these different people is that it's kind of fed into Idlewild and made Idlewild more interesting as well.

“It's not just being like: ‘Oh, let's do another rock record. It's like let's incorporate...’ And also all the people (in Idlewild) are interesting musicians themselves, so everyone's got different takes and that's why the band have never really put out – well maybe some people would disagree! – but I think we've never put out a boring record.

“We always tried to do something slightly different to what we've done before and subsequently all our records totally exist on their own merits. I do think my solo records have managed to feed into that and bring a different influence to some of the songs.”

Roddy’s not the only member of Idlewild to pursue other projects away from the band. Does he think having those outlets has helped Idlewild to keep going?

“It's always been important to me to keep busy. I'm a very creative person.

“I like to work and write and paint, make music and obviously you've got to be really resourceful to kind of carry on making a living out of it and I've been very lucky that I've been able to do that."

While moderately successful – Idlewild have racked up several gold and silver-selling albums as well as 13 top 40 singles – Roddy believes the timing of their success has helped them maintain a life in music.

“I'm not certainly not interested in expensive clothes or cars or anything like that, never have been,” he explains. “I've always been kind of devoted, actually, to what I want to do with my life, which is to be creative and free.

“Idlewild allowed me to do that because we were signed to a major label back when records still sold quite a lot of copies.

“We were signed to a major label for nearly 10 years and that allowed us to play everywhere and get a fan base. So when we became an independent band again, we were in a really good position that we did have lots of fans. We were among the last bands in that position.”

Sometime, as previously mentioned, is a return to a folkier sound, and features more reflective lyrics, as befits someone now in their forties, as opposed to the teenager who started Idlewild.

"I don't tend to write song lyrics about specific things. Originally when I started writing lyrics, I'd find memorable phrases and just repeat them – a lot of Idlewild's early stuff is just basically a phrase that's shouted or sung, and that's naturally evolved into a song!

“I never think like some song writers, ‘this is a song about the Battle of Culloden’, or ‘this is about my divorce’, or whatever. I don't work like that.

“I find the meaning by making the song with other people, and I've got these lines I connect together, like a jigsaw or something like that. Sometimes it never feels finished, but sometimes it does.

“One thing I've always done is just tried to write, I want to sing. Obviously now I'm 48 years old, I'm not going to want to sing something that I wrote when I was 18 for Idlewild as a teenage punk-rock band.

“With that it has become a lot more reflective, as you do as you get older. And you become much more grateful for all the different things in your life that you've managed to achieve or you've managed to navigate.

“With Idlewild because it's more of a collective, and I'm just a part of that band... Not to say my solo material is in any way pessimistic, but I think Idlewild is a very optimistic band.

"All the songs have always been very much full of hope – our first record was called Hope is Important! It's always been that kind of band, a hopeful band.

“And I suppose my own records have allowed me to be a bit more reflective and introspective.”

However, following this round of shows, Roddy is putting the solo projects away for a while.

"We did some shows for the album last October, and then this is the last round of gigs for it. Then that's kind of it for this record and also for solo touring for me for a long time because Idlewild are back on tour at the end of the year, and I'll be concentrating on different things.

“I've made three solo records in a row, and that started during the pandemic. It feels like it’ll be a nice time to do something different again.”

Idlewild’s last album was 2019’s Interview Music, but ask him if there’s a new album pending and he gets coy...

Back on message: "I am really looking forward to doing this these shows. It'll be really nice to play with Sorren and Hannah (Fisher, violin and vocals), to play the songs again and explore some of the older material as well.

"We play some Idlewild songs too, so if people are wanting to hear them before the autumn, get along to the brewery!

Roddy Woomble plays Staggeringly Good Brewery on Tuesday, April 29, supported by Ben Brookes. Doors 7.30pm.

Tickets £16 advance. For tickets go to book.events/beatsandswing.