Stephen Hillier: Constant Life
Variations, the second solo album of new material from Stephen Hillier is out now
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Variations, the second solo album of new material from Stephen Hillier will be released worldwide on 15th October 2021
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I (Friday Night)
I (FRIDAY NIGHT)
Songwriter Stephen Hillier
Date Written June 1998
Place Written Hove, Sussex
Released When June 2000
Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood
Features Roland S-760
Spotify Link
“The smell of the trees on nights like these”It was supposed to be a joke, releasing a single with a one letter title, and a reference to A R Kane’s album of the same name. Only the coolest would get the reference, so that’s brilliant! Obviously the record company wasn’t going to go for that, how would anyone find it, stock it, promote it? So ‘I’ became 'I (Friday Night)’, the only song I’d written that uses parentheses in the title.
Something went slightly wrong in the writing of I, from the attempt to rhyme the word ‘time’ with itself on three occasions to the whimsical feel of the verses. Twenty years later, I (Friday Night) on Make It Better feels like a first draft of a song that I should have returned to later, and now have done. The chorus is a real belter though and was more suited to a slower ballad-style arrangement. But we were on our third album, we’d already recorded enough of those for an entire career. Also, a slow piano ballad was something I was specifically trying to avoid. We were aiming to be as successful as The Cardigans, not the Red House Painters.
‘I’ is a reflection on Jesmond and the relationship I’d left behind. It was written while looking out of my studio window in Hove, this time staring at the Sussex Downs rolling off towards the west and to the sea. 1998 was a difficult time for me, the Tyneside era was over and I felt homeless. Writing ‘I’ was the first opportunity I’d had to reflect on all that had happened since Dubstar began. And so the final Dubstar single represents the bitter sweetness of the optimism of being back in the South, and the sadness of leaving the place I’d spent my adulthood. Some days I feel the same way, even twenty years later.
INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now:
The View From Here
Songwriter Stephen Hillier
Date Written February 1996
Place Written Wolverhampton Town Hall
Released When June 1996
Originally Sung By Sarah Blackwood
Features Roland S-760, Roland JD-800
Spotify Link
“…I was lost a long time”It was during the third Dubstar UK tour, just after Manic came out. Things were truly exciting. I was standing behind my keyboard setup waiting for Paul (Wadsworth, our drummer), Chris and Sarah to show up for the sound check. I played some chords on the JD-800 using a string sound that I’d modelled on the Polymoog Vox Humana that’s all over Gary Numan’s Pleasure Principle album. I was struck by the size of the room we’d sold out, how hundreds had paid money to come and see a band who’d played only a handful of shows. The opening melody just appeared out of nowhere…and it all made sense, look at the view from here, this was not just the next step, it was real. It’s a theme I’ve returned to regularly, the idea of facing the future, like the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich.
INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now
Stars
Songwriter Stephen Hillier
Written February 1992
Jesmond, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Released June 1995
Originally Sung By Stephen Hillier
Features Roland W-30, Yamaha DX100
Spotify Link
“We’ll take out hearts outside, leave our lives behind and watch the stars go out”Stars was written as Walkers Nightclub, an infamous haunt for students and gangsters and my first Tyneside nightclub was closed. A favourite with the more discerning Geordie clubber, I’d DJed at the permanently sold out Wednesday ‘Westworld’ since 1989…my first regular nightclub spot since arriving in Newcastle.
Walkers had numerous difficulties, from regular overcrowding to problems with the drug trade and a broken air conditioning system. It’s closer was a shock, the club had quickly come to define the mid-week music scene for me. While The Riverside was where you went for bands, in the late 80s and early 90s Walkers Nightclub was where you went to dance. And on a Wednesday and later Thursday night (at my indie club ‘Futureworld’) you came to dance to my choice of music. Walkers is where I met Chris, it’s where the Dubstar story began. When the news came in I walked down into Jesmond Dene in the rain to gather my thoughts, I had no idea what I would do. I decided to write Stars, one of the most important decisions in my career, maybe my life.
Walkers returned as Planet Earth in 1993, and regained the Walkers crown to become the late night drinking spot for many Dubstar sessions. It was just a five minute walk from The Forth Hotel and our studio ‘Stink Central’ at The Arts Centre. It was handy to know that when we got off the train from Kings Cross at one in the morning there was somewhere that would always let us in for the tenth drink of the night. Planet Earth was a terrific club, there’s nothing like it down here in Brighton. But I miss Walkers, it had an extra something. Danger?
The song came together on an old piano in my front room in Jesmond, with a lead melody that only features on the ‘acoustic version’ on the B-Side of No More Talk (and now this new piano version). Stars took on a life of its own when I completed the first draft using my Roland W-30 sampler and sequencer. In fact, almost the entire arrangement you hear on the Dubstar version is from the W-30. There’s also a lead ‘twinkle’ from the Yamaha DX100 I’d bought for £100 at Mckay Sounds on Westgate Road earlier that month…a pure sine wave, largely because it was the only sound I liked from the keyboard at the time. That opinion changed soon after. I now own three for some reason.
The arrangement to Stars was conceived with a nod to Massive Attack and the Dub Reggae tunes I grew up with in Lewisham, South London. Of course, being one of my songs, and having very little idea of how Dub Reggae actually works it had to have a strong melody and wistful lyric…a reflection of how I was feeling about the state of the club scene on Tyneside. And what on earth I was going to do next.
I didn’t understand why people liked Stars so much at first, I wasn’t that keen on recording it at all. But through my experiences working at Pinnacle Records, my first job after leaving school, and out of respect to Andy (the boss) Ross at Food Records, I knew that if there was any point in signing to his record label it would be to allow his expertise to guide the next stage for Dubstar. He wanted to release Stars first, so we did. It went on to be the most successful Dubstar song, and is still played on the radios across the world.
I know why people like it now. It’s grown on me too.
INSIDE OUTLINES, the first collection of solo piano pieces by Stephen Hillier is out now: