STEPHEN FRETWELL
SITTING on the pebbled shores of Brighton beach Stephen Fretwell expresses an extreme amount of modesty when SMHTP quizzes him about his most favoured album.
The Manchester based singer said: “I just hate everything as soon as I’ve recorded it. I like it you know - but I just want to write more different types of music.”
Suffice to say this attitude seems to have got him a long way; in fact so far that his debut album Magpie went gold.
It all began after a short stint at university – two days to be exact – Fretwell fled to Manchester where his poetic songs, melodic music and strength of voice gathered him an audience. Fast forward seven years and Fretwell is doing remarkably well. He’s toured with the likes of Oasis, Keane, Athlete and Katie Tunstall and after signing to Friction Records in 2003 he caught the attention of critics with his debut (recorded at the world famous Abbey Road Studios.)
Q magazine named Fretwell, “one of Britain’s finest singer-songwriters” and London Lite claimed he was “a gifted musician from the same school of delicate strumming that gave us Ryan Adams and Harry Nilsson.”
His long awaited second album Man On the Roof recorded in New York was released in September and seems to be attracting the same select audiences. Fretwell describes the distinction between his two full length albums, “Magpie sounds like four musicians playing in a room pretty much a regular band set up, and Man on the Roof is a little bit weirder, a little more stylized maybe.”
When it comes to forming an opinion on his music the 26-year-old singer-songwriter pretty much leaves it you, “I don’t want to sound facetious -I don’t really have anything to say…I’m just not very good at forcing anybody into explaining what I do. I guess what I would just say is that they are songs.”
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Plain White T's
Born in the suburbs of Chicago, lead singer Tom Higgenson was originally fascinated with the drums, performing in various pop and rock bands in high school.