Callum Easter on making music and making a living

Friday morning in Leith and Easter has a new album, entitled System, to promote. We are sitting at a table outside the Word of Mouth Bistro to talk, but Easter seems a little edgy, a little haunted even. He sits at an angle, a little hunched up, maybe uncomfortable with talking about himself, maybe uncomfortable full stop.

Easter is a singer songwriter who grew up in Dunbar and now lives in Leith. He is 34 and he and has just made a ferocious and fun record. System is a lo-fi, full-flavour thing saturated in pop melodies and dirty distortion and filled to the brim with short, sharp songs that carry echoes of early rock’n’roll and Glam-era T-Rex, built around a voice that’s gravelly croon. The result is genuinely thrilling.

Easter will take the compliment, but the truth is, he seems a little weighed under today. “It’s a bit strange. It was supposed to come out August initially and then September and now November. So, I’m kind of over it already,” he says of the album. “I wish it had come out earlier.”

Why so? Because it’s already November, he says. “Then it’s Christmas and then it’s 2022 and then everyone’s looking for the new thing.”

There’s a wary, weary air to him today. He’s been struggling with things of late, he admits; mostly about how to make music and how to make money at the same time.

“I don’t know if I should really be saying this, but you do consider packing it all in,” he tells me at one point. “Just the amount of time you put in, the hours for something to just go up and then ...”

He pauses, changes direction, something he does a lot during our short time together. “The level I’m at gigging is not covering the bills. That’s why I do solo, so I can kind of bring a bit home. But the amount of time … Yeah, it’s a tricky balance.”

I hope he feels it is worth it because System, his second album is a sticky, febrile compulsion, easily one of my favourite albums of the year. A pop album with a dark heart.

“I wanted to make a party album,” he says, “but then, lyrically, it’s maybe a party at the end of the world or something.”

It is mostly all his own work. Twin sisters Pauline and Jacqui Cuff, aka The Leith Congregational Choir, aka Soho, fondly recalled for their Smiths-sampling 1991 hit Hippychick, contribute to the album from their home in Birmingham (“It wouldn’t sound the same without them actually,” Easter admits.).

Otherwise, he made the album himself in his tiny Leith studio just a few streets away from where we sit now. “It’s all me playing,” Easter points out.

And much of what we hear are single takes, “so you can feel the energy,” he adds.

“Maybe I double track the guitar, but you’re just trying to bottle it basically. Production-wise, there’s a lot of distortion going on everything. Vocals as well.”

The sound was inspired by listening to early Bo Diddley demos and Jessie Mae Hemphill. “I discovered her this year. She’s from Mississippi. She used to play with her family in a fife and drum band and there’s a live recording of her songs and you can hear that in there. I love that. I wish I could roll a snare. That’s what I’m working on.”

When he starts talking about music you can hear his enthusiasm audibly rise. From these influences he has created a raw, punchy, aggressive sound sweetened by his ear for melody. The noise of it is in keeping with the lyrics which often come from a dark place, whether it’s his horror at politicians (“liars” as he calls them on the title track which also has the words “f*** the system” on repeat) and just general morbidities.

The first song What You Think? – which is, by the way, a total banger – basically begins with you imagining you are dead, Callum, I point out.

“That, I guess, is trying to grab people’s attention with that first line. During the pandemic to start the album with that line … I did think about it …

“I didn’t have anything else.”

He raises his head. “That’s a positive song as far as just living, basically.”

When you’re writing songs, Easter adds, you’re reacting to what’s going on around you. “And it’s been a very tense time. So much information and anxiety. So that kind of comes across. And trying to balance that in the lyrics … Not trying to be ambiguous but …” He pauses again, questions himself. “Is there much ambiguity in there?”

He doesn’t have an answer. “I was just trying to lay it out as I see it.”

What’s clear is that whatever has him on edge today it’s not all personal. “I’ve stopped watching the news really which … I dunno … Maybe I should start watching it again. But you just get so bogged down with everything.”

He returns to the title track. “That song is about what’s important around you. Because how do you change things? What needs to be fixed? Is it the billionaires? Are there too many billionaires?”

He’s clearly not one of them. To keep making music he has a variety of day jobs, often working up to 60 hours a week.

“I usually have about three things on the go outside the music moneywise and that kind of lets me stay on my toes and be a bit flexible. But it’s a tricky balance.”

These jobs vary from manual labour to sound design. “With the pandemic all my freelance work went,” he says.

The music, though, Callum, you’re going to keep on doing it?

“Yeah. I will. I had a wee rocky spell. I love recording and making the music, but that’s about 30 or 40 per cent of it.

“Since the restrictions have been lifted, I’ve probably done about four or five gigs and they’ve all been different set-ups so I need to settle on that a bit. But part of me quite likes mixing it up like that. I like it when there’s a feeling that the audience know that I don’t know what’s going to happen and riding that that’s a buzz.

“It’s how to make it more profitable.”

What, I ask him, is the shape of life outside music? “I think that’s what’s been problematic for my mental health, really. I just need nothing for a bit at some point because all the gaps are filled up with music. I’ve got family, yeah, two kids, no motor. what the f*** am I doing, really? It’s been tense, man.”

This is the point where idealism meets reality, I guess. I’m hoping when it comes to Easter the idealism wins out. The album is a legacy, I suggest. I hope he feels that’s worthwhile.

“Yeah, sometimes I do.”

Given everything we’ve talked about this might seem a ridiculous question but what are his ambitions for his music? “It’s got to be from here.” He beats a fist against his heart. “And if I can make a living just doing that, that’s it. I don’t want to be a celebrity. Nah. That kind of veneer there’s too much of that.”

And yet, as a new short film he has made shows, he has real presence, which, admittedly, is a different thing. The short plays out like an alternative vision of those Saturday night light entertainment shows from the 1970s and 1980s, in this case, “20 minutes of dancers, a knife thrower, a dominatrix,” he explains. “And me singing. The self-loathing comes across. It’s a bit dark. It’s a bit gothic actually.”

It’s also another example of his originality. And evidence of just what we might lose if he was to give it up. BBC Scotland should commission a series.

Easter has finished his drink, he’s ready to get on with his day. He tells me that he’s still working out how to play the new album live.

“I can do accordion versions of stuff, but I’m really into dub and I’d almost rather just play it back in an interesting way through a load of speakers and hammer it with effects.”

He has another thought. “When I’ve been playing these versions of songs, I’ve not actually been playing all the bangers. I think I just need to start to play all the bangers.”

Sounds like a good plan.

Callum Easter’s album System is out on  Friday via Moshi Moshi Records in association with Lost Map. His album launch gig will be part of Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug event at Summerhall in Edinburgh on Friday, December 3. For tickets, visit lostmap.com

The Callum Easter TV Special will premiere at Leith Late on Friday and Saturday as part of Leith Late. For more information, visit leithlate.co.uk