The making of Scratch My Back from Real World on Vimeo.
Today is the fifth anniversary of the release of Peter’s first orchestral album Scratch My Back.
Now, with a follow up New Blood, a live album and DVD and numerous live shows behind him, the idea of Peter performing with an orchestra seems natural. But in the summer of 2009, at the WOMAD Festival, it was probably the furthest thing from the expectant audience’s mind as Peter opened proceedings with a drawn-out version of Paul Simonʼs The Boy In The Bubble – poignant and deeply moving it was the first whisper of his new project – Scratch My Back.
“Songwriting is what drew me into music,” Peter revealed at the time of the release. “The craft and the process of putting together a good song seemed both exciting and magical.” And itʼs this magical craft that Scratch My Back salutes, a dozen covers of songs that Peter regards as among the pinnacles of songwriting endeavour.
The project was groundbreaking for two reasons. Firstly, it was a collaboration. The intention being that all the artists whose songs Peter recorded were to return the favour by each recording a song of his. The fruits of this exchange – or song swap – to be heard on a later companion volume, And Iʼll Scratch Yours. “The intention,” explained Peter, “was that we would each do the songs in our own idiosyncratic way.”
As we now know, in the end, all but two of the artists whose songs feature on Scratch My Back did indeed return the favour and deliver versions of Peter’s songs for And I’ll Scratch Yours.
Secondly, the songs were approached from an angle that was rather revolutionary. Peterʼs usual band were dispensed with for the project, leaving his voice accompanied solely by orchestral instruments. The approach made for some radical reinterpretations. “After all,” protested the albumʼs arranger John Metcalfe, “whatʼs the point of covers that donʼt make any effort? So many are just really the same song with a different singer. Here was an opportunity – particularly as it was orchestral – not to do that, to reinterpret these songs with integrity.”
So how did the list of potential songs – at one point numbering over 100 – take shape? Peterʼs neighbour Dave Bates, a former A&R man by trade, acted as what the albumʼs engineer Richard Chappell refers to as “the song stimulator. He came around and plugged in these two iPods and weʼd bounce from song to song, slowly putting this list of songs together.” Richard was responsible for suggesting the Arcade Fire and Elbow tracks, while Peterʼs daughter Melanie nominated the Bon Iver song, which would later draw out an extraordinary performance from Peter.
And singing other songwriterʼs words wasnʼt a problem. Inspired by other radical covers – like Johnny Cashʼs deconstruction of Nine Inch Nailsʼ Hurt or Stina Nordenstam turning The Doorsʼ People Are Strange on its head – Peter was actually liberated by not having to write the song itself. “Itʼs easier to find holes in the wall than it is trying to build out of nothing” was his take.
With the help of pianist Jason Rebello, Peter stripped each song right back to their core skeleton before the services of arranger John Metcalfe were called upon to tastefully clothe the basic tracks. “I asked John to keep the arrangements simple, stark but always emotional, so that the songs could really be heard and felt.” John, renowned from his work with the Durutti Column, Blur and The Pretenders, relished the opportunity. “I was a kid in a sweet shop! Here was this incredible voice and here were these incredible songs. It worked straight away. I had Peterʼs vocal and a totally free hand to do what I wanted. And I did.”
“John was almost Peterʼs software,” explained Richard Chappell. “Normally weʼd work with ProTools or something. Now John was the interface.” After much to-ing and fro-ing between Johnʼs base in Oxford, Peterʼs home studio in London and Real World HQ in deepest Wiltshire, the project developed into a coherent yet varied collection of songs. “Where the album hits home,” said John, “is in its variety and breadth. Some songs are very close and intimate, some more epic-sounding.”
Speaking at the time Peter added; “John has done some extraordinary arrangements for this record and it was exciting for me to develop some of those with him. With the first four tracks under development, we were aware of the weight of what we were undertaking, so I called up my old friend Bob Ezrin. He would come in like a SWAT team for short periods, offering his feedback and suggestions, giving us a great deal of help with the orchestral recordings, and more recently critiquing the mixing.”
The resulting album Scratch My Back was released on 15 February 2010.
John Metcalfe will release his new album on Real World Records in Spring 2015.
Visit John Metcalfe’s official website
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