HIGH FREQUENCIES: Catching up with Eric, who’s more Go(u)lden than ‘Wreckless’ these days

For every song of Wreckless Eric’s you remember from his early days on Stiff Records, he’s recorded 10 more that you’ve probably never heard. The early DIY British indie label may have been his entry-level position into the music business, but Eric Goulden didn’t stop making music after the novelty of Stiff Records — and his being known as Wreckless Eric — wore off. Forty years on, Goulden is still making inciteful music while the original label is but a footnote in music history.

Perhaps best known for his first single, “Whole Wide World” — if you never heard it upon release, you were probably being anesthetized by the sounds of corporate radio — the pop song details the longing to find that one true love, going “the whole wide world just to find her.” Such is the subject matter for young songwriters, with the future — and endless possibilities — ahead.

Goulden’s latest album, Construction Time & Demolition, builds on the sonic assault launched with 2015’s AmERICa. A collection of dense, swirling, cinematic soundscapes, the music doesn’t simply underscore Goulden’s observations on life and how people live it, but assaults the listener’s senses, a jackhammer gutting the foundation on which one’s beliefs are built.

In the album’s liner notes, Goulden writes, “I’ve reached an age when I see buildings being torn down that I remember being built.” It’s from that perspective that Goulden makes his lyrical strike, not unlike John Lennon on Milk And Honey, or that of many other of Goulden’s contemporaries facing their own mortality after years of looking ahead.

Consequently, Construction Time & Demolition finds Goulden at his most poignant and insightful, not an easy feat when his entire songwriting career has been just that. Yeah, Construction Time & Demolition is that good.

Currently on tour promoting the new album, Eric returns to Atlanta April 20 to play 529, with Gentleman Jesse and Faux Ferocious also on the bill. Through a brief email exchange, Goulden brought us up to date.

What can people expect from the show Friday night? Is it you and a guitar? A band?

It’s just me. electric and acoustic guitars, no band. It’s probably my own shortcoming as a band leader but when I get a band involved there’s less room for me and I seem to be surrounded by actors delivering the script. It’s a much more far out experience just me on my own. It’s gets loud and sometimes it’s very quiet. I get into soundscape territory.

With Amy (Rigby, his wife of 10 years) on the road promoting her new album, did you decide this was a good time for a busman’s holiday.

I just came back from a month touring with Amy as her bass player. I produced her latest album, The Old Guys. It’s not so much a busman’s holiday as a change of bus company. Except I’m driving a car.

You’re living in the U.S. full time now. Does that make life better or worse for you?

After the last election I thought we should maybe moved back to the UK but they’ve got Brexit and Theresa May so it’s really no better. I love America — for years people told me I should move here and I said it would never happen but I married an American girl and here I am. Living in America has been very good for me, I feel I can be anything I want to be. It’s been strangely liberating.

On your last two albums, the guitar is still prevalent, but a lot of the songs seem to more sonic soundscapes rather than the usual guitar/bass/drums. Had you grown tired of the traditional instrumentation?

I was tired of the traditional instrumentation from day one. You write a countryish sounding song and some fool always suggest putting a pedal steel on it. I’m more likely to recruit a trombone player. I’ve made records where the drum kit was a cardboard box or a loop of a metal pressing plant. The new album has trumpets on it and a whole lot of fuzz bass. I like instrumental passages as much as I like songs. I haven’t made what you might call a traditional sounding record in years.

You’ll be forever known as Wreckless Eric, and the singles you recorded early on for Stiff Records. Forty years on, has that turned out to be a blessing or a curse? How does Eric Goulden feel about that?

I kept going and moved into new areas of music. I’ve always been more interested in self-development as an artist rather than pushing a brand. I could see the possibilities of punk and new wave moving into nostalgia in the early ’80s and I didn’t want any part of that so I moved on and distanced myself from it, made records under other names and confused everyone.

I’ve always felt conflicted, hated being known by a silly name, but in the end it’s just a name that people know me by. By 1968 the Beatles was not exactly a cool band name but it didn’t seem to matter because that’s who they were. They endured and what they did defined the name rather than the name defining them. I hope I’m the same in that respect. Wreckless Eric is my trade name I suppose. On the cover of my new album, Construction Time & Demolition, it says ‘the new Wreckless Eric album by Eric Goulden.’

I’ve always come back to using the name Wreckless Eric because it’s the difference between playing to a handful of people and playing to a full house.

Your early songwriting seemed to focus on possibilities, and the future, and, now that we’re in the future, as you noted on “Space Age,” you’re afforded the chance to look back. Is it really “crap,” as you sing?

I thought that was a hilarious first line — ‘So this is the space age, isn’t it crap?’Some aspects of life are crap, some aren’t, some things have got better, other things worse and some things have always been crap.

You’ve always had a sly, cynical approach to life in your songwriting, for example, “The Final Taxi.” Has age caused you to become more caustic, or or do you see it more as a chance to be freer than ever before?

“The Final Taxi” was hardly cynical, let alone caustic. I thought it was charming and very real. If you want caustic try “Wow & Flutter” off the new album:

“And all your records are shit except for maybe one
And I’m your biggest fan if I can’t tell you then who can
And here come the discords here comes the bit
That’s going to stop this from being a hit”

I write about all kinds of things but I’m English and we tend not to dwell on positives.

Where did you have to travel to find Amy Rigby?

We met in a pub in Hull in 1999. I was the guest DJ, she was the act, and she played a cover of ‘Whole Wide World,’ unaware that this was the very room where I’d first ever performed the song back in about 1975. I thought she was great but I didn’t think she’d be interested in me. Seems I was wrong — we’ve been married for 10 years now. I often think I could have just stayed in the upstairs room of that pub for 25 years.

What’s brought you the most … ?

What? Joy perhaps? … grandchildren, music, Amy Rigby, being alive, making another record, artistic recognition. Stuff like that.

Any regrets?

I could think of plenty but what’s the point? I try to be thankful for the here and now and keep moving forward direction.

Is life fair?

Life is very unfair sometimes, bad things happen to people who don’t deserve to have those things inflicted upon them. But I fully believe that given half a chance you make your own luck. If you go through life acting like an asshole it’ll keep coming back on you. Life will keep on throwing the same old lesson at you until you learn from it.

Contact Tony Paris about music-related items at cl.highfreqs@gmail.com. It’s the best way to reach him. “Messages” and other means of communication get lost in the shuffle — unless you want to gamble.