Miles Kane finds sunlight in the shadows.
Image: Larry Niehues.
Singer and musician Miles Kane was born in the Wirral, where he formed his first band in 2004. He has recorded five solo albums, as well as two UK number one LPs with Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner as The Last Shadow Puppets. This month, he releases his sixth solo studio album, Sunlight in the Shadows.
Kane started out playing guitar for The Little Flames in his teens before becoming the frontman for The Rascals, but his musical interests were formed even earlier under the influence of his cousins, James and Ian Skelly of The Coral. He’s still close to James in particular, regularly exchanging voice notes of their latest compositions. “Last night I had this mad idea, I sent it to him – we always do that with each other to get the feelers on new ideas. We’re pretty honest with each other, and there’s a subtle undercurrent of competition, which is a good thing.”
Kane learnt the saxophone at school, mainly because he wanted to be able to play the Pink Panther theme. “I kind of love Peter Sellers, and I like those sorts of films, the tongue-in-cheek stuff. It was that, and it was to play ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ for my mother because she loves that tune.” He hadn’t played for fifteen years when he was persuaded to pick it up again for The Last Shadow Puppets’ Glastonbury set in 2016, performing Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream”. When he joined The Little Flames, he couldn’t sing, concentrating instead on developing his craft as a guitarist. The guitar is still his first love, as evidenced on the new album by tracks such as “Walk on the Ocean” and “Coming Down the Road”, with their Link Wray-style riffs. “That's one of my go-tos. Even on a song like ‘Always in Over My Head’, the guitar solo, I like to incorporate that because I think that’s part of me. I find those parts for me as important as the lyrics and the vocal.”
Sunlight in the Shadows was produced and co-written by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys at his Nashville studio. Kane’s previous album, One-Man Band, was produced by James Skelly, who was originally down to work on this one too. “Me and our James are massive Dan Auerbach fans, and it was our idea for me to go and set up a writing session with Dan, and if we hit it off I’d bring the songs home and record them with our James, in Liverpool.” But on meeting him, Kane felt an instant connection and accepted Auerbach’s offer to produce the album, subsequently signing to his Easy Eye Sound label. “That was never Plan A, but it was the most perfect plan I could ever dream of, really. It all happened so naturally, and I’ve just gone with it. It’s made me raise my game as well. It really made this album a pleasurable and fun experience.”
“I don’t want to copy it and do it old school, but I do listen to those old records, my clothes are like that style, my look’s that style. I guess my melodies are that style. That’s just who I am, really – it’s just my version, I guess”
It was recorded over the course of just four or five days, with “this amazing band; it was like my dream band that Dan had put together.” As all the songs were recorded live, Auerbach suggested keeping in snippets of Kane’s spoken instructions. “On some, like ‘Sunlight in the Shadows’, you can hear me counting the band in, and I’m going, ‘Riff!’ and now that’s part of the song. It’s almost like a lyric in there now, weirdly. Or ‘Electric Flower’ starts, and you can hear me going, ‘Four’, and then it kicks in; you don’t hear the ‘One-two-three’. But I like that ‘Four’, and I’m thinking now, that’s going to be a great way to start a gig: the band are playing, I walk on, the beat’s playing and I just go, ‘Four’ … and you kick in. So, there’s those little moments that prove that it is live, and give it a little special narrative that makes it exciting.”
The album mines the past for inspiration, particularly Kane’s favourite era of the 1960s and 1970s. “I don’t want to copy it and do it old school, but I do listen to those old records, my clothes are like that style, my look’s that style. I guess my melodies are that style. That’s just who I am, really – it’s just my version, I guess.” “Blue Skies” is a case in point, taking a “Plastic Ono vibe, ‘Cold Turkey’-ish” and combining it with a bluesy tune that recalls Dr John’s final, Auerbach-produced album, Locked Down. “The sound of that album is something I’ve always loved.” Going into his first meeting with Auerbach, he had hoped that together they could create Kane’s take on that sound. “If you’d imagine what that would be, the answer would be ‘Blue Skies’ in its sound, production and vibe.”
Whereas before he might have felt he had to stick with one genre, Kane is now comfortable drawing on different styles throughout the album. “I love my heavy rock stuff. I love the surf, Pulp Fiction-ish, Morricone, but then there's a song like, say, ‘Always in Over My Head’ which has got a bit of that Bacharach-ish side. Sometimes I want to wear the suit and be the crooner, and sometimes I want to wear the eyeliner and be glam rock.” There are also influences from the turn of the century, for example in “Sing a Song to Love”. “That’s the gnarliest one. It’s almost got a bit of a northern vibe, that one, a bit Oasis-ish. And ‘Coming Down the Road’, there’s a bit of that, maybe that’s a bit more of a darker version. But those styles of tunes are the ones that make you want to put your coat on and have a fucking go. Yeah, that’s definitely wearing Stone Island, that song.”
Image: James Kelly.
The album ends on a more contemplative note, with “Walk on the Ocean”. It’s probably his favourite track from the album and the one that delves deepest into his psyche. “There's a lot of these subconscious lyrics, maybe about alcohol, drugs and times in your life when you go too far in that world. It can get dark. So, I think I’ve tapped into those emotions from those experiences. You find your way of how to come out of it and regroup. It’s got that mood, that grandness.” For Kane, it’s the perfect way to finish the record, summing up where he stands today. “It’s got a maturity about it that I really like. I think that shows pretty much where I’m at and explains it.”
Unlike many musicians, Kane is happy to get out and promote Sunlight in the Shadows, as long as he can do so in a way that’s respectful of his fans. “There’s a loophole in the system where if I put out ten versions of the same album but with different covers, your hardcore fans will buy those ten albums. But I don’t believe in that. Maybe it means you’ll sell slightly less, but I think I’m in a state where I’m alright with that. I want to try and stay true to myself as much as possible.” He’s also embraced social media, up to a point. “Doing things that suit me, because I do like making little things. But it doesn’t mean that I’ve got to be on there every day. I think I’ve got a comfortable balance of that stuff.”
He also relishes the in-person promotional visits to independent record stores to play acoustic sets and sign records. “I’m a grafter and I enjoy doing the hard work. I’m enjoying where we’re at with this record because I feel so proud of it, and I want to do all I can to hopefully get people onto it.” Listening to Kane talk about Sunlight in the Shadows, you get the sense of an artist who’s found the sweet spot between youthful exhilaration and mature self-assurance. “My drive is the same as it was in Little Flames’ early days; I think it’s just the pure joy and the love,” he says. “This is my 11th album in total in 20 years – it shows me as a 39-year-old man and the music I want to be making. I think it’s a great chapter of this story, of my story.”
Sunlight in the Shadows is out 17th October.
Author: Rachel Goodyear