Sweet Baboo, Daily Post July 13

There was an interview with the excellent Sweet Baboo in the Daily Post on Friday (July 13). You can read it below the music if you want to. He's playing Green Man Festival in August. Listen to more here. It could have been a considerably longer article. But I have my limits. Word limits.



SWEET Baboo, formerly of Bethesda, raised in Colwyn Bay and now of Cardiff, has officially released three albums in 12 years. On face value, it falls some way short of prolific.
Otherwise known as Stephen Black, his career has not followed the trajectory of a shy and retiring bedroom musician. As well as music of his own, the past ten years have been punctuated with work alongside the likes of Cate Le Bon, Euros Childs, Slow Club, Daniel Johnston and H Hawkline.
“I started as Sweet Baboo really early but just, kind of, released CD-Rs,” he says. “Loads of the stuff I did from 18 to 21 or 22 I just did in my room and then I started playing with other bands and giving my friends music.
“It wasn’t really until I started playing with Euros Childs that I began to release music. Through him I realised it's not all glamorous and you should do things yourself.”

Nowadays, he points out he does not draw on a full 12 years of material – for reasons beyond progression.
"I tend to do new songs, you want to play the stuff you’ve never recorded.”
Black adds: “When you’ve put them on record they’re done and finished. I forget a lot of songs as well. The main reason, I suppose, is that I play so much for other people. I’ve only got enough space in my mind. Others just fall out.”
He has played with Cate Le Bon for "about eight years," something which led to being part of Euros Childs’ band. Collaborations with Sheffield’s Slow Club followed in a similar way. One of his five appearances at this year’s Green Man Festival in Brecon will be a krautrock collaboration with Le Bon and Hawkline – the first time in “about four years” the act has performed.
“The main thing I’ve learnt with other bands is that it’s not all as glamorous as you think. It is great in one way when you get to tour America – and then driving seven hours to play to 25 people isn’t too bad. But when you do that day after day.”
This year, with the look of a man still in touching distance of 20, Black reached 30. If the approach has changed over 12 years the principles have remained.
“All I ever really wanted to do was be in a band and I suppose was a lot more shy when I was younger. That was before the music industry crashed, as it were, and I thought that maybe one day I would get discovered. It – I – was quite naive.”
He continues: “It has always been kind of the same principle. I still like making, like, pop records. The main difference would be that I’m wiser on how to record things and I’ve got better gear.
“But in a weird way, when I was recording for nobody’s pleasure but my own it was a bit nicer. Now I always have to think whether someone will like it.”
A new record, the tentatively titled Ships, was completed in May after a tour with Slow Club. No release date has been set. He plays at Green Man Festival in Brecon on the weekend of August 17. To listen to Sweet Baboo visit sweetbaboo.bandcamp.com. For more information on Green Man Festival visit greenman.net.