Pigeon Spins Featuring an Interview with Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective

Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective - Long Road Home

Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective return with their first new single in two years: "Long Road Home" tells the tale of a lonely drifter who stumbles across a strange little town in the middle of nowhere...and immediately wants to get back out. It’s a haunting mix of Blues and Gothic Americana, decorated with a shimmering lead guitar and punctuated by “found” sounds where you’d normally expect drums.

Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective hail from London; a project begun in 2017 when veteran sideman Ralph Beeby decided to embark upon a solo project, writing and recording most of the music himself, but also drawing on a wealth of former bandmates to join him in the studio or onstage.

“A darker shade of the Blues,” blending the sounds of Classic Blues and Rock with the dark, artistic stylings of Nick Cave and Tom Waits. Ralph pushes against the boundaries of the genre to present a dramatic new take on modern Blues-Rock.

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Interview with Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective

(º)> What inspired the story behind “Long Road Home”?

A couple of years ago, I had released the single 'There is a Well', which has quite a strong American Gothic feel about it - think Donna Tartt's 'The Secret History', or Stephen King's 'Dolores Claiborne' - and I was out for a walk with my family, idly wondering what to do about a music video.

Now, I live near London, which is not known for its Midwest-style architecture or general Americana. But then, what should we stumble across, but a small housing development made up entirely of clapboard houses - complete with a suitably spooky church in the middle!

Sadly, a couple of weeks later, I broke my ankle, and had to make do with an alternative idea! But this curious little find stayed in my imagination, and gradually the suburban footpath became a desolate desert road, and it wasn't me discovering it but some lost drifter, and who lived in these houses? Gradually, the scenes just set themselves.

(º)> Why did you choose to replace drums with “found” sounds on this track?

It's fun to change things up a bit, isn't it? Whenever I'm writing a song or thinking about arrangements, I'm always looking for a slightly different angle. A slow swing beat, maybe played with brushes, would probably have worked, but I feel like the footsteps and metallic clanks are a better fit for the atmosphere of the song.

(º)> How does “Long Road Home” mark a progression from your earlier work?

I mentioned 'There is a Well' earlier - I feel like there was a little bit of world-building that went on with writing that, and this feels like a very natural continuation of that. Not to suggest that they're set in the same town - the town in 'Well' is more affluent, somewhere that people have time to gossip and twitch curtains. Whereas 'Long Road Home' is much more down-at-heel; a sad, one-horse town where people go to drop off the map.

On a technical level, it's also been a great opportunity to develop that "cinematic" sound. Making things work for the atmosphere of the song, rather than an opportunity to show off my guitar chops. None of the parts in 'Long Road Home' are complicated or elaborate, but I'm really pleased with how it all comes together as a soundscape.

(º)> What drew you to the blend of Blues and Gothic Americana?

I blame Chris Rea!

Joking aside: my parents had one of his later albums ('Auberge') on cassette, and I remember hearing it quite a lot when I was young - I think it did a lot of car journeys with us. It was far from the only tape on heavy rotation, but for some reason I really enjoyed that one. And if you look past the very '80s production, that album is full of elements of the Blues, Americana, and obviously slide guitar - which, granted, I didn't use on 'Long Road Home', but it's been a key part of my own sound. (I feel like Rea doesn't often get his due as a slide guitarist - he's underrated, in my opinion!)

Anyway, I was too young to describe what it was I liked about that album, but looking back, there was a common theme with a lot of the artists I got into as I grew up - The Doors, The Who, Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. And then everything made perfect sense when I started digging into the "classic" Blues artists - Son House, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf - it was a bit of a lightbulb moment: this is where it all comes from.

(º)> How do Nick Cave and Tom Waits influence your sound?

I've heard a lot of things which broadened my musical horizons, but hearing Tom Waits for the first time was as if someone had taken a stick of dynamite to them. Before that, I'd always enjoyed The Who, for the sense of "controlled chaos" they always brought, but suddenly I was hearing the next logical step, which was to leave the drum kit out altogether and just hit an old Chesterfield with a plank of wood instead.

But I think I'm also taking some reassurance from other singers with deep voices. It wasn't something I noticed until I first tried to sing with a band...but most male rock and pop singers sing in quite a high register! And I don't just mean extreme cases like Russell Mael or Geddy Lee - the genre seems to favour a high-ish tenor voice. So hearing Nick Cave, Waits, and others like Jim Morrison, gave me some confidence that actually yes, there is a time and a place for a deep basso growl!

(º)> What does “a darker shade of the Blues” mean to you personally?

So every Blues artist - probably - has had to explain to a friend or acquaintance that the Blues isn't just sad, depressing music. It's actually a great vehicle for whichever emotion you want to convey, and for painting those emotions in big, bold colours. It can be incredibly cathartic in that sense. That said...I am personally more interested in the darker themes: the sadness, the anger, the downright sinister. So lyrically I'm in much bleaker territory than other contemporary Blues artists, definitely painting with the "darker shades" from that palette. I'd say it's brought a bit of a "film noir" aspect to the overall sound as well - quite a few people have said my songs often have a cinematic quality to them.

(º)> How do you balance solo work with collaboration in the Elephant Collective?

Well, it's a bit of an open secret...but there is no Elephant Collective! Not in the way you'd think of a "normal" band, at least. After years of being a sideman in so many different groups, I realized I had a lot of contacts I could draw on if I needed to put a band together for gigging or recording. And I think it keeps think interesting: I play the majority of parts when I record a song - I'll let you decide whether that's "creative freedom" or just "vanity"! - but then live, the arrangements are shaped by who's available on the night.

(º)> How has your background as a sideman shaped your songwriting?

It certainly gives you a lot of time to observe! You learn a lot of different songs, written by a lot of different people, and so you encounter a lot of styles and ideas (both good and bad)! I think everyone's songwriting style is informed by the music they encounter along the way, the lyrics that chime with them, and I'm sure that I'm drawing on a very deep well of different influences as a result...what's that Oscar Wilde quote? "Talent borrows, genius steals"?

I dare say it's also worked with the Tom Waits/Nick Cave influence in encouraging me to write more songs in the third person. Being "somebody else's bassist" often gives you more time to look at the people you're playing to, and your imagination starts to wonder what brought to this venue and this gig, on this night. In fact, the song 'Come to this House' (from the 'Magnolia Smoke' album) came about from a regular gig I once had, when I started inventing strange little backstories for some of the regulars!

(º)> What’s been the biggest challenge in pushing genre boundaries?

You probably see it in every genre, but Blues definitely has a vocal cohort of gatekeepers who are very ready to shout "that's not Blues" if you try something different! On the other hand, a lot of other people seem to be ready to dismiss Blues as a dead horse, perceiving it to be no more than a narrow spectrum of ideas ranging from copying Eric Clapton to pub-band "Dad-rock". Unfortunately, a lot of the gatekeepers seem to be suspicious of anything that sits outside this same spectrum!

So I feel like the only way you can win is to crowbar some fresh ideas into it, and just accept that some people will hate what you're doing, and tell you it's "not real Blues", and it's probably cost me some radio play, some playlist spots, and so on...but at least I can confidently say I'm offering something a bit different.

(º)> What can fans expect next from Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective?

There is a lot of new stuff on the way! The next single is almost ready to go, and there are about a dozen others at various stages along the recording process. There's an acoustic version of 'Long Road Home' which I'm looking forward to finishing off and sharing with you all. In a real break with my usual oeuvre, I have even - believe it or not - managed to write a love song...

That's all Folks! Check out Ralph Beeby & the Elephant Collective on the Pigeon Spins Playlist!