John Blaylock has had one of the more remarkable careers in music that you’ve probably never heard of. His first band got Radio 1 airplay and were asked — by Desmond Tutu, no less — to write a song for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebrations. Then the industry did what the industry occasionally does and the whole thing fell apart. Rather than pack it in, Blaylock went to Los Angeles and wrote with Pam Sheyne, who has credits with Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera. Then Sweden, working with girl bands. Then Japan, working with new talent. Then Ecuador, where he built a studio. It was there, somewhere between the equator and a recording desk, that the penny finally dropped: these were his songs. He should be the one recording them.
And so here we are. Sounds of the Dreadnought, his debut solo album, is out May 8 — ten songs of melody and poetry, moonshine and roses, love, lust and reflection, five written in his native Manchester and five crafted across his international travels. It’s produced by two-time Grammy winner Guy Massey, whose credits include Ed Sheeran, Manic Street Preachers and Jack Savoretti, alongside Helen Boulding, and recorded at Konk — the legendary studio founded by The Kinks. Drums are by Freddy Sheed, who you might know from his work with Lewis Capaldi. The pedigree is impeccable.
The new single ‘Where Did All My Friends Go?’ is the perfect introduction. Set to a punchy indie-meets-hip-hop beat, it’s a song about male friendship and the quiet drift of it — the mates from your youth who are now scattered by parenthood, distance, addiction, circumstance. Every character in it is real, every incident autobiographical. Blaylock says it always gets a reaction at gigs, with people coming up afterwards to say how much they related to it. That’s not surprising — it’s the kind of song that feels like it was written about your life even when it was clearly written about someone else’s.
Beyond the music, Blaylock runs The Daytime Singers, a community project running nine weekly singing groups across Manchester, using music to build new friendships — which, given the subject matter of this single, feels like a very fitting thing to be doing.
In a long, proud tradition of northern English songwriters — Noel Gallagher, Tim Burgess, Mick Head, Badly Drawn Boy, Paul Heaton — John Blaylock is a very welcome addition. Sounds of the Dreadnought is available to pre-order now.
‘Where Did All My Friends Go?‘ is out now. Sounds of the Dreadnought is out May 8. Pre-order here.
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