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PHOTO Gregg Houston<\/p>\nWhen Foy Vance walks on stage at the Usher Hall later this year, it will be during a tour marking the end of a creative journey. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I finally walked, I finally got my degree,\u201d he says. \u201cThey gave me the paper. But there\u2019s no such thing as an end really. Every ending just reveals itself as a new beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a fitting frame for a performer whose work resists clean narrative closure. His songs are often rooted in soul-baring honesty, but rarely settle into certainty. Edinburgh is something of a stronghold for Vance. This writer has watched him perform memorable sold-out shows there that linger long in the memory. They carry emotional heft, but also humour, Vance is a storyteller who does not take himself too seriously.\u201cI remember walking Arthur\u2019s Street,\u201d he says of a previous visit. \u201cIt was a gorgeous day. I do remember that day vividly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Place has been an essential factor in Vance\u2019s life and work. Born in County Down, Northern Ireland, he lived in the American south as a boy while his father worked as a travelling preacher. A shift from London to Scotland proved creatively pivotal.\u201cMoving from London to Aberfeldy was like moving from the humdrum of industry to the haunts of ancient bards,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt hit me hard. In Aberfeldy there\u2019s this glorious lack of human intention,\u201d he adds. \u201cMountains, trees, rivers. It felt peaceful, ancient\u2026 like a homecoming.\u201d His current album The Wake is the seventh by Vance, marking the completion of a journey that began at the end of the 1990s. It was after playing a gig on the Spanish island of Lanzarote that he learned of his father\u2019s fatal heart attack. As an act of remembrance, he decided to write seven albums, that would be a creative exploration as much as a kind of requiem. <\/p>\n
The number carried significant meaning: his father would often repeat a line attributed to Aristotle and St Ignatius Loyola \u2014 \u201cGive me the boy to the age of seven, and I will give you the man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Songwriters often describe a sense of presence when writing, and Vance is comfortable with that idea. \u201cI would completely say that my dad was my co-writer in all these things,\u201d he says. \u201cThe day he died was the day I started hearing the words very, very clearly.\u201d After his father\u2019s death, there was clarity of purpose. \u201cEverything lined up,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew I was meant to make seven records, each one representing a stage of my growth as an artist and a songwriter.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recalls a story about musician Billy Strings and a guitar sold in difficult circumstances, then later bought back. Instruments, he suggests, can become extensions of memories from days long gone and connections that that don\u2019t diminish over time. \u201cThat story hit me sideways,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve clung to my guitar like a life raft.\u201d<\/p>\n
On songwriting, he resists the idea of it as purely self-generated. \u201cI don\u2019t think I sit down and create this out of my own smarts,\u201d he says. \u201cI tune into whatever\u2019s out there. You catch something and you ride it like a wave.\u201d One of the central songs on The Wake, produced by Ethan Johns, is \u201cI\u2019m Not Celebrating\u201d. <\/p>\n
In the studio, some necessary subtractions were made. \u201cThere was hope in the song where there was no hope in reality,\u201d he says. \u201cWe realised we had to remove the word \u2018if\u2019. It was too pregnant with hope.\u201d The change might sound minor, but for Vance it was essential. \u201cThat word \u2014 \u2018if\u2019 \u2014 was the poem my dad used to recite to me,\u201d he says, referring to Rudyard Kipling\u2019s \u201cIf\u201d. \u201cSo taking it out was bigger than just the song.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Usher Hall, with its reputation for acoustic clarity, feels a natural fit for Vance. He was recently in the city for a low-key performance at Assai Records, with fans up close. \u201cIt\u2019s almost easier to play to a thousand people than thirty,\u201d he says. \u201cWith thirty, you can see everyone\u2019s face and that\u2019s terrifying. I\u2019m always pleasantly surprised that anyone shows up. You just rock up on the other side of the world and hope the room fills. When it does, it still feels wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond ownership, Vance\u2019s songs have taken on lives beyond him \u2014 in churches, choirs and community performances. His song Guiding Light, featuring Ed Sheeran, was performed by the Christmas Choir at Bonnyrigg Parish Church in Midlothian. \u201cIf a church uses one of my songs like that, that\u2019s a beautiful thing.\u201d <\/p>\n
As the conversation closes, he returns to where he began: inspiration as something unforced, it comes from a strange place. \u201cArt would do it for free,\u201d he says. \u201cIt just wants to sneak in, do the thing, and sneak out the back door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foy Vance plays The Usher Hall on 17 October his new album The Wake is out now<\/p>\n
PHOTO Gregg Houston<\/p>\n
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