Q&A with singer-songwriter Hamish Hawk

First things first: Hamish Hawk is his real name. No need for any quirky moniker to match this Edinburgh-based singer/songwriter’s idiosyncratic indie pop songs which have turned the heads of his early mentor King Creosote, his current manager, Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones and, in the past year or so, BBC 6 Music’s playlist programmers.

Hawk’s 2021 album Heavy Elevator might as well be called Heavy Rotation for the way its songs have floated so comfortably over the alternative airwaves and he is set to repeat that feat with its follow-up, Angel Numbers.

Entertainment Now spoke to Hawk ahead of its release about influences, acting and lyrics.

Can you tell us how you found music and how music found you?

I didn’t grow up in a musical household, very much the opposite, but there was always a lot of music growing up – my dad into 60s and 70s rock music, my mum into James Taylor and Cat Stevens, my sister was a total Britpop fanatic and my brother into skater punk, new metal and hip-hop. Growing up in that house, I was something of a collector – whatever I liked wherever it came from, I was hooked on the variety.

When did you first start making your own music?

I was a really big drama nut and was acting all the way through high school. It was later that I discovered to perform on my own terms was to perform as a musician. I realised that if I was going to be onstage as an actor I would be saying other people’s words but with writing music you have this incredible moment where you walk on to a stage and you’re the only one in the room talking or singing and you have this sacrosanct period to put across what you think about the world. That’s led me to make sure that my songs have real content.

You’ve been compared to Jarvis Cocker, Morrissey and Neil Hannon for your wit – what makes a good song lyric for you?

There needs to be a couplet at the beginning or a strong first line. Every word I write needs to be essential and if that’s not the case I’ll notice it forever – if there are a couple of throwaways that will irk me so much. I’m not interested in having generic turns of phrase or banal observations in my songs, what I want to do is create a world that people can visit and relate to and I can only do that if I’m true to myself in my own words.

Have you achieved that?

As I was writing the songs for Heavy Elevator I could feel that there was something else going on here, that this was a more adventurous, mature album than anything I had done before. It was the one what seemed to express my emotional life better than any other album had done before.

Can you tell us about your new album?

Angel Numbers is very much about notions of success and fame and rampant ambition and the pros and cons of that. It has arch, ironic, sarcastic songs, soft, earnest songs, contemplative longer songs, anthemic songs. There’s always an emotion at the core wanting to come out.