The Saturday of Black Deer Festival was blisteringly hot and the days music was exceptional. In the afternoon Orange got the pleasure to sit down with William Crighton to talk through his musical influences growing up in Australia and how he is inspired to write songs both collectively and solo. He even strapped on his trusty resonator and played through the new TremLord 30 with its all analogue signal and valve tremolo and reverb.
How did you get into music?
I started in church, my grandmother used to take me and my brother to church in a little place called Ardlethan, a town of about 300 hundred people. It’s where we used to start singing the church hymns, i’m not really Christian any more but you can’t deny that sort of connection with that music. ‘How great thou art’ and ‘Amazing grace’, they are beautiful songs, I was a young kid you get swept up in emotion of the songs of that for sure.
Who are your biggest guitar influences?
My favourite guitar player is Neil Young just because he is so visceral, he plays what he feels and it’s cool. He would probably be my biggest influence across the board.
What inspires your song writing?
It’s always a tough question to describe your music, I’m not really a wonderful musician by a stretch. So I just do what I do and try and be honest with what I do, how I play and what I sing about and how I present it to everybody. My biggest inspiration is the world around us, just try to take it in, everything I have listened to as a kid probably flows into the music, you can’t stop that.
Do you usually write songs as a band or by yourself?
Bit of both, I wrote a lot of the songs by myself, a lot of the songs I write with my wife Jules and my brother Luke, or the rest of the band. It’s interesting touring solo, it’s a whole new thing I just did a tour in Australia and I found the same thing. You are out there by yourself so you have got no one supporting you but your also free to do whatever you like, I quite enjoy it, there is definitely room for both.
How are you finding the festival so far?
I just saw the Sheepdogs they were awesome and John Butler Trio who were great, fellow Australians, Irish Mythen, John Smith. Just walking around and hearing the buzz of everyone around is cool. It seems like a festival where everyone seems at home, everyone talks to one another, you walking past and the security guard says hello is always a good thing. I’m enjoying myself.