Review Fix Exclusive: Adam Masterson Talks ‘Delayed Fuse’

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter Adam Masterson, who discusses his new EP, “Delayed Fuse.”

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Adam Masterson: I always liked music. I started learning the flute at 9 and I remember picking it up quite quickly. When I was about 13 there was a piano in the house and I taught myself from what I’d learnt from the flute and it was cool because you could play chords and bass in left hand and improvise melodies. I tried to teach myself the guitar too but that was hard and I gave up. It wasn’t until I picked it up later at 15 and started strumming chords and writing songs that I took the idea of being a musician seriously. 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Masterson: Usually I come up with music then the words later, although I have written words first too on some occasions. Sometimes I write an idea sat down with the guitar but more often a melody will just appear in my head when I’m doing other things during the day and I’ll record it on my phone. I don’t push things too hard, I always think if I can retain an idea or if it keeps looping in my head then It must have some inherent power to it and these are the ideas I begin to develop 

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Masterson: Life and being alive now. I think songs are living things. I really think great songs have their own soul and spirit and are their own entity outside of the person or persons that write and create them. I think this is why we are all so fascinated by songs. When you record a song you give them a body and a face and if you can make that forceful enough and clear enough, people will recognise that song all over the world. When you play songs live you give them flesh, blood, and sweat and if you can do that well enough the audience can really come close to the songs pumping heart and be at one with the song and with everyone else in the crowd. If you can write a song that lives up to life and being alive now and some portion of all that that has to offer in three and a half minutes, I think you will write a really great song. 

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Masterson: It’s a way of communicating very real things that are happening inside me that would otherwise have no voice or outlet. It’s important for us that songwriters give this inner world a voice because in many ways it’s a more vivid and real world than the outer world around us and much closer to the real you. Music helps me find out who I am, who I was, and who I want to become.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Masterson: If you’re into soulful stuff with a nod to poetry and Rock’n’Roll it might be for you . 

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Masterson: It all feels the same to me because I’m always in the moment singing my songs and that feels at once both completely different and the same every time. Recording, you get the chance to hone a sensation or the emotion you’re after in a song. Live, it’s just a one off burst of energy. Hopefully in both instances you get to uncover the heart of the song and make it come alive 

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single, “Avenue Walk”?

Masterson: Holland Park Avenue at dusk. The street lamps coming on. The headlights of the cars rushing by streaming like tears of white light in a painting. Peeping in the warm windows of the mansion houses. Peeping into the half lit living rooms that are always empty where life doesn’t happen, but your dreams do. Peeping into the pubs, wondering where you’ll have your first pint. Thinking about a girl. Feeling lost and broken. Being alone in a crowd. Falling into a meditative state knowing that you can go where ever you want for as long as you want tonight. Thinking of walking up to Notting Hill Gate or Campden Hill or Kensington Church Street. Breathing in the poetry of London and all its dead and all its life. Knowing what beauty is and knowing no matter how broken you feel you can pull all these strands together inside you to one point of focus and bliss and freedom and knowing you can find that center of delight in the night. 

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020?

Masterson: That me and all my loved ones and my friends’ loved ones can survive this time of panic and change. That we can find peace and balance and still work and be creative when we can. It’s a shame not to be playing shows and cancelling gigs to support the EP release, but it’s an important year for us all to come together and look out for each other and music is already playing a vital role in that. I hope I can finish some recordings I’m working on and release an album later this year or in the summer as planned, as I’ve been waiting a while- but what will be will be. It seems like a time where we all draw in and that can be a time of renewal of practise and perhaps writing important new songs 

Review Fix: Tell us about Delayed Fuse…

Masterson: It’s a taste of what’s to come, it’s culled from two sessions with two different producers Sean Genocky (Bad Luck Baby, Avenue Walk, Rusty Can’s & Dusty Alleys) & James Hallawell (Crazy Rain & Farewell Blue Eyes) both session were in London. I’m in the middle of a new session I started last month in New York with producer Craig Dryer at his ‘Mighty Toad’ studio in Brooklyn. We tracked with Charley Drayton on drums, Brett Bass on bass, Scott Sharrard on guitar and both Craig Dryer and Ben Stivers on keys, Synths and Organ. I’ve returned to the UK because of the lockdown and talking to Paul Stacey about mixing and more guitar overdubs in London so very much in the midst of it all which is exciting. These three sessions will make up the eventual album 

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

Masterson: Stay safe and may the spring equinox bring some balance and wisdom to us all. One love.