A new Euros Childs album appearing as the temperatures dip is a dependable and welcome happening on the calendar, a gift with no forced festive connotations. An escape from the oppressiveness of the season, for the last handful of Decembers anyway. But here in 2024, the inventive Welsh alt pop-wizard rebelled against himself, springing up over the summer instead with news of autumn album Beehive Beach, plus live dates. Great news it was too, with no tour since the surreal and witty House Arrest in 2017. Much has changed since the previous decade; the world turns and Euros is in Teenage Fan Club now, but still each year we get a solo album regardless and for that we are grateful no matter the day or month it appears.
By the time I talk to Euros, the first half of the Beehive Beach tour is boxed off, the second leg to proceed at the beginning of December. The dates have been good fun so far he confirms, and there’s much agreement from his northwest England fanbase; the show in Birkenhead warm and charming, a good long set with a selection of new songs and ones unvisited onstage. Heartening is how he describes the response so far. ‘Every gig, that’s what it’s about, if people are leaving the venue happy, we’re happy as well,’ he reports over the phone from his home in Cardiff.
The live band comprises of himself, Stephen Black of Sweet Baboo and Group Listening fame, former BMX Bandit Stuart Kidd, and Selma French (Morgonrode, Frøkedal) who is the opening act. They’re unofficially the ESSS ensemble. All their first names, see, because it feels weird to use his name alone, in practical terms it’s no solo effort. ‘Everyone’s an equal partner,’ he stresses. The tremendous camaraderie and buoyancy on stage between the four is obvious, and straight after each show they hit the merchandise table sharpish, one handling the SumUp machine, another peeling the cellophane off albums ready for Euros to sign when required. Team work is a beautiful thing. ‘It can be a bit tricky, to just come off stage, dealing with change and whatnot,’ he laughs.
Beehive Beach is the 20th Euros Childs post-Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci record. Quite the overwhelming thought? ‘The way I look at it, it’s over nearly 20 years. There was one year when there was two, I think. So I can’t quite work out the maths to that!’
Euros is notoriously prolific, the new album recorded back in 2022 and attended to as and when. There’ve been two albums since – Curries, and last year’s Thrips, made with his typical practice of writing and recording on his own or with minimal intervention. He took a different approach with Beehive Beach. Headed off to a studio in a converted chapel in his childhood stomping ground of rural Pembrokeshire instead didn’t he, accompanied by full band – Stephen (bass, clarinet, fiddle), Stuart (drums, vocals), Georgia Ruth (vocals, recorder), and producer Owain Fleetwood Jenkins. ‘It never felt like it was being put on the back burner. It was just a different pace, because I usually do like to make albums quite quickly and get them out pretty soon after recording them.’ The studio’s previous usage and function has seeped into the record, does he agree? Songs like opener ‘Black and White Dinner’ and ‘See-Saw’ have a hymnal, Sunday school or school assembly feel.
‘I always sang as a kid in choirs, it seeps through and being a fan of folk music, I think sometimes they correlate. They are in the same ballpark really. I like hymns.’
The piano especially has that vibe to it.
‘That piano is great. About 100 years old. When you’re playing the piano, you have to think about why you use your feet and what you do with them. But this was this we’ve gone through about the first half of the day without even thinking that. It all happened naturally. A top quality instrument and it sounds amazing.’
Is playing keyboard or piano his happy place?
‘If you compare it to guitar. I can play guitar, certainly, but it has to be a certain tuning, which isn’t helpful, really, if you want to play more than a couple of songs. But yeah, I suppose it is. I wouldn’t call myself in any way whatsoever a virtuoso. I can get by with my thing, I’m self-taught. I suppose I’m more of the equivalent of being a rhythm guitarist. A rhythm piano player!’
Beehive Beach is a contemplative record. Nostalgia, reflections of the past, melancholy, childhood. Mid-tempo, slow and dreamlike, taking us through the stories, but with that unmistakable surreal trippy element ever present in Childs’ work.
‘I suppose it’s not maybe most easy going in terms of lyrical content, but at the same time it’s, hopefully, it’s got a ray of hope in it,’ he says.
‘Ursula’s Crow’ is him at his trademark playful, the song’s origins come from Jonny, the occasional project with Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake, and a ‘weird concept album’ of his own that never came to fruition. Ever so pretty piano, lyrics throwing up imagery and magical scenarios; the fanciful freedoms of childhood. Why not wander off on adventures, ride on the back of a crow off and away if you posibly can? ‘It’s someone looking back on their childhood. Maybe dreams are mixing up reality.’
Euros sings on Georgia Ruth’s Welsh Music Prize-shortlisted album Cool Head and indeed she is present on Beehive Beach, harmonising on all the songs. On ‘Ursula’s Crow‘ she plays the recorder, adding a sense of sadness but with that childlike element key to Euros’ output.
‘I didn’t realize until she came in to sing, I think Steve told me she actually is top level recorder player. There were three or four songs where there a bit of colour needed, and I love the sound of the recorder. So, win-win.’
‘Isobel’ is inspired by the story of Isobel Barnett, the 1950s tv and radio personality who in her later years experienced personal decline, an eccentric recluse before meeting a terribly lonely end. The line the song ‘I used you for this song’ stands out, offers a degree of honesty on behalf of all songwriters – and creatives; art and life inspires art itself. Euros saw an old episode of What’s My Line on BBC Four. ‘I didn’t know who she was, so I looked up, and then I got darker, the story. And I wrote the song. I suppose there is an element of, yeah, maybe sometimes you do think, if you do “use” people.’
‘When They Leave You’ is gorgeous a selection of pleasing tableaus before Euros upsets the shiny red cheeked applecart with the killer line ‘what you’re gonna do when they leave’. Is it ok to say that came across as black humour?
‘Any reaction is a good reaction! Every verse, I suppose, is like a snapshot. I’m not sure if it’s one person, maybe I’m in there somewhere, swimming about in some of the some of the verses, it’s an amalgamation of different periods of someone’s life. And then, yeah, with the payoff of that, and it’s also got a reference to Hue and Cry, the 80s band, if you take it that way. It could be hue and cry or it could be the ‘Looking For Linda’ Hue and Cry!’
Euros uses a sense of place in much of his songwriting, and beaches do occur quite a bit. Barafundle and Swanlake two examples spring to mind, and there are enduring references to nature. Beehive Beach however isn’t a real physical place, he shares. ‘It’s an imaginary kind of place, It doesn’t exist. I suppose it is a place in the sense that it is a place in one of the songs. I’m running out of places! I’ve exhausted all the beaches.’
‘Kitty Dear‘ his quite wonderful and magical opus from the pandemic is given an airing on this tour, performing ‘Part One‘ he affably requests the audience resist applause between each song and focus on it as a complete work instead. That’s uncharacteristically top down of you, Euros. ‘You don’t want to be too bossy on stage, but if it helps the song, I’m willing to maybe ask people not to clap for 10 minutes…’
And his audience comply. So much respect for Euros Childs, and we can’t underestimate the impact his musicianship, songwriting and delivery has on today’s musicians both inside Wales and out; our 2024 Neutron Prize joint winners Ynys and Y Dail are cases in point, and Wirral’s Bill Ryder Jones talks about his records present and past with affection and respect. Notably, on this tour Euros plays Gorky’s songs, like ‘Spanish Dance Troupe’ and ‘Merched Yn Gwneud Gwallt Eu Gilydd’.
How is his relationship with his older material now? ‘I think as I’m getting on a bit, it’s starting to meld into one thing for me. When I went solo, I did play Gorky’s songs from the get-go, but not the songs on this tour. Nowadays, it just feels like all songs belong together, whereas in the past, maybe it would have felt a bit kind of jarring for me. But now it feels, the songs, they all exist.’
How does he look back on his younger music making days?
‘With affection. I’m maybe repeating what other people say when they talk about bands they were in when they were young, or in school. We were quite young when we started, and we weren’t that old when we finished, really. But we felt we were old, middle-aged! But we were in our 30s really. Well, some of us. It feels like part of our childhood.’
But someone called you ‘the thinking person’s Peter Pan of Pop’ on Twitter recently…
‘That’s Cliff Richard, isn’t it?’ he laughs. ‘He’s the Peter Pan of Pop!’
Listening to ‘My Companion‘, a love song from the new record about music and his relationship with it, it could easily double up as a potential walking down the aisle wedding day staple too. How does he view music personally?
‘It’s a strange thing. Pop can be good and it can be throwaway, but the same time, it’s got value that is akin to literature or film or anything. It’s something always make you feel better. A bit like going for a walk.’ He pauses. ‘And also it’s given me my living as well. So I’ve got lots to be thankful for.’
Beehive Beach is out now via National Elf.
Euros Childs / ESSS tour dates:
Dec 6 Glasgow – Hug & Pint
Dec 7 Edinburgh – The Wee Red Bar
Dec 9 Sunderland – Pop Recs LTD
Dec 10 Sheffield – Hallamshire Hotel
Dec 12 Narberth – Queens Hall
Dec 13 Cardiff – Clwb Ifor Bach
Dec 14 Bristol – The Exchange
Dec 15 London – The Lexington
Photo credit: live shots at Future Yard, Birkenhead by Beverly Craddock, still images by Ryan Owen Eddleston.
