GenQ - For the not so straight individual

Hi all, I'm here with Lou Rhodes, one of my own personal heroes and lead-singer of the Mancunian band Lamb who, for the last eleven years, have been combining elements of Jazz, Trip-Hop, Breaks and Folk to create one of the most unusual and cutting-edge musical styles ever ? a style which still eludes naming. Last year Lamb took a break to allow its members to concentrate on solo projects for a while, and a year later Lou is now on tour, supported by fellow Lamb-member Oddur Runnarson, to promote her forthcoming album, ?Beloved One?, which will be released in the U.K. on November 21st, through her own label, ?Infinite Bloom?.

Lou, many of your fans still request that you sing Lamb's ?Gorecki?. Do you fear always being thought of as ?the singer from Lamb? instead of being respected as a singer-songwriter in your own right?

I don't really fear it, I mean it does come up. This is a moment of change I guess - my album's not been released yet, so it's early days for me. And being thought of as the singer-songwriter of Lamb, it's not a bad thing. You know, when I look back over four albums and all the songs I'm very proud of those songs, but I do hope that my solo project will break into new ground the Lamb maybe didn't. In some ways Lamb was very edgy, probably didn't appeal to certain people, and obviously my solo project's more accoustic. I think it'll appeal to a slightly different audience. I just enjoy what I'm doing right now.

In an interview in 1998, you and Andy Barlow (your alter-ego in Lamb) said that by now Andy would be a great producer and you would be living in the countryside looking after your kids and baking your own bread. Has it worked out like that?

I laughed when I read that question because it's not far from that really. Andy's got his Hoof project now, and I think he's got other plans to work with other people, so he's already a great producer, and he's definitely on the road to doing more exciting things. And though I don't bake bread, I do live in the countryside with chickens and a vegetable garden and I do really love it.

How do you think spending a decade as ?the singer from Lamb? has influenced the music on ?Beloved One?, your new album?

I don't think the experience of being part of Lamb has influenced ?Beloved One? in a very direct sense. I think my work as a songwriter has been informed through those years with Lamb, and I think the songs on ?Beloved One? are the next step for me, part of a progression of the songs that I wrote with Lamb. It doesn't take too much of an imagination to realise that the subject matter is still very similar. The lyrics are still very emotionally charged, and when they're not about love they're about Zen philosophy. There's just certain subjects which really set me on fire and that's why I write about them, and I don't get tired of writing about them. They inform the human spirit, that's why we all get excited about songs about love, because we can never quite get to the bottom of what it's all about.

In my understanding of them, a lot of your lyrics, in particular those of Lamb's ?Bonfire? and ?Each Moment New? from the new album, are heavily influnced by Zen Buddhism, especially the teachings of (Japanese Zen Master) Shunryu Suzuki; which other thinkers and artists have been major influences on your work?

I'd say Rumi was a big influence, the Islamic Sufist poet, if you haven't read any Rumi I'd recommend it. Basically the whole tradition of Sufism is about worship of God, but as if God were the lover so it's just amazing stuff. It's the most amazingly beautiful love poetry, it confuses the idea of God with the Beloved, and for me that's the ultimate in love poetry. I love the extremeness of it. There were some words in a Rumi poem that inspired the lyrics for the Lamb song ?Gabriel?.

Kahil Gibran as well, who wrote ?The Prophet?, another Islamic writer; Maya Angelou; Tony Morrison is one of the most amazing writers; there's loads but right now I can't think of any more.

The 8th track on the album is called ?Inlakesh?; could you tell me what ?Inlakesh? means and why you wrote the song?

Inlakesh comes from a Mayan word meaning ?you are the other me?. It's all about the idea of finding someone who is the other half of you, the person who makes you complete. I was told it by someone precious to me.