For independent artist The Gleeman, music has never been a passing phase, it has been a lifelong companion, quietly shaping his inner world long before he stepped into the public eye. With his new mini-album You’ll Land Among The Stars, he brings those years of private creativity into focus, crafting songs that balance intimate emotional truth with sweeping, cinematic scope. Drawing influence from songwriters such as Elton John, Billy Joel and Paul Simon, his work reflects both classic storytelling tradition and the clarity that only comes from lived experience. In this conversation, he reflects on loss, collaboration, resilience, and the determination to pursue artistic ambition on his own terms.
Q: Thanks for speaking to us, let’s jump straight into your new record ‘You’ll Land Among The Stars’. Your music feels both intimate and cinematic. Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Like most people. I enjoy a lot of music and have soaked up a lot of it over the years from many artists spanning a number of decades. All of it goes into the melting pot and ultimately influences in some way what you produce as an artist. But, if I had to pull out some names, piano men Elton John and Billy Joel would have to be up there then artists like Paul Simon, The Beatles/Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd. However, the 80’s were also my formative musical years and I would have also imbibed a lot of the usual indie/guitar bands of the nineties.
Q: You’ve said music has been a constant companion throughout your life. When did you first realise it was something deeper for you?
I’ve always had an affinity with music and did so from a young age, as did my sister, but I’m not sure where it came from as neither of my parents were particularly musical, though my Dad could strum a few basic chords on guitar and would sing a little. Although I have only recently begun to pursue a career in music and release songs out into the world, music has always been a passion and embarking on this journey was an itch that I knew I would have to get around to scratching one day, though I perhaps left it longer than I had originally intended – but here we are! I suppose the realisation of a deeper connection with music came through song-writing. It’s one thing singing or learning instruments and playing music written by others, but to compose and create something from nothing that only exists because of your inspiration gives you a different relationship with music for sure, especially when what you create connects positively with others.
Q: You’ve been open about loss and your parents’ battle with dementia. How has that shaped your songwriting?
There was a period during and surrounding work on my previous album, my debut called ‘Something To Say’, where I was enshrouded in loss. My parents succumbed to dementia three months apart from each other, a friend was facing a terminal illness, and another friend took his own life. These experiences understandably impacted my songwriting, both directly and indirectly, so there are number of songs on that album which were informed by them which perhaps then led me to tackling some of the other more difficult subject matters that infiltrate other tracks on that album.
With the exception of ‘My Final Song’ on this current release and another in the back pocket called ‘Jacaranda’, hmm and maybe one other, my writing since has been, perhaps thankfully for me, a little more upward and outward looking!
Q: You collaborated with your son on ‘Our Teenage Years’, what was that experience like?
Ha – well, we are still speaking to each other! It was a little forced in its occurrence as I was doing an assignment for an online production course that I was enrolled on which required you to collaborate with someone. Times were still a bit ‘covid-y’ so the easiest option was to coax the involvement of my bedroom guitarist of a son, Dan. That main opening acoustic guitar riff / progression he wrote and that is him playing it on the record. I did try to get some lyrics out of him but that was harder going. So, I’m like ‘Dan, this is a song reminiscing about teenage years, you are actually still a teenager so dig deep, come one, give me something?’. In the end he contributed just two words. They were ‘smoking’ and ‘pot’. Necessarily in that order. Hmmmm………
Q: You juggle an artistic life with experience in the business world. How does that combination influence your approach?
When you are independent artist in the music industry you are essentially running a business, and it very much becomes a major marketing exercise where you also just happen to be the product. So the business experience certainly helps on a day to day basis but it also allows me to disassociate a little with artistic insecurities and to be more resilient to the regular rejections you are inevitably going to encounter along the way. On a practical level, the music industry is intrinsically broken, it is far from a sound financial investment, there is not really any quantifiable ROI expectation and it is incredibly difficult to get to a situation where it can financially sustain you, so straddling both worlds is the only possible way to try to make it work, but doing so certainly takes its toll both physically and mentally.
Q: ‘My Final Song’ is such a bold and unusual track. What inspired you to tackle the subject of assisted dying?
There’s a song on my last album ‘Something To Say’ called ‘The Hurting’, which tackled the subject of assisted dying head on via a fictional scenario where someone was asking their partner to help them pass on when they decided it was time, an act that would currently be illegal in the UK and could lead to imprisonment. I am an advocate for assisted dying becoming legal, though there does need to be a robust set of checks and balances, a position that was hardened having witnessed my parents’ decent into dementia (though that particular disease in conjunction with assisted dying is a tricky one!).
‘My Final Song’ is not directly about the same topic and was actually written with a dual perspective in mind, as both a final song on an album or a last played at a concert as the artist addressing the listeners but also as someone saying their very final goodbye to family or friends. The recorded version with the sound effects puts it more toward the latter. An earlier version did have the instruments playing through to the end and then a guitar part as a coda but I like the bold (as you put it) or more brutal impact that it currently has at the end, it really made me stop and catch a moment, which I hope it will also do to others.
Q: What do you hope listeners take away from ‘You’ll Land Among The Stars’?
Music is at its best when it invokes any kind of emotional response in the listener. Music is also a very subjective experience; it can connect with us all very differently and the meaning we take from a song can be specifically personal. All I can hope is that listeners can take at least something from it, whether it makes them want to sing along, feel happy, not feel alone or touches them in a more profound manner. If that happens then I have done a good job.