This article is an instalment of the Songcards Spotlight series where we interview the humans that make it all possible. We recommend you start by clicking the play button above and reading whilst enjoying the artist's music
Who is Pocket Lint?
I’m Mark, guitarist, synth twiddler, keyboard playing noir pop maker
What is your origin story?
After my last band broke up now nearly 15 years ago, I took time out of music to focus on other things. I started tentatively recording again in about 2017 but then in 2020 when lockdown hit I needed something to fill my time. I initially decided to try to carve cameos from amethyst, but that is actually quite hard with no tools or training. So I slunk back into what I knew a bit about.
I would say Pocket Lint as I understand it came about sometime around the winter of 2020 with the writing of When Winter Comes Again and the beginning of the Themes for Silcaville project. That was when I feel that I found my voice.
When did you realise you wanted to make music?
Making music or playing it? I have played for as long as I can remember. I played piano from 5 and always loved performing. Once I was in bands in my teens playing guitar, I realised that if I wanted to be famous then I would need to write and so started writing music.
In my 20s I became more interested in writing the whole songs and working on getting ideas into songs and that is something that has really continued into Pocket Lint. Though with one significant difference.
When I was younger, my songs were very influenced by literature. These days it is much more likely that visual stimuli will trigger something in me that makes me write. For example, my Gallery album is all inspired by works of art. Rather than tell a story, my music tries to paint the listener a picture or vignette of a place, time or feeling.
Who are your long-standing influences?
I have so so many. I picked up a guitar after first hearing Jimi, and there is definitely still some of that in my approach, but I think the ones I can hear most obviously are those post punk ones, so Magazine, Soft Cell, Human League, and then artistic spirits like Kate Bush, Scott Walker and Bjork, allied to those 70s artists like Bowie, whose entire approach is huge for me, Eno’s solo albums. Basically, art pop, art rock, a touch of goth sensibility and bleeps, but I listen to a huge range of stuff, for example at the moment I have John Martyn playing and earlier it was the Cure and before that Wire.
I have to say though as a guitarist, Graham Coxon. His approach to playing guitar was a huge huge thing to me. It moved me away from being a Jimmy Page wannabe to trying to service the song, rather than seeing the verse and the chorus of things that had to be slogged through til we got to the part where I got to solo. I think intellectually Bowie’s idea of how to stay creative is a huge touchstone and Eno’s point about using the crap instruments you have to forge your own unique sound.
I like experimenting and I love music like the 60s pysch where it is clear they are at the edge of what they know and understand and to me that gives it an excitement. I have a fear of repeating myself so any artists whose career is one of progression and not merely adding more water to their original sound.
What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned as a musician?
I was incredibly lucky when I was younger that I regularly got to jam with amazing older musicians through my guitar teacher, Colin Browne, who had played with Kate Bush. I’d regularly get up to do a song with him and other amazing musicians who he played with.
I learnt so much about playing with others and how to listen by doing that. I played bass for him for a summer and that was probably the best musical training I ever received. We never had a set list, it was a case of listening as one day songs would be in one key and the next another. I became very good at walking bass lines to find the key. I also learnt a lot when I attended the guitar institute as I learnt what I never wanted to be. Without that experience, I would have perhaps never run with open arms to synthesisers.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am finishing off my new album Wunderkammer, which is all about a cabinet of curios. All of these objects reveal something about the owner and, in this case, the owner is me. So this is probably my most personal work. Almost all the music is done, I am working on the vocals at the moment. I hope it will be out later in the year. I have the artwork sorted in my head too, I just need to get around to actually making it.
What would you tell your younger self?
Don’t listen to producers who tell you to turn down the treble or distortion and don’t listen to managers who tell you to change things about your band. Ever. Oh, and don’t take yourself so seriously and sometimes try to be friendly and hide your disdain, it isn’t an attractive trait, a look of disdain.
Which band or artist are you really excited about at the moment?
I am quite rubbish for new music. I listen to a lot of older music, but the last year I have been really into Michael Rother and the Cocteau Twins.
Like a lot of artists, I go through phases of being absolutely obsessed with things. Right now, I would say I am in a lull from that and have been enjoying listening to old favourites a bit more than diving into the unknown.
Oh I have been really into Kevin Ayers too. Ooooh, I have thought of an artist I have really been enjoying, well two. Both on the fabulous Monochrome Motif label. John Serrano, who has the most beautiful voice, a bit like John Martyn’s to my ears at least. And the 18th Musician, who makes the most beautiful filmic tracks.
Where can people find your music?
I’m on all streaming services, so have a look for a chap in a hat and I sell my music on Bandcamp in physical form. I have CDs, posters, Cassettes, original paintings so have a look if you are looking for something interesting. Vinyl may be coming soon too.
What’s next for Pocket Lint?
Well, finishing this album soon I hope. Then doing the most hateful part which is promoting it. I lament that musicians are now forced to do marketing, but if we want people to hear it, we have to.
I would much rather be in the studio. I’m also playing live in a couple of months and I need to decide how one man is going to make the amount of sound I want live. I also have already begun to form the album after next in my head. I know the sounds already, I just need to go and make them, but I am trying to be disciplined and finish Wunderkammer first.
