The Rhythm Method: “You don’t know the golden era until you’ve left it”
Given it’s such an industrial city, stars in Hull are often swallowed up in manmade clouds, but they’re there if you look hard enough. In 2019, The Rhythm Method, Rowan Martin and Joey Bradbury stood under those shrouded stars, loading gear into and out of an undisclosed music venue as they embarked on a tour supporting rock band Cabbage.
“Yeah, good gig, from memory,” says Bradbury, looking back on a show that would mark the start of the band’s next chapter. Early into the tour, Rowan found himself in a cold room, trying to sleep and faced with the daunting prospect of seemingly endless gigs. “It wasn’t a BNB; I don’t know what it was; it felt like it was an old hospital because it had a real cold sterileness to it. I think that probably didn’t help the situation; it was the furthest away from feeling at home as you could possibly feel.”
Bradbury continued, “I think the comedown of the performance going well, then this homesickness and the pressures of him being the sensible one… I think that led to Rowan having a bit of a moment, basically. Me and our tour manager at the time, we tried our best to kind of let him know that he was safe and it was all good. So yeah, we went on touring. Rowan, for the first few gigs, it seemed like he was shell-shocked in a way. Eventually, he got back into the swing of things but was still not quite the Rowan he was prior to the tour. I don’t know; I think this is a hard thing for people to understand.”
It’s easy to glamourise touring as a punter. We see a band take to the stage, perform, receive praise and then get drinks paid for them all night. But the reality is that touring comes with intense pressure as the strain of performing every night, along with the travel, poor diet and logistics of everything, can take its toll on a band. The entire music industry comes with a veil of glamour in front of monumental stress, which forms the foundation of the new Rhythm Method album Peachy.
One of the stand-out tracks, ‘Have a Go Heroes’, was written by Rowan following that fateful night in Hull, as he documents the rest of the tour and the trials and tribulations that come with it. “It’s basically what I would refer to as Northern Soul, but not the one everyone is familiar with; its soulful northernness. ‘Have a Go Heroes’ captures both lyrically and musically that sound of grey skies, big roads, the Pennines, the wind and the rain. For me, it captures that.”
The new album is ambitious in its subject matter but grounded in its execution. Busy instrumentation and lyrically heavy songs feel like part of the furniture when put on, less like a new piece of music that you’re only just experiencing and more like something familiar and warm. Two aspects likely contribute to this: the duo’s humble nature and how the album was produced.
“We started writing songs when we were living together, and it was kind of like an antidote to not being able to afford to go out, really,” he added. W”e were living in this guardianship scheme, it was a very bohemian thing. Looking back, it was living the dream, really. But you don’t know the golden era until you’ve left it.”
Production duties on the new album were overseen by Bill Ryder Jones, something that Bradbury describes as “the best experience I’ve had in music”. He says that his involvement contributed massively to the warm presence of Peachy, as Jones was able to take the songs and make them connect on a different level, one which meant people had to actually listen to them rather than just put them on in the background.
“I’d argue I fell in love with the man,” said Bradbury, not holding back his feelings. “He’s one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, he’s a massive inspiration, and he’d hate me saying all this, but he’s just wonderful. He’s great. Yeah, that closeness, that warmth, that is from him; if you listen to his music, you really have to listen to his music. A lot of the time, especially on this new album, the vocals are so embedded in the mix, you really have to get up close and personal with it.”
As long as writing things down helps us overcome them, music will always be a source of comfort, even if the thing someone needs comfort regarding is their tumultuous relationship with music. On their new album, Rhythm Method documents the pitfalls of being in a band so beautifully that their love and commitment to sound still dominate while the hardships permeate.
Despite their affinity with music and the songs on this album, there still may be some time before the band are back on the road again. “Unfortunately, the thing holding us back is me,” admits Bradbury, “I’m just really struggling because it’s been so long, and we had that forced isolation. I’m still getting over it. I’m a very isolated person anyway, and then the whole Covid thing gave me an excuse to hide away and not feel guilty about it. So, I’m still getting into the swing of real life. I work as a barber, so I meet people all the time, and I am getting better at that, but the idea of performing, even though I miss it and I really wanna do it, I’ve got a lot of work to do to get myself on that stage.”
Peachy is a hug of an album that is equal parts comforting and necessary. To document working in music within music is difficult to do without sounding like you’re betraying the elusiveness of the art form. Still, the soul which is injected into every second, paired with the sincerity of those who made it and the warmth of production, come together to form a piece of work unlike anything else out at the minute. This is a new golden era for the band. Here’s hoping they take a moment to realise it.
