Fifteen minutes with Spielmann

“I’ve obviously been knocking around in bands for years, and I’ve been either a promoter as my day job or a DJ for years, but this is the first thing that I’ve stepped out on my own doing, feeling confident enough to do it,” he tells The Yorkshire Post.

“I did a few singles last year, which had some good rapport, and then I wanted to do something that was, I guess, a lengthier body of work and have a bit of a plan that I could release throughout part of this year.

“I don’t know what came first with the EP. I’d written a couple of songs that I thought these work better tied together and then 10,000 Hours popped up and I thought, this feels like a big single, maybe this could be the opening salvo of the EP. Then when I recorded all of them, the final track running time was 14 minutes and 59 seconds and I was like, this feels good. Then I was at a hotel that had this Frank Sinatra live LP playing in the the background and I really liked the idea of a raconteur and people going to not only listen to the music but to be entertained as well, and I’ve got this thing that I’ve done with the live show because so far it’s just me on my own and I’ve been really wary of it not being like one bloke singing his songs to people, so I’ve added in a few performance-y bits. I’ve had a few reviews that have gone, ‘is this comedy, it it live music?’

“It’s not meant to be comedy but it’s meant to present something that’s a little bit different. But when people have gone away from the show going, ‘I loved that bit you did where you pretended to be on your phone, that was really funny’, you, thanks, I’m glad that you remembered that bit but do you remember any of the choruses? I started building this whole persona around the whole Spielmann thing, it feels quite pretentious, it’s very much me but also me using a character to tell stories through. You take stuff that happened in your own life and make them into more farcical situations.”

In what is thought to be a first, Lewis is releasing his EP on a bag of coffee – with a download code on on a bag made by North Star Coffee Roasters. “My thinking in the first instance was that I’d like to release something physical, and then I looked at how much it cost to press vinyl and thought, I can’t afford that and I’m really not sure how many people will be buying it, so I thought how can I release something physical that is less of a commitment. I had a few ideas including a box of matches and I was trying to think again along the persona route of it, what would Spielmann be doing? I thought coffee might be quite a good one and it could have a strapline like ‘Pop on the kettle and have 15 minutes with Spielmann’.

“I’ve always been full concept with bands that I’ve done before – the artwork should match up in a certain style. I do all of the design work for the Spielmann stuff, the videos and things. I think also having worked in music for so long, seeing bands that I like and how they present things...the music is obviously the top line of it, but how they present it and what the artwork looks like and how they do it onstage, so it all ties in together in a bit of a thread.”

After “nagging everyone into letting me play their festivals” last year, Lewis will back out on the road again this summer including three dates supporting Kaiser Chiefs. He says: “The solo thing with all of the silly bits in it has translated well at various points. At festivals when there was a crowd who was into it, it works, and then in smaller rooms. I supported BC Camplight at Hebden Bridge just before Christmas and that was a couple of hundred people who were really into his stuff, so my stuff wasn’t too far away from it and they were very engaged.

“When I’m on (before Kaiser Chiefs), I’m sure there won’t be 5,000 people there, there will be maybe 500 people there, but playing on an open-air to that kind of crowd it could go either way...Hopefully with a Kaiser Chiefs audience it will go down all right.”

Fifteen Minutes with Spielmann is out on EMI North today. He supports Kaiser Chiefs at Lincoln Castle on June 28, Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod on June 29 and Southampton Summer Sessions on June 30.