Newton Faulkner: 'Losing gigs really hurt on a deep, deep level'

Sitting in a room adorned with musical instruments and paraphernalia, Newton Faulkner, in his usual upbeat and jovial mood, reflects on what has been a challenging few years for him personally.

Anyone who has seen Newton Faulkner live will know how much he feeds off the crowds energy and loves the crowd interaction and participation. Now he has embarked on a 23-date UK Feels Like Home tour, he can do that again, something he was very much looking forward to and dearly needed.

“Losing gigs really hurt on a deep, deep level,” Faulkner admits. “As much as I’ve always been grateful to be allowed to do it and tried to never take it for granted, I think there are parts of it that I didn’t appreciate to the degree that I do now. The bits that are the most important to me now, I don’t think I realised what they meant.

“What actually makes me happy and fulfilled is bringing people together. It’s partly the community spirit aspect of gigs but also the whole crowd participation thing that I’d been doing since the beginning. It was always something I really enjoyed,” Faulkner admits candidly.

Having already played a show in Barnsley last week and one in Holmfirth on Thursday October 6, Yorkshire is a place that Newton always enjoys travelling to and performing at as he recalls a story about having to get a Megabus to Holmfirth for the first time when he supported Nick Harper and struggling to find the venue. “The Yorkshire folk I encountered were all so friendly and helpful and the fans are really passionate and love their music,” Faulkner recalls.

The Covid pandemic and lockdowns were a productive time for Newton as he released his latest album Interference (Of Light) and also recorded and released via Youtube a ‘Live and Acoustic’ version of his double-platinum debut album Hand Built By Robots. Each track was performed in a different room or area of his house. Despite it being a productive time, it wasn’t always plain sailing.

“In the second lockdown I was working 14-hour days. Some of it was a healthy work ethic but then some of it was avoidance of thinking about what was going on and the financial strain of the whole thing. It was part work, part therapy, part escapism and it had loads of layers to it. I did get a little obsessive at one point,” Faulkner reveals.

“The tricky bit was afterwards when the album was finished. There was a lot of painful stuff that happened just before the lockdowns and then they were a distraction from it and I threw myself into my work. Then it was two years or so later when the album was finished, I had to take some time off to sort myself out because I hadn’t dealt with anything.

“It’s ironic because one of the main themes running through the album is acceptance and forgiveness, neither of which I really did. I knew on some level it was what I needed, which is why I was writing about it all of the time, but I really wasn’t doing it,” Faulkner admits.

The Feels Like Home tour will be very much the remedy Faulkner needs. A natural entertainer who thrives off a live, receptive crowd.

“You can really see it on everyone’s faces and a lot of the gigs that are happening now are their first gigs back. When people are singing along, you can see that it hits them in their eyes,” Newton reflects.

Tour and ticket information can be found at https://newtonfaulkner.com/