The Waeve:

This month they released their first album together under the band name The Waeve.

“We hadn’t really seen each other an awful lot, maybe a couple of times at some aftershow party or awards thing,” says Coxon, the Blur guitarist and maker of a dozen solo albums, on why it was not until December 2020 that he and Dougall discussed the possibility of a songwriting collaboration. “But we met at The Jazz Cafe, we were both doing short sets for a charity event there. All of the bands were stuffed into one dressing room, so we were all hanging out and having a laugh and a joke but later on Rose and I had a conversation outside where the idea was broached that we could maybe write a song one day.

“That stuff is said quite often, but I kind of thought that would be a good idea, so I got her number at the end of the night and we corresponded over that Christmas, sending each other links to songs we liked etcetera, learning about each other’s music tastes – she has fantastic taste in music, obviously – and then decided that we would meet. I think it was January 2 and we had a long walk around Hampstead Heath, very unglamorous in wellies and overcoats, with a particularly blinding sun then before we knew it we were in the room here starting work on some stuff.”

Very quickly they settled into working in two or three sessions a week. “Even after a couple of weeks we found that songs were really beginning to take shape and we were getting things that we were genuinely excited about and seemed to be working well.”

“We didn’t expect it to become this huge thing like it has,” says Dougall. “But it became obvious very quickly that it was a very rich, creative seam to follow. It felt like we didn’t really have a choice but to explore it, it would have been a waste not to.”

The pair discovered a lot of common ground in their discussions about music. “I could not surprise her with anything, really. She kind of knew everything I knew, apart from a couple of what might be considered old f***y stuff,” says Coxon, referring to his fondness for prog rock.

“It covers a lot of ground that stuff. Whether it’s Gong, Robert Wyatt, Matching Mole, Van Der Graaf Generator, Caravan, Kevin Ayers, it’s all over the place. She knew about Kevin Ayers but sonically there’s things in King Crimson that she may not have explored a lot and Van Der Graaf Generator. If it wasn’t for King Crimson or Van Der Graaf Generator there may not have been saxophone on the album or certain attitudes towards organ sounds. It all informed the music that we were creating. We were having an awful ot of fun with the sonics and using whatever instruments were lying around, and also a vast library of synths on a computer, and string sounds. It’s all there to explore very quickly, so you can try a lot out.”

“I think we ended up honing a sound to avoid getting too sucked into that world, using the tangible things that we could actually play in our hands,” adds Dougall. “You can get really lost in that world and end up chucking the kitchen sink at something and lose sight if there’s anything good beneath all this stuff.”

Ultimately what was relied on was chord sequences, says Coxon, pointing to “the difference between my chord sequences and then when Rose would take over with a lot more harmonically richer chord sequences, maybe on piano, what would happen with melody, how Rose would harmonise with herself, what notes she would find in that chord progression and what melody I would find in that chord progression