Richard Hawley talks ‘real tragedy’ of The Leadmill closure, new album and Pulp tour

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With eight solo albums under his belt, and countless collaborations with Pulp, Arctic Monkeys and more recently Acid Klaus, The Leadmill legend Richard Hawley sits down with Ewan Gleadow ahead of a busy year for the Sheffield-born singer-songwriter.

Ewan Gleadow: Bit of a curveball to open us up, it cropped up because of a gig I went to a few days ago. Acid Klaus. My Hat’s on Fire. How did that come about?

Richard Hawley: No one’s ever asked me about things like that. It’s a big thing for Adrian (Flanagan). He does loads of projects. He lives in Sheffield. We’ve become really good mates over the last decade or so. We’ve kept talking about doing something together for so long. That song came up and he sent me it and he needed a bit of help with it. I can’t remember what I did now. I know I played some lap steel on it. It was one afternoon, I went round to Dean’s house, who was the guy mixing and producing all that stuff with Adrian. We just messed around with some electronic noises. I did that as a duet. He’s great. I’ve got a lot of time for Adrian. He’s an interesting man who always tries to push the envelope.

He’s got Hannah Hu, as well. Hannah’s the main singer. I think I’m in the background or something, it’s Hannah’s thing, really. I don’t think I contributed a whole lot to be fair. I just did some sort of ethereal lap steel. I think I mumbled something too. But yeah, it’s a great record. Did you enjoy the gig?

Ewan: Yeah, it was brilliant. They opened for Yard Act in Newcastle, it was great.

Richard: He deserves a lot more success than he’s had.

Ewan: Absolutely. Seeing him open and then hearing about his DJ set afterwards, it’s fantastic. Great record as well. But obviously you, yourself, have a record coming up. Richard Hawley – Live at the Piece Hall, Halifax. What was it about that gig that made it the right place to do an album?

Richard: It was the venue, Ewan, you know. The Piece Hall is such an amazing place. You can’t believe that places like that survived for so long. They didn’t get bombed or worse, you know, the council turned them into flats or whatever. It’s just an incredibly beautiful place. I like to play places like that, you know, that have that certain feel. We did Durham Cathedral as well. 

Richard Hawley will play his (potentially) final dates at The Leadmill on December 19, 20, and 22. Tickets are available here.

Richard Hawley will also play The Fire Station in Sunderland to open his upcoming tour that sees him support Pulp at Sheffield Utilita Arena. Tickets are available here.

Ewan: Yeah, I was there for that one.

Richard: It was a real honour to play there. When you walk into that place, it’s stunning. It’s not a venue, but it’s a beautiful cathedral. I’m not religious. I’m not encumbered by religion in any way, shape or form. But I do like those places. There’s a meditative quality when you enter somewhere like that, it demands your respect, you know what I mean?

Ewan: I was sitting there, not the front, but to the side. It’s wonderful. 

Richard: Yeah, we really enjoyed that. It was a bit nerve-wracking because we only had – it was the day before we rehearsed some songs in another beautiful place. I forget what it was called. I think it was Durham Town Hall. Which again was phenomenal, all mahogany and panels, a beautiful old building. We rehearsed there and that was a really great sound. We only rehearsed for maybe a couple of hours because we had to get so many people in one place. I think we had a run-through in the sound check where we didn’t do all the songs. We only did, I think, six or seven in the run-through. 

When we got up on stage, the brass band and ourselves, playing the concert, it upped it all. It upped the game of it just from the sheer sense of the moment. I really enjoyed that. We’re talking about going back, actually, at some point. 

You don’t get to do that every day in your life. You’re not going to play a venue like that. When we do play it, we try not to let it overtake us. You know what I mean? You’re still there to play music and not get swamped by it. But it was a pretty mind-blowing experience.

Ewan: It’s the uniqueness of it, isn’t it? The presence of that as a place to play music, when it isn’t associated with it. It’s quite a change. 

Richard: Yeah. I mean the contact as well, not just with the very old, incredible architecture, a beautiful sort of vibe it had got, there was a contact with nature as well. When we started playing with all the bats and the birds that live in the belfry and stuff, they all started flying around the venue. I don’t know whether you remember that. 

That was, wow. Okay. That’s something. You don’t order it for the light show. It was just an extra thing that was, I mean, I was a bit worried actually. I was hoping that it doesn’t freak the animals out. But according to the people that live and work there, they said they really like it. I’ll take their word for that. 

Ewan: That comes just before you played four dates at The Leadmill in Sheffield, another wonderful venue. A very historically seeped venue. 

Richard: We’re doing three more concerts there near Christmas as well. We’ve got to do our bit and try and raise awareness about what’s happening to venues in this country. Particularly The Leadmill. The company that had bought the lease and the land rights to it, I don’t know whether people know this, but they issued them with an eviction notice. That was a year ago. That’s pretty much coming to an end now. I’m hoping there’s an outside chance that these people are going to see reason and realise the mistake they’re making. But I’m not very hopeful. The thing about it is, Ewan, that it’s worrying if you’re running a venue or a bar or any business at all in this country. The laws aren’t laws to protect you from somebody buying the land underneath you and issuing you with an eviction notice.

That’s one thing. But to actually steal your business as well seems like something from another time. Almost something that you’d read or you’d see in a movie from the American West or something. It’s surreal that in 2022 people can get away with this. The point I make about all of this is, if they get away with it with The Leadmill, who’s next?

Ewan: The number of venues that could still fall. 

Richard: If we don’t stick together and we don’t go ‘no, this is morally wrong…’ Yeah, it’s morally repugnant to me. I think to a lot of people who have got any kind of decency about them it is too. For someone to come along and buy the land underneath you. Your business that you’ve spent forty-two years fighting tooth and nail to protect and it’s now a flourishing business that marks a multi-million-pound service. That’s a massive service. It provides for the millions of students and millions of Sheffield residents and also bands from all over the world, who come to play there that wouldn’t have anywhere else to play. They have a following. I’m apparently the musician that’s played there the most by a considerable margin. 

I feel a duty. It is. I used to DJ there as a teenager. I was a runner there when I was a very young man. I was a runner for Nina Simone. I went to get flowers and Lucozade and stuff. I played there with half the Velvet Underground, and I played with Moe Tucker and Steve Morrison. I played there with Mick Jones when we were raising money for the Hillsborough disaster. For the lawyers, for the families to fight the government and their laws. We played there. The list of times I’ve played there is countless, and also the times I’ve turned up as a punter and had a dance, you know? 

Or, you know, watching bands or DJing, whatever it is. It’s the rite of passage for young people in the city. I’m older as well, there’s a lot goes on there. Theatre, spoken word stuff, community-based events. It’s a fantastic space and for it to be taken over by a very mono-tracked finance company based in London that doesn’t understand what makes this city tick, it’s a travesty. They’re making a mistake. It won’t be packed. People will look at it and go, ‘if we go down there when these new people take over, we’re gonna be collaborators in something that’s really bad.’ The sad truth is that the business will fail. They’ll fuck it up. 

They did it in Newcastle. They did it in Brixton with The Fridge. Their business model is not a good one. What ends up happening is that these iconic venues get turned into flats. The Leadmill is our Cavern. It is our Hacienda. It’s our Riverside, which, obviously, was a great concert space years ago. I don’t know that that’s still there in Newcastle. 

Ewan: Its name lives on, kind of, but the location is private gyms and office space.

Richard: This is what happens, unfortunately. I just hope that people see reason and sense and realise that if your only guide in the world and your only treasure and love is money, money will be all you have. There’s a lot more to life than that. It’s very hard to get through to this current batch of businessmen and politicians that there is more in life than just money. That’s just a means to an end. It’s easy for me to say as a successful musician, but the pursuit of it makes you make some very bad decisions. This is a very, very bad decision. 

Ewan: What I take a bit of solace in is in that the outcry from the sale, the warmth of people standing against it. I think I expected that to a degree, I just didn’t expect it to the length it’s gone and how supportive people have been of The Leadmill as a place.

Richard: It’s because it is beloved. You can’t buy that. I’m sure there’s a song that tells us that somewhere. It’s beloved. It has been in the city since the sixties when we called it The Esquire. It’ll be a tragedy for the city. We’ll lose it. A real, real tragedy. It’s difficult to stand by and watch the council do nothing. They’ve done nothing to help. Nothing. 

Cities already, most cities in the north of England, are struggling. Places like The Leadmill, they employ hundreds of people. It’s not a tinpot business. It’s a really big thing. The manner in which it’ll disappear is even more tragic. Not from bad management or, you know, it has resisted the times that we’re in and still manages to flourish. Because people flock to it because it’s such a positive force. It’s very, very sad. 

Ewan: You did four gigs there recently, didn’t you?

Richard: It breaks my heart that the three more coming up on the 19th, 20th and 22nd of December, might be the last. But it’s not about me, it’s the awareness of it. You know? It’s suddenly dawning on me, just now, that the 22nd might be the last time I ever set foot in it, because I will not go over the threshold when these new, whoever they are, take it over. I will not be a collaborator or a traitor to the city. 

Ewan: I was going to ask how it makes you feel to know that’s your last time, but it’s clear how you feel. 

Richard: I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I won’t be having good feelings about the prospect of that. There’s an inevitability and everything changes all the time. That’s the way the universe works. It’s entropy. But the manner of it, like I said before, of how this venue will disappear, and the form that is taken in the forty-plus years, is really sad. It makes me very, very sad. Let’s talk about positive things. 

Ewan: Of course. One positive we can grab from that is you performed a song there recently, A Sunset, which is probably more of interest to me than it is to people reading this. It’s such a cracking song, though. I’d kick myself if I didn’t ask about a proper release for it beyond a live recording. 

Richard: I don’t know. I should mention it to Jarv (Jarvis Cocker), really. The thing with me and him, we’ve got loads of songs that are just sat there that we’ve written over the years. We’ve toured together so much and been friends for so long that, inevitably, when we sat around faffing around with guitars we got a creative spark. That’s not the only one. We’ve got so many songs that are kicking around from over the years, but yeah, that was a good one. 

Ewan: Obviously it doesn’t stop there either, you’re heading up Sheffield and opening for Pulp on their big reunion tour. I’m quite lucky, I got a ticket for that. 

Richard: Oh, you are lucky. 

Ewan: I’ve had quite a lucky streak. Tickets for yourself at The Fire Station in Sunderland in a few weeks’ time, then Pulp in Bridlington and Sheffield.

Richard: You’ll have a very good year. 

Ewan: Quite a busy one. You’ve had quite the busy year with touring too, your work has taken you far and wide.

Richard: It’s been quite joyful. I’m not the only one to think that. I know friends of mine who go to concerts all the time, regular audience members, have noted that everyone’s chin is up. After that time we all went through during the lockdown and pandemic and stuff, it was very anxious and threatful for all. To come out of that and stand together and watch the music that we love or play the music that we love is a very simple joy that is quite lovely to be part of. 

Ewan: It was, I’d actually headed over to Ireland to catch your show but those dates were obviously rescheduled.

Richard: I got bloody Covid.

Ewan: Oh, God. 

Richard: We had to cancel. There were no two ways about it. I got Covid in the end. I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t go on the ferry, I couldn’t go do anything. I had to hang around the house. To be honest, I didn’t really have any symptoms, I felt fine, but I just had to do the right thing, you know? I think at that time, as long as you didn’t show symptoms, you could travel, but I just felt too bad. I’d give people Covid. The thing about it is not everyone feels fine when they get it. They get really ill. I don’t want to be responsible for that, you know?

Ewan: I got it quite early on and I was flat out, it was a strange experience.

Richard: Oh yeah, it’s beyond weird. Fingers crossed we won’t be getting it again.

Ewan: Hopefully not, I think another year and a bit without live music, that’d drive us mad.

Richard: It did drive a lot of people mad. I had quite an easy ride, we live in a nice place. I look back at it and think, ‘well, I had a year with my kids that I would not have had.’ I felt a duty to not mope, to be honest. I looked at it as a weird gift, a very, very weird gift.

Ewan: It was strange, I think on my end I was strangely productive. 

Richard: Oh, same here. My wife’s a mental health worker. She’s a therapist and psychiatric nurse, she was on Zoom pretty much every day, without putting too fine a point on it, convincing people not to throw themselves off of buildings. Folks were not having a great time mentally and physically, some of them. I was very aware how lucky we were in terms of, you know, it was weird and on lots of levels a struggle, but compared to other people, some are still recovering. Christ, my mother, she still won’t let Tesco delivery or whoever is delivering go beyond the garden gate. He has to leave the stuff there. 

A lot of old folks have become Covid institutionalised, that’s what I call it, where they just, the whole experience has terrified them and it’ll take them a long time, maybe never, to recover from it. There’s a palpable fear, and of course, we’ve got that with politics as well, ‘cause the idiots in power, they harvest fear. 

Ewan: It is a state, but, it’s the productivity of it too. I’ve got to ask the obvious question. What’s next? What’s next for the studio releases?

Richard: I mean, I’ve got the musical, that’s the main focus at the moment. I’ve been doing lots of film work, which I can’t tell you about. There’s a lot of really exciting stuff coming up. A new album is always on the cards. I’ve got lots and lots of new songs, but getting around to recording them, I’m not sure when, but it won’t be long. The pandemic got in the way, but I feel duty-bound to help get music back on its feet. 

Obviously, that and the album and any other projects I was involved in were curtailed because of Covid. I feel very focused at the moment. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ll go do an album.

Ewan: It’s funny you mention that I just bagged one of your albums to put away as a birthday present for myself, it’s a Christmas Day birthday so…

Richard: Very good. It’s my wedding anniversary on December 22nd, the last day of The Leadmill. Oh, fantastic. Well, the last show that I play.

Ewan: Quite a big day that.

Richard: It’ll be quite, quite something, yeah.

Ewan: Just to bring it back to that tour with Pulp, obviously opening for them at Sheffield’s Utilita Arena – I certainly didn’t think I’d see Pulp live in my time or yourself opening for them. Is there a level of excitement there just yet?

Richard: I’ve really not thought about it, to be honest. It’s so far away. I don’t want to peak too soon, you know? I don’t know what it’s going to be like. That’s the thing about playing live. I’ve always enjoyed playing live. It could go tits up at any moment. That’s the thing. It’s the most alive. The PA can blow up. You can break a guitar string, something chaotic can happen. When a gig goes right, it’s such a good feeling, but yeah, playing with mates, it’ll be great. Hanging out in Sheffield’s arena is going to be very fun. 

Ewan: Speaking of tours, you’re heading to The Fire Station in Sunderland, it had a revamp recently, looking forward to it?

Richard: I always like playing the North, Ewan, you know, it’s where my dad was from, up that end. It’s always a sense, not of coming home, because I’m definitely rooted in Sheffield, but I’ve got family up there and there’s always that connection between the mining and steel. It’s a strong connection with our family, our history. It’s long gone, but, I love a lot of places around there. Northumberland, that whole coastal part. I’ve got a very young family member at Newcastle University actually.

I’m looking forward to Sunderland, it’s a different vibe. I’ve never played in The Fire Station, something new. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but fingers crossed.

Richard Hawley will play his (potentially) final dates at The Leadmill on December 19, 20, and 22. Tickets are available here.

Richard Hawley will also play The Fire Station in Sunderland to open his upcoming tour that sees him support Pulp in Sheffield’s reunion. Tickets are available here.

Bag yourself a copy of Richard Hawley: Live at Halifax Piece Hall here.