Baxter Dury On New Album, Paul Epworth, And Exploration Of Dance Music

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Ahead of his upcoming album ‘Allbarone,’ we chatted to Baxter Dury about his electronic turn and working with Paul Epworth

From his first album 23 years ago, through 7 more albums, and all the way to his 2024 Glastonbury appearance, Baxter Dury has remained one of the most unique, unapologetic and fascinating figures in indie music. In fact, it was this very Glastonbury performance which set the ball rolling for his upcoming new album ‘Allbarone’.

After his set on the Park Stage, he was approached by legendary producer Paul Epworth (U2, Adele, Paul McCartney + many more), who Dury knew vaguely through friends. Soon, the duo were set up in Epworth’s Church Studios in North London, as they began shaping what was to become ‘Allbarone,’ a significantly dancier album than the rest of Dury’s discography and absolutely one of his best records to date.

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You mentioned that this new album felt like something completely brand new for you creatively. Can you put your finger on exactly why that is?  

It’s just a different way of doing it, I guess, with a different sort of confident bloke in the form of Paul Epworth. He was just quite strident and it was just a different type of tempo and blah, blah, blah, blah. We always try and do something different, but it just felt the process was enjoyably different this time. 

I surrendered some of my controllery and allowed it to sort of go in a direction that I had envisaged, but I didn’t know to get there. So I needed help. 

Was it more that he was producing you with these instrumentals and you would then go off and write your own stuff on top of it?

Yeah, a bit of that was going on. We were very collaborative, definitely.

And what would you say you learnt from him? He’s a very talented producer, he’s been around for years and worked with some pretty huge artists. Is there anything specifically that he’s taught you that you’ll use in the future?

I learned so much actually constantly. I can imagine if you were in a kind of scenario where you’re in a battle and he was in charge of getting you from the other side of the bridge, in that particular moment, he would provide you with no reason to have any doubt that you were going to survive.

That’s the sort of way that he does things. He doesn’t look back and he just looks forward and it’s just about enjoying it in that moment and not ever comparing yourself or the song. He’s just about looking forward and he’s very good at that. 

This is your ninth album. Is there anything you’ve learnt from your last few albums that you know not to repeat in the future or things that you’ve enjoyed that you have taken forward to this album as well?  

I don’t know if you learn much. I mean, you’ve got to try and enjoy the experience as it’s going on. I don’t ever learn much, no. I don’t know if it’s about learning. I’m not sure you get better at music. It’s probably the opposite, you probably get worse as you get older. Music is quite cultural, so it’s quite attached to what people are doing and experiencing and young people and all that sort of stuff and emotion. 

The more you might remove yourself from a world that is feeling what’s going on, the more you’re likely to make shit music, you know what I mean?  You kind of slow down. So I think it’s just about maintaining that and sort of being aware and that’s what I’m good at and what makes the music good. 

You’re definitely leaning more into dance music this time around. I was wondering if there was a specific moment where you decided to go in this direction or if it’s something you’ve been leading up to for a long time? 

I think it was sort of a live-led thing. I just realised it was enjoyable when the show halfway through the set matured into a more of an up tempo then and that’s where the basis of this record comes from. It’s a sort of naïve take on dance music but it’s still in my realm, I feel. 

Why do you think it’s naïve? 

Well I wasn’t trying to appropriate something I didn’t know much about. Paul knew a lot about it so I guess he qualifies it or makes it authentic. But I wasn’t trying to pretend that I was in that genre, I was just sort of stealing some of it. 

So, do you listen to a lot of that kind of music?

I mean, I appreciate it. It’s not something I’d go to sleep listening to, but I really appreciate it massively more than I would have done. I was quite slow to it, you know. It was quite prominent in the 80s and I would have been appalled by it then, like “oh my god, what is this blasphemy?”. 

But, I mean, some of the things that Paul did, like repeat lyrics constantly, quite crudely, or cut things up, might have taken me a while to get my head around a few years ago and now I was much more open to it. 

On the lyrics, you mentioned that while you’re very critical of lots of types of people on the album, you often realise that you’re actually just talking about yourself in a way. Is there a way you find a balance between mocking people and more of a self-awareness or is that just something that comes naturally? 

Well, I think you’ve just got to put yourself in the mix so you don’t sound like a total cunt, really. I mean, I am really just criticising other people, but I’m sure I’m a knobhead as well. But I haven’t come to terms with that yet.

I don’t think it’s as simple as vitriol. I think that’s just quite a boring subject, just being angry. It’s interesting, it’s more about fragility and men and toxicity and just living a certain way and all that sort of shit. It’s more of a sort of Jane Austen take. 

There’s lots of references in the album, from classic literature to then high street bars and Hunger Games and DMs. Would you say you get more influence from the modern world and the things you see around you or the art of the past? 

A total mixture. I mean, love Hunger Games massively and I love whatever else I’ve quoted. I’m probably less likely to read a 700 page Russian masterpiece, just because your patience is quite fragmented in the modern world, isn’t it? My attention span, I can’t cope. But all of it, I love it all and I hope to address that all. 

When people hear the album for the first time, how would you want them to listen to it?

I played it in a club in Paris recently and it sounded fucking good, but I can’t really tell if it’s just because I had a captive audience who would have loved whatever I played. I might have been able to play me shaking a cornflakes packet and they might have thought that was amazing because they were definitely my fans. But they seemed to have a good reaction in there. Paul is a really sonically clever person and it was designed to be loud through some good speakers.

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‘Allbarone’ is out on 12th September via Heavenly Recordings.

Listen to the singles here:

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