Ben Leto asks Josh Todd of Bark Cat Bark what year it is, why people in Paris don’t wear baseball caps and whether he’d like another Absinthe.

Josh Todd has started the day in what only the British would consider true Parisian style. It’s not yet lunchtime and he’s had, by his own admission, “plenty of wine this morning.” Here on one of his many visits to Paris, his “local town” and “where his heart lies”, Yorkshire-born Josh calls himself “just a young eighteen year old traveller”. Some of his friends call him a grandad. Anyone who’s heard his music however could only ever call him an upsettingly talented and rising artist.

Signed to Playground Records aged only 13, Josh has since been releasing music under the name of Bark Cat Bark. As a classical musician playing the undeniably modern, it’s refreshingly difficult to crowbar his sound into any one genre, much like his contemporary influences of Beirut, Patrick Wolf and Final Fantasy, amongst others. He’s a polymath with what seems like every instrument any musician has ever heard of and a few I certainly haven’t, including the Bouzouki, Gayageum, Euphonium, Kinnor, Bandura and the Kokyu. Musically ignorant folk such as myself would probably be found trying to order these names in a Korean restaurant, whilst talking to Josh for only a few minutes can make you feel like you eat too many Doritos and watch too much TV by contrast.

It was with this slightly sinking feeling of having wasted the twenties I spent my teens looking forward to that I sat down with a cup of conspicuously unFrench coffee to ask him some fatuous and irrelevant questions.
 
 
Ben Leto: Okay then, here goes, straight off the top of my head.

Josh claps his hands once.

BL: Let’s play with synesthesia. What colour would you say typifies your last album, Rest in Tale?

Josh Todd: Can’t we start off like, “hey, hey, I’m currently in Paris, yeah…”?

BL: You see, I’m not very good at this. To do this properly we’d have to be sitting at a café des artistes with a notepad and dogeared copy of Rimbaud on the table next to an overflowing ashtray and two empty glasses of red wine.

JT: Ha ha! Those interviews have happened before, and let me tell you, they’re not so good. Half the time both of us wouldn’t even talk about anything. The Newcastle Metro interviewed me like that, and we didn’t even get an interview done. Still haven’t.

BL: They’d be good with me. The interview would last seven hours and we’d be smashed. Think Withnail and I meets Time Out.

JT: Ha ha! Sounds great! We shall do it sometime then. But in answer to your first question it would be ‘brown’, as it is very dismal, and mucky.

BL: Ha! I knew it! A rusty brown.

Josh laughs.

BL: See? There’s hope yet for this interview.

JT: Ha ha! Come on, keep them coming. I’m on a roll.

BL: Shit… um… (orders another Absinthe)

JT: Such a good drink!

BL: Would you say you were a loner at school? If so, was it by choice, and if not, did you care?

JT: I was very popular at school actually. I always used to get nodded at as I walked through the corridors with my violin in hand and known as the ‘class clown’. It was only in college when I started really settling down and being what I found to be myself. I like my inside time, and also love going clubbing with a selected few.

BL: Some people would say the ‘class clown’ avoids being taken seriously - standing out just to fade his true self into the background. Were you quite open about who you were, or did you let people assume you were who they perceived you to be?

JT: I have always been very open. I really couldn’t care less about what someone thought. If I enjoy what I do, I enjoy what I do. No one can tell me different.

BL: There was something you said before about your music being like a relationship between a man and a woman. What does that mean? And why the male/female dynamic particularly? Would you say you consider your music’s like the feelings in romantic or sexual relationships?

JT: Well, let’s say the woman is the music I create. The woman can irritate me and my emotions which then causes us to fall out and stay away from each other for a while. Then when I return to her we are full of love again. Just like any normal relationship between a man and a woman.

BL: Is it therefore a conscious choice that you use female vocalists? Have you considered using a male vocalist for any of your songs?

JT: There is a song in production where Jack Colwell is appearing on vocals. Jack is a talented young man indeed. As for female vocalists, I don’t know how it came about. It depends what mood my music gives out and then I will decide if I want a female or male to sing or even, in some cases, no one sings and it stays as one instrumental, then later in life they come back and we put vocals to it. ‘I Saw A Wolf’ was officially an instrumental on an old vinyl of mine, but then last year we thought of some lyrics and Katie Morrice arose to the challenge of singing them.

BL: You mentioned that you don’t like performing in England anymore. Do you think of yourself as an English musician when you’re playing abroad? Songs like ‘Baron’ have, I think, a definitively British parochial sound. Is this something you try and express in other countries?

JT: When I play in different countries I see myself as one of that nationality. I give all my songs their country’s sound. But when I am back in England I see myself as just a normal Englishman - a Yorkshireman. I tend to gasconade about being from Yorkshire. The songs that you hear that sound like they are not English in any way at all is because they’ve not been recorded in England. They have been recorded in different parts of the world, e.g. Bahrain, Paris, Arrecife… Ichabod Crane was recorded in England, hence why it sounds like a 17th century English classical piece. And the Sitrah album was recorded in Bahrain where I used sitars, darbukas And qanuns which are their country’s instruments. I like to experiment in different countries with different instruments.

BL: I actually thought Ichabod Crane sounded more French! Like something from the demise of aristocracy!

JT: Oh no! I was listening to a lot of English classical artists at the time, and the riff and everything just came to me in my room.

BL: Is that how you compose? Do your ideas generally come from soaking up other pieces and allowing them to shape your own, or do you start off with an idea and then listen to others to give it form?

JT: In all honesty, 10% of my music has come by listening to other artists and the other 90% is just sitting there in a quiet room.

BL: So do you find it easier to compose whilst travelling, or once you’ve returned?

JT: I like to take my dictaphone with me and whilst travelling in other countries by foot I will attatch my dictaphone to my belt, walk and take an instrument at random with me and play anything as I’m walking around, taking in the scenery and playing what I feel like, looking into the details of the scenery. Then if I’m not recording whilst I’m over in that country, I can bring my dictaphone back with me and listen back, then record it over here with it sounding that I’m still over in that country.

BL: Do you ever go busking when travelling? And do you ever play whatever you want then or just stick to written songs?

JT: I do love to go busking, without permission. But it is phantasmagoric! And you attract the right crowd! When I’m in countries like Macedonia I like playing the songs which they’re familiar with like Opa Cupa or Zemjo Makedonska. But when I play my own they seem to enjoy it, and that makes me gratified as can be.

BL: I can see you busking in the Piazza della Signoria. Have you?

JT: I have not played there, but I will most likely in October when I visit Florence!

BL: Crowley once said England is “the most fertile mother of poets, but she kills the weak and drives the strong to happier lands… The English poet must either make a successful exile or die of a broken heart.” I had that in mind when you were talking about the differences in audiences’ reactions in the UK and abroad.

JT: I like that! I’ve never read that before.

BL: Do you feel that we don’t appreciate artists here like they do overseas?

JT: I feel that way. I think it’s because people these days in England are too afraid of what people might think. This country’s people have sadly gotten this way.

BL: So what year is it in your head?

JT: Anytime from 1678 to 1741.

BL: You have a Yorkshire passport, but you suggested Paris is your home. Can you say why, or does it simply sing to you in a way UK cities don’t?

JT: The people in Paris have class whereas the people in England have baseball caps.

BL: So it’s just the people then?

JT: I personally think so, a mass majority. But again, I love the countryside in England. It’s absolutely breathtaking - where I can record some of my folk music over the grass and cornfields, where there are few people to be bothered by. I think the whole point to this travelling hobby of mine is that I can’t get what I want, unfortunately.

BL: When an artist gets what he wants, he stops being an artist and goes into HR.

JT: Music is my true partner, and a true partner never leaves. It would be half a millimetre from the impossible scale.

BL: It’s funny you say that about the people in Paris and the UK. I think London, for example, is a beautiful city - so much history and culture embedded into the stone and cobble when you walk the streets. It’s just the attitude of the majority of the people here I don’t like. I’ve found Paris can be very similar to London in terms of people’s attitude to each other, and particularly foreigners.

JT: I see what you mean. I did enjoy the historical side of London and the lovely places to go. But there’s something more about it that switches me right off the place.

BL: Do you have any vices, and do you think your music would suffer or benefit without them?

JT: I don’t really know. I make my music until it pleases my ears. Once my ears are pleased, I am pleased overall.

Josh laughs.

BL: Not one for creative celibacy then? The last of the great sensualists is alive and well! As Oscar Wilde once said (though strictly off record), ‘finish on something fatuous’: who from all of history would you most like to support in concert?

JT: My dream would be to travel round France to Lebanon with the man that is Zach Condon - me with my accordion and Zach with his ukulele and magical voice. There would be nothing greater in my eyes. Dream what you want to dream, go where you want to go, be what you want to be; because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do. It will happen.

BL: That’s a nice note to end on. Shall we have another Absinthe?

JT: Absinthe it up!
 
 
Bark Cat Bark is currently down and out in Paris and Yorkshire. He likes Rosé, anything by Zach Condon and playing with Mariopaint Composer. Order his latest album here while you still can.

Mother threw me out of the house on Tuesday night.

I’ve stopped and stared at that sentence for at least a minute now. It still doesn’t make any sense. She woke me up at about 10pm, screaming at me - demanding to know what my problem was before telling me that I should leave. Earlier that day she’d left me a packet of cigarettes and told me to make sure I had something to eat from the fridge.

I grabbed the items most important to me - my laptop and my diary - and threw them into a bag with some clothes and a toothbrush. Five minutes later I was closing the front door, not looking back. I was still half asleep. My head was racing, trying to understand what was happening. My heart was still pounding from being woken up by someone shouting at me. I called three of my friends in London with places to stay in varying states of emotion - logical and calm; confused and increasingly in shock; on the verge of tears.

My former flatmates let me stay with them at their flat in Northwest London, which is easy enough to get to from Chiswick. It was about half eleven when I got here. I passed a homeless man under Kilburn station bridge on the way up the hill. I gave him 50p. I would have given him more but didn’t know if I’d now be needing every penny left on me.

It’s now Thursday morning, and hasn’t been a full two days since it happened. I have heard nothing from her since and been back to the house only once, yesterday morning, when I knew she wouldn’t be in. I packed a suitcase, tidied my room (I should say her room - it was never mine) of my things and stripped the bed, leaving quickly before she came home from work in the mood for another argument. I still don’t understand. This is something I never thought could happen to me. This is something I didn’t think my mother would do to her son. Am I a drug addict? Have I murdered someone? Has she become devoutly, psychotically religious overnight? What exactly was it I’ve done that made her a spontaneously different person - one who wants to throw me out of the house?

Since it happened, and I’ve been living off the charity of friends (oh yet again), I’ve realised two important aspects of being suddenly of No Fixed Abode, one bad, one good: you can’t get a job without an address, anymore than you can get an address without a job; and there is no greater luxury than clean clothes on a hot summer day.

Having proven myself completely incapable of getting a job in the past few months, I’m not sure how my current situation will help matters. I will also need to find a bedsit (rather than a flatshare again) longterm, which means more money going out that I was supposed to be saving rather than spending. So much for being able to afford to go to Canada next year. Looks like I’m stuck here, sleeping on friends’ sofas and living off their generosity until I’m able to get myself back into the rat race - desperately kicking my legs just to keep my head above water.

I’ve just remembered my toaster - a Russell Hobbs two decker. It was a present from my mum after I moved into my first flat in Highgate, now five years ago. My mum currently has a four decker here. I think such decadence has not been seen since Marie Antoinette.

The last time I saw it was as we were packing up our last flat. I loved that little toaster. It knew its place in the world and took joy in fulfilling it. Not only would it make excellent toast on any setting, but delivered it with a joy that was undeniable - hurling it into the air as if to say “Wheeeeeeeeeee! I love my liiiiiiiiiiife!” I need anthropomorphosized kitchenware like that in my life.

What did I do with it? I can’t remember if I gave it to my ex-flatmates, or left it there for a new owner to find a similar joy in its contentment. Either way, I hope it’s being used. A little toaster like that with such a capacity for love should be used, and as often as possible.

I’m not sure if it was intentional, but it is the first thing that greets you as you enter Bonkersfest. That and one of those stalls where if you lob enough bricks at a clown’s face you win a cuddly toy. I don’t need the incentive of a cuddly toy to hurl things at clowns.

I have never seen “normality” more perfectly defined than here. Normality really is a horrible concept, as anyone who’s ever been called “weird” by someone proud being just like everyone else will know. It’s a polite and consolatory way of saying “boring”. Kay Redfield Jamison once said that you have to be very certain of your own sanity before you can call someone else insane. Einstein meanwhile observed that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Be very afraid of anyone who considers themselves “normal”.

I was thus quite happy with my result, particularly after a few recent events, though this could have been due to my answer to what I would do with a spoon.

I’ve never been very good at accommodating “constructive criticism”, but particularly from sources so plainly unqualified to offer it so abruptly. You’ll therefore excuse me if I take this opportunity to make a cup of tea and carry on with my day.

Woke up this morning (at bang on 11:11 believe it or not) from a dream about being in my actor friend’s current play. It was a variation of one of those “everyone knows the lines except you” anxiety dreams, except everyone knew I didn’t know the lines at all - I was standing in at the last minute and ad-libbing as I went. All I had to do was respond to what was said to me as best I could and everyone would improvise around me to keep the script on track. No pressure, huh?

Anyone who knows me will know I have huge stage-fright issues (seriously - when I went to the Fringe in 2002 I recorded all my off-stage dialogue onto a CD and pressed play at the relevant bits. Evidently I even have off-stage-fright). But this wasn’t where this became a garden-variety anxiety dream for me.

That came when the play spontaneously became a musical halfway through.

The stuff of nightmares

I seemed to be the only person there who had a problem with singing ad-lib. I seemed to be the only person there who had a problem singing. I am incapable of singing, especially recently. Recently I’ve been smoking more than a middle-aged Parisian widow café owner who’s just returned from holiday with a duty free supply of Gauloises to find she’s lost her café. I am incapable of being sung at. It’s curious, I know, but something about it makes me want to leave the room or burst into schoolgirlish laughter. Or smack them.

I was desperate not to be sitting there having someone sing their character’s undying love for mine and have to keep a straight face. So, rather like Rimmer in Better Than Life, I must have signed a silent deal with my subconscious to get me out of the situation by completely ruining it. Suddenly, seconds before it was My Perfect Martine McCutcheon moment, hordes of Cybermen stormed the room, shooting everyone in the cast and audience alike with their own chorus of “Delete! Delete!”. Satisfied that my work here was done, I was then able to escape to reality with little to show for my selfishness and murderous intent than a sore forearm that I’d apparently slept on.

Only I wasn’t sure if I was still dreaming. My email inbox this morning looks more beautiful than it has done in a long time. In fact, for a writer looking for a job who rarely hears from some of his best friends anymore, it was pretty much a panacea. Nothing certain, but not the usual wet-haddock-in-the-face sort of instant ‘NO’ either.

Think nice thoughts for me. And if you happen to see this at the Edinburgh Fringe next month, bring something gold. Just in case.

Doomsday. He’s not on the beach - but who cares anymore. The engines roar and I find myself alone, not even myself, the maple-leafed sign beside me revealing this is Dårlig Ulv Stranden. I got it all wrong. London and the hollow chimes of an unirradiated Big Ben already feel light years away, gongs for a future already written and long since lived. There’s no sunshine anywhere. Chasing Cars. If I just lay here. Close eyes, arms out - back to the Reichenbach mattress as I push with my heel - down, down, down into cold and roaring hell, silent and unnoticed like a stone. I push my neck out so my head hits first. Nothing, just silence. I open my eyes and see only magnolia ceiling - put my hand to my head to find a still intact skull, but my fingers come away bloody all the same. I’m the only one who can see it. I’m the only one. I’m alone.