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For an artist with such an illustrious career, already the creator of three daring, popular albums, a figure hysterically adored by teenage girls and musically replicated by ambitious teenage boys, to go back to your roots when you're on such a high might sound like an odd idea. But Patrick Wolf had to.
Last year he quit touring, disposed of his passport, locked himself in his flat and turned off his blackberry. People panicked. Despite his face not being printed on tabloids every day, rumour on his whereabouts still managed to circulate through fan forums and word of mouth. Matter of fact, he spent his isolated three months reading back through his old diaries, spending days on garageband, discovering exactly who he was again. In other words, he went back to his roots.
But what triggered this dramatic move indoors for such a lengthy time? "I had no private life, no personal life at all." He explains to Gigwise how time on the road was spent "staring out a window Lost in Translation-style" and "experiencing all those typical rock clichés that you could think of…I couldn't stop myself." An artist, who's spent life on the stage since he was 12, finally decides he's not enjoying it any more. That sort of realisation could easily trigger a period of time solely spent on finding out exactly what you stand for in the first place. From 18 onwards, Patrick was swept away on a musical wave of endless writing, touring, scratching his head for new ideas, buying new instruments. And whilst all of this sounds ridiculously fun, put emphasis on the word "endless". He had no time for family of friends, no time for home comforts.
It seems that the period after 'The Magic Position''s release produced this epiphany of sorts for Wolf. Maybe it was all too much for him. "With 'TMP' I kind of streamlined myself to see whether I could take on the top 10 and be an opportunist." Under Universal, one of the most cash-heavy labels in the world, Patrick experienced American prime-time TV, big budget music videos, tours with three costume changes. The only catch? "It was the album that'll never make me a penny for the rest of my life." He elaborates on the inequality between those that were part of the album's release: "when you're putting a lot of time and effort into your work and you realise lots of people are getting paid and you're not…I mean…" And he's right to be frustrated. He wrote the album, he went round the world with it; he even did the artwork for it. "The only way I could make money from it was touring and giving songs to Homebase adverts".
And so in comes bandstocks, an ambitious new concept of releasing music, to save the day. It involves the copious amounts of fans Patrick has, investing money in 'shares' which result in those investors getting 20% of the record's profits after release. The rest of the money, "goes to my record label and that'll be used to invest in videos and tour support, investing in the next record and putting it into my label for other bands as well so it's kinda gonna be re-invested, it's kind of a non-profit thing really."
Those that'll be investing will be part of what seems to be Patrick's most ambitious, self-challenging work to date. 'Battle' comes in two parts. One represents the isolated, depressed side circa-2007 ('Bachelor'). Not entirely depressed, though. "There's a lot of hope in the record. I'm not here to depress the world." A stronger positive message however is likely to emerge from 'Conqueror', the second disc, due for release at a separate time as the first disc. It's inspired by "the best thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life." That best thing being a relationship, spanning over a year so far. "I've got a life to share with somebody and it's really beautiful and I've got someone to bring my confidence back and the second disc is sort of a "thank you"."
So why isn't Patrick going out gung-ho on the depressed, damaged image that so many artists previous have experienced at least once in their career? "That's so boring. It's such a predictable self-loathing stance to slip into when you write and I'm not going to do that." He explains: "I want to be a lover, I want to be a fighter, a good person to my friends and my family. And that's what I worked through with the first disc." Whilst Bon Iver created something beautiful last year with his snowed-in, broken-heart led album of despair, it also gave a glorious, warm sense of hope. Patrick looks set to replicate just that.
The hope emerges from one single incident spent with the family that he'd longed to be with during his time of under-eating and tiring day-in-day-out tours. "I went up for a big walk on Blackdown and there was this really wonderful windy day and it reminded me of being twenty again before all the touring. I felt like Patrick again, all that shit just disappeared." Finally able to look forward again, he thrived on the experience, literally going back to his roots. Recording in churches and other locations upon where ancestors had lived, an identity of Wolf re-emerged, one that fits in perfectly with the first side of 'Battle': "It's the stage before I decided I wanted to become a popstar."
And so once more he's a popstar, ready to tour again: "I'm going to go out there with a different aesthetic. I'm going to take my partner and my little family with me on the road. I'm going to celebrate the music. It's not going to be a chore or a job." And perhaps he's ready to release what could easily be the high point of his career to date. After all, it's always the most personal of albums that tug on your heartstrings too.
