In Conversation With Newton Faulkner

Over the years we have had many a great conversation with the multi-talented Newton Faulkner. With news of his brand album, Octopus, which was released this September, his 8th studio album, it felt as good a time as any to catch up with Newton to find out more.

Well, it's an absolute pleasure. It feels like the reunion of the year, as I finally reunite with the wonderful Newton Faulkner. How are you doing, Newton? 

I'm very well. It's lovely to see you man.

Tell us how these past few weeks have been treating you.

I feel like other things in the world have overshadowed the work stuff. So, work-wise, everything's been really good. The  build-up to release has been going well. Pre-orders are fantastic, actually. We've had some reviews in, and they're really good. 

Way better than I anticipated, or I think that I've ever had before. I think I've always had a really good relationship with human beings that come to the gigs and see the stuff, and that's been fine. Where in terms of the first album, Broadsheets, it was despised very openly, actually. The critics  did not pull their punches, but lots of people really loved it. So, I was like, oh, people love it. 

Critic-wise, that's not why I make records, but with this record, the response has been really positive, and  it feels different. It feels like a different type of record to anything I've done before.

I literally just got off a TikTok live, where I went through each track and just told people a little about it. People were getting very excited. It was really cool. So yeah, that sort of stuff's been amazing. I mean I am still  very busy, lots of running around, and there's like deluxe versions and extra tracks to finish, and all of that. 

So before we delve into the nitty gritty, I know, earlier this summer, you were busy touring as well. And also you, coincidentally, on part of your tour, you took one of my friends with the Finn Forster. So how was it like being on tour and reconnecting with the fans? 

Ah, tour is just the best. I have been quoted many times around the house saying, I'm just looking forward to a nice relaxing tour. Touring is so simple. This is where my brain is at its best. Here is a massive, almost impossible task that you need to do. And that is it. That's what you need to do.

Where my brain struggles is when it comes to  switching gears. So yeah, touring is so much fun, I love it. I'm really, really excited about the kind of setup for this next tour. Because I've tried lots of things over the years. I've triggered visuals with my feet, using kind of see through screens, which looked a bit like holograms and done a lot of kind of quite technologically advanced things for their time.

Like Studio Zoo was the first album ever to be fully live streamed. Every single second spent on it was spent on camera. But with this I got slightly frustrated with the fact that I'd been sitting down and playing for a few tours. 

I'd got the best physical response I'd ever had from crowds in terms of the amount of movement. So I was getting kind of like a proper dance floor at the front. It was great. Which is not it's not easy to do on your own, especially if you're physically playing everything at the same time. But the other side of that is that I'm sitting down and that changes the energy, it changes the nature of the communication. So I wanted to find a way around that. So I've built a pair of MIDI shoes. Okay, yeah. Which mean I can make all the same noises.

There's a line which I call it the Dick Van Dyke line, so with the MIDI shoes they are just under that Dick Van Dyke line. I use them on festivals, which is a great test because those are the gigs where you have the least control over everything.

If I could predict the future, you would somehow end up on Dragon's Den with your Dick Van Dyke borderline shoes. And you will sell it to the nation and you'll get all the dragons fighting over you. That's my prediction.

I've watched a lot of Dragon's Den. It's a great TV show. Weirdly fascinating.

I think most people watch it with a business outlook. I almost think of it more as just a fascinating anthropological study of human beings. It's so strange to see. This new record is called Octopus. 

So tell me the qualities of the octopus that you love?

Oh, I mean, there's loads. They are truly like fascinating creatures. I love the fact that their tentacles aren't really controlled by their brain, but they're not really being told what to do. Unless the octopus tunes into that tentacle, unless it's fully focused on that, they're actually weirdly autonomous, and kind of just go where they went.

I feel like my job on this record wasn't to steer things where I thought people would want me to be. But it was to get out of the way and just let stuff go where it wanted to, wherever that was. I feel like my main function was  just listening to it being like, right, where does it want to be? And just letting it kind of naturally go there without getting in the way..

Would you describe octopus as your spirit animal? 

I think my wife would probably agree with that. I spend all my time doing three things, pretty much, never less. Like, I've always got like, even like looking at my screen, I've got nine programs open. I've always played bass with my feet and messed around with that. And there's like, yeah, there is a kind of, I was gonna say octopussy-ness, but that is not a great way of saying it.

Has there been anything pleasantly surprised about  your own creativity?

 I think I actively try not to judge my own creativity, because it's like a scary thing to start doing. I'm really happy production-wise. I think I've very much learnt to produce kind of on the job. It wasn't something I meant to do.

With my fourth album, I was totally thrown under the bus and being like, just make this whole record. I was like, I don't know how to do that. I don't, I never said I could do that. But now you're just like, you've told everyone I'm doing it. So I'm gonna have to do that. And then after that, there was degrees of experimentation and working with brilliant people that I've learnt a huge amount from.

But this record is definitely, I feel like I've really put my kind of flag down, so to speak, on not just being a kind of live artist, but as a producer, I think this is what I can do. I'd like to do it more for other people. I've been talking to people about kind of stuff they're working on.

It's like, do you want another pair of ears on it?  I mean, I've just learnt loads of new tricks, and I'm kind of desperate to find other homes for them. And it's become like a really natural kind of space for me to work in.

I think I asked you this last time, so I'll see if your answer is the same. So if your guitar or any instrument could talk to you right now, what do you, about this stage of your life, what do you think it would say to you? 

The guitars are slightly hungry for more attention. I think I've been quite utilitarian with my guitar usage. Live, they get a real workout. And also, I mean, part of the challenge for me is making records and then finding a way of getting them across.

So some people say they miss the bum-de-bap-de diddly diddly guitar percussive stuff, but that will always be part of the live show, even if it's not on the records. Recorded wise, I don't really see the point, because there's better noises, basically. There's better noises, and you don't need to do it all at the same time, because no one knows you've done it at the same time once you've recorded.

You have done quite a bit of touring recently so do you  prepare yourself mentally and make sure you're not getting too fatigued? 

It’s  quite a long list. I meditate twice a day. I don't talk about it a lot because some people immediately like, that's weird, don't do that. But it really helps. It makes a huge difference. For me, what it stops is accumulation. So every day on tour feels like a kind of new experience. 

How have you, how have you found connecting to, to the fans, especially through TikTok? 

TikTok was a weird one. I was quite late to it. Definitely wasn't really something that I thought I had to do necessarily. When I first came out, that was 20 years ago now. I was big on Myspace, which is just a stamp of like when it was, and social media didn't exist. It wasn't a thing. Its taken me a long time to find what I'm comfortable with and how I fit in to that.

It's not my favorite thing in the world and I'm doing three other things. So nothing has that level of focus. Whereas I work with people who just naturally document their entire existence without any, like there's, it's just a totally natural state of being.

Whereas if I have, if I have a really, really good day, there will be no evidence of it whatsoever anyway, because  I was there, I was in it and I was having a good time. The other day I was showing people the shoes and I picked it up. And as I picked it up, I pressed a button, but I didn't know what button I pressed. And then I ended up in what was apparently a battle, which is a button you can press for some reason.

I was in a battle with a lovely man who was home alone with his kids in Pakistan, who didn't know how it worked either. So he didn't know what button he'd press. And he was like, hey, it just kept going on.

I guess there is a hidden beauty in that at the same time though, because what may have been an accident, by the sounds of it resulted in you connecting with someone who had discovered you for the very first time?

That is very true, i guess you could call it a happy accident, but also one of the things I have most about social media is being able to connect with new fans for the very first time, whereby they are able to hear fresh new music without any form of bias. 

So what is the next chapter in the Newton Faulkner story? 

Well now that the album is out, it's about making sure I give it the attention it deserves, although saying that I am already bouncing around ideas for new material. Other than that I will be playing a handful of UK dates before heading out to Europe to play a set of shows. In 2026 Australia is also on the cards which I really looking forward to.

The brand new album Octopus is available on all major platforms right now.

Article By Thushara Chandrasiri