 A childhood spent moving from one place to another,
and with a guitar lying about the house, it was inevitable that Rurarri Joseph
would develop a keen interest in music. Born in Edinburgh,
Ruarri (pronounced like ‘brewery’) has moved around to various parts of the
country as well as spending three years in New Zealand.
“You just
learnt to deal with it. The first couple of times you move around it, obviously
takes a bit of getting used to, but I think you just learn to adjust. I
discovered that it wasn’t worth making friends because I’d have to say goodbye
to them pretty soon afterwards,” he recalls. “So it
made me concentrate on music even more because it was something you could take
with you wherever you went, you didn’t have leave it behind whenever you moved
to somewhere else. It wasn’t necessarily anything I was listening to, but I
just discovered the guitar and just kind of said, yeah you can make all sorts
of fantastic sounds with it and it was just a natural thing for me to pick up.
I wasn’t even listening to music, I just decided that I really enjoyed making
stuff up”.
For the last years though, the 25 year old
singer-songwriter settled in Cornwall
with his wife and two kids. “I lived in Cornwall as a child as
well. It seemed like a natural place back to, I’ve always liked it here,”
he says. “You can walk the streets safely and all that kind of thing. I like the
idea of bringing the kids up in Cornwall
so it seemed like a natural place to go to”.
It also helped that at the same time as learning
the guitar in the mid nineties, at the age of twelve, the grunge scene exploded thanks to bands
like Nirvana. “I got into it just after really, after I picked up the guitar,”
says Ruarri. “The grunge stuff was good because it was easy to learn. The whole
grunge thing was a phenomenal thing, so to be a teenager when that first came
out was pretty cool, pretty special”.
A career in music though had to be postponed with
the birth of his daughter in 2000. Priorities shifted and Ruarri took on a
number of jobs, ranging from working in a nursery to strawberry picking to
support his family.
“My mum
brought me up to do the best possible job, no matter what the job is you’ve got
to try your best at everything so I’ve always made myself enjoy the job. But the hardest job was nursing in an
elderly, mentally ill home. It is
difficult and it is emotional,” Ruarri reflects. 2It’s never a nice thing to watch someone
live out their last days. It’s not a
nice thing, but it certainly wakes you up and puts your feet on the ground. You
stop thinking about your own crap that’s going on in your own life and realise
that actually people have got worse things on in their life, so I recommend working
in a nursing home any day. I think it opens your eyes”.
Strawberry picking, however was a different story. “That was a bit rubbish, but then again
there were benefits because you could just eat sit there and eat strawberries
all day”.
It wouldn’t be until 2005 that he properly pursued
a carer in music and started performing again. Ruarri’s now signed to Atlantic
Records, but admits he had some reservations. “I thought that maybe that a major label would take away some of the
creativity, but Atlantic have been amazing, they’ve been very great in what
they’ve allowed me to do and how much input I’m allowed on certain things, when
you think the record industry is going to be like, but actually I haven’t had
any horrible experiences,” he asserts.
Raurri’s debut album, Tales Of Grime And Grit is
unashamedly uplifting with songs like Baby Finn inspired by the birth of his
daughter. It was recorded partly in his bedroom and the other half recorded at the
Airfield Studios in Cornwall
and co-produced with Paul Reeve, who produced Muse’s Absolution album.
“The half of
the album I did at home was … I wasn’t record songs for my album I was
recording songs because I wanted to. I had a little bit of equipment and I
thought it would be fun to record them, so I recorded them, they became my
demos, those demos got me a record demo and they ended up on the album. So for half of that record, I didn’t even
think about it,” he says. “The other
half I recorded in the local studio and that was a great deal of fun. I was just essentially doing what I’d done at
home. The whole process was actually swift and pretty quick”.
With numerous festival appearances to look forward
to there’s no doubt that Ruarri is busier than ever, not that he’s
complaining. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was 14 years old so if I start whinging
about how things are moving, I’d be an idiot”.
Tales
Of Grime And Grit is out now.
For
more info: www.ruarrijoseph.co.uk
Words:
Helen Duong
 |
