The back room is full of dreams, hopes, frustration and reality. It is also the ultimate place of self-actualisation when the dust settles. Those who scoff the back room do not frequent it. Those who believe in the back room contract it from experience. The back room belongs whole heartedly to both sides of the divide - egalitarian and bereft of filters. Phil Hooley without doubt knows the back room like the back of his hand and so will those who tune into a debut solo album that knows the clock has struck the decisive hour.
Of course fame and fortune may provide a ticket for Phil Hooley out of the back room. If it does the back room will seek its next entrapment, one seduced by the dream and hope, though likely pounded by the frustration and reality. One side of the divide may change, but the paying side of the divide remains stoic and entrenched. That is because solace is sought in the back room. It feeds a craving to belong and freedom from the overt pressures of conforming in a mass congregation.
Songs from the back room in a literal sense are the lifeblood for both parties searching the most intimate of mutual music experiences. SONGS FROM THE BACK ROOM is a product poking its head above the parapet expanding their presence into the back rooms of many other homes. Can they make this journey? Check out Phil Hooley's effort to reach out. For a little tip off, they do and the UK's Americana/singer-songwriting/performing fraternity can chalk another name on the slate.
Phil Hooley wanted this album to be a long restrained activity of putting his songs out there maybe for a bit of audience interpretative license. I've risen to the bait by dedicating this album to every back room where I've listened to a singer-songwriter spin out their wares, observations, stories and whims. Thanks for the invite and cheers for offering up this opportunity via an album characterising the essence of the back room in such a frank and delightful groove of modern twisted self reflecting Americana music.
