No 339: Pete Greenwood

Today's troubadour is as in love with quintessential US lost boy Gram Parsons as he is with definitive UK folkie, Nick Drake. Which is good news, then
Pete Greenwood
Lonesome guitar man ... Pete Greenwood PR

Hometown: Leeds/London.

The lineup: Pete Greenwood (vocals, guitar).

The background: Pete Greenwood has already graced these pages, as a member of Heavenly country-rockers the Loose Salute (New Band of the Day No 294). Born in Leeds, living in London and with one eye on America's West Coast, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter has also played guitar with Mojave 3 and, like everyone else on Heavenly, is as in love with quintessential US lost boy Gram Parsons as he is with definitive UK folkie, Nick Drake. And he sounds like both artists, without really moderating his accent, which is weird - it's probably in his tunings and fretwork, or his voice, which sounds at once American and British without really fixing on either.

Greenwood's songs sound timeless, tapping into acoustic rock's all-time greats, with no real hints in his music that it's 2008. He learned about the fine art of songwriting at London's Goldsmith's College, where his music degree teacher was Pete Astor, formerly of mid-80s Creation notables the Loft and the Weather Prophets, who were doing Dylan-esque jangles when today's new breed were still in nappies. Astor tricked Greenwood by promising him he could write film scores and orchestral music and then told him his first assignment was to write two songs - music and lyrics. So the terrified Greenwood sat at home with a pad of paper and a guitar and listened to Blood on the Tracks. Several hundred times. Before he knew it, he'd written Any Given Day, one of the tunes on his debut album Sirens; a tale of "a poor boy, a stranger and a crush". Soon, he'd written Bats Over Barstow, which evokes the gentle madness of Arthur Lee's Love and represents Greenwood's attempt to condense the whole of Hunter S Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas into a three-minute pop ditty. It earned him an ovation from his classmates, and a First for his degree. Greenwood claims to find this troubadour lark quite easy. "If you've been listening to the best songwriters your whole life," he says, "then it's bound to come out somewhere, isn't it?"

He wasn't always immersed in country/folk laments. His dad was a folkie, so he rebelled for a while by getting into Megadeth, Reef and Britpop also-rans Sleeper, at one of whose gigs he was arrested for urinating in a doorway. He had a brief phase as a "jazznut", and a stint in "an angular punk pop band". Then he discovered Dylan - he's played Lay Lady Lay so many times now it's in his DNA. Allying that to a knack for telling stories - he once wrote a story about a magical Technicolor dog that lived at the end of his road - he's now emerging as an original voice on a scene where originality is proving harder and harder to achieve, mainly by setting himself high standards. "I've set myself parameters," he explains, "like, 'Don't mention the word 'love' or, 'Don't talk in the first person', or, 'Don't let things rhyme'. It's so I don't get lazy and fall into too many cliches."

The buzz: "Melodic, beguiling, with easy acoustic songwriting skills."

The truth: The elements are tried-and-tested, but there's something distinctive about this lonesome guitar man.

Most likely to: Feel good that he's made it to 27 - both Drake and Parsons died when they were 26.

Least likely to: Betray the influence of Megadeth, Reef or Sleeper in his music.

What to buy: Sirens is released by Heavenly on August 4.

File next to: Gram Parsons, Gene Parsons, Gene Clark, Nick Drake.


Tomorrow's new band: Cashier No 9.