After a lengthy break away in lockdown, consolidation, and a general break with loved ones; Northampton singer-songwriter Bruno Major sat down with EARMILK to discuss his new album: Columbo, reconnecting with songwriting and the joys of touring again after three years.

When it comes to the realm of writing popular love songs that manage to avoid treading into stereotypical musical cliches while reaching mainstream audiences, Bruno Major is a champion of crafting songs that are deeply vulnerable and widely accessible.

Though his first album came out in 2017 in his late 20s, Major has been a performing musician since age 16, coming from a family of creatives and crafting his guitar prowess with live acts.

After capturing the hearts of many with his debut project A Song For Every Moon, Major would earn accolades through “top artists to watch out for” lists and placement on a multitude of “loving you” playlists with his music being sensual and soft.

An artist primarily focused on crafting love songs and romantic ‘chunes was my perception of Major, but that all changed with the first listening of Columbo; a period piece that demonstrates Majors' prowess in songwriting and storytelling.

Columbo is a vivid depth exploration of one man's mental health as he grapples with a change in environment and reflects on his career as an entertainer.

From the song opener, “The Show Must Go On” to the conceptual closing of “The End” there’s a myriad of themes and concepts cascading throughout the project, showcasing that this is simply not a breakup album nor a romance album, but something that delves deeper into a wider range of the human experience.

Riddled with the same soft instrumentation fans have come to love at this point, as well as a few songs dedicated to a lover or two, Columbo captures a very distinct chapter in the performer's life. A chapter where Major would have to overcome a forced break due to a lockdown, touching base with loved ones who are no longer here, and what his artistry truly means to himself.

To boil this album down to a breakup album is a great disservice. Columbo cements the highlights of love and loss in its most intimate moments, many of which are from a nonromantic perspective, and isn’t afraid to touch upon some darker subject matters. It feels like a complete piece that offers a form of closure in musical form.

Earmilk spoke to the singer/ songwriter about how the process has been leading up to this release.

“Life started coming to me really fast because I hadn’t really been doing anything for so long so it was like an explosion of experience and my songwriting just started pouring out”

EARMILK: How are you doing? This is the first album in a few years so I imagine the creative process has been a journey

Bruno Major: “Yeah! Lockdown I didn't really do that much in lockdown and I felt pretty stifled creatively and I think art is a product of its environment so as soon as the travel ban was lifted, I flew to L.A. and started writing this album.”

“I record in London, but I like writing over here. I come to Los Angeles just to work. There’s an energy that’s very hostile about L.A. like everyone here is trying to get something done. Also spiritually, there’s something very peaceful, I can't describe it but every time I’m here I tend to write a lot of songs.”

What was the difference in approach to crafting this project from your past albums?

“I don't think there was a difference necessarily, but I think the experience of lockdown changed my self-perception. I was already focused on the idea of what I wanted to be like. I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to be a successful musician and I had gotten all the stuff I was trying to achieve, and then suddenly it was sort of taken away."

"And I remember being at my parent's house and looking into a mirror and thinking to myself ‘alright. When you’re not doing all of that stuff, when you're not on stage, when you’re not on stage as the musician, who are you?’ I think it led to all of us reevaluating our self-identity and I think I wrote Columbo from an honest perspective and it felt like getting to write my first album again.”

So almost like new beginnings?

“Totally man. A simulation reset if you’re into that sort of stuff.”

So tell me about Columbo. Why this detective when Lupin seems to be the rage right now?

“Well, Columbo is a car. When I landed in Los Angeles, I bought an old Mercedes 1981 280sl in ivory white and this car became a symbol of my renewed autonomy, like being able to go wherever I wanted again and do what I wanted again. Just driving around in this old Mercedes became my method for the new start and it was the same color as the Macintosh that Columbo wears in the tv show so when it came to naming the album, it felt like a nice overview of the time period I was writing."

Was there any influence from any of the acts within that time period of Columbo?

“Everyone as an artist is a culmination of all of their influences which become the palette in which they paint.”

“I suppose there are a few in there, I mean he was '70s? '80s?”

Yeah, there’s a lot of vintage vibes to the album.

“There is a bit of a '70s vibe in there, yeah that’s a good point.”

Songs such as “We Were Never Really Friends” and “The End” carry this guitar chord that has this sort of vintage filter over it so I’m curious to know what influenced you in writing them.

“My influences are infinite. I have an eclectic music taste and I listen to all kinds of music. I’m not directly influenced by anything when I write songs. If a song needs a drum part or a guitar part, or if I think it needs a synth, I just kinda build it with Phairo, Finlay Robson, my co-producer and we just build it like…you know Bob Ross, the joy of painting?

Yeah.

“It’s exactly like that. He starts off with the mist and the sea and then he’ll build a mountain, he’ll build a tree, and then a bigger tree and that’s exactly how I’ll do it. But yeah, I have my influences but they don’t really come to sound like anything. A lot of my influences come from the guitar world. My influences are Brian May because he was my hero. People may say I’m influenced by Pink Floyd, but it’s David Gilmour because he was my hero.”

“Everyone as an artist is a culmination of all of their influences which become the pallet in which they paint.”

"The Show Must Go On" is such a strong intro and it sets this theme of pushing yourself to get something done, more for the sake of something or someone else besides yourself. Does this song represent what you’ve experienced in the last few years?

“"The Show Must Go On" is a commentary on my own mental health. I’ve always felt that I’ve got an internal version of myself and an external version of myself so the external version is the one I show to the people. Where I’m at a party, where I’m trying to be funny, I’m trying to be warm, charismatic. I’m trying to be happy. All of things I’m trying to come across as because I want to be likable.”

“Whereas with my internal self, sometimes I really feel those things but when I’m in a good mood, on a good form, the two selves line up. But sometimes the real version of me is feeling insular, or melancholy or insecure and I still project the other version of myself. So what I'm doing with “The Show Must Go On”, is that feeling is magnified and brought sharply into focus as a musician.”

“Because when you go on stage every night on tour, it’s like you have to be all of those funny, charismatic, warm likable versions of yourself but you have to do it to 3 to 4000 people and you have to be the idea of the person they just bought tickets to go see so sometimes you’ll be in your hotel room before a show watching Netflix and all you want to do is order ramen and watch a shitty movie on Netflix, but you don’t. You get dressed. You go on stage and you crush it. That creates issues with musicians. You see the board and there are a lot of musicians canceling tours because it affects it on a mental level.”

When was the last time you played [a live show]?

“A long time ago! It’s gonna be March 2020 since the last time I played, going on 3 and a half years.”

Since the lockdown ended and live music came back, concert culture has shifted a little due to people having that time and energy to attend concerts again and it’s led to some spaces where fans get “selfish” at the shows. Do you think you’ll notice a change in the concert experience?

“I think people who go to your show are a genuine reflection of who you are. It’s a reflection of the culture within the music. My music is warm and soft and melancholy and intimate so I appreciate the fan base, they’re also warm and soft and just supportive. I’ve never experienced any sort of negativity from my fans so I hope that doesn’t change.”

“It’s like a beautiful democracy"

What’s something you’re looking forward to the most when getting back on tour?

"I think ultimately, doing a show is the completion of the creative process. Imagine you’re a painter and you make a painting. You go and put it in a gallery and people will go and observe it. It’s just a painting. I think art has to be consumed in order for it to be considered to be a piece of art. I never got to tour my second album and in a weird way, I never got closure over that process."

“Nothing” is my most streamed song. It’s my most famous song and it’s great, but those are just numbers to see on my screen. Until I get to sing those words and share air in a space and hear people say those words back to me and hear from real people how those words have been important in their lives, until that stuff it doesn’t really become real so I’m really looking forward to playing the second album and all those pieces of music finally becoming paintings in the gallery.

Beautiful way of putting it and good way of transitioning to my second question. “Nothing” is the one that went viral? What does that feel for you?

“It's pretty wild man. Tik Tok is where all the power is, it’s the movement of musical culture and internet culture is, really and it’s where the gates are even. You could be Beyonce or you can be somebody who just put out their first song and you have an equal chance at going viral.”

“It’s like a beautiful democracy. You’re outside the echo chamber. On your social media, you really only hear from your own fans and everyone is like ‘yay you’re amazing’, but on Tik Tok, you get some people who are like ‘what the fuck is this’ and I really enjoy that.”

The feelings are explored all over the place so I wanted your input mapping the segment of events. This is a breakup album so at what point did you set the shift in tone for the album?

“I don’t agree with that statement. I don’t think it’s a breakup album.”

“There are certainly love songs in there, but there are a multitude of songs that speak on other subjects like “18” talks on suicide, “Tears in Rain” speaks on death in the family.”

“Columbo is about freedom and autonomy, and a car”, he laughed.

“It really shaped my whole worldview”.

Thank you for pointing that out to me. What was it like writing from a more vulnerable place such as what you wrote about on “18”?

“An event that affects me, when I was younger two family members went through suicide and it taught me on existence and I had an early realization that life doesn't really mean anything. When you have the realization that there is no intrinsic meaning to life, you can go both ways with it: life means nothing therefore, everything is pointless i might as well die, or life doesn't mean anything, therefore it’s a game and not important and I can do whatever I want all the time and have an amazing time.”

“So I chose to take that part. I chose to chase my dreams and chose not to set limits on myself, I chose not to worry about having a backup plan or needing to fit in or conform.”

“It really shaped my whole worldview”.

With all these different ideas portrayed on the album, how was it navigating the darker concepts?

“That’s essentially what it means to be a musician or songwriter, I think.”

“You’re on this kind of narcissism roller coaster and suddenly you’re self-analyzing and reading your own mind and plumbing your feelings for artistic concepts and material and then projecting them into the wider world for artistic and monetary advancement.”

“I think when you write a song, you really feel it, because it’s fresh and you put yourself back in that place…it’s almost like being an actor. I can remember how I felt and reanimate myself and go back to that space. Like with how I wrote ‘18’. Sometimes you have to open the door to pretty traumatizing shit to get the stuff that’s emotionally connective and it’s also really strangely cathartic.”

What does the end mean to you?

“The End’ stylistically is linked to ‘The Show Must Go On’. I imagine starting a show on stage and ‘The End’ conceptually draws the curtains. It’s just the ending.”

“Trajectories’ was one of the first ones [I wrote for the album] and “The End” was the last one.”

Like conceptually?

“With this album, It’s almost like a performance. It starts with *a grandiose sound effect*, the curtain opens and you can hear the crowd in the end of ‘The Show Must Go On’ so it feels like a visual thing. I felt like it needed a ta-da ending and the chords disappear into the ether, it’s a bookmark to the album, it’s a full stop and doesn’t have a lyrical or metaphorical ending.”

After all that, do you feel like you have that catharsis?

“I feel like I’ve put a piece of my soul into it and I’ll never get it back and I’ve almost had to learn how to live without that part of myself and when I finished the album, I went into this weird period of mourning. And Im hoping that playing it live will put that to rest”.

“I’m extraordinarily proud of it and I feel like I’ve been working my whole life to achieve something I never would’ve thought I could achieve and this album is the first time I’ve felt I could obtain that level of art that I’ve been scraping the surface of with the last two.”

Stream Bruno Major now and listen to Columbo out July 21st, via AWAL Records

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