The Highland News recently published this nice article about my new album:
JESUS INSPIRES
SINGER songwriter Andrew Howie isn’t planning to bring down the wrath of God’s loyal followers with new album Jesus Is For Losers. He explained: “It’s named after a song by American singer songwriter Steve Taylor I cover on the album. “I knew it already when I had the idea for the album which was a while ago.”
There’s a real mix of material on the album which majors on his signature quirky, ambient tracks. Alongside his own songs, Andrew has also chosen to include covers of tracks by a wide mix of names – U2’s Wake Up Dead Man, The Velvet Underground’s Jesus, I Don’t Know How To Love Him from the Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Jesus Christ Superstar plus more obscure names such as American Music Club and Zwan featuring Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan.
Beauly-based Andrew or Calamateur, his music persona, explained the idea behind the album. “I suppose Jesus Is For Losers is a fairly provocative song title and people could misunderstand what the album is about. But hopefully they won’t judge it and will dig a little deeper,” said Andrew. “All the songs have got something to do with Jesus.” But it’s not just songs “about Jesus”. As Andrew himself points out writing on his website about the exercise, albums about Jesus don’t have a great track record – he points to Bob Dylan’s Saved or Johnny Cash’s Gospel Road as two that didn’t do their creators any particular favours. His songs and covers look at everything from failure and disillusionment to one boasting a one-night stand with Jesus.
“I had a Christian upbringing and for me it’s important for everyone brought up believing or being taught something to question it, to see for themselves whether it’s true or not. “I’m constantly exploring what I was brought up with. So for the album I chose to explore it through songs I wrote and songs I had discovered.” Where did the exercise take him? “I still believe a lot of what I was brought up to believe,” he revealed. “But I like the idea of having a humble attitude and realising that we don’t know everything and that there are always going to be new questions to ask.
“From the feedback I’ve had through the website, a lot of people seem to have connected with it. It’s nice to know that people are connecting with it because if they couldn’t it would have been a pointless exercise!” He laughed: “I’ve been putting out a couple of tracks at a time and that was meant to happen over weeks, but it’s turned into months!”
As well as officially launching last week the full version of Jesus Is For Losers, in the next few days he’s also set to complete final mixing of his next album recorded down in Glasgow over the last few years. There’s been what he calls a “slow trickle” release of the Jesus album tracks to members on the Calamateur mailing list, though they had to wait till last week for the final three. He’s also very generous to fans who can download Jesus Is For Losers for free with a booklet and artwork included. As Andrew puts it, Jesus Is For Losers is free, but recording isn’t. So anyone who gives a donation will get a bonus fivetrack EP as a thank you.
He explained why he’d chosen to release his album this way: “It can be quite hard to get people’s attention. “Having it to download free is a simple way of doing it when there’s so much music out there that’s self-released. “And with the other album almost finished, doing the Jesus album for free might meanthere will be more interest in the next one from people who’ve got to hear this one! With the next one, I’d like to go the traditional CD route because when you’re playing gigs, you want to have something to sell at the end.”
He warns that the newest album doesn’t even have a title yet and that it may be some time before it actually appears. But these days fans of Calamateur, know the wait is worth it.
Go to www.jesusisforlosers. co.uk to download the album free or donate and pick up the bonus 5-track EP.
