The Boy Who Trapped The Sun
by Jonathan Geddes © Evening Times
He’s becoming a star thanks to his sensitive sound, but the Boy Who Trapped The Sun owes his musical upbringing to none other than Guns ’N’ Roses!
The singer, real name Colin MacLeod, hails from the Isle of Lewis and headlines King Tut’s next week, fresh off supporting punk legend Patti Smith.
But while his melancholic songs are what are winning him fans, it was a stint back home at an open mic night that helped him improve his music.
“The biggest thing that helped me was playing in a pub in Stornoway, at an open mic night,” he says.
“This is when I was trying to study songwriting a bit more, and I’d just play covers for two hours every Thursday night. It’d be a marathon instead of a half hour sprint, and being able to play for so long was how I earned my chops. We just played AC/DC and Guns ’N’ Roses covers – you can’t go wrong with them!
“I’d do two hours of them and maybe some Led Zeppelin thrown in too. The only regret was that I could never reach the notes those guys could – I just started screeching halfway through. It was obviously a bit different to what I do now!”
But while the 25-year-old recalls those days with a fond laugh, now he’s happy to focus on his more reflective tunes.
Debut album Fireplace was released last week, following a period which saw Colin relocate to London for three years, in order to fully focus on his music.
Prior to his London move, he’d held several interesting jobs, from teaching salmon fishing to working as a lorry driver, but it was a passion for making music that always drove him on. However, moving to London did force him to make several adjustments, as he adapted to life in the big city.
“It was a big culture shock” he says, wryly.
“You’d read about people getting shot in the local paper like it was no big thing. I mean, I’m not saying it was like the mean streets of LA, but it was just a generally different vibe.
“At home you’d walk around any time of day and night without bother, and then when I was there (in London) I quickly realised that if I left my front door open when I went to the shops, all my stuff would have been stolen when I got back.
“Thankfully, that didn’t happen to me, but I definitely had a country boy mentality, and it took a while to get used to the idea that not everybody was your pal!”
He’s making friends in the music business though, thanks to that bewitching mix of plaintive vocals, strummed guitars and piano and strings that flow through Fireplace. He’s set to hook up with KT Tunstall when the Scots songtress tours the Highlands and islands, while an autumn run of dates with Guillemots singer Fyfe Dangerfield is also planned. It was a recent support slot, however, that caused Colin’s cool demeanour to drop.
“I supported Patti Smith recently (in Hyde Park in London), which was pretty weird. I was on early evening, playing on a smaller stage, and at those gigs it’s difficult to connect with people because they’re so excited to see their hero later on. But it was an awesome privilege to be asked to play at that.
“I was backstage, sitting down, having a beer, and Patti Smith walked past chatting to Morrissey. I was just thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ It was just really strange. I said hello, and that was about it!”
But while his upcoming shows are with acts that aren’t quite as legendary as the punk poet and the Mancunian miserablist, Colin is definitely looking forward to them.
“The KT shows will be really good as they’re in the Highlands and islands, and they’re great to tour in anyway, even if I wasn’t supporting KT. And as for Fyfe, I really like his records, and that Billy Joel cover he does (She’s Always A Woman) is amazing.
“It’s quite nice – Guillemots was one of the bands I saw years and years ago, when I wasn’t really playing music, and I thought they were amazing, and now I’m going on a support tour with the singer – it’s quite surreal.”
There’s also Tut’s next Monday, the first time that Colin has headlined the venue, and a show taking place as part of Tut’s Summer Nights initiative. It’s certainly some distance from his beginnings, initially in punk bands. Certainly, Colin’s decision to go it along was based around making things easier financially to tour.
“It was a lot easier for getting gigs to be on my own – the logistics of getting a band off the isle of Lewis when you didn’t have any money were quite hard. You’d save up just for one tour a year. So me and an acoustic guitar meant I could gig every weekend, and it kind of evolved from there in what I have now.”
However, he hasn’t totally ruled out a return to those punk days in the future either.
“I was always more interested in that acoustic style from the start, but when you’re at school and everyone’s doing Blink 182 covers you don’t look very cool, so you play electric guitar like everybody else.
“Then I got more confident as I played more. There’s a little bit of me that wants to be a punk rocker though, I’ll still jam from time to time and I’d like to do a heavy, full on, noisy album. It’d be fun, so maybe someday…”