Badly Drawn Boy (a.k.a. Damon Gough) has sketched out a rough outline for a record he's looking to release in September. He's currently recording in Los Angeles with producer Tom Rothrock (Beck, Elliott Smith) and is thinking of calling the album "All Possibilities" or "Have You Fed the Fish?"

"I like to think it's a hybrid of the naivete of [his Mercury Award-winning debut album of 2000] Hour of Bewilderbeast and the slightly more sophisticated and perhaps cleaner kind of thing from the [just released] soundtrack About A Boy," says Gough, seated on a bench outside radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, California, wearing his trademark knit cap. "It's much rawer than the soundtrack, it's more raw and honest and personal. More electric guitar, lots of piano -- it's as eclectic as anything I've ever done. When I'm making a record I get bored with certain sounds, and I want to make new ones. So I end up with an eclectic palate because I get bored writing on acoustic guitar all the time, or writing on piano all the time."

Although Gough says he's mostly shunning big choruses for the new album, one of the exceptions is the song "Have You Fed the Fish," which takes its title from the first thing he and his wife say to each other each day.

"The chorus is a big, like, U2 sing-along that everybody will remember, but I'm singing 'Have you fed the fish,'" he says, laughing. "So when I play the Staples Center, it will be great to hear an audience singing along." Also included in the latest batch of BDB tracks is "You Were Right," which includes a fictional line about turning Madonna down.

While Gough is playing most of the instruments himself, others who have contributed to the sessions over the past six months include multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M.) and drummer Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello).

COLIN DEVENISH
(June 7, 2002)