Talking To... Tessa Bickers
Welcome to the 2nd of “Talking To” where Cambridge And
Beyond editor, Neil King gets to chat to some of the artists that have impressed
him through their work and releases. This occasional series continues with an interview
of West Country singer/songwriter Tessa Bickers.
#N=Neil King #T=Tessa Bickers
#N According to your biog, you’ve been writing poetry since you were very young, but waited until you went to university before picking up the guitar
#T That’s right. My brother had been playing guitar for years, but I’d never been that interested because I’d always been awful at music. I went through loads of instruments at school and had lessons in lots of things. It didn’t go very well I gave up on loads and people advised me to give up on others after a term. It was in my second year at university. I was quite unhappy and spending a lot of time in my room. It was actually my mum…I came home from Bournemouth on a long weekend and she suggested I buy a guitar. So we went out that afternoon and I bought my first guitar and about an hour later I tried to write my first song.
#N That quick, was it from scratch or using one of your poems as the base?
#T It was from poetry. I know I only used three chords. I took something that I’d already written and just set it to music. Played it to Mum and she cried.
#N From there you seem to have picked up a prolific rate of writing. Two albums already, one as part of a band and now working on the third album.
#T I’m not brilliant at guitar, actually I’m fairly weak, but it’s good enough to allow me to write and that comes fairly easily. Everytime I pick up the guitar I want to write. The ones I remember I put the chords on the computer. I take them to the band to perfom
#N You’ve got a wide range of reference, you can pick the big subjects, gulf war etc or the more personal stuff. Do you have to get into a frame of mind.
#T I write a lot of poetry, I always have, I write about what I see, what’s going on around me. My poetry tends to be personal, full of emotion. Sometimes I write more with a song in mind.
#N One of your songs, the anti-war song “In The Dark” was picked up by George Galloway’s Respect Party. How did that come about?
#T That song…My Grandfather was Douglas Bader, who had a foundation for
amputees set up in his name. I went along to an awards ceremony and met a little
boy called Ali, who lost family, as well as limbs in the war. He became very
famous as a symbol of the war. Meeting him made it very real to me. People had
mentioned the soldiers that had lost their lives. Until I met some of the
people, I hadn’t cared enough. It wasn’t until I met the innocent people of the
war. My Dad told me about this anti-war party that had been set up in London so
I sent them a copy of the song. It went on their site so that anyone who wanted
it could have it. I got some very nice e-mails about it. I got some e-mails from
people that were out there. It wasn’t a political song.