The first thing I notice about Saul Adamczewski is his tormented, slightly unnerving stare. There’s a madness in his eyes that’s hard to ignore, but the longer you look the more you see the sincerity.
Saul, frontman of Insecure Men and occasional Fat White Family guitarist, clatters around in the kitchen of The Trades Club greenroom searching for milk for his tea. He is unsuccessful. His eyes never seem to focus on one spot for too long.
The band played Future Yard in Birkenhead the previous night and the main comment Saul can give on the venue is his appreciation that they let him smoke in the dressing room. But in general, he seems to have positive feelings around the tour.
“The gigs have been great. I mean, in some ways it’s been the most successful tour I’ve ever done.”
Throughout the interview, Saul makes it very clear that his focus now lies completely on what he wants to do. Insecure Men’s latest album A Man For All Seasons had to go through a lot of compromise before it saw the light of day. Saul leant more towards the personal, folky sound while the people around him pushed for the more upbeat, pop of Cleaning Bricks.
“Certain new songs, the audience prefers. Some stuff, I don’t really think they love, the really sad stuff. But I only want to play that, that’s the problem.”
In the same breath he mentions Tulse Hill Station as his favourite song to play. It’s unapologetically emotional and considerably more stripped back in production compared to the rest of the record.
“Fucking hard to sing. It’s hard to talk about this stuff without being really cheesy because the album is about one person, so it’s emotional. And I’m embarrassed about that.”
The album is an often painful glimpse into turmoil and sadness. Saul emphasises that for his whole life he tried as hard as he could to not write something like A Man For All Seasons, but the process of playing the songs has changed his approach to music and writing.
It’s no secret that Saul has struggled most of his life. The years prior to the album, he was “broken and broke”, picking up cigarette butts in Tulse Hill. There is a tenderness in the album, like prodding at an open wound. To be able to create such a beautiful album from an incomprehensible pain is something that should not be overlooked. Music is often a solace for artists, providing relief in trying times that drives the creation of genre-defining songs. I believe something similar has happened with this project.
“Enough heartbreak, a guitar and enough drugs and you can kind of write your way out of the situation. It has a kind of strange way of all being great in the end, even the pain.”
Insecure Men first appeared in 2015, a side-project where Saul could explore more retrospective and dulcet sounds alongside childhood friend Ben Romans-Hopcraft. Ben only had a small influence on this latest album and Saul now performs with a semi-new line-up. There are seven of them, crammed on the UK’s smallest stages, but they manage to look incredibly cool.
“Insecure men was this cartoon in my mind, like out of The Beano. It was like this band of guys on a tiny stage and they were all trying to fit in with their instruments. I mean, we have a laugh together but the music has taken it in another direction. If Ben Romans-Hopcraft was still in the band, we’d have more of a chance of being able to succeed. Without him around, no one else has the know-how or the desire.”
Saul wrote the album’s lead single, Cleaning Bricks, when he was 23. Compared to the rest of the album, it stands out as the obvious crowd-pleaser. Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground let Saul spend a couple of days, free of charge, in the studio recording the song because he loved it so much. But Saul is perpetually confused at the song’s popularity.
“I liked making the music and the arpeggiated synths. It’s fun to do something that’s completely shallow and fun, just meaningless. But I’m not going to be that proud of a song in which the lyrics are “cleaning bricks, cleaning them good, cleaning bricks, just like I should.”’
The album swings between genres. It can be country, then a bit jazz and folk. The most soulful of the bunch, Time Is A Healer, was written for Al Green, who’s also on Fat Possum Records.
There seems to be a pattern of certain paths being carved out for Saul – despite his protests. You can sense his frustration when he discusses the record but there is also a quiet understanding, maybe even an appreciation, of the people that have stood by him. Saul comes across as stuck in a prison of other people’s making with an innate desire to break through and drone to his heart’s content.
“‘I don’t give a fuck about being anything anymore. Being cool was important to me for most of my life. I mean, I know I am obviously very cool, but it doesn’t matter. My focus is on making the music I love and following my mind’s thread. I don’t hate the album. I’m really proud of it. But what I want to be doing is making drone experimental music.”
Saul is currently planning to work with jazz musician Heather Leigh. A solo drone record and an Insecure Men EP are on the way. He’s also collaborated with Sonic Boom, which appears to be more for spiritual guidance than towards an official release.
“I have to do something that makes me healthier in my soul – and then maybe physically. I have to do that and I’m a fucking idiot if I don’t. It would just ruin my life. I mean it almost did because I lost my love of music. I’ve never had a year in my life where I didn’t go to record shops every day – that passion, you know. And it was just gone. It was all just a fear and the result of not following my true calling.”
I first came across Saul when I discovered Fat White Family. I’d never heard anything like it and I was drawn to his abrasive guitar playing and his strangely captivating look. They had something immensely special in the short time they could all get along. Now, the band have recently reconciled and are working on a new album.
“Well, we’re like brothers. The minute we sit down together, we just pick up exactly where we’d left off. The last album was so incredibly pony. We know that it should never be the last Fat White Family record, not in a million years. So we’re looking at it like we’ll make one last good record and have one last good year of festivals.”
Other than music, Saul is an artist and is also exploring writing. I’m thrilled. Talking to him really does make you crave more material. Currently, he’s trying to write a play. 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane is mentioned as inspiration alongside Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.
Saul comes into his own when discussing his art. He has plans for an exhibition, with multiple offers pending, and some performance pieces in London. He tells me he just wants to scare the audience.
We veer into a conversation around music’s upper world. Big names such as Viagra Boys, Amyl and The Sniffers and Fontaines D.C. are thrown around with disdain. Geese, the true flavour of the month, are brought up. The New York band are heralded as rock’s saviours – Saul is sceptical.
“He’s a very handsome man but I don’t understand why they all dress so badly. Hail, Caesar. I am the only saviour!”
Saul is a very difficult person to stop talking to. He’s unpredictable. You end up hanging onto his every word. To conclude our conversation I ask if he has anything on his bucket list that he wants to achieve.
“If I can be a good father and make the music I love, that’s all I want to do.”
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Words by Poppy Cortese
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