Words by Rosie Smith
Rob McLeod, known professionally as Mac Lloyd, is on the up. His most recent work (his first full-length album) Hold Fast is making waves in Bristol’s ever-evolving music scene, drawing a lot of well-deserved attention to this up-and-coming artist.
Hold Fast is a masterclass in putting a contemporary spin on classic genres such as blues and Americana – blending neo-soul and hip-hop to make a cohesive, narrative-heavy album that is sonically fantastic. Telling the story of the last decade of the singer’s life, Hold Fast takes the listener on a deeply emotional journey about addiction and struggle – as well as fatherhood and a hard-won redemption.
An undeniable highlight of the album is King of Self Sabotage, the sixth track on the record. As you might expect, this track deals with the idea of self-sabotage – “And the monster hiding under your bed, is the same one that’s in your head”. On this track, Mac Lloyd is able to almost personify self-destructive tendencies, showing them as something that needs to be (and, importantly, can be) defeated. Set to a dark but funky melody, King of Self Sabotage is definitely an excellent taste of what Mac Lloyd can do; a clear display of a flair for songwriting and emotionally complex story-telling.
The title of the album, Hold Fast, comes from McLeod’s family motto – it’s about resilience and staying strong. The influence of McLeod’s Scottish heritage shouldn’t be understated in this album; not only does the album cover feature a bull and thistles, but the album itself is steeped in the indomitable Scottish spirit, undeniably.
Aside from the newest album, Mac Lloyd is certainly an artist to keep your eye on. With a killer back catalogue (we’d definitely recommend Curse, featuring Res One, which has racked up almost a million streams already) and a solid band behind him, we think we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the future.
WAX recently sat down with Mac Lloyd to talk about Hold Fast – as well as his creative process, how Bristol has influenced his sound, and Jack Black’s School of Rock.
Your most recent album – Hold Fast – came out just a few months ago, how has the response been to that?
It’s been really good, actually. I worked with a Bristol-based company called Crosstown PR, with Ellie, who was able to take it to new heights, like we got a review in Blues Matter magazine, so it was reviewed alongside Paul Weller’s album, which is crazy. So, yeah, it’s been pretty well received.
And your friends and family liked it?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s a bit of a step away from a lot of what I’ve done before, which has been neo-soul and hip-hop based. Whereas this album steps back to the roots of the blues and Americana that I grew up listening to. So I think the people that know me, personally, are a bit like ‘Oh, that makes sense’.
The album is really cohesive with a strong visual narrative. What came first, that or the actual content – lyrics, musicality – of the album?
Thank you! I think it was definitely the songs. I wanted to make an album that oversees the last ten years of my life – having issues with addiction prior to being Mac Lloyd and getting over that. And, you know, finding out I was going to be a dad and then being a dad and all these things that have happened over the last decade. So I wanted to put together a project that encompassed all of that, and I had a few song ideas that I was kind of touching on already.
But I didn’t completely know what form I wanted it to take initially. So, yeah, definitely the songs first and then the visuals – because of the term ‘hold fast’ and the bull on the album cover both tie in directly to my family name being McLeod and my Scottish heritage, and then that all ties in with the theme of adhering to a principle and sticking with your goals even when you’re faced with some kind of adversity.
I particularly enjoyed King of Self Sabotage from Hold Fast – it’s sort of thematic. Is a lot of your work autobiographical or is it fictionalised to an extent?
There are definitely elements of the album that are autobiographical. Like Over the Mill, for example. That’s a song about doing battle with your internal demons, and the angel and the devil on your shoulders and being caught between both of them. But in the song, I sort of ramp it up to one-hundred and make it semi-fictionalised as if it’s a story about a bad person who’s taken over the narrative of the story, and figuring out how to get rid of them. So I’d say it’s all based on realism, but amped up and more theatrical.
Were there any songs that you wrote that didn’t make it onto the album?
Yeah, there’s a few songs, actually, that didn’t quite make it onto the album. It wasn’t necessarily because they didn’t fit, though. It was more so me not finishing them in the time frame I’d given myself. And some of the songs sounded almost a bit too similar. So you’ll notice that Over the Mill and King of Self Sabotage have a similar riff, and then there was another song that had a similar riff, and I didn’t need three, you know? Overall, I think there were about four or five that didn’t make it onto the album.
I think because it was my first album, I wanted it to be short, punchy, cohesive, like you said, and to have a narrative, rather than it wavering in some places.
How long did it take to make?
I’d say about three years, but I think for the first sort of six months of writing the songs, I don’t think I knew what kind of format it was taking yet. But, yeah, about three years from the first inception of the first few songs, all the way up to having it mastered and ready to be released. It was a bit of a long process and I took a break from releasing other stuff to really focus on putting this album together.
How do you think the most recent album slots into your discography?
I think it sets a checkpoint, almost. Like, everything before this was neo-soul, boom bap, hip-hop, and there’s still elements of that going forward but we’re also taking it right back to my roots of vintage, soul, blues – which I’m not saying is a totally new style, but it feels like I’ve stepped into the most natural form of how I’m going to release music, from now on.
Who would you say are your primary influences?
Howlin’ Wolf, definitely. Robert Johnson. Even really early Fleetwood Mac. Who else? Oh, the Allman Brothers, Tom Waits – all the early blues guys. And then you’ve got artists like Tedeschi Trucks, too. I could go on – Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Etta James.
And what got you into music and into making music?
So, my dad worked for Sony and was a DJ when he was a bit younger than I am now, so he always had this incredible record collection. I just had access to this amazing music around the house. My dad was really into vintage blues and rock, and my mum was really into Bowie and T-Rex, and then I have my grandad, who’s just brilliant – he’s into big band jazz and Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. And my uncle is into, you know, Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk. So I was fortunate in that whenever I got into a different type of music, I’d have someone in my family to give me recommendations.
In terms of playing music, I mean, I didn’t really think I could play because I was still in this mindset of ‘Oh, my God, these guys are idols and gods’ – do you know what I mean? But then I watched School of Rock, and saw all these kids my age playing these instruments, and I was like ‘Oh, my God’.
Elite movie.
Yeah, it’s a classic.
How would you say being a Bristol-based artist has influenced your work? Has the music scene in Bristol been particularly important to you?
So, I live just down the road from Bristol, and my whole band is from Bristol, and I think the great thing about it is that you’re, sort of, two or three people away from knowing everyone. It’s such a small city that all the scenes really heavily intermingle, and so you rub shoulders with all these incredibly different artists. Like I was saying about having all that different music in the house, just having a lot of friends in Bristol, who have far-reaching tastes is great – I think that’s rubbed off on me and given me the confidence to experiment a lot with different sounds. Yeah, Bristol’s great.
What does your creative process look like?
You know, it’s actually changed quite a lot. Prior to making this album, I’d start in a more production capacity. But over the last three or four years, I’ve actually been starting with just writing with guitar and vocals – you know, just sitting with my guitar. But suffice to say it might change again – it might go back to beat-making or it might go back to hearing a certain record that influences me to use a certain chord sequence. It’s a bit all over the place, but whatever grabs my attention helps me get into a hyper-focused state, you know?
Do you have a lot of people that you collaborate with or is it more individualistic? I know you said you have a band – how much influence do they have?
Well, the band were all hired specifically to learn the album that I’d already produced. So up until now it’s been a very individual process, but we’ve started writing together as well, which is amazing. Now, I can just show them some vocals and a melody, and they’ll just bring this incredible expertise, you know? Whereas before I’d produce the bulk of a song and then think about who would sound good on it.
But it’s typically been quite a singular process, because I write pretty – this probably sounds a bit self-indulgent – but pretty personal songs. But I’ve definitely enjoyed working with a band.
If you could open for any artist, who would it be and why? Dead or alive!
Oh, God. Dead or alive? I mean, alive is pretty simple, but all my favourite artists are dead. I guess, alive, I’d have to go with Tom Waits, because I think he’s had the most extraordinary individual career. He’s reinvented himself so many times and in so many amazing ways. So, yeah, Tom Waits. But dead? We’d be here for hours.
Do you have a dream venue?
I think either the Royal Albert Hall or Fillmore East, in America. Because Fillmore East had, like, Hendrix and the Allman Brothers – best of the sixties and seventies.
Obviously your last album is very recent, but are you working on anything else at the moment? Any plans for live shows?
It sounds really excessive, but I’ve got, like, four or five albums that I’m going to release. Which sounds ridiculous, right? But hear me out – I’ve stacked up all these songs and demos and bits and pieces that didn’t quite fit the album that I was just writing. So I’ve got, like, two stripped back albums, one with the band, one that’s just solo. I’ve got an acoustic album that I’m pretty much done with. So a lot of stuff, but it’s because I became a bit precious over the album and I was right to be so precious because I cared about it – but now I’ve got to play catch up with how much I’ve actually been writing.
And Jesse Welles released, like, five albums in a year, so I was asking myself why I’m sitting on all this music, you know?
//Words: Rosie Smith//