Artist: Teddy Thompson
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Latest album: Heartbreaker Please
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Ted, Abudharr
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, January 2016. It was for the great Celtic Connections Festival and it was just one of those magic gigs. I have a lot of family from there, and also Glasgow audiences are just the best. At once erudite and rowdy. Good times.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
Movies. I’m a film buff. I subscribe to The Criterion Channel and that has made my lockdown a lot easier! I like to be immersed in another world and a good movie gives me that feeling. Really I think I’m an escapist, but escaping into someone else’s world can make you see your own differently. Songwriters are always looking for an angle.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
Playing at the school talent show, known as JFP, at Bedales when I was 14. As a somewhat awkward kid, lacking in self-confidence, it was a powerful feeling to be applauded on stage. After that, girls looked at me differently.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I like to smoke a cigarette right before I go on. Can’t be good for the throat, but there you go. I used to like to get shitfaced after the show, but now I don’t do that. I’ve aged out of the post-show party scene.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
Sam Cooke and chicken.
Photo credit: Gary Waldman
