Penate grows up

The singer-song writer teams up with Adele and Paul Epworth on his dark second album

06 April 2009 - Jack Penate has teamed up with Bloc Party and Kate Nash producer Paul Epworth for his "life changing" new album.

His as-yet-untitled second record also saw the singer/songwriter join forces with his old friend Adele and Norman Cook as he retreated to a box studio in Kensal Rise. 

The singer's first single 'Tonight's Today' marks a significant change of direction for Penate. We caught up with him to get the lowdown on his new record.

Tell me about your influences on this album. It seems like it's going in a really different direction?

It is a lot more dance orientated, introspective and emotional as a whole. The idea was to create dance music for people to cry to. That was the basis me and Paul worked closely together to try and create.

Something which had complete atmosphere and soul and also which you could dance and have fun to.Does a lot of the content stem from your own personal experiences?Yeah completely. The last record was a lot of fantasy really, a lot of teenage fantasy which is wonderful and what you should be doing as a teenager, making up love stories.But this one is about real life. I can kind of pinpoint a song to a time of my life or a situation. I just realised I definitely wanted to create something which was completely true to me. I've tried not to be too overt and be more subtle in my lyrics."Her voice always makes such an impact onanything" Jack Penate on working with AdeleHow do you look back on your debutMatineenow?

“That album was such a wonderful experience and incredibly naive in many ways. I look back and it seems like a different me. I really enjoy playing it but that’s probably as far as it goes.

It doesn’t gel with who I am now but I still completely respect it. It's just I can’t see where Matinee fits in with me now.”

The video seems dreamy and free?

The video is inspired by a film I really love and the director turned me onto. I thought, 'Yeah why I don’t I do a black and white video where I kind of kiss a guy?'. I didn’t really see any point in holding back.

I think I almost hid who I was before but I think you do as a teenager.

I would say misrepresentation is too big a word but I may have sent people on a different tangent to who they thought I was. But now I’m more comfortable with myself.

Paul Epworth has a pretty amazing CV with Bloc Party, Kate Nash and Florence And The Machine. What was the relationship with him like?It was incredibly intense and very special. He is in the same mindframe as me in a kind of do or die sense.I learned a ridiculous amount not just about music but about recording, about producing. We did it all in a tiny room on a complete shoe string and it still sounds amazing.Did you work on the track 'Let's All Die' with Fatboy Slim?I did the sessions with him but because it wasn't done live it maybe didn't quite feel quite like I wanted it to. Unfortunately we didn't use his version in the end. Norman still played a big part in it but Paul helped me re-do the song in the end.What is that song about?Let's All Die is a celebration of death. It's completely joyous. It's basically about me going to New Orleans when I was 18 or 19 and seeing a funeral procession.There was this brass band and people were dressing up and dancing.Adele features on guest vocals on this record too. How was that?She was in Notting Hill and I just phoned her and said, 'Can you do this song?' As always she came in and killed it.Her voice always makes such an impact on anything because it’s the most beautiful thing.'Tonight's Today' is out now.Damian Jones