The Loud And Quiet Podcast

Patrick Wolf is making his return to music after a 13-year period that you wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Since his last album in 2012, he’s experienced grief following the loss of his mother to cancer in 2018, battled addiction to alcohol and hard drugs, been declared bankrupt, and was the victim of a hit and run.

When I spoke to him last week for this two-part episode of the podcast, I was struck by how he takes responsibility for all of it. Even being hit by a car.

Thank you to Patrick for being so open during our conversation, which took place in his garden studio in east Kent. We spoke for so long that I’ve chopped it into parts one and two, starting off with how the past 13 years have been, and how he got through it by building a new life for himself near the coastal town of Ramsgate, inspired by an Alan Bennett film.

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Boring fact: We originally started this Substack in 2020 solely as a place to host a subscriber-only podcast called Sweet 16, exclusively for readers who’d subscribed to our physical magazine during the pandemic. Each episode features a different artist recalling what the hell they were doing at the age of 16, inspired by a column of hopes, dreams and PTSD we used to run in the magazine. Somewhere along the line 2 episodes dropped off, hosted somewhere else for reasons that are too boring even for this. One was with Stephen Malkmus and the other was with Amy Taylor from Australian garage punk band Amyl & the Sniffers. It’s time these 2 stragglers were united with the rest of the pack, so here’s Amy’s episode, with a bit of extra blabbing from me.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit loudandquiet.substack.com

When Porridge Radio announced that their new EP would also be their final release, following 4 albums and a 2020 Mercury Prize nomination, my first thought wasn’t ‘why?’ but ‘I wonder how that must feel?’. Followed shortly by, ‘what was Dana Margolin’s career highlight?’, and ‘should more bands split up at a point when their fans feel like they’ve still got more to give?’

Last week Dana agreed to talk to me about the end of her band, having originally decided that it was too soon to discuss the matter.

A short introduction to the new Loud And Quiet podcast, from the dazzling music experts that brought you Midnight Chats

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit loudandquiet.substack.com/subscribe