Interview with Ed Cosens: ‘It was about finding the vibe that allowed the rest to flourish’

Ed Cosens, best known as the guitarist/bassist in Sheffield-based band Reverend & The Makers, released his haunting debut solo single, ‘If’, last week, the first song written for his forthcoming solo album, Fortunes Favour, which is due out on 29 January 2021.

‘If’ was actually the first song he wrote for his upcoming album: ‘I wrote it a few years ago, it’s gone through several incarnations,’ he said. ‘I was trying to find the sound I wanted as a solo thing. It was about finding the vibe that allowed the rest to flourish.’

He describes it as ‘a lovelorn tale of the struggle between true love’s path and the path which you think you’re destined to follow’: ‘It’s about the conflict between what you think you want, where you unwittingly lead yourself and ultimately where you should really be. It’s the most personal song on the album. It’s relating to my own experiences of falling in and out of love. You’re really happy but there’s a part of you where you’re not bothered – it’s that fight between knowing you love that person but at the time there’s something else interesting over there. I’m lucky, I ended up with the right person.’

The lyrics are very poignant: ‘If I could soldier on without you, I would, but I don’t see the reason and why does it even matter, ‘cos without you, there would be no could and I know that I should be there, how can I let my heart break if I’m breaking it myself, how can I mend the heartache if I’m crying out for help?’

He loves all of the songs on the album but has a particular soft spot for ‘The River’ and the album’s title track, ‘Fortunes Favour’: ‘The way they came together in the studio, they still give me a lift when I hear them, a bounce.’

Typically, he writes the lyrics first. With ‘The River’, he was walking his son in his pushchair by the river and started singing the melody: ‘It’s become more metaphorical, it’s about a symbolic place where you meet your loved one.’

‘Fortunes Favour’ has several different meanings: ‘It’s about the vagaries of the music industry and how you can work really hard and pay your dues but someone else gets all the glory. That annoys me a bit. It’s also about relationships, how you ponder if you’ve made a mistake in your relationship, the questions you have all the time. I’m a fatalist, I believe in destiny.’

‘It’s nice to be able to branch out and do what I want’

A lot of the album, which he recorded almost two years ago but initially put on hold because of the pandemic, is about his own personal journey: ‘The music industry has thrown a lot of curveballs over the years but it’s also about friends, family and relationships.’ He says that going solo is ‘equally liberating but the flip of that is that you don’t have people to bounce off’: ‘Jon (McClure, frontman of Reverend & The Makers), is very charismatic, he’s an incredible lyricist. Joe, our bassist, he plays bass on my record.’ I ask if they’ve all heard the finished album and, if so, what they think of it. ‘They all really like it, that acceptance from the band, that kind of validation is really nice. The conversation has been had (with his Reverend & The Makers bandmates) about doing a new album. I’ve got more songs, so I’d love to make more records that could be solo. It’s nice to be able to branch out and do what I want.’

Before Reverend & The Makers took off, Cosens shared stages with Arctic Monkeys’ members Matt Helders and Alex Turner. He jokes of his debut solo album that it’s ‘only taken 10 years or so for me to find the confidence’: ‘I subscribe to the fine wine way of thinking – allow things to mature fully before enjoying. Nobody wants to be Lambrusco!’

Cosens has been asked why he waited so long to work on a solo album but says there was no masterplan: ‘The time had to feel right. I found my voice along with an inner confidence and suddenly the itch was too much not to scratch. Once I’d started, I scratched like there was no tomorrow.’

‘As a city we don’t shout about what we do, which is endearing in a way’

He is a fan of one of the most exciting young bands out there, The Lathums. Locally, he says that being a bit older and having kids ‘puts a kibosh on going to gigs and stuff’: ‘Sheffield is a strange place, there are so many bands around but as a city we don’t shout about what we do, which is endearing in a way. Sheffield has a history of little mesters (craftspeople working out of small workshops), people doing their own thing, it’s permeated the city, it’s in its fabric.’

The music scene has also changed massively since Reverend & The Makers burst onto the scene in the noughties. ‘Getting your voice heard in music today is so difficult,’ he said. ‘ If I was a new band, I’d be crying in the corner. Music is so different now. It’s 25 years of Morning Glory, isn’t it? We went to Virgin Megastore to get it.’ We chat about how great it is to hear an album you love all the way through, rather than just the odd track, and that even in the current environment where just releasing singles is becoming more prevalent, you can’t beat a whole album. ‘That’s why I was very adamant that I wanted to make an album,’ he said.

Growing up, his mum was a big Carpenters and Beatles fan. ‘They were a huge inspiration but I also had two older sisters who played Rick Astley, Jason Donovan and Five Star [laughs]! The whole Britpop thing when I was 12/13, so bands like The Stone Roses and The Smiths, they played a huge role in wanting to get into a band, they were hugely influential.’ He’s also very impressed by The Black Keys’ songwriting. ‘I’m a sonic person, I’m really interested in how something sounds.’

His dream tour line-up would be John Barry, David Bowie and Bill Withers and his excitement thinking about it is really infectious: ‘The opening act could be John Barry playing his greatest hits,’ he grinned. ‘With Bowie, it’s that sort of sense that it was always about the quality of the music or art, he did it in the best possible way. It’s the best kind of message, whatever art you’re making. It comes back to what I was saying earlier about making sure something’s right. Do the best you can, don’t settle.’