Interview with Fraser Morgan: ‘I know it’s going to be a good song if the right side of my body shivers!’

Colchester-based acoustic folk-punk singer Fraser Morgan has released ‘Fell In Love Again’, a sweet, funny and uplifting track about a chance meeting in a bar.

With a huge singalong chorus and joyously energetic outro, it hooks you from the off and turns out to have a lovely backstory: ‘The story isn’t that magnificent,’ he said laughing. ‘I’d gone to my local bar to read a book, it was a jam night, that nice feeling of being around people but you can still read. A girl walked in, I could smell her hair, it smelled awesome! She was from Mexico, I’d never met a person from Mexico before. She was really lovely, she went up to the bar and got a Guinness, it’s my favourite drink! I think she was travelling Europe. I sat on my drive when I got home and this song came out of me, it only took around 20 minutes.’

Underpinned by a catchy, Spanish-style guitar melody played on two acoustic guitars, it’s one of his favourite songs in his set: ‘It’s sooooo good to do live,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘That song will never not be in my top three, I do it at the end of the set. I like talking to the crowd, breaking that fourth wall, we’re all on the same wavelength.’ I ask if he could already roll his r’s like in the chorus when he sings “sexy señorita”: ‘I could! I had another song that I’d written when I hadn’t seen my ex for four months because of the pandemic that had​ “sexy señorita” in the chorus, I never used that song, so I took that part!’

For Morgan, his best songs tend to come together very quickly: ‘On the Blindboy podcast, he says that a good song can sometimes – but they don’t always! – just fall out of you. I’m aware at how silly this song is (I tell him that I think it’s charming and sweet and not silly at all.), I wanted it to be playful. It’s quite an endearing song, it’s about all these lovely things I loved about her. She mixed up English and Spanish, that’s very attractive, isn’t it?! I’m very bad at lying in my songwriting. All I can do is speak the truth, all of my songs are completely honest. I played it at the same local venue where I met her and people really loved it. I messaged the girl on Instagram a few days later after she had followed me but she never replied. She has no idea this song exists – it’s me to a t!’

As the song kicks off: “Well my mum’s gonna hate me ‘cos I’ve fell in love again. But I promise this time’s different, famous last words that I send. But mum, you’ve gotta listen! She’s cool and got an accent. She speaks that esponola and her eyes have me – rah!”

He has written around 250 songs and pieces of one song frequently find their way into another: ‘If something is good, it pokes its way back up,’ he said. He tackles difficult themes in his songwriting, including self-doubt and mental health struggles and ‘Here We Go Again’ is his reflective take on self-doubt and imposter syndrome. As the track kicks off: “Sometimes my head is my very worst enemy. And sometimes I believe all the awful things it tells me. Tells me I’m a bad friend and that no-one really cares. It all goes away for a brief second. And then it comes back (Woo!) (What!?) Here we go again!”

‘It’s easy to go into the problem solving part of your brain but creativity doesn’t come from the front part of your brain’

It opens with a beautiful folky acoustic melody which picks up the pace as the song goes on; it is an unflinchingly honest account of his own struggles, with moving lines such as: “To my Mumma, oh, I’m sorry for breakdowns you’ve seen me have. I wish I could blame him. But I’ve never met my dad.” I tell him that that particular line really stuck with me: ‘That line, I’d gone through a bad time, I’d stopped seeing someone,’ he said. ‘They turned out to not be a very nice person and it really affected me and I couldn’t sleep for two weeks, I ended up going round to my mum’s and sleeping on her sofa. The line about not knowing my dad came from wondering what parts of my personality and my mental health comes from my mum or my dad. I didn’t know him growing up, so it’s always left me wondering.’

Interestingly, it wasn’t immediately apparent to him what ‘Here We Go Again’ was about and I tell him that I hear this from musicians a lot: ‘It became a song that people would request at gigs,’ he said. ‘I remember playing a gig one time and my brain went away (laughs) and I started listening to what the lyrics were about. I’ve got a song, it’s not released yet but it is on YouTube, called ‘Ruminating’, which I wrote after coming out of a panic attack. I found it about three months later and was “Oh wow, I actually really like that”, it was more of a feeling, like giving the song space. Around 95% of the time when I write a song, I think “Meh, it’s ok”. Whenever I’m writing a song, I know it’s going to be a good song if the right side of my body shivers, like goosebumps! It’s really weird, I get this tingle. I had it on ‘Fell In Love’. It’s as if I screen it to myself as a consumer and I have an emotional reaction to it. With ‘Ruminating’, I didn’t get it instantly. It’s easy to go into the problem solving part of your brain but creativity doesn’t come from the front part of your brain. When I write a song, I give myself a day or two – or five! – away from it, then I have another look.’

Not one to let things fester, he has worked hard to move on: ‘A lot of therapy has been fantastic for me, starting when I was 20,’ he said. (He’s now 26.) ‘It healed a lot of childhood wounds, it helps you to be a better version of yourself, especially if you don’t have any role models (at home). I’ve got brilliant friends who’ll be honest with me, who’ll say it as it is.’ I say that ‘Here We Go Again’ reminds me a lot of London’s Louis Dunford, who also writes raw, socially observant songs, including the heart wrenching ‘Ballad of Benjamin’ about the night that his 16 year old school friend Ben Kinsella was stabbed, dying in Dunford’s arms: ‘I love Louis Dunford,’ he said excitedly. ‘I’m so glad you think that. I really want to support him! I did message his manager a few times. In my heart, it could really work. He’s quite geezerey (laughs), I’m less geezerey!’

‘It’s an incredible feeling, to have those people on my side’

Morgan has written poetry since he was young, picking up the guitar when he was 15 and teaching himself from a library book. A year later, he played an open mic in a local pub and says it was one of the ‘biggest highs’ of his life, dropping out of philosophy at college the next day and switching to study music at another college instead. His first musical inspirations were artists like Eminem and Ed Sheeran: ‘Ed Sheeran got me into the singer-songwriter guitar stuff,’ he said. ‘I like the way he talks to people at his gigs. The ‘JCB Song’ by Niziopi also inspired him like it did me. My partner will say by the end of a gig, I’ll have the crowd in the palm of my hand almost. It’s an incredible feeling, to have those people on my side.’

Other tracks, such as ‘Call Me Mate’, are his call to arms for any men struggling with their mental health or suicidal thoughts, and have also been inspired by tragic events close to home: ‘How it started, I was going through a phase where I really got into The Streets,’ he said. ‘I learned that a friend of mine had passed away, I was scrolling through social media trying to find out more and figure out what happened, my partner said I’d drive myself mad. I was listening to The Streets’ second album, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, on the way to playing Essex cricket ground (laughs). I thought I’d love to write a song like ‘Dry Your Eyes’. I kept the ‘esque’ two chord change, I’m not a great guitar player but it gives me more space to breathe lyrically. I’ve been known to run mental health groups and I’ve got my own podcast about mental health, The Fraser Morgan Podcast. I didn’t write this song for myself, the goal was to be educational, it’s about learning the terminology for our feelings, like anxiety. I was in a good place when I wrote it. The first lump of verses is to lay it bare and get the listener on my side, like “I’m scared of what they’ll all say or what my mates will all think. For now, I guess I’ll stick to crying over the sink.” The song is everything I wish I could have said to my friend before he moved onto the next life. Talking won’t fix everything but it’s a great start. There was an interview with Matthew McConaughey where he talked about someone moving on to the next life, I thought there was something very poetic about that.’

Legends such as Amy Winehouse have also made it into his songs. ‘Oh Amy’ is about her and he sent it to her mother on a whim, saying how sorry he was  for her loss, and got a lovely message from her in reply: ‘The song is about how Amy’s death really could have been prevented,’ he said. ‘I wrote it on the tube from Stratford to Cockfosters after watching her documentary. It’s a song I don’t play anymore as I think my writing has improved a lot since then but who knows, maybe I’ll re-write it one day!’‘Mistakes Don’t Define You’ was actually written about an encounter he had with another artist: ‘It was May 2021, I moved back from Ireland after a breakup and I wasn’t really sure who I was,’ he said. ‘I was hanging out with a band, and I’d got really drunk, lied my way backstage, I got them into trouble, I felt awful. I had a breakdown for a week and from that came this song and my men’s mental health group. (He has since apologised to the artist, who was very gracious about it.) I run a not-for-profit record label, Sad Buds Records. All I want to do is help people and live off music.’

Other people’s lyrics continue to inspire him: ‘There’ll be a sentence in a song that’ll evoke a feeling in me and I’ll write about that feeling,’ he said. ‘Louis Dunford is like that, he makes me want to go away and write for six months. I feel sometimes the best songs I’ve found are ones that describe my situation and give me the vocab to understand how I feel. That’s what I was trying to do with ‘Call Me Mate’, I wanted something nitty and gritty. I called myself and left myself a voice note, downloaded it and sent it to myself (laughs). I wanted to be the person reaching out to the person struggling. Someone messaged me after that song came out and said it made them want to reach out to someone, that’s perfect, job done.’

On social media, he has posted a photo of himself playing the guitar behind his head and I ask him if he does play it like that and he laughs: ‘I can play it like that! In the set, we start with ‘Here We Go Again’ and play it again at the end and I start spinning the guitar around! It’s a Taylor GS-mini E, it’s my only guitar. I’ve had it for eight years, I’ve played around 850 gigs on it. I was homeless for a while, so it’s also been my pillow. I like to be self-aware and appreciate what I have and say: “I’m in good health, I can wander around town”. I was at home the other day, I ordered a takeaway and I stood in the kitchen waiting for it to heat up in the microwave and thought about how lucky I am to be here in my life now, I thought: “Fair play, I’m here, I’m safe”, it was really nice to take stock of that.’

‘I’ve had dreams about meeting him, for his personality, to have a couple of pints and ask him every question under the sun’

Whether it’s the result of everything he’s been through or his own innate kindness that comes through on our Zoom, he finds that strangers gravitate towards him to tell him their life stories: ‘It’s quite funny, my partner laughs at me because of it. The other day, two people at work between parking and getting to the door laid it on me (laughs). I think it’s ‘cos I know how to listen to people and to talk to them. I don’t mind it, I love listening to people, I really like it when they talk to me, it’s really sweet. Maybe it’s tonality and micro-expressions that encourage people to talk to you? An openness of face, a melody to our tonality of voice.’

If he could chat to any musician, he picks Ed Sheeran: ‘He’s so wise, clocked on and down to earth,’ he said. ‘I’ve had dreams about meeting him, for his personality, to have a couple of pints and ask him every question under the sun. When I started when I was 15, he was a role model to me, I think I’ve watched nearly all his interviews. Or I’d say Brian Sella from The Front Bottoms (a rock band from New Jersey), they’re my favourite band. I’m seeing them three-to-four times next week, I’m going to follow them around in my camper van! I get wow and stargazed by famous people who are really nice, I’d love to have gone for a pint with Robin Williams, he was lovely.’

He’s had some hilarious moments at gigs over the years: ‘I try my best to remember gigs by writing them down and making a scrapbook,’ he said. ‘I love audience interaction and I’d played this one gig once where there was a hen party and they had given me some funny stories to read out about the bride. I won’t go into too much detail; however, I got to tell the crowd of strangers two stories about this bride-to-be: one involving a lot of magic mushrooms and the other about using marmite on toast as a sex toy – I’ll let you fill in the blanks!’