I first saw Kieran Leonard perform in 2009, when we both shared a bill supporting Carl Barat's Dirty Pretty Things at the Manchester Academy. We never met that day, but through mutual friends our existences were acknowledged, and over the course of the following three years we kept on bumping into each other in passing like ships in the night, jovially discussing the week's news stories and trying our best to make each other laugh whilst the rest of the room looked on in horror, wondering whatever the hell it was we were actually talking about.
House parties, random pubs and even an off-chance meeting in a karaoke bar culminated in Kieran and I allowing each other to become friends, but I still didn't really know much about the guy, and I could count on my right hand the amount of times I'd seen him live or listened to his music. Then the chance arose; with the impending release of Kieran's debut LP Out of Work Astronaut (set for release at the end of August), I was approached by his management to see if I'd like to spend an afternoon hanging out with him in Highgate Woods for a little interview piece they had envisioned. Knowing me, knowing you. A-ha.
Whilst I don't have much experience interviewing people, I have had over one thousand conversations in my life before, so I thought, "why not?", after-all, all I've got to do is make sure I don't sound like an idiot and thanks to the director Joseph Morris, there's less of me and instead the final product contains some brilliant musings from one of the UK's best up-and-coming songwriters; there's a clear social and political awareness in his writing and an abundance of literary and cultural references, so to be allowed to pick Kieran's brain for a few hours on camera was a delightful experience that I hope you can enjoy too.
Visit http://www.kieranleonardmusic.co.uk/ for more information.