It was early when I arrived in King Tut’s to meet Colin Macleod, a.k.a. The Boy Who Trapped The Sun, and I was lucky enough to catch him and his band sound-checking. It is only a few months since I last saw Colin play live and since then the band has swelled to six members and the sound has gone through the roof. Immediately it was apparent that this is a tight nit group and Colin explains how the unit featuring members of The Moth and The Mirror and Admiral Fallow came about, “It was really organic, it’s all friends. The whole idea is to keep it a revolving thing, base it round the songs and keep it quite fluid. It’s nice having people who are in other bands as they come in and play and there’s no session feeling about it.”
It is clear from speaking to Colin that he has not let any success go to his head, and this can be contributed to the path he has taken to becoming one of the country’s most promising singer-songwriters. He moved to London to further his development as a writer, an environment far removed from his native Isle of Lewis, and worked his way into the limelight and a deal with Geffen Records. His approach is very refreshing in today’s climate of TV made stars.
“I never let myself get into that mentality of I want to be famous, I want to be big. It was always just about the next thing to do. It was literally about 4 years ago I signed my publishing deal, so it’s been a really nice, gradual process.”
Fame seems to be sitting easily with Colin, but surely the adoration at home must have reached naughty levels and he is now a bit of a celebrity?
“No.” he joked deadpan, “not at all. You’ll get in the pub and they’ll say ‘Oi rock star, get us a pint’ and that’s about it.” He clearly enjoys the backing of his fellow islanders and fondly tells of a recent show. “We went and did a gig on Lewis a couple of weeks ago and it was totally sold out and everybody was really excited because it was a homecoming sort of thing. Everybody’s just really happy and excited about what’s happening, probably more excited than I am.”
These are exciting times indeed with the first album, Fireplace, now available. It is an inspired debut that has a mixture of country, folk and blues and just the right amount of pop to make this a release that will appeal to the masses.
It has been a long process in getting the album out there but plans are already underway for the follow-up. Colin enthused, “I’ve started with ideas. That’s my thing, I just love writing. When I go home and get a week off I just want to chill out and write.”
By now most fans will be familiar with the story behind lead-off single ‘Katy’ and how a friend suggested his The Boy Who Trapped The Sun moniker to him as he has been garnering much media coverage over the past few months. Colin is more than happy to be receiving the attention as it means his music is having an impact. He spoke about some of the more peculiar questions he gets asked.
“It’s always the tour story one, ‘tell me your tour stories?’. Surely any tour story worth its salt you wouldn’t remember because you’d be that wasted? ‘You swallowed a live goose, wow amazing’”. He quipped, before recalling a certain probe. “You get the whacky questions. I got asked if I could be a flavor (of a certain sweet) which would I be? I got my little brother to answer it. He’s 17. I fell off my seat (at his answer), but my manager said we couldn’t really use that.”
It is not just the media who have been paying attention to the rapid rise of The Boy Who Trapped The Sun with massive support slots secured playing alongside the likes of Snow Patrol and The John Butler Trio, the latter being a particular favourite.
“That was pretty insane. I asked for the support, I found out we had the same agent, so phoned him up and was like ‘pleeeeeeeeeease’” he mocked in a begging voice. Those were some of the biggest shows to date, but none have been as big as playing with a certain American legend last year, which culminated in a slightly star-struck meeting.
“I was having a yarn with Bruce Springsteen not really thinking anything about it and as he walked away I was like ‘shit, I was just talking to Bruce Springsteen backstage at Hyde Park’. He was really cool, he said ‘I’d love to hear your music, do you have an album?’” which Colin laughed about before saying he had to answer with a sheepish “no”.
Not even meeting The Boss himself could prepare Colin for his appearance on ITV’s The Hour and the chance to meet the one and only Michelle McManus.
“She’s super awesome, she was really lovely. We had a wee yarn and talked about Stornoway Black Pudding!” he recalled, clearly enjoying the former Pop Idol’s chat. “She said ‘I love Stornoway Black Pudding, as you can tell I’m a girl who loves her black pudding’, and I was like yes Michelle McManus, you’re awesome!” It doesn’t get much better than that folks.
The massive support slots have been great experiences, but Colin now wants to take things to the next level and propel The Boy Who Trapped The Sun to the top of the bill in similarly large venues.
“I’d like to do a proper headline tour. That would be nice. The next single is coming out soon and it would be nice of it to make enough of an impact to play a decent size tour and sell out and have things like that. That’s just the dream; it doesn’t seem very real doing that kind of thing”.
I would expect things like that to seem very real, very soon.
By Chris Hay
