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KANE able
The suited and booted Miles Kane often gets overshadowed by a horde of famous mates, but don’t write him off. Ella Walker finds out what makes the understated Wirral-born mod tick.
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those upbeat, more rock ‘n’ roll ones working well, they were the ones that connected.”
h, he’s got some voice, Miles Kane. And I’m not talking about the raw, 60s dart that shoots through his music.
let it out
I’m talking about the Merseyside lilt that laconically unspools down the phone line. . . It’s much too seductive for a grey Wednesday morning, and smacks brilliantly of too many cigarettes and too much dancing (if such a thing exists).
He adds: “Sometimes you can create little stories and little worlds, but when I was making that record I wanted, whether I was angry or whether I was happy, just to let it out.” Between the music and a personal life that, from the outside, seems split fairly equally between Liverpool FC and a roster of beautiful girlfriends – models Agyness Deyn and Suki Waterhouse (who he lost to Bradley Cooper) have both been charmed – the other major factor that makes Miles Kane, Miles Kane is, of course, the clothes.
The thing is, the achingly cool 27-year-old (28 this month), often has his voice overlooked in the race to detail a lengthy list of famous mates and stunning ex-girlfriends. It can’t be helped the boy swirls in the slickest of suits, in the smartest of circles. It all started for him with short-lived indie outfit The Little Flames, before he swiftly moved on to fronting The Rascals, showcasing a serious knack for playing the guitar and rasping out some rock-laced vocals. After they disbanded in 2009, Kane teamed up with good friend Alex ‘Arctic Monkeys’ Turner to form the charttopping, Mercury Music Prize-nominated, The Last Shadow Puppets. And now? Well, he’s doing quite all right on his own thank you very much. (Don’t fret though, Shadow Puppets fans, he did half-promise: “I’m sure one day we’ll reconvene.”) “I think you always want more, don’t you?” he says bluntly when asked what he thinks of the reaction to his solo efforts so far; his 2011 debut, Colour of The Trap, and 2013’s brash, rollicking, Don’t Forget Who You Are. “That’s a good thing because it keeps you hungry and it keeps you striving for the next rung on the ladder.”
famous friends It’s an excellent attitude to have, considering the names he’s so often grouped with and compared to. From Paul Weller, who wrote and plays piano on album track Fire in My Heart (“He’s lovely, he’s a top fella and we’ve grown very close. I think we’ll do more together”), to Liam Gallagher and John Lennon. In an eight out of 10 review of Don’t Forget Who You Are, NME said: “Kane couldn’t sound more like the former Beatle if he tried.” You can’t even try to argue with that. Ask Kane what his influences are now though and things get a lot more niche. Currently, it’s New York soul singer Charles Bradley, who plays with the Menahan Street Band (nope, us neither), and Daptone Record label producer Tommy Brenneck. “I’m loving that stuff,” the Birkenhead-born musician buzzes. “They have great clobber and they sound really cool. That’s what’s making me tick at the moment.” Then there’s the band he stumbled across on New Year’s Eve: “I went to this little club in Highbury and there was this band called Telegram who were playing. They did this halfhour set, but it was cool.
“I think so anyway,” he pauses. “I was bladdered so technically they seemed like the best band I’d ever seen at that moment in time. They were rocking.” So rocking in fact you’ll be able to hear them yourself if you get tickets to Kane’s Cambridge Junction gig; he booked them as his tour support. He’ll also be joined by his touring band, Jay Sharrock on drums, Ben Parsons on keys, Phill Anderson on bass and George Moran on rhythm guitar. Does he miss that feeling of being in a solid, permanent band, being part of a group and not having the pressure blazing all on his own name? “Definitely, I do miss it,” he says matter-of-factly, explaining how it’s toughest when he’s not on the road and writing (which is what he’s ‘trying’ to do when we speak a couple of weeks before the start of his UK tour). “The thing when you are writing is that you can’t really go into the practice room and jam, like when you’re in a band and have that support. But I do love doing what I’m doing and I wouldn’t change it for the world. No, no.” While many bands admit touring and living on a bus for months at a time is just a tiring, faux-glamorous way of achieving chronic homesickness, Kane seems to genuinely adore it. “I just loved being on the road,” he says frankly. “If I had my way, I’d just love to stay on the road. I just love playing, and I think it’s playing this second record. . . I’m missing playing those tunes. I just feel that I’m not bored of them yet.” He’s said previously that this album was written with honesty at its core. “I think an album always captures where you are in your life,” he says, but puts how it’s shaped down to the prospect of performing the album for a crowd. “I wanted a record that I could play live really just ’cause we had such a buzz touring the first record. Seeing CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE
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“I guess it’s just a big part of me life now, I just love clothes. That’s it,” he admits, explaining how he now co-designs his tour outfits – slick, slim, beautifully cut and not averse to a touch of velvet or leopard print; Kane is effortlessly dapper with a mod sensibility – with bespoke suit maker Ray Brown. “It’s something that interests me, and it gets very addictive.” Could he see himself going into fashion full time? “I don’t think I could quit music, no, but you know, I do have an interest in clobber, for sure.” To be fair, he’s got a lot to be getting on with without sidelining in haute couture. Aside from the UK tour, he’s supporting Arctic Monkeys on two major gigs in May and is still recovering from a hectic 2013. “Last year was the busiest I’ve ever worked, I’ve never done so much travelling, it all becomes a bit of a blur when you try to think,” he says, pinning down Benicassim as a major highlight. “We did these three little shows in Liverpool at Christmas in 24 hours,” he adds dreamily. “That was a really boss way to end the year, you know. I felt battered and bruised by the end of it, but it was fun.” His current favourite track to perform is Give Up: “We’ve extended it to about 10 minutes and in the middle of it we’ve been playing Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones and it’s just a boss moment live.” So what does he find so electric about being on stage? “For me, it’s just the biggest buzz ever,” he muses. “That last UK and Europe tour, it was proper madness. The crowd seems to have gone up a notch. You feel, ‘Wow, I don’t know if it can get any more bonkers’, but I hope it does.” So do we: famous mates or not, Kane is a class act all on his own. Go have your mind blown.
Miles Kane, Cambridge Junction, Sunday, March 30 at 7pm. Tickets £17.50 from (01223) 511511 / junction.co.uk.