John Canning Yates

In a dimly lit corner of his Liverpool home, where night extends itself into a creative sanctuary, John Canning Yates has spent the last several years crafting songs that feel like secret transmissions from a parallel world, one where time moves more deliberately and attention remains unfractured. Twenty years after his band Ella Guru released what The Independent on Sunday called "the best debut album since Marquee Moon," Yates has returned with a collection of intimate compositions created in those liminal hours when the rest of the household sleeps.

   I met with him on a grey afternoon in early spring 2024, a short month before the release of his album The Quiet Portraits. We spoke at length about songwriting as solace, the discipline of finishing things, and the particular alchemy that happens when you make music with no one watching. What follows is a record of that conversation - itself a kind of portrait, captured in the quiet between creation and release.

ML: Hi John, first of all congratulations on your new album. It's wonderful and I love it. But tell me what inspired you to start writing and recording these songs, and how did they develop into the idea for The Quiet Portraits?

JCY: Thank you. Well, I’m always writing, but in recent years, the ritual became sitting at my piano late at night, headphones on, playing quietly, feeling like I was creating my own world to disappear into. Songwriting has always felt like a place of solace to me, sometimes when the rest of the world doesn’t feel like one. Creating each song felt like a quiet portrait in time, a snapshot of a feeling, a place, or wish.  

ML: Can you describe your home recording setup and your process for creating these songs?

JCY: I’m set up in the corner of a room which has doubled as a music/ playroom since my two boys have been in the world. It’s more of a music room these days. It’s always close by so I venture towards it most nights. Lights low, dog curled up asleep nearby. For years, I was in a loop of writing, playing, but never recording. I had some warped idea that if I didn’t record them, I couldn’t ruin what was in my head. But then I realised that was a bad idea.

ML: How do you approach the songwriting process, and how do you know when a song is finished?

JCY: Late at night, when no-one else is around, is the most creative time for me. Away from the noise of the day. I’ll get lost in something I’m playing, hypnotise myself and if I’m lucky, something new will occur. If it feels good, I’ll see it through.

ML: What was the biggest challenge you faced in creating this album?

JCY: There was no time factor to it. It’s been a long time since the Ella Guru album. I wasn’t making an album to begin with. I was just enjoying the freedom of the creative process with no-one watching or any expectations. When Violette asked if I’d like to work on a release, that was great as it gave me a direction, and I started thinking in terms of an album. I’m trying to get better at finishing things more quickly and the letting go. I realised that was holding me back. Some words of advice from you helped, along with some clarity gained from Rick Rubin’s creativity book.

ML: Me and Rick Rubin credited together, once again! So which song on The Quiet Portraits is the most personal or meaningful to you, and why?

JCY: They’re all personal and meaningful to me for different reasons. Perhaps ‘In The Stillness of The Night’. It’s an example of letting nocturnal thoughts and genuine heartfelt feelings manifest themselves in late night songs. I don’t have to go far to draw upon my biggest inspirations.

ML: Can you talk about your musical influences and how they have informed your songwriting and recording?

JCY: So many. I’ve been obsessed with music since I was a child. I hope people find it hard to pin down influences on my sound because, everything goes in but hopefully it’s a personal, individual thing that comes out. I love Brian Wilson, he wrote with love and from the heart. Dennis Wilson, Burt Bacharach. I have Neil Young Live at Massey Hall sitting here on my piano, I’d love to do more gigs like that, where the audience is really listening, like we did with Ella Guru. The Violette nights are like that. I set out thinking I might make a piano album a bit like Plush ‘More you becomes you’, but over time, it became something else as I built upon it. I love so many songwriters. I love music which makes you feel something. I have a quiet singing voice and I write late at night, I suppose that dictates the sound to some degree. I relate to the intimacy of quiet singers like Nick Drake, Elliot Smith, Paul Buchanan, Nat King Cole. But I love so much music, it would be a long list. Beatles (of course), Joni, Judee, Lou, Tom, Arthur, Roddy, Kevin Ayres, Will Oldham, Robert Wyatt, Gorky’s, Big Star etc.

ML: How do you see the themes of hope, dreams, nostalgia, and comfort reflected in your music, and what do they mean to you?

JCY: I find that these themes recur, as I’ll try and write myself into a place that I want to be, or I’d like others to be. A world to get lost in for a while. Almost like an escapist’s dream. One that you’ve created in the moment and one that you can keep returning to. Hope is often at the centre.

ML: How do you hope listeners will connect with and respond to the music on this album?

JCY: Firstly, I hope that the listener stays for the duration of the album. I know this happens less these days. I hope that they can get lost in the songs in the same way that I do. I think it’s probably made for a solitary listen with headphones on, late at night. I hope it brings comfort, warmth, love, any kind of feeling. A world to inhabit for a while. I hope that once people listen to it a lot, it sticks with them. And I hope that people like it enough to recommend it to others. I’m hoping the album can be a friend to people in the way that so many albums have been to me. And I hope that listeners will want to hear more, because I have lots of songs!

ML: What was your goal for the overall sound and mood of the album, and how did you achieve it?

JCY: I think the overall sound probably reflects the time of the day that it was both written and recorded. When the rest of the world has gone to bed and the noise of the day subsides, it feels like you’re in a completely different place. All the songs started as quiet piano songs and the recording process dictated where they’d end up.