Hastings/Brighton - "I realised I wanted to live when the doctor gave me the option of ending my life"
Brought up in Hastings, Oli offers Still Life as “a hymn to nature, life, grief, mortality, decay and ultimately death.”
He offers it as an album for our times.
“Some of the themes within express global concerns, depicting the balancing forces of nature, the environment, displaced people, fears around climate change and mass extinction of species. Other themes are more personal, ranging from our own mortality, terminal illness, the grief of seeing a loved one slip away from us and the general anxieties of life in these unpredictable times.”
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Hide AdOli, who now lives in Brighton, said: “I have been a musician now for 20 years and it is something that came from my own near-death experience. I nearly died of Aids in 2000. I had tuberculosis which took a long time to clear. It remained in my lymphatic system and I also had a heart infection and the doctor came to me and said I was within my rights to turn down the medication that was prescribed and then I would die. But before then I was spiralling down. I was very depressed and had attempted suicide – because of my own sexuality primarily. Certainly going to school in the 90s I was spat at and beaten up and it was just horrible. I’m not blaming Hastings but I’m kind of blaming Hastings but it was just the times and there was a lot of backlash around Aids.
“But I think what that near-death experience did was that the doctor gave me the option of ending my life and that’s when I realised for the first time that I really wanted to live and I knew that if I took the choice to live, I should follow my heart. I had done two years of fine art for a BA degree, but I didn’t finish my degree. I realised I could have easily finished it but I didn’t know how long I would be around. So I decided to write a book. It was published nearly 20 years ago and the mid section was a pretty direct account of my time in hospital. I had various book launches and at the launch in Brighton a friend’s band played and I recited some poetry over the top. I had a few people, including my publisher, telling me that I should be in a band and so we formed a band with my publisher as my bassist.”
This latest album is his fifth on his own: “I was very influenced by the French chanson tradition that predates rock ‘n’ roll and some years ago a producer in Paris got interested in my music and was very keen to work with me. He wrote me some tracks that I wrote lyrics for and that was my first album, Fag Machine, that came out in 2013.”
Still Life reflects the fact that he is still alive, a reflection of the fact that he didn’t die. In fact at one point Oli was tempted to go back to finish the degree, having done two years. He tried to speak to the tutors but discovered that they had all moved on. In response to his inquiry, he was told “You have left it a bit long really!”
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Hide Ad“So this is all about life in spite of death. The album tells a story. It is cyclical. In the end the protagonist finds the will to live and then dies. There is a song about wanting to live whilst I was facing death. I was so privileged to have that experience at 22. I realise that there are people that are 99 years old but have the same experience of wanting to live but they don’t necessarily have that second chance. It is about a matter of life and death. It’s about me having to follow my heart.”
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