Ayres rocks with love letter to last 60 years of rock ‘n’ roll

David Owens

If you listen to Hanging the Moon, the new album from Welsh musician Ayres, you would have guessed he’d popped into the studio with a full band and orchestra to pen his gorgeous long player.

It comes as something of a surprise then to learn that his sumptuous offering was recorded solely in his bedroom.

As technology shows us the future at an alarming rate for many mere mortals to keep up with, so the art of songwriting has benefitted from the technological power surge.

For Ayres, (real name Euron Griffith), a music maker and author who made his name with a succession of bands of local renown such as indie pop dandys The Third Uncles, roots rockers The Soda Men and his present side piece, Six Sided Men – a musical melting pot bubbling with elements of pop, country, folk and psychedelia, his latest solo collection is an undoubted highpoint.

We find the songwriter, originally from north Wales but now long resident in Cardiff, channelling all his influences into an album of ageless songwriting, brim full of lyrical playfulness and melodic intent.

His third solo album after previous releases Bubblegum Minty Kiss and Do Safe Things, Hanging the Moon is an ambitious project that bears immediate repeated listening. From the opening hooks of glam pop stomper Baby (Or Something of that Kind) to the beatific closing strains of stirring acoustic lullaby Sleep Tight, whisper it quietly but he may have recorded the best album released in Wales this year.

Then there’s the album’s benchmark moment, the sublime Honeycomb and Fish – a timeless ballad created very much in the classic image of The Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses and Angie. If this is not in my top 10 Spotify Wrapped list, I would be shocked and indeed, surprised.

“Hanging the Moon was recorded over a 12 month period and it was all done at home,” says Ayres, who it appears has a very understanding wife. “I play all the instruments, do all the voices and the production, all done in my little attic room upstairs and all the ‘acoustic’ bits (I.e. all the things that can’t be directly inputted) have to be done while my wife Jacci is out working or in the gym otherwise it drives her nuts hearing me going ‘aaaahhhhh’ into a mic about 20 or 30 times.”

The perils of recording at home also seem to involve the musician’s postman and dog.

“Some vocal tracks have to be timed carefully to avoid the postman otherwise my dog Peggy will bark like an idiot and ruin everything,” he laughs. “The trials of being an artist eh? I’m better at some instruments than others- my piano playing is a bit rudimentary and often involves multiple takes, consulting chord charts on Google and a hell of a lot of swearing.

“My bass playing is OK but I struggle with lead guitar bits so I try to keep them short and meaningful. As a huge Beatle nut I aspire to the kinds of solos George Harrison used to do where they are almost separate melodies but make sense (hopefully) within the broader context of the song.”

When listening to the album theres a surprise when you hear Desert Of Snow, which very much doesn’t sound like Ayres’ ‘singing’ even though he reveals it very much is.

“That was done deliberately in a Tom Waits style because I thought it fitted the song,” he explains. “I tried it in my ‘normal’ voice first but it lacked a certain drama so I went all David Bowie and invented a character to sing it for me. I could only do two takes because it ripped my vocal chords to shreds.”

There’s also revisiting of his past songbook for present inspiration

“Two of the songs, The Emperors New Clothes and Lord Randall’s Daughter, date back to the Third Uncles. I wrote them with that band in mind but we only performed Lord Randall once (at the Princess Charlotte in Leicester as an encore…even though there was absolutely no one in the audience!) The Emperor will shortly feature in the set of my current band Six Sided Men.”

All Ayres’ solo albums are available on digital platforms together with three singles he recorded with the help of legendary ’80s band The Korgis – Something Special, Whiskey Cars and Guns and Christmas in Space.

Six Sided Men play their annual Christmas show at Kings Road Yard, Cardiff on Friday, December 12. All proceeds to the Huggard Homeless charity.