Tony Cummings met up with the New Zealand-born songsmith GLENN AITKEN

Glenn Aitken

New Zealand-born, UK-based singer/songwriter Glenn Aitken spent years travelling the globe, working at whatever jobs came to hand and composing his own songs of love, loss and life. Like thousands of other unknown songsmiths he dreamed dreams of making a record and finding an audience for his own songs, rather than the cover versions with which he entertained locals and holiday makers in hotels, bars and cafes in Bali, Thailand and the Maldives. Then one day something happened to Glenn of truly staggering proportions. Into the Maldives hotel bar where Glenn was singing stepped Paul McCartney. On a visit to Cross Rhythms the New Zealander songsmith, whose 'Extraordinary Lives' album debut is currently picking up accolades from the critics, recounted his monumentally unexpected encounter with the pop music superstar.

"It was actually my last two weeks of working at this hotel, I had actually resigned and was about to move on. Then as chance would have it Paul, who was at the Maldives on holiday, came to see me play on his first day there. After that he came and saw me at all the other gigs that I was doing. It's a small place and I bumped into Paul and he asked me to do a private dinner for him and he chose some songs for me to play. So I was just playing acoustic guitar for him while he dined on the edge of the lagoon. Then he asked me to play some of my originals as well. So I did. A couple of days later he called me up and said, 'Hey, do you want to come for a chat?' So we sat together and he said, 'Look, I've been singing this song of yours 'The Way' in my head for the last couple of days. I think it's a great song and I would like to help get your music out there.'"

Glenn described the theme of "The Way" as a song about learning to love again and, after a period of grieving, to move on as our hearts open up again. It is indeed a gem of a song - one of many on the 'Extraordinary Lives' album - and as well as Paul McCartney, has connected deeply with many people. Recounted Glenn, "Ben Squires, he's a pastor from the States, he emailed me saying, 'This is a great song and lots of members of my church enjoy the song.' Paul had actually put the song on a compilation of his favourite songs for Uncut magazine, which went around the world. So I do get a lot of queries saying you know 'is this a song of faith, or is it about human relationships?' I don't think a song has to spell out Christian doctrine to be a spiritual song. I mean if you just take even instrumental spiritual music, which I used to listen to while I was studying at university, you come away feeling fantastic after listening to the music, without having any words. It's a wonderful thing. There's a spiritual undercurrent running through a lot of music."

Glenn grew up in New Zealand and had what he calls "a fantastic upbringing". He recounted, "My parents supported everything that I wanted to do, which included music from an early age. So I started playing piano when I was a youngster and I took it right through to Grade 6 or Grade 7, so I learnt to read and write music. Then I kind of decided that classical music wasn't for me, I kind of enjoyed playing Elton John and Billy Joel and things like that so I went into more pop music. From there, I started playing guitar, actually, strangely enough, after I heard 'Blackbird' off the 'White' album my father had. So I taught myself guitar and saxophone as well."

Continued Glenn, "My father was born into a Catholic family but he wasn't an active Catholic I suppose. He had had some amazing escapes when he was a rally driver. He had some awful experiences with car crashes and so forth. Through my whole life I just always knew that somebody was watching over me. I met a girl in high school and got to know her, she was from a Pentecostal Christian family, so I started going to church and reading the Bible. My faith developed from there."

Glenn's point of commitment was through the ministry of the 20th century's greatest evangelist. "I made a commitment through Billy Graham. He was touring New Zealand and speaking at the time. It was way back in the '80s and I had been to one of these conferences, heard him speak and that was the moment."

Going to his girlfriend's church Glenn was soon developing his musical talents. "My first band was a band that I formed at my local church. I had a drummer and a bass player and keyboard player and we were doing concerts on Sundays in church. It was slightly more rocky I must say but didn't really cause any consternation at the time. New Zealand churches are very accepting of any kind of music, as long as it's good music with a good message. My father disagreed with my ambitions of growing my hair long and playing rock music in a band. I was listening to Stryper and bands like that at the time and I wanted to play music, that was my passion, that's what I wanted to do. But my father convinced me to go to university and to get a degree, which I did. I did a marketing degree and graduated in '92. Then I set my sights on jumping ship and getting out of New Zealand to further my experiences in the world and musically."

Glenn continued his story, "After seeing the movie Forrest Gump I thought, 'You know what, I'm going to be that feather and I'm going to blow wherever the wind takes me and I'm just going to see what happens.' I think looking back now it's a fantastic thing to take your life in your hands and say, 'Okay, I'm going to put it out there, and if anybody wants to guide me along the way - you'll jump in!' I went to China with a New Zealand band and played in Shanghai for six months. We were called Robin And The Hoods! We had a lead singer called Robin, a New Zealand girl, and there were three of us guys. At that time China was opening up to the West and it was a fantastic time to be a part of it. We were some of the very few foreigners in Shanghai."

The bit time breakthrough didn't happen for Robin And The Hoods though they did get a touch of mass media exposure. Glenn recounted, "While we were in Shanghai we were filmed by a New Zealand film crew who were doing a documentary on New Zealanders living abroad. One night they came into the bar in this five star hotel where we were playing and filmed us. I never thought anything of it. A while later I arrived back in New Zealand and above the international arrivals thing they've got this enormous LCD panel of all these TV screens. They were showing New Zealanders doing stuff overseas. My sister was greeting me and she said, 'Oh my God, you're on TV!' and I looked round and there I was, in this bar in Shanghai. It had gone into Shanghai and China and different countries and there I was. A very funny moment."

After China Glenn went to Malaysia for a couple of years, playing in Kuala Lumpur. The he spent six months in Bali before finally going to the Maldives. Experiencing cultures so very different from his own helped hone Glenn's songwriting. "'Extraordinary Lives', the name for the album, really came from paying homage to all of these experiences and all of these people who have influenced me and that I've met along the way and thoughts I have felt and so forth. It really is me putting it out there as a way of saying 'thank you' really for everything that's influenced me along the way. I think it's so important these days that people realise the power of the human spirit and I think a lot of it is lost these days. When I wander around, you know, when you're driving in your car you look at the person beside you in their car they're not smiling, there's so little of it these days. You'd actually be worried if you drove past someone in a traffic jam and they were smiling and they were happy and having a great time. The human spirit is such a fragile thing but it can be bolstered so easily just by the simple values and caring for one another."

After his contact with Paul McCartney in the Maldives Glenn relocated to the UK. He explained, "Paul said to me, 'Look, if you want to come to the UK I'll sign you to my publishing company and I will shine a light on you really just to help open a door and get your music heard by those who need to hear it.' He was extremely true to his word, he is the most wonderfully warm and humble person, considering that he is such an icon here in the UK. Again, I've met some of my all time greatest musicians. I had dinner with David Gilmore, for example, with Paul. I was in a log cabin sat with Paul McCartney and David Gilmore around a table. I'm thinking 'what am I doing here?' it was so surreal. Those two people who are some of the greatest the UK has ever produced, they were just the nicest, most educated, well spoken soft and gentle people. I contrast that to some of the other musicians that I see on TV who are punching people out and falling out of night clubs. I really think 'you know what, greatness is not something that you sew on your sleeve, it's not a patch, it's something that's bestowed on you by the listener."

Since arriving in the UK in 2003 Glenn has been slowly but surely building his reputation. He was a finalist in the UK Songwriting contest three years running; had "The Way" released on a compilation CD of Paul McCartney's favourite tracks for Uncut magazine; was an award winner in the Billboard World Song Contest; and won the Roland UK Loopstation championship in 2008/2009 and was runner up in 2010. Said Glenn, "I've had to walk the path that every singer/songwriter has to walk, 'pay my dues' I guess you call it. I've attracted private investment for the album, I've done all of the singer/songwriter things, entered in all of the songwriting contests, done all of the things to attract producers, to attract investment, to attract the right people to take the album forward. Then there was the process of writing the songs, 130 songs that I wrote over five years after coming to the UK, from which we selected the stuff for the album."

Playing a part in choosing the songs for 'Extraordinary Lives' was producer John Ravenhall, the Grammy-nominated studio whiz who has worked with such acts as Sting, Elton John and Kylie Minogue. Commented Glenn, "He was great, because he's got his producer's hat on and he's looking at something, not more clinically, but more 'what is the Glenn Aitkin sound? What are the strengths?' Whereas me, I'm like a little dog running in the background going 'oh, I love this one, I love this one!' and he's just sort of reigning that in and keeping a vision for the album, which is so important."

The album was recorded at Pressure Point Recordings in Chicago and Ravenhall's Chalk Hill Recorders in London and amongst the maestro musicians contributing their talents (Jimmy Widowski on drums, Sean Sommer on bass, Chris Sebold and David Goodes on guitars and Martin Lister on keyboards and programming) was a certain Sir Paul McCartney who provided the sinuous bassline on the album's first single "Ordinary People". Glenn spoke about that most haunting of songs, "It was written to pay homage to how I think it's the ordinary people who silently change the world; it's not this celebrity culture in the UK - they come out of Big Brother house and we feel that we should hold them up on high for some reason. Meeting Paul, he is one of the most humble and ordinary people I think I've ever met. The
celebrity culture we have is very sad. It's the people who save lives in the desert in Africa everyday on a daily basis for Medicins Sans Frontiere or people like that who are never heard of and are never in the glossy magazines who are the real heroes. Many people are far more interested in someone who takes their clothes off, or does something inane on television - I just, I can't get with that."

Now Glenn is hard at it promoting the album. "I've got a fantastic five-piece band based in London and we're all gearing up for a tour later this year. First off I've been talking and singing on a lot of radio stations, which I think a lot of artists overlook these days, especially major labels artists. There's not so much getting in there and playing your guitar and singing the song and touching the people with your music. What I'm looking to do."