What’s On Your Shelf? With Ben Morgan
I spoke to Ben Morgan, of Leeds post-punk band Treeboy & Arc, about his bookshelf. We spoke about the process of getting back into reading, David Sedaris and Ben’s love of pirates. We also discussed nostalgia, Spike Milligan and why certain books stay with us.
R: This is me trying to have a creative output as a very self-conscious person. It’s all a bit chaotic.
B: I know how that feels. It’s…putting yourself out there. It’s the same with music. I’ve been writing music on my own since I was 16 but I’ve never released any of it into the world for fear of what people might think of me. I think it’s good, but other people might think it’s shit and tell you you’re a prick. So I don’t release it.
R: I’m sure it would be OK. I mean your stuff has gone down really well so far. You did a speedy single.
B: That wasn’t just me though. At least five other people involved, making decisions much better than me I imagine.
R: So you have solo stuff as well?
B: I have done in the past, but I’ve never really done anything with it. For the reasons just mentioned. Too self-conscious. It feels like you put too much of yourself out there.
R: This is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to people in bands about books. I feel like often people in bands are a bit shy and not necessarily like their stage persona, and there’s this intersection with those people also liking reading. So far, I’ve interviewed Lily from English Teacher and Ben from Fuzz Lightyear – so you’re my second Ben, sorry. And Freddy from Thank.
B: I bought his guitar amp off him, so there are themes running all the way through here.
R: That’s so Leeds. One of the main things at the moment is that I want to interview more women. I wanted this project to be mainly women, but then I kept bumping into guys in bands.
B: Unfortunately women in bands seem to be more few and far between.
R: It’s really tough. So if you spot any female-based bands in Leeds that you think would be game, let me know.
B: I certainly will.
R: Do you read much at the moment?
B: You’ve caught me at a really strange time. When I bumped into you in Brude and you asked me to do this, that conversation got me thinking.
It’s like you said previously, I’ve never really had a lot of time, it feels like other things have come and got in the way – life and work and all that shit. I was about to start this new job where I’ve got an insane amount of resting time, time where I’m unsupervised. Your conversation kind of triggered something. Because I’d been speaking to some of the other people in the job and asking what they do all day, and they said read. And I was like oh, of course.
R: So you can just sit and read and they’re fine with that?
B: Yeah. I was like right, the first thing I’m doing on my lunch break, I’m gonna go get a fucking library card [laughing]. So the first thing I did was go and get a library card. After we spoke I was thinking I don’t know what on earth I would talk about [in this interview]. I was looking at the kind of books I’d read most recently, and was just like OK, these are all by men. There was not a single one that I’d read by a female author in the last like six years.
So I went to the library and I wanted to read White Teeth by Zadie Smith. They didn’t have it, but they did have a book of short stories by Zadie Smith. This links to what you were saying about short books. I thought that seemed like a really good jumping off point.
So I got that, I’ve been reading that. I got another book as well, a book of poems by Roddy Doyle, who has written my – I don’t want to say favourite book, but one of the books that’s stuck with me most prominently. I’ve probably read it a few times.
R: What’s that?
B: I brought a few books with me [getting out a pile of books].
This is the Roddy Doyle one [Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha]. That’s probably my favourite book ever.
That’s a collection of poems [Two For The Road, Roddy Doyle].
This is probably one of the most recent books that I’ve read, The Wasp Factory [Iain Banks].
The short stories [Grand Union, Zadie Smith] are quite interesting, quite strange, quite different from anything I’ve read before.
R: Short stories are interesting. It has to be a different kind of writing to get you into it that quickly. They know they have to hook you quickly so it sucks you in, and when it ends you’re kind of dropped, wondering what just happened.
B: Yeah, particularly a couple of those. The writing is quite aloof. They don’t actually give you any information. There’s no set up, there’s no exposition at all, it’s just straight in – here’s the thing that’s happening, oh fuck it’s already happened, and now the story’s over.
So yeah, you’ve caught me at a strange time where for once I am actually reading [laughing].
R: Interesting. I feel like this age in particular, or I’ve found at least, there’s definitely been a sense of trying to go back to basics in terms of what you did when you were younger. As a teenager you don’t necessarily need to find things to fill your time or make you feel better.
B: I feel like when I was 18 – that’s when I met all the guys in the band – it felt like social life completely took over. I didn’t really consume any media, I didn’t watch TV or read. It was just music.
R: I was the same, I remember when I went to uni I completely stopped watching TV.
B: That’s another thing that gets in the way, drinking and other things. Why would I sit at home reading a book when I could be at the pub or at my mates house making a rock tune and smoking a fucking spliff? [laughing]
R: Exactly. Whereas now I’m like there’s nothing I’d rather do than stay in and read [laughing].
This is the third time The Wasp Factory has come up. This is partly why I wanted to talk to people in a concise sort of scene, to see if the same books would be popular. The Wasp Factory is incredibly dark and twisted, isn’t it?
B: It’s quite gothic, very strange. Weird things with harming animals and people and quite bizarre throughout, to be honest. I can’t remember when I read it – last year, maybe. I ended up reading a couple of books in lockdown. My girlfriend was working the whole time, and there’s only so much sitting on the front porch with a beer that you can do, before you start to realise ‘OK, I should do something that’s a bit better for my brain’.
R: I tend to read very pleasant escapist books. I’ll read a book about someone doing nothing and love it. I rarely read things that are confusing or off-putting. But these interviews are motivating me to try more of that.
B: I’ll be honest, it was quite hard work, because it is really grim. It’s not something I’d usually read. But again, I get that feeling once I’ve started something, I have to finish it. If I’ve started a book, even if it’s shit, I’ll usually finish it.
R: That’s a good trait to have. I have so many books I’ve picked up and never finished.
B: I probably do have those. But I don’t know, it’s the same with TV or a film. If I’ve started it I need to know how it ends. I need to get that resolution.
I usually read things that are a lot more witty, which is why that’s one of my favourite books [Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha]. It’s about a kid, he’s like ten years old, and it covers a year of his childhood in Northern Ireland. There’s not any massive events in it or anything really groundbreaking. I don’t know if it’s just because I had a brother growing up, but it resonated so much with me. There was something so witty about that Irish way of writing, and the language.
R: When it feels colloquial.
B: It’s just really nice to read. It’s a lot of nostalgia.
R: I read a book in Scottish dialect once and my thoughts started – I started thinking in a Scottish accent.
B: The internal monologue.
R: Yeah!
B: When you read, do you read in your own voice?
R: Yeah, I think so. I don’t know. I kind of narrate everything in my head sometimes. A weird thing I’ve had since I was a kid – my dad used to have to tell me to stop doing it out loud when I was little. Like ‘she walks down the street, she does this, she does that’. And every now and then I catch myself doing it again. I think it was that voice that turned Scottish [laughing].
Roddy Doyle sounds really interesting. I’ve read a few books set in Ireland. It’s always nice when you feel like you get to know another place through a book.
B: Yeah, I don’t know what it is about it. There’s a kid in it called Sinbad. His name is Francis but he’s called Sinbad. He’s the main character’s younger brother, and you feel this weird affection for him. There’s a really weird line that stuck with me. At one point he pisses on the toilet seat, and he just grabs his sleeve and wipes it off. Just weird things that stick with you. I don’t know if it’s just because I have a brother. There are chapters and chapters of them just mucking about down the park and shit, and it’s just pure nostalgia. I highly recommend that.
Themes of nostalgia and finding intrigue in the minute details of everyday life recurred throughout our conversation. Interestingly, these seem to me to be one of the most compelling aspects of Treeboy & Arc’s lyrics – witty, observational takes on thoughts and scenes that you feel could have been plucked right out of your brain. I enjoyed the cyclicism of Ben replicating in his music the very thing that he enjoys in a book.
R: Did you read much when you were younger, as a kid?
B: I used to read loads when I was younger, yeah. My brother was a massive reader.
R: Is he younger or older?
B: My brother is older, a few years older than me. He doesn’t live in this country any more. He’s a lot more intelligent than me, and used to read loads, so I always used to read what he was reading. My Mum used to read loads and the shelves were always full of books. I don’t really know when I stopped.
I really liked reading, and I really liked writing as well. Obviously reading helps quite a lot with that. Just words, I find quite fun, which is probably why I enjoyed writing – because it’s satisfying.
R: Do you write all of the lyrics for Treeboy?
B: I write the lyrics that I sing, and James does the ones that he sings.
R: Do you feel like there’s a connection between the things you like to read, or the style of things you like to read, and the way that you write lyrics?
B: I’m not sure. It’s kind of changed. I don’t really have a specific genre that I like to read, or at least I don’t anymore.
There are a handful of lines in our songs that are directly lifted from, or references to, various books that I’ve read. Phrases that stick with me, the same as the wiping piss off the toilet seat. When something just sounds nice, or strange, it kind of sticks with you.
R: I like the idea that you can reuse things like that in songs.
B: Well, Concept, the first line is ‘There are holes in the sky’, which is a reference to a Spike Milligan poem called Rain. I also have a tattoo of the illustration from the poem.
The poem is There are holes in the sky // Where the rain comes in // But the holes are small // that’s why rain is thin. Which I just think is quite sweet. But the illustration is really cool.
B: So that’s directly ripped off from Spike Milligan. There’s another line in a song, which is a phrase ‘door shut like a hurt face’ which I really like. Do you know who David Sedaris is?
R: No.
B: He’s from North Carolina originally but lived in New York for ages. He writes non-fiction, which is something that I’ve found myself drawn to a lot these days – autobiographies and stories of things that people have done. So this guy [David Sedaris] started off writing for New York magazines and stuff, quite short essays about things that he’d done. He released more and more stories and essays about his life. Now he lives in Wiltshire or somewhere with his husband and spends all of his days walking around the local area picking up litter.
His writing is really witty, slightly strange. I went to see him in Bradford when he released his last book. He used to do readings on Radio 4. I used to listen to those whilst I was eating tea with my Mum, when I used to live at home still. So that’s what got me into it. And again, listening to him talking, because he’s got quite a strange voice, quite a camp voice and a little lisp. And the way he speaks, whenever I’m reading it, I hear everything in that voice and it gives it a kind of fourth dimension.
R: That sounds lovely. One thing I love about autobiographical writing is that it’s just like having someone tell you anecdotes.
B: Yeah. I think quite often the things that happen in life are more interesting, more obscure, than things that most people can conjure up in their heads. Real life often is more interesting than fiction anyway.
Elton John has a ridiculous autobiography. Just the things that have happened to that man, and the things that man has done in his life, it’s just unparalleled by anyone. It’s ridiculous.
R: And they talk about it so casually as well. It’s so interesting.
B: And just namedrop the world’s most famous person. This person was here doing this, and it’s just like — what?
R: It’s quite grounding in a way. In Patti Smith’s book Just Kids, she describes feeling really anxious about going into an art exhibition that Jimi Hendrix was putting on. She didn’t want to go in and was basically nearly having a panic attack. And then he walked down and was just like ‘yeah I feel the same, don’t really want to be in here, but you should go in and enjoy it.’ And then he just left his own exhibition. And that was just like fuck, everyone feels like this.
B: That’s basically how I felt before coming here. Like twitching on the bus.
R: Yeah, so much anxious cleaning always gets done before someone arrives for an interview. It’s good, I should book more in so that I get more housework done.
Have you read any other music autobiographies?
B: No, I don’t think I have to be honest. There’s something about the music scene which bores me entirely. I don’t know. I haven’t read any other music autobiographies. I’ve read a couple of footballer’s autobiographies, just because I think they’re ridiculous.
R: Anyone in particular?
B: I read Roy Keane’s autobiography. He has two actually, I’ve only read one of them.
R: Imagine having a life that warranted two autobiographies.
B: Well, one of them is his playing days, one of them is post-playing days. I just like Roy Keane because he’s a ridiculous person, who’s done ridiculous things in his life. And it feels like it could be fiction. It’s just so ridiculous, and he’s such an unhinged person, making strange decisions.
R: It is funny, the little wormholes you can go into, finding out about people like that. You end up knowing the tiniest details about someone’s life. I love that. Especially because you might never repeat them or even think about them ever again, but it’s in there somewhere.
B: It’s those little things that are so strange or unusual that stick with you, and are with you for years into the future.
R: Do you read any non-fiction other than autobiographies?
B: As far as books are concerned, no. But I like listening to podcasts and stuff, which is not quite the same thing. I have a weird obsession with history and wars. Particularly now with everything going on in Ukraine.
I used to be quite obsessed with looking into Hitler, and just fucking weird people who’ve done strange things. I feel like I have such a distorted concept of when things happened in history.
I do like reading about things like that – weird dictators from strange places. Pirates, I get a real kick out of pirates.
R: Who doesn’t love pirates?
B: It’s just such a bizarre thing – it feels childish, there’s something deep rooted in the fascination with pirates.
R: I have a thing about evacuation. I just love to read about evacuees. I don’t know why. There’s just something exciting about it.
B: Yeah, it’s weird. My Grandma was evacuated, I’m always asking her about that. Every time we go round and see her, she has weird knick knacks like her ration book. It’s weird to see things from seventy years ago that seem ancient.
R: Do you like to read historical novels relating to those things?
B: I used to read loads of war novels when I was a kid. The Book Thief [Markus Zusak]. That’s really good, really interesting. I’ve got quite a morbid obsession/fear of death, and that book is narrated by death. There are chapters written from the perspective of death as a person, so that was quite a weird one.
I used to read loads of books about war – it seemed to be my Mum plying me with loads of books about war.
R: It’s just what you give to boys, I don’t know why.
B: The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, Goodnight Mr Tom, that’s about evacuation, innit?
R: Yes, I read that! That got really dark.
B: Yeah, I can’t remember exactly, it’s been a long long time since I read that.
R: Did you ever read or watch Carrie’s War? We had to do that at school.
B: Carrie’s War, no.
R: That was about evacuees, but there were ghosts too. One of those things I’ve always wanted to revisit but I kind of want to keep it as this bizarre distorted thing in the back of my head.
B: Yeah, you almost don’t want to ruin that memory.
R: Keep it as it is. I feel the same about the blitz as well. I fucking love books about people being in love during the blitz. I don’t know why.
B: Yeah, it’s strange innit. There must be a reason why these things stick in our heads. There’s some sort of instinct inside us, human nature, where we actively seek out things that are slightly morbid or make us scared or uncomfortable.
R: British propaganda, maybe? [laughing]. I’m trying to read more queer history and more queer fiction. And I got an ad recently, because my targeted ads are so specific now, for a book about the Blitz in Belfast. It’s about a lesbian couple in the blitz. So that just spans all of my interests.
B: Ticks all the boxes.
R: You said you’re planning to read more at work. Is there anything that you’re looking forward to reading? Or are you going to the library and winging it?
B: Well like I said, I’m trying to read more books by female authors. So if you have any recommendations please send them over. I think that’s probably quite a good thing to do.
I walked into the library and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to read, and no idea how to find out what I wanted to read. And then just ended up defaulting back to things I’d already read, or authors that I’d already read and knew that I was probably going to like. So yeah, I’m not sure to be honest.
R: [looking through shelf] I definitely recommend Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. I love books where there are lots of different characters and you slowly see their connections throughout – it’s one of those. It’s about the female black British experience. It’s really good.
B: I’ll look it up. I feel like, not just in reading, but with music, TV, all things now, it’s all deeply rooted in nostalgia. These things make me feel comfortable, they make me happy, I know I like them. And I can rewatch a TV series a million times and still enjoy it.
R: I get that. I guess you know that it works.
B: It’s just comforting. It never gets boring to me.
R: Especially once you know that world, it’s so much easier to slip back into it. It gets easier every time, rather than being less appealing because you know it so well.
B: So that’s the answer to your question – I want to read things that make me feel a bit more uncomfortable, or that will challenge me more. Because I think I’ve certainly reverted to type, and I just repeat things over and over again.
Reading this back, I was reminded of a book that I wish I’d recommended to Ben at the time, and have since told him about. When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman is one of my favourite books of all time, for similar reasons – it’s a simple, intimate telling of growing up that feels so familiar. It’s a book that has always felt nostalgic to me, even the first time I read it as a teenager. Ben did explicitly say that he wanted to move away from books like that, but hearing him describe the sense of familiarity you can get from a book made me want to run right back to Sarah Winman.
R: I’m re-reading this at the moment (Identity by Milan Kundera). It is written by a man so not exactly what you’re after, but it’s so good. I’ve got another copy if you want to borrow it.
It’s really psychological. It’s very uncomfortable reading. It starts with this guy looking for his partner on the beach, and he thinks he sees her and he’s shouting to her and he’s certain it’s her, and when she turns around it’s not her. It really freaks him out. And it’s just their interactions, it jumps between them both slightly misunderstanding each other and both thinking they mean someone else, and it just spirals. It’s just the slight feeling…
B: The suggestion that things might get out of control.
R: Exactly. I find it mad that a book can give you that edge of anxiety so easily.
B: I think that’s definitely something that you don’t realise, that’s really important. That when you start reading a book and you really start to get into it, you kind of switch off your brain and it becomes second nature. I think that’s when you really start to get these emotional reactions. Whether you’re laughing or feeling anxiety or whatever.
It’s just that motivation to just fucking pick up a book in the first place. It’s so hard. But once you do it it’s like 5 pages in and you’re like shit it’s been half an hour. Five pages in half an hour, shit, maybe I need to speed up.
R: [laughing] Hey no pressure, don’t rush yourself. Take your time.