By Keith Walsh
I recently caught up with Tom Cridland by phone, on the eve of the release of his latest Tomicks LP, the excellent “Corporate Psychopath.” As we spoke, Cridland, a globetrotting British fashion designer and singer songwriter, was in Guadalajara, Mexico, spending time with his girlfriend and business partner Debs Marx in preparation for a business trip to California.
Cridland shared with me some of the frustrations of getting listened to in today’s crowded original music marketplace. “I mean it’s very difficult to get records like this heard,” he said, referring to The Tomicks ‘Corporate Psychopath.’ “ I mean obviously we don’t have a label, we don’t have a manager, we don’t have anyone to help us promote us. I mean I think this is a pretty damn good album. Better than our first two, I think this is pretty strong album in terms of rock albums. There’s nothing much that sounds like it, I know it’s retro sounds, but I think a lot of people would like this album, if it got wider circulation.
‘A Bunch Of Computer Programmers’
Cridland once told me he doesn’t rely on software to create his compositions. Instead, he builds his tunes using piano or guitar, following inspiration from his favorite artists, which happen to be mostly in the classic rock category. Cridland has made a career out of interviewing hundreds of classic artists and others in the music industry for his podcast, “Greatest Music Of All Time.”
Newer music seems to leave Cridland cold. In our recent conversation he told me: “It does kind of piss me off when I hear some of the music that’s being made that’s so manufactured and so unpleasant, really. The sentiment behind the music, the lyrics aren’t interesting and there’s very little music talent on display, it’s just a bunch of computer programmers.”
A Major Beatles Influence
A prolific songwriter, Cridland writes his ideas out on notepads before bringing them to his band. He has released 30 singles in the past 18 months, with 60 or 70 more to be released soon. All of this is in addition to the 30 or so Tomicks’ tracks, co-written with Nick Whitehead and released over the course of three albums. I asked Cridland about the songwriting process that made it possible for him to write such a massive number of tunes.
“When I was doing my solo stuff,” he told me, “I’d just voice recorded my songs cause I hadn’t started piano then, and they would help flesh them out, and Dinho (Barral) and a guy called John Young they’d help me flesh them out. But now I’ve started piano and I understand harmony better…I’m quite particular about what I like. I also like vanilla chords, I do like a good major seventh or more complicated chords, but I’m quite happy with major chords. The Beatles didn’t need to overcomplicate things. That’s the type of music that I like.”
Cridland launched his solo career in early 2019, putting his band The Tomicks, for which he plays drums and sings, on hiatus. I asked him for more info about how he could be so prolific. “In 2019 I wrote the songs first, kind of we were actually in Mexico, when we were taking a break from The Tomicks, and then I wrote all the songs. I met up with those guys demoed a hundred of them, then put together different lineups of musicians, probably about 40 musicians in all. ”
A Surplus Of Tunes
After recording as many of the tunes as possible at London’s Love Electric Studio and his laptop at home, Cridland selected four top notch artists to do a solo tour of the U.S. that saw them reaching all 48 continental United States. These include Dinho Barral on bass, Paulo Romero on drums, Robbie Blake on guitar, and Jim Baldock on keyboards. It’s particularly fascinating that with his many solo tunes, Cridland explores a multitude of genres, from hard rock to pop, from love ballads to soul and disco.
Cridland says he hasn’t written any songs in the past 12 months. While the pandemic raged, slowing down collaborations and making live shows impossible, he and Marx were busy running their fashion brand. He plans on releasing a large batch of songs in the next few months. “I’ve had 80 sets of vocals to record and I’ve actually finished them now. So all of the rest of my songs will be out I may so I can start a fresh project.”
If you’re in England you can catch Cridland and his band as they open for The Stylistics on their UK tour later this year. In the meantime, check out the latest singles by Cridland and the new Tomicks record, “Corporate Psychopath.”
https://www.tomcridland.com/
Tom Cridland Discography
The Tomicks’ ‘Corporate Psychopath’
Greatest Music Of All Time
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