Lou Rhodes: longer version

Sheryl Garratt: I’ve just had a look at the audio version of The Phlunk. It’s lovely. Your reading voice is so warm. It was really well done. 

Lou Rhodes: Thank you. I had a look at your website as well. It’s rather marvellous. I liked the post in praise of swanning about!

It’s really important to take breaks and find new inspiration. I suggest the idea of a regular play date – some swanning about – for all my coaching clients. Generally, men just take to it like… a swan to water. The women, you have to really fight them to do it.

It’s good to have you almost giving licence for that sort of thing, because we do guilt trip ourselves about that!

Absolutely. But the more you do it, the easier is to get your work done. Take an afternoon for yourself once a week, and suddenly everything else starts flowing. Because you’re not tired all the time!

It is counterintuitive, because it’s like taking the pressure off actually lets you flow more.

Just going to an art exhibition that’s got nothing to do with what you’re working on, will suddenly give you a brilliant idea. It might be two weeks later. Or two years later. But ideas come from letting your brain make new connections.

It really is. Because I work from home, I find that I’m in this kind of daydream state for most of the day. And of course, that doesn’t look like work to the people around me. So they try to strike up a conversation – and I just don’t want to have the conversation because I’m somewhere else. It doesn’t look like it, but I’m actually working!

Headphones are one answer. One of my clients said that in his flat, the rule is if you’re wearing headphones, you’re not there. You’re just invisible, and everyone ignores you. Because it means you’re thinking.

That’s good. I like that!

It’s really hard for someone who doesn’t do creative work to understand that dream state – where you are there, but you’re not there – is often the most important bit of the process. 

Sometimes I am actually doing laundry or washing up or whatever. But it still doesn’t mean that I’m up for a conversation. And people think you’re being a prima donna, if you’re like, ‘Don’t talk to me!’

So let’s start with the basics. Where did The Phlunk come from?

He came from outer space! He kind of appeared when my boys were small. I wrote this poem about this alien creature who can hear everything that children say and do.

When kids are small, they’re just always like, ‘Mommy, look, look, look.’ They always want you to see and hear what they’re doing. And from when my kids were two and six, I was a single mom, and also working, writing, touring. I was quite preoccupied a lot of the time and you feel guilty when you’re a preoccupied parent!

So the idea behind The Phlunk was that he’s always there listening, even if they feel like you’re somewhere else. And obviously, I wasn’t somewhere else all the time! I hope they would attest to that. 

There’s a second book which goes into him hearing the sounds that children make around the world. It becomes a sort of outernational symphony – which is a good message for our times. So that book will come out at some stage. 

So it started as a poem, and it sat in a drawer for years. And then in 2011, I decided to try and bring it out as a book. And I found an illustrator called Tori Elliot, who’s absolutely wonderful.

At the time she was a student at Falmouth School of Art and Design. I sent the poem to their tutor in the illustration department, and just said, ‘How do you feel about setting a competition amongst your students to draw this character?’

Great idea! 

Her illustration just brought him to life. It was better than I’d even imagined. So she got the job, and we made it into a book. It was published by my then-management company, who had a very small publishing business as an offshoot of the music management. And it had a very limited release. Then life took over, music took over, and again, it was forgotten about until the first lockdown this year. 

It had been suggested to me a few times to bring it out as an e-book with an audio component. And it was timed perfectly, because I’d just got some studio equipment.

For the first time in over 20 years as a musician, I actually have a home recording setup! I’ve always kind of just thought, ‘Nah! Somebody else can do that.’ But obviously, with lockdown, I wasn’t able to get other people to record me. I was doing bits of writing, and collaborations with people. So I finally got a setup together,. And I was able to record the narration of the e-book at home, and put it online.

What were the logistical problems with that? The challenges?  

It was effortless up to a certain point. Apple make it easy: you can do the whole thing in their Pages app and get it to publishing stage. But then there were these buttons on the pages that you had to press for the audio. And to me, they just got in the way of the artwork. It was a bit clunky.

It turned out that I would have to go through a whole load of other hoops to make the audio play seamlessly, as the pages turned. I called tech support at Apple and they said, ‘You’re going to have to go into coding.’ And if somebody mentions coding to me, my brain turns to jelly! 

Mine has just shut down, even as you’re speaking!

So I needed outside help. I had a search around online, and I couldn’t find anybody. Then I was talking to a very lovely friend who was an actor and is now a psychotherapist. And he said, ‘I do a bit of coding. I’d quite enjoy the challenge of that!’

And he sorted it out. What a genius! So most of it was done from home on a laptop with the help of my lovely friend, Greg, who was on the other side of the country. 

So the bigger challenge has been marketing, really? Telling people it exists.

Yes. I think that’s quite a common thing, amongst creative people. We’re great at generating stuff. But when it comes to selling our wares… I shouldn’t generalise because some artists are probably great at that. But it’s not my skillset. So that’s an on-going issue. I just spent a day sending press releases out, but who knows what that will do?

Don’t feel scared about sending it twice! Even three or four or five times because I know from my experiences as an editor, the amount coming into my inbox was overwhelming.

So send a follow up email first, asking if they need any more information. Then if that’s ignored as well, just send the original press release again. Be shameless!

Totally. I mean, my partner in Lamb, Andy [Barlow] is absolutely brilliant at that. He’s completely shameless. He just goes for it. With no embarrassment whatsoever. It’s one of my issues, I guess. Self-promotion.

Will there be more from The Phlunk?

Well, there is a second story. And I’m actually in the process of talking to someone about properly publishing the physical copies as well. I’m really enjoying this online, interactive format, particularly because I get to read it out. But a few people have asked for physical copies as well. 

The second story is called The Phlunk’s Worldwide Symphony. There are all these children around the world making sounds and playing instruments, and it turns into this wonderful symphony at the end. And he’s dancing in outer space to this amazing symphony of all their sounds. So that really lends itself to an amazing audio-visual presentation. I’m looking forward to doing that in an interactive format. 

As for a third one, I really don’t know. It was never the plan for me to be a children’s writer! It just happened. I guess that’s one of the things that has landed with the pandemic, and the way the music industry has suffered – and creative industries in general. It just seems more and more that we need to diversify.

I’ve always believed creativity is a multifaceted thing. You mention that on your website as well. If you’re not getting anywhere with one thing, just go and do something else of a creative nature. I’ve always been a real firm believer in that. Cooking a really nice supper is also creative! 

In lockdown, I started teaching myself piano, which had never really put any time or effort into. I’ve dabbled over the years, but I’ve started to really immerse myself in that. And I’m finding myself wanting to make visual art, write prose and poetry. I think as human beings, that’s our natural state. If we allow ourselves to be. 

Obviously, there’s a financial element. You have to know that you can pay the bills in order to be and do all those things. The Phlunk is one of many creative channels. It wasn’t ever part of the master plan, but it seems to have appeared as a strand right now!

I’ve been trying to find the good in 2020, which has been a really difficult year for all of us. But lots of people have got back in touch with their creativity, whether it’s making sourdough or doing art with Grayson Perry. It’s given many people time and space they haven’t had for a long, long time, a freedom to ask, ‘What do I actually want to do today? What do I want to make?’

It’s bringing about a new approach to life, really. With Lamb, our summer was going to be lots of festival shows, and that was going to be my income this year. Those all got cancelled, and, you say, ‘Oh, shit! How am I going to pay the bills?’

I went into quite a dark space, of not being very creative, because I was too busy worrying about money. Then I came to a bit of a watershed where I was like, ‘Whether I worry about it or not, it’s not going to change. So I might as well just throw myself at whatever creative prospects light me up, and trust that something is going to give.’ 

That’s all we can do. Because the moment you start trying to peg your creative efforts with economic outcome, you fail. It’s funny, I talk to my dad, sometimes, bless him. He’s in his 80s, and he was an engineer and a businessman.

When I tell him my ideas, he’ll always go, ‘So is that going to make any money?’ And I have to go, ‘I don’t know, really. But I’ve just got to trust, because otherwise, I just wouldn’t do anything!’

You’ve reinvented yourself before. When we first met, you were a talented photographer. And when you told me you’d started a band I was surprised. On paper it wasn’t a very promising combination, you and Andy. What you made together as Lamb was magnificent. But if you’d thought, ‘Will this make money?’ you’d never have started it.

Anthony Wilson famously told me to not give up the day job when we started Lamb. He said, ‘You’re a good photographer, Louise!’ I said, ‘Well, thanks. But I think we’re onto something here as well.’ But he was just like, nah. [laughs] 

So yes, you’ve just got to trust. It’s not really a cerebral process, when you’re creating. It’s that gut feeling of – something’s happening here. And if you had to explain it to anybody, in its formative stages, you wouldn’t go beyond that. 

If you cerebrally cross-examine what you’re doing, you might as well stop there. Because it comes from somewhere else. It comes from your core and you just follow the process. That’s the thing that we forget, I think. That’s what we sometimes lose touch with, because we live in a kind of left-brain reality of, ‘Are you going to make a living out of this?’

You’ve got to play and experiment.

Yeah, because you often don’t know what it is. In fine art, in process-driven art, you don’t know where you’re going to paint until you actually start throwing the paint around. And I think that’s really true in every art form. 

When Andy and I first formed Lamb, we didn’t have a master plan at all. We talked some very, very broad strokes, but mostly, it was just like, ‘Well, let’s go in a studio and see what happens.’ 

He had some free studio time in Leeds, and we just went over there, slept on the studio floor, and threw ideas at each other. And by the end of that weekend, it was just like, ‘OK, I think we’re onto something here.’ And that was it. But you’ve got to be brave enough to step into that unknown.

You’ve also got to be able to fail, to face the fact that you could easily fall flat on your face, and that’s okay. 

Those ‘failures’ are often the best bits. So maybe there is no such thing as failure, in creativity. You fail when you when start trying to inflict rules on yourself and prescribe something. 

In my career in music, whenever we’ve done something for the money. It’s never been a good idea. Those things where you’re offered a load of money to do some corporate gig. And it’s like, ‘We could live for half a year on that, why don’t we do it?’ They’re the things that you just want to very rapidly forget about.

Again, struggling to find the positives in a year that hasn’t been very positive: it’s pushed me out of my comfort zone. Like you, I was terrified. All my big bookings with music and film people were cancelled, and we got no financial help. 

But then I self-published my out-of-print book, Adventures In Wonderland, which I’d been meaning to do for three or four years. It’s put me in touch with loads of people I haven’t seen for a long time, and it’s also providing an income.

Now I know how to do it, I’ve got lots of ideas for new little books to put out in the next couple of years.  It’s about taking that leap, isn’t it?

Totally. I remember having this conversation with a friend a month or so into the first lockdown. And we said, ‘Wow, it’s almost like tabula rasa, isn’t it? Forget all the assumptions you ever made and just start from square one, almost. 

What can you productively do with your time? What lights you up and what makes you feel you can get through this?  Any kind of crisis – and this has been a major crisis –  leads you to question everything. You can’t just cruise along making assumptions and doing things as you always have.

It’s taught me what’s important. I am so looking forward to hugging my friends now. Holding them close. And doing things like writing in coffee shops surrounded by random strangers, or going to the cinema. I wasn’t really grateful for those things before, because they’d always been there.

Totally! I was having a bit of a low day the other day, and I put on some old-school roots reggae music, and was dancing around my kitchen. And just feeling such gratitude for the fact that music kind of saves my life on a daily basis.

The next time I can go into a venue, have the bass pumping and just be around lots of people, I am going to lose my shit! I just want to go and dance in a sweaty, random place.

So let’s end with you telling us where we can get the book. 

You can get it on Apple books. Or go to any of The Phlunk‘s social media sites and there’s links everywhere on those.