Like escaping the crime scene on a unicycle, Isaac Neilson brings all the gusto of a deranged axe murderer haplessly floundering to preserve the integrity of a ming vase on a ski slalom to the indie rock genre. Isaac cut his teeth in studios, working with a multitude of talented artists, slowly unravelling the mythical craft of songwriting. Now striking out on his own, Isaac plans to forge his own path whilst writing his own indie rock ‘n’ roll saga. Indeed, his latest single ‘Tear This Down’ is three minutes of driving guitars and Neilson’s trademark effortless vocal range. The first track in which Neilson hasn’t exclusively done everything himself, it earmarks a definite step-up in his musical output.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Hello Isaac Neilson. What first got you into music?
My parents exposed me to a myriad of guitar music as a child, and I absorbed influences like fuel prices absorb the optimism of a nation, but it wasn’t until around the age of 6 or 7 that I felt the inescapable grip of a singular band, AC/DC.
I obsessively watched my mums VHS copy of Live at Donnington, if I recall correctly, it was a short time after attending my first rock gig of their tribute act Live Wire that I asked for a guitar.
About a week before my 8th Birthday, we visited the local creaky music shop, whose speciality was the resale of plastic music bags for schools, and found the least terrible £50 guitar available to facilitate an eight year olds sudden desire to jangle strings. A crappy Rikter acoustic with an action higher than Snoop Dogg, and intonation matched only by Lez Dawson, opened up a world of possibilities that rendered me hypnotised like a cat with a string on a stick.
What do you think your role is in this world?
It seems to me so far that my compulsion is to create. This isn’t necessarily exclusive to musical disciplines, but where I feel I most competently and comfortably operate. I’m a fairly curious person, so having songwriting and musicality as a conduit to figure out myself and the world I exist in is quite a satisfying loop to exist within.
Your latest track is 'Tear This Down'. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?
The fragments that became Tear This Down first came into existence at a friend's flat at about 3 in the morning after a night out. I think there was a brief acoustic jam in which I came up with the basic chord structure, so when everyone went back to getting smashed, I carried on strumming and humming in the corner to a voice note until I had the skeleton of a track. Other than it conceptually being about moving on and dealing with baggage, I’m not entirely sure exactly what’s going on in the song.
This is the first track I’ve worked with a team on, so it was a HUGE learning experience for me. I slapped together a demo of the track by myself as usual, which me and my producer Matt Taylor then rebuilt from the ground up at ARC Studios in Oxford. It was then mixed by Cameron Craig, and mastered by Katie Tavini.
Having people of GRAMMY award winning calibre working on your tracks is really illuminating, it makes you know you’re the bottleneck in the process. I mean it’s not likely that people with a multitude of hit records under their collective belt are gonna be the ones to stop something doing well… Having that perspective of hearing the end product compared to the faint whirring in my head of the imagined finish line has helped me refine my process, as well as figure out the weaknesses in my craft.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
Steaming your vegetables retains more nutritional value than boiling them - and it tastes better too! And while you’re steaming please give me a streaming for Tear This Down. If you like what you hear, follow me on Spotify to get the next track jangled at you when it drops, and follow my socials at @isaacneilson00 for updates, general shmuckery, and live gig stuff (Insta/Facebook).
How do you spend your time?
Apart from being in a perpetual state of shmucking around, I tend to spend most of my time submerged in music in one way or another, be it gigging, recording, or writing. Discovering a love of writing has been the greatest thing for me because it’s something I can do anywhere, anytime, in any situation and manner of being. Be it completely internalised in a more introspective deliberate capacity without an instrument, or entirely external and spontaneous where playing an instrument delivers possibilities from the void… I enjoy the duality of that I suppose, because when one doesn’t work, the other might offer me a hint.
I also produce quite a lot of demos, which is fairly consuming, but other than that… I enjoy going to the gym, going to open mic nights to test ideas while hearing new people, and binging YouTube when I really shouldn’t.
What are you most proud of?
I’m not entirely sure, I find the feeling of pride tends to be quite fleeting for me. And that’s probably for the best. But at this moment, the recording of my next single ‘Dead Set Dance’ is probably it. It’s the first time that the idea in my head is close to what’s been put down on tape, and I actually like how I sound on it. Which hasn’t happened before… I really feel like it’s genuinely a strong song, it’s got good musicality, has an interesting concept, and doesn’t feel derivative. I feel like I’m starting to find a ‘voice’ with this one.
If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
Living, Radiohead. Dead, Mac Miller, or The Beatles, if you count partially… I don’t feel like I’m especially a good fit for either, so I’d probably be better for someone like The Libertines who I really love too, but I feel a deep connection with those artists, so that’d do it for me.
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as an artist?
Don’t ever become content with your ability. Don’t ever think you’re there yet. Don’t ever think that you deserve anything intrinsically. Don’t ever believe you’re close to what you could be. Surround yourself with good people who call out your bullshit, and keep that selection small. Compare your finished work to your work that came before it, and your current work to your contemporaries and inspirations. See the success of your peers as motivation, not resentment. Trust in the path.
I tell myself that, and keep reminding me. But I don’t necessarily believe that I’d change my mindset if I were pursuing anything else, being a better artist is just trying to be a better person in my mind.
Do you think that technology is improving lives?
Yes. It is our relationship with technology, and our attitude towards implementing them which causes problems. It has been this way throughout all periods of history where paradigm shifts have taken place.
Social media is obviously the most topical tech issue at the moment so why not take a dig… Humans are not at all evolved to be connected to such a great amount of people, with varying layers of depth. The problem is that social media algorithms are designed to manipulate your attention for screen time, which equals ad revenue, and that division generates the most screen time - hence the vast amount of political outrage on social channels. People just need to be informed on these subjects so they can make their own choice on how to enjoy them, or not, in a way they feel is healthy. The digital age is in its infancy, so we haven’t figured out how to adapt yet, but economic agendas exist in opposition to educating about this, so we’ll see how it pans out I suppose.
What are your plans for the future?
My plan is to keep writing, recording, performing, and hope that people like what I do enough for me to not need to do anything else. I’d also like to become a hairdresser or two, yeah - two hairdressers I think.