Tom Hickox’s long-awaited third album, The Orchestra of Stories, delivers exactly what its title promises: a rich tapestry of human narratives, brought to life with grand ambition and intricate detail. Emerging from a period of personal upheaval, Hickox elevates his celebrated storytelling through a cinematic sweep of songs brimming with drama and poignancy. From The Clairvoyant - a mariachi-flavoured tale of a widower deceived by a fraudulent psychic - to The Failed Assassination of Fidel Castro, which recasts a doomed CIA mission turned love affair, Hickox’s gift for unearthing and reimagining stories from a wide range of sources blossoms here, each song revealing a universal truth that resonates long after the final note has rung out.
The day before the release, Tom provided Frontview Magazine with some nice information about his new album.
Are you still living in London? If yes, can this place also be an inspiration for your stories? (also on this album?)
“Yes. I've lived in London for most of my life. London is certainly an inspiration, but probably to be more accurate it's the people in it. Man on the High Road is inspired by someone in my local community who I saw on the street repeatedly over a period of years. I began to see him as a kind of Greek chorus figure observing me and the rest of society.”
How does a song arise in your mind? First an observation, images, music?
“A song can come from any angle. The only thing that matters is finding the first good idea. It can be a story, a lyric, a melody, a chord progression... There are so many different ways in, but the only thing that counts is making sure you're starting with something brilliant. Once that's been found, then the rest usually comes quite naturally. The hard thing is sowing the first quality seed into the ground.”
What’s the general meaning behind the album title?
“The title was for a long time the working title that I felt summed up the body of work, and eventually it just felt like it couldn't be anything else. I always had an intention of making storytelling the heart of this album, and once I'd completed the arrangements and they were so heavily orchestrated, it was the only title that made sense.”
Can we say you are creating in every song a little world? (your world, vision)
“Yes! I've always loved inhabiting other characters in my songs and creating the worlds for those characters to exist in. And then painting musical pictures to add the right colour to it all...”
There is a song where we hear the name Fidel Castro dropped, how did he get into the story?
“The initial idea came about when I discovered that the CIA failed to assassinate him 634 times! I became obsessed with finding out about these different attempts and eventually came across this one incident where they sent an operative called Marita Lorenz to seduce him and poison him in the bedroom. All that happened was that he ended up seducing her and they began a love affair and she never went through with it. So it's actually just a love story, but written from her point of view about a very famous character from history.”
I recognize 80s synthesizers in the song, OMD sounds. Also a fan of synth music?
“Well I love beautiful instruments. And synthesisers, particularly the old ones, can be as beautiful sounding as any.”
How did the idea, of putting ‘The Whole of the Moon’ by the Waterboys on the album, come about? Did you want to trigger and specific feeling with your unique interpretation?
“It's a song I've always wanted to cover because I love it - the freedom in the performance, the magical abandon of the lyrics... I wasn't sure when we recorded it that it would be on the album but ultimately it just felt like it belonged more in the album than out, and that it felt right to include it in the final cut.”
'Game show' is about social media, a story about the big world (Trump,....) but also about ourselves? How we mislead?
“It's a song about the inescapable deal we all to have to make with ourselves if we want to exist in the modern world. It is almost impossible to avoid leaking private data online, and particularly if your work is in any way connected with the web. So this song is about the nature of the data we leak in a very personal way, but then connecting that with how that data can be used to very dark political ends if it ends up in the wrong hands (which of course it always does). That's the game we all play.”
Nice ‘Game Show’ video! The moving cameras in the video remind me of the walking hammers in Pink Floyd's vdieo “Another Brick in the Wall. Who did create?
“The very, very talented animator and director that is Broken Antler.”
Tell me a little more about the story of ‘The Shoemaker’, it captures the imagination anyway. My friend's father was once a shoemaker in the 60’s and we talked a lot about his store.
“The song was inspired by meeting the maverick shoemaker Jason Amesbury whom I met playing cricket against (sorry, not the most Belgian of sports!). I got to know him a little but never well, and his fascinating character was the seed behind the song, a kind of imagined perspective on his life. The song then shapeshifts into something much more personal but I retain his voice to articulate that.”
‘The Shoemaker’ sounds very cinematic, what is your favourite soundtrack/movie of all time?
“Argh, such a difficult question! If I can only choose 1 soundtrack, then I think it has to be Nino Rota's score for The Godfather. Perfection.”
The song ‘Roy and Eve’ has to do with the painter Roy Turner. And can also a painting inspire you for a story?
“Well that song is written about the relationship between my grandmother Eve Sheldon-Williams (also an artist) and the painter Roy Turner-Durrant. They never ever met, but they had an affair through letter writing that lasted over 20 years. So it's a song about obsession and fantasy in which the art is just the conduit. But yes, a painting could totally inspire me to write a song, and some of the old renaissance paintings which are so full of life and character would be a great starting point!”
Any plans to tour in Europe?
“Yes! Hope to announce some plans soon!”
Release Album April 25th
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