Name: Patrick Fitzgerald
Occupation: Songwriter/Doctor
Nationality: Hmmm. Mum Swiss, Dad Irish.
Recent release: The new Stephen Hero album Convalescence is out via Last Night From Glasgow Limited.

Artist statement before reading this interview: I’m answering these questions with the proviso that my opinion is as worthless as anyone else’s. If you want to read about music, maybe read Ian Penman’s essays and books? He may not be always right but he’s always entertaining and his writing beautiful.
I mostly listen to radio 3, even after the changes they made. This limits me. Listen to young people’s music. I try.
Why am I still writing songs? What have I got left to ask? What haven’t I answered in the 200 odd songs already written? Is it in the hope that a flourish will provoke a Eureka! And my searches will not have been in vain? Or is it, really, that an old man relies on the groove he has repeatedly furrowed, in the hopeless pursuit of a fresh crop? That said, here are some answers to your Qs.

If you enjoyed this Stephen Hero interview and would like to stay up to date with his music and upcoming live performances, visit him on Facebook, and bandcamp.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects, and colours. What happens to you physically when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I don’t have any synaesthesia skills.

For me, music is on most of the time. Radio, records, playing instruments. Rather than seeing things, I guess I’m after the sensation of feeling moved – brought as close to intensity as possible. Not just sadness; a quest for depth of feeling. If I find that moment, I will lean back into it, eyes open or closed.

Some pieces can do this consistently: from Cocteau Twins “Circling Girl” …



... to Shostakovich’s 5th symphony. Last night I watched his first cello concerto and it seemed to be a hard arrow straight into my heart. Ouch.



Other pieces only move me when I’m in the mood, as life provides too many distractions. The difficulty of concentrating in this noisy head.

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

Best not to explain too much here – some of these delight, some infuriate!

Frying onions; blackbird and robin song – complex and wild; descending aeroplanes – we are under a flight path – will they pass? Will they fall?; truck tyres in the rain; pianos – always pianos – whenever there’s a clip on social media I will stop scrolling to listen; kids on trampolines (are they going to break a leg??); splashing; washing machine on spin cycle; the rapid beeping when the crossing light turns green.

When did you start writing and producing music - and what or who were your early passions and influences?

I’ve written songs from a young age, perhaps in an attempt to become Elton John.

His album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy caught me at a formative time (age 10) and is in my DNA.



From there a skip through 70s prog rock, to punk, to post punk – Magazine in particular – to Talking Heads and the gateway then to soul/funk/jazz.

A Billie Holliday album with “I Thought About You” on it.



A Nina Simone album with “My Man’s Gone Now.”



Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Those 70s artists that had an amazing runs of albums: Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bowie, Led Zeppelin.

What are the most important tools and instruments you're currently using?

My Schimmel upright piano. Soft pedal on, so as not to disturb the neighbours. It is my absolute favourite instrument. I record it acoustically and then take this into the studio to work on. In the studio it’s Logic Pro and far too many plugins.

The most important tool is perhaps playing the recordings back quietly, so as to listen harder. Does this piece work? Is it doing what I thought it would do? What’s missing? What can I take out? That’s the hardest one!

I’m not a natural producer. I struggle to stand back from what I’ve done, to hear it properly. I make records by persistence, graft, fury, and finally thinking I can’t make it any better.

I am also fond of my Fender Strat, a pair of valve Drawmer compressor/EQs. And Soundtoys. Anything and everything made by Pendle from Sound Dust.

Many songwriters have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

Oh it’s well out of my control. I don’t understand the process at all.

I play motifs over and over until they are right. What on earth makes them right? I have no idea. I follow an idea, and these days I follow it with more patience and intensity. Yes, that bit works, but what if you tried something else here? And then follow that.

I often feel like an observer in the process. I tend to listen more now to classical music which makes me push myself to expand a line – well if that works, what about taking it up a tone, a 4th, a 6th? What about changing the bass line more often? What about the bass staying still? How does that feel?

But why I feel the tune works I couldn’t say – does it match some inner template? Well if it did I wish it would match a more successful one!

Which albums or artists do you love specifically for their sound?

I probably listen to words and chords more than specific sounds.

But things I do love for their sound would include: John Coltrane’s saxophone, Nina Simone’s very particular way of playing piano, Shirley Bassey’s astonishing voice, the intricacy of John Barry film scores, the shimmer and spangle of Cocteau Twins guitar and voice and how those two blend, Tangerine Dream synthesizers.

I will also happily watch piano players on youtube: Emil Gilels, Martha Argerich, Tatiana Nikolayeva playing Shostakovich’s preludes and fugues. 



There can be sounds that feel highly irritating to us, and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

It depends how much attention I give to these things. Like people playing their music on phones on public transport? I’ve given up worrying about this. Record these noises on Koala app, see what I can do by looping this mayhem. Got some great shouting on the train which I looped into a percussive track.

I moved to the countryside as I couldn’t cope with city noise anymore. Once sensitised it’s hard to stop hearing certain sounds. Out here it isn’t quiet – but there are fewer machines to make a racket.

Conversely, I remember staying in this hotel in rural Italy, our room right by a stream. A hot night meant open windows and by the morning the delight of the stream had turned into torture.

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

I’m always happy to listen to the sounds inside large echoey places like cathedrals/halls/car parks. Reverberation intrigues me. The old wooden waiting room at our local train station has a particular sound to it, and it seems to amplify whispers. It’s not necessarily pleasant, but it is intriguing!

I do have an aversion to some machines. Washing machine whizz, fridge hum, television ads. Hard to tune out. Other machines give great joy. Drum machines!

What are among your favourite spaces in which to record and perform your music?

I’m happy performing anywhere. I do have a fantasy of playing entirely acoustically in a highly reverberant space that mimics all the electronics and foot pedals we use.

I wonder about a time when electricity has run out, and rather than a return to barbarism, we write acoustic music for highly reverberant spaces. That might be the title of my next record.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

I wish I had that sense.

No, it’s an invisible sensation to me. And I delight in that.

How important is sound for our overall well-being, and to what extent do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment reflects its overall health?

There’s distressing research on the effect of noise on people’s well-being.

I am so fortunate to live in relative quiet. Urban planners need to be much more concerned with the impact noise has on our lives. Intrusive and truly maddening.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard, and if you suffer from these or similar issues, how do you cope with them?

I have tinnitus from playing recklessly loud when I was younger. Now I wear hearing aids when in noisy places. I don’t wear them in the studio yet but that moment is approaching. My partner is severely hearing impaired so there’s a lot of signing/shouting in our house!

Last night we went to see the BBC Philharmonic play. During loud passages I get distortion now in my right ear. Which means I have a hearing aid in the left ear and an ear plug in the right. The joys of ageing!

I still go to concerts because I love the drama of the orchestra.

We can surround ourselves with sound every second of the day. The pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself, and what importance does silence hold?

It’s about paying attention, isn’t it? To stop thinking and start listening.

Daily dog walks give me time to listen to the trudging, to the gloop of mud, to use Merlin app to find out which bird is singing which song. To hear how the wind interrupts. To still the noise inside.

I never wear headphones when out walking in the countryside. I love to hear the sounds. I wear headphones where there are machines – trains, cars, hospital waiting rooms.

The shift from analogue to digital recording technology has given recording artists and composers a great deal of freedom and autonomy. Having worked for some of your career in analogue, is there anything from that era you miss or that you feel digital lacks?

Recording was costly in the analogue days; you were also able to spend more intensive time with other people to get the songs and recordings right, rather than working in isolation in my own studio. There was also a deadline, which made you work faster and harder.

The one thing I miss most is not working with a producer – someone with an outside ear to help identify issues, to offer some guidance that, say, this part might work better over in that section, and how about taking that sound out as it isn’t adding anything. Instead, it takes months and months having to work it out for yourself. Cheaper though!

Digital versus analogue otherwise doesn’t interest me – use the tools at hand.

With more and more musicians creating than ever and more of these creations being released, what does this mean for you as an artist in terms of originality? Who are some of the artists and communities that you find inspiring in this regard?

New music is vital to me but I find it harder to find.

Years ago, there was the paper music press like NME and Melody Maker alongside evening radio 1 to help you navigate. Now there’s such a huge volume of new music with thousands of tracks uploaded daily, and trying to sift your way through to something exciting takes more of an effort.

I’m always looking for new ways of writing/composing. Records that have inspired me recently include: Stubbleman’s The Ventoux Trilogy, Constant Follower’s The Smile You Send Out …, These New Puritan’s Crooked Wing, Young Father’s Heavy Heavy to name but a few.

Despite whatever evil streaming has done to music, it doesn’t seem to have stopped people trying to express ourselves this way.



Working with experimental cellist and composer Semay Wu has also given me new experiences of contemporary composition. A very good challenge to get me to examine my rigid songwriting ways.

The records that the Another Timbre label put out are a great way of hearing new composer’s work.