Name: The 3 Clubmen
Members: Jen Olive, Stu Rowe, Andy Partridge
Nationality: British
Occupation: Multi-instrumentalist, producer, mixing- and mastering-engineer
Current release: The 3 Clubmen's self-titled debut EP is out via Lighterthief / Burning Shed.

[Read our Jen Olive interview]

If you enjoyed this Stu Rowe interview and would like to keep up to date with his music as part of The 3 Clubmen, visit the band on Instagram, and Facebook. Stu also has his own personal website.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I’m a tinkerer. I've always been fascinated by how music works. I've spent 45 years analysing music, scales, chords, rhythms, sounds, new technologies and the lives of musicians.

It’s been such a part of my life that I don't know where the boundaries lie any more between listening, playing, learning, producing and recording. If I pick up a guitar or play drums or bass, I’m generally just trying to work something out. To follow a line of thought. I’m fairly mathematical in my approach I suppose. 

It's only when I actually record the idea does it start to become something else. Very rarely do I get moved by the outside world to create anything. It’s mostly internal I suppose – just by what’s happening but also by who else is around. People inspire me. Their energy.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a visualisation of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

It's really almost always very close to 100 percent chance. Very little planning. If I plan it out it will sound like something that already exists, so I try to let my hand fall on the keys or guitar or bass and just go from there. Grab a random sample and play along. Maybe a scale idea or new chord, or a new effect.

I like working with other people, and attempt to persuade them to improvise as well - I feel our true character comes through in improvisation and that's what I try to capture. First take - there’s probably something in there worth persevering with.

So, I like to take an idea, let it run for a few minutes and then just play along on an instrument. Could be a drum, a bass or a guitar or on keys. Most will be rubbish but a good idea will often emerge somewhere. This can then be taken out, moved to the intro and becomes the next idea to improvise over. I have to cull an awful amount of stuff.

And I love recording other people improvising. I learnt this from working with the Future Sound of London on their albums The Isness, The Otherness and Alice in Ultraland. There’s a couple of tracks - “All is Harvest” and “The Prophet” which is really just me (and a lot of others) improvising and then Gaz and Brian chopped it up and rearranged into something completely different.



It opened a creative door in me and  I came back to Swindon and got to work developing that idea - I started recording everyone I knew and then sampling and resampling the ideas. “The Trumpet Player” was probably the first time I did a track that I liked by using improv as a starting point.



Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do; or create early versions?

No, I just start with a blank page and throw stuff. A beat. A guitar riff. A bassline. Maybe someone else’s' initial idea and then just add and move it around til it turns into something I like. Doesn't always happen.

I like reacting to stuff. Then I always do a mix every day of what I’ve done. There's often hundreds of different versions by the end but you can see how they evolve.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating?

I'm very naturally disorganised so It's good for me to have a routine ... I make sure I spend at least one creative hour every day where I switch everything else off and just play with whatever track I'm working on and experiment - sometimes I can do a lot more but the routine of “the hour” makes sure I’m always doing something every day.

What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Coffee is a great help! I did some psychotherapy training a few years ago and I found that I’d always be very creative after a therapy session. Meditation is good for me as well. The studio has to be reasonably tidy in order to get anything done. but it's often in chaos as well.

In an ideal world I can just pick up any instrument and it’s ready to record. I also feel better when I go for a walk. Creatives have been saying this stuff for hundreds of years and they were right! Took me a long time to realise it.

What do you start with?

Can be anything. A sample ... a riff. A chord ... I believe anything can be turned into a piece of music

How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

If I'm in the right place then it's easy. Just play a new chord ... there's a whole feeling in  there ...

I love studying theory, so there's always a new musical idea to mess around with. Or a new plugin or pedal to mess with.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

With the 3 Clubmen project, Andy and Jen provided all the lyrics. We’d start with a musical idea and then one of them would start with a vocal idea and then the answers would come - lyrically or musically. “Green Green Grasshopper” is a good example.



Jen played the guitar riff. I programmed the beat and played the bass. Andy came up with the verse and then Jen added the next bit, which was an  answer to Andy but in a negative manner. Very funny.

I’ve never really written lyrics. I ve worked with lots of lyricists though, and I just  let them say what they want to say. I just don't seem to have any need or urge to write lyrics, I don’t know why, it just doesn't really come through me that way.

It's amazing watching Andy write though - they just come through him like a guitar riff would.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

I would love to write songs really. There's a terrible cosmic blockage there somewhere that every now and again I attempt to overcome - make a promising start and then bury it very deep underground.

Once you’ve started, how does the work gradually emerge?

I just keep chipping away at them. If I like one, I'll just keep going at it every day ... trying stuff - just kneading it into shape until it becomes something I really love. Leaving it for weeks and then if its good it will come up through the swamp again.

Many writers 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 over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

There’s no plan or structure at all to any part of the process. A deadline can be good, but the ones I really like have had a kind of open-endedness to them, they’re done when they're done. When I just can’t bear to do anything else to them.

I m not really in control of it. I just kind of plod along with the idea. Almost alongside.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

The tracks meander in all kinds of directions. What I don't do is to keep alternative versions. I just go down an avenue and stay with it. Keep going.wherever it leads. I think keeping too many options open would mean continually going back and losing my way. Onwards!!

“Germ to Gem” on Andy and Peter Blegvad's album was like that.



It started on 010110. Andy had the idea of a winter choir and then we just built this kind of lolloping groove. Pete came down a few months later and read his lyrics into a mic and we dropped it on the top and it worked in a very perfect way.

Then it kind of grew as we went. Just following an idea through is its own reward.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally?

The one that makes sense is the “flow state” idea. We all have times when we can switch the brain off and just flow. Great sports players go there. The brain switches off and there's a kind of instinct that kicks in. You just know what to do.

Sometimes I can get there musically, but my brain is the enemy a lot of the time. Always processing, analysing, thinking. When I can let that go, I'm pretty good and very happy. Time stands still - it doesn’t really exist.

Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I suppose so. I meditate most days and try to make music from that place.

And I think improvisation is the easiest route into letting the real you out.  Individuation / selfing. Carl Jung was on to this as the way to peace.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

It's really when I can’t face it anymore or an external deadline comes in.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on?

I let em lie for ages. “Aviatrix” took 13 years.

Often I think they’re done and then I’ll hear something else that needs fixing. I like going to other people’s house and studios and listening to it with them.. When you're sat with someone else you just borrow their ears. My brothers have the toughest ears. If the track sounds good to them, then it’s pretty close.

Andy Partridge's kitchen is another place that my “brilliant” mixes have suddenly revealed themselves to be dreadful.

How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you’re satisfied with a piece?

Oh, its terrible - years and years of messing.

What does this process look like in practise?

An old man staring at a screen and listening to music - moving a mouse slightly - getting up - walking about - making a coffee- make some phone calls. Reading a book - scrolling Instagram - finding a new YouTube tutorial (today on the guitar styles of Freddie Greene) - playing some drums. sitting down again and making another very small change, - and repeat- etc ..

What’s your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

That bit is the bit I love - it' all of it for me.

The whole thing - I start mastering about 5 minutes in. As soon as a sound is recorded, I start adding eq and compression and effects.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I love the sense of peace I have once it's done. Contentedness - but it doesn't last very long til the urge comes to start again.

But it's lovely when there's a little bit of peace and time to do normal things.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee?

Yes, creativity can be in everything we do but I suppose we all have different interests. Someone who’s a professional coffee maker is gonna take a damn site more care than i do. In fact, my coffee making skills are terrible. Sloppy and careless.

However I find it hard to go into flow state on many things. There's lots of things that we can’t be assed with and some that we can, so try to spend as long as you can on what you love doing. My minds always thinking of more pressing things I should be doing - so it's hard to concentrate in anything for any length of time

What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more mundane tasks?

Music expresses time in the most beautiful way. The slicing up of a small period of your life into the most meaningful thing you can make just using different noises. It's very odd how it's so moving to so many of us.

As an artist you can put your feelings into it in a way that’s just so immediate, It’s coming out of you in real time. Its different from making a painting or writing a book,, it's just more exciting - it's happening now at the speed you choose as an artist and not the speed of the reader. You can look away from a painting, but sound is there - it’s around you. It’s happening to you without you doing anything about it.

And as an artist you have to respect that listener. They’re giving you 15 secs / 3 minutes / an hour of their precious time. You should respect that and try to give em something great that’s a perfect length. Make something as good as you possibly can.