FVMusicBlog

Photo: Coor Brow-Obles

We were fortunate enough to catch up with Coor Brow-Obles, following the brilliant release ‘Greedo (I Still Believe in Love)’. Enjoy the full interview below.

‘Greedo (I Still Believe in Love)’ is such an evocative title — can you tell us the story behind it and what inspired the track?

The song came about after my first year of university. Just before I started, I’d gone through a breakup that I didn’t take well. I went into an awful spiral of self-destruction, but the university gave my life some structure, and I really threw myself into music to heal/cope with everything. I didn’t have a solid home base at the time as a result of my behaviour, so my best friend, who I was in a band, let me stay at his for a couple of weeks to chill and write.

While there, I bought myself a new guitar (a red Telecaster with an RAF sticker on it, which I’ve since sold), and to celebrate, we had a whole day of drinking and playing. By the end, he was shattered and went to bed, but I was in the groove. So, while he slept, I kept playing and, at one point, started thinking about why I didn’t like Ed Sheeran! I realised it was because of this palm mute habit he has that I found annoying and thought, “Anyone can do that!” So I started doing it with some random chords to take the piss and stumbled on the chord progression. I added in the little run down, and the song practically wrote itself. I just heard the words in my head as I played the chorus especially.

For the verses, I have a wealth of random lyric pieces scattered through my notebooks and phone notes. I’m at my most creative at night and during depressive moments (which tend to coincide regularly), so post-breakup, I had a goldmine of couplets and verses to sift through and piece together.

By morning, I had the song finished and ready to present to my friend, who, as a piano player, hated it since I hadn’t used any chords less complicated than a minor 7th! That was unintentional. I wouldn’t say I have an extensive chord vocabulary. I just know what I like the sound of, which can be a headache for a piano player… and every band I’ve worked with since.

You describe this as a Saudade song — a word that holds a lot of emotional weight. How does that bittersweet feeling shape the lyrics and sound of the single?

I think it came about because the song was written in several different parts, between the lyrics and the music. The song itself is in D Lydian, and the Lydian scale is considered quite bright since it’s a major scale. But rather than being happy-go-lucky, Lydian feels ethereal and introspective. I think that influenced what lyrics I chose to go with it, probably subconsciously.

By that time, I’d recovered pretty well from the breakup, so it wasn’t as present in my writing. I think the progression (and maybe the alcohol) influenced me to revisit those feelings and give them a sense of closure.

The song was born from a breakup. Was writing ‘Greedo (I Still Believe in Love)’ a cathartic experience for you, or did it reopen old wounds in the process?

When you lose someone, whether in death or love, those feelings and memories can linger in you for far too long. Eventually, you hit that acceptance stage where you can move past it and let those experiences be a part of you rather than your personality. It’s like they always say it does get better. But you have to choose it! Emotions can be addictive.

Sadness has played a big role in my life, but I’ve always tried to make it beautiful when I can. Though admittedly, you don’t always get that choice. But I feel like with this song, I managed to find my acceptance, so in that way, yes, it was one of the healthiest and most cathartic experiences I’ve had.

This single features Estelle Mey and Ryan Sams (from Spinner and The Good’s Gone), Steve Moreham on violin and Emma Skiggs on bass. What was it like collaborating with them, and what did they bring to the song’s energy or production?

Estelle appears on a few songs on the album. I mean, when you have a resource like that voice, I’d be a fool not to use it! I just have to give her a few out-of-tune ideas of what I want, and she nails it perfectly. The only problem was trying to tame the rock in her voice for this song!

I chose Ryan especially for this track because he’s such a laid-back guy with a big Beatles background, and I really needed that feel. His playing has such an idiosyncratic nuance—I knew it’d be perfect.

Steve absolutely nailed his parts. He has years of experience, so it felt wrong to even direct him. We just gave him the song and let him rip like a Beyblade. I think the beautiful side of that saudade feeling comes from his playing.

Emma, I’ve worked with on quite a few songs. If she has one reliable quality, I know she’ll come up with a great bass line for anything I give her, as long as she’s given enough time, direction, and money.

Greedo (I Still Believe in Love) is part of your upcoming crowdfunded album Missi_g. What can listeners expect from the album as a whole? Is it thematically tied together, or more of a musical collage?

As much as I’d love to make a concept album (I “wrote” three as a teen), I haven’t had the time to tie anything concrete together. I committed myself a little late as a recording artist. I focused more on live shows since that’s the whole reason I wanted to be a musician in the first place, coming from a musical theatre background.

So I’m kind of playing catch up here, releasing songs people enjoyed live but couldn’t actually listen to. Then there were some extras I added because they were my “new magnum opus” or, in the case of The Rats, I was long overdue to release it properly. I’ve had the chorus to that one stuck in my head since I wrote it 13 years ago!

The project brings in a range of your musician friends. How did that idea come about, and what’s been the most surprising part of the collaboration process so far?

The idea comes from watching Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk on The Art of Asking years ago. As a teen still in the bedroom stage of recording music with an iRig, writing songs I’ve since forgotten, the idea that people would care enough to support you like that was amazing. It became a dream to release a crowdfunded album.

A couple of years ago, the timing felt right. I hadn’t released anything in a while, I had a backlog of songs, and I was riding a bit of local popularity. So I set out a bunch of plans (partly to ensure success, partly out of fear of failure) and got to work.

I could have done the album solo, sure. But I wanted it to be something special. I didn’t want it to be a vanity project. It was special to me, and whenever I have something good, I want to share it. One of my favourite sayings is: “A high tide raises all ships.” I wanted to raise some ships with me!

So, I made it a collaboration project. A way to work with local artists I’d wanted to team up with for ages and give the songs some real life.

The most surprising part (besides actually hitting the goal!) was talking to the Zac Schulze Gang, a really popular and busy band in the area, about the project, and Zac turning around and saying, “So when are you getting us on it?” I hadn’t even thought to ask them because 1) I didn’t think I could afford them and 2) I assumed they’d be too busy! But we found time, and it was great working with them. It probably would’ve been even better if it hadn’t been so early in the morning, but you can see in some of the clips from that session that we had fun.

The title Missi_g is intriguing — especially with the missing letter. What’s the significance behind that name, and how does it reflect the themes of the album?

Haha! So, for all my doom and gloom, I love a good joke, and the only thing better than a good joke is a bad one. I love a bit of wordplay. My first EP was called Going in Circles because we were called Turtle Circles (and we were going nowhere). The second was Bon Voyeur, a play on Bon Voyage and how we all became a planet of watchers during COVID-19.

This one’s a play on my own name.

The name Coor Brow-Obles is actually a bastardised version of Connor Brown-Nobles. I took the N’s out of my name as a joke when I was a kid during Lent. “I’m giving up N’s for Lent!” It was stupid, but I committed and changed it on Facebook… who then wouldn’t let me change it back. So when I added people, they only saw “Coor” and forgot my actual name, so they just started calling me that instead.

So Missi_g, being an album that’s more personal to me, my music, and my dream, needed a name that was… well… me. The “Missi_g N” is the missing. Maybe I’ll make another album in the future and call it “___N_.”

How has the crowdfunding journey shaped the way you approached this project — creatively, emotionally, or even logistically?

Logistics were the real issue. The engineer James Feist offered to do the album for a more than reasonable price, but on the condition that we’d record when he had free time in the studio. So I had to line up his schedule, mine, and all the necessary musicians, which is partly why it took so long to finish.

Emotionally, it’s been a rollercoaster. This album has been my entire focus morning, noon, and night for the last three years and will be for the next year as it rolls out. It’s taken its toll, like any big project. There were smiles and tears of frustration. But it all came together beautifully.

Creatively, it’s been amazing working with different artists and seeing how they work. I’ve learnt a lot, and it’s pushed me to pick up more instruments myself, just to help direct things better in the future.

I really had to push myself on some songs, like Not in Love, which has a choir and a key change that tested my music theory knowledge. I also got to write for instruments outside of guitar (my main instrument), like piano on Not in Love and Please Come, which was new territory for me, plus writing MIDI for violin and double bass.

From your perspective, where does ‘Greedo (I Still Believe in Love)’ sit in your evolution as a songwriter? Do you feel like this song marks a new chapter in your sound or storytelling?

That’s an interesting question. On the one hand, because the song was written roughly eight years ago, it’s further back on the evolutionary line than some would expect for a newly released song. It has the hallmarks of my songwriting from back then, so it’s sort of midway on the evolutionary line. But it was brought up to date in a way that makes me glad I didn’t record it for the first EP as planned. I wouldn’t have thought about introducing synths, or the violin, or even that jangly guitar part you can hear before the run-downs!

I think of this album more as the end of a chapter, though. I plan to move towards a more dream pop/shoegaze kind of sound in the future, which I think you can hear more in my last single, ‘Every Night’.

Finally, what do you hope listeners take away from ‘Greedo (I Still Believe in Love)’ —especially those who might be going through their own heartbreak right now?

I think the main thing to take away is, like I said earlier, it gets better. No matter what you’re going through, there will always be a time when you can find relief if you’re open to it. In terms of breakups, your time with that person may end, but there are billions of people in this world, and there’s every chance that you’ll find someone else to build new experiences and memories with. The only person you really need to focus on is you.

https://coorbrowobles.wixsite.com/tmprince
https://www.facebook.com/CoorBlimey
https://twitter.com/CoorBlimeyGuv
https://coorblimey.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/coor.blimey/

FVMusicBlog April 2025

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