The email read “…in addition to my day job in garden and landscape design I’m also a ‘vaguely competent’ musician” and “We have an album coming out on 13th June. We’re very proud of it, and would love to share it with you. It’s not rubbish. Honest.”
To our surprise, this is none other than Matthew Wilson – established garden and landscape designer, writer, radio & television broadcaster, lecturer and regular panellist on BBC Radio 4s Gardeners’ Question Time.
Based in Rutland, Wilson runs a landscape and design studio, working for domestic and corporate clients in the UK and Europe. His work has been featured in numerous publications and in 2016, he was the winner of the People’s Choice Award at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Unknown to many in the horticulture industry, this garden designer also has musical talents. Wilson has been playing the guitar since he was 16 and has been part of many bands since in the 80s and 90s. Talents which Wilson – along with five band mates, have now cemented by forming an indie-folk-rock band, called The Lokeys. Set for June this year, the Lokeys are launching their debut album, ‘At Terminal Velocity’, the first single of which will be released in March.
According to Wilson, it started out as a group of friends playing their favourite music, citing Van Morrison and Waterboys as influences. “Gigs followed, in gardens and churches, underneath leaky pergolas and at local festivals” and soon original material began to surface. Behold, Rutland’s premier 6 piece guitar based band formed, with Wilson as lead vocalist on rhythm guitar, Chris Gregory on guitar, Nino Nico on keyboards, Thomas Heath drums and percussion , Tom Bingham on bass and vocals by Ellie Bingham.
Recorded last year, most of the songs on the album were written over four years, explained Wilson. A few originate from older albums, when they were part of different bands in the 80s and 90s. A team effort, Wilson wrote five of the songs on the album, Heath two and Nico and Gregory one each. Ellie Bingham (Tom Bingham’s daughter) is a classically trained choral singer, contributing vocals to five songs on the album, and wrote her own vocal harmonies and counter harmonies.
“The songs are quite diverse, but are mostly written from our perspective. We are five middle aged men and one twenty something woman – these are not songs of esoteric concepts, these are songs of the reality of life,” explained Wilson.
When asked how he combines a full time job as a garden and landscape designer, he said: “We all have day jobs aside from our bassist, Tom, who took early retirement and is currently travelling the world with his wife (but has promised to return for the album launch and gigs). So evenings and weekends are when we do most of our band related stuff, although we all took time off to make the record. I think having another creative outlet really helps with the day job. Aside from the mental stimulation and the sense of doing something different it all adds fuel to the creative fire. I remember Beth Chatto telling me the best gardeners are the ones who are passionate about music, art, architecture, etc.”
The Lokeys are set to the launch their debut album at a concert at Uppingham Town hall on the 14th of June, with the promise of “further dates to follow soon”.
Bon chance Lokeys!