Joe Inman by Michaela Turner

Joe Inman, 16, is from Brixton in South London. He is a singer, guitarist and songwriter and is a contributor to Little Episode’s forthcoming book ‘Literature’s Long’ which brings together interviews & writing by teenagers and pop culture luminaries.

Tell us about your writing.

I’ve been trying to write a novel. But I’ve decided prose isn’t for me. I write music. My first ever song is called ‘Joe Gets Sly’ and as I wasn’t very musically adept I nicked the guitar riff from ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’ by Bob Dylan and put my own words to it. It was meant to be a suicide note. It was supposed to be the first and last thing I ever wrote and then I kind of failed and when I decided that it was all worth living for I just carried on. It’s always been my favourite but I rarely play it cause it’s a bit personal, but it’s a nice song and it’s a beautiful Bob Dylan song. It was the first Dylan record I ever owned – well, I didn’t own it my mum did – and she said to me when you can play and sing like Bob Dylan you can play and sing whenever and wherever you want around the house so I spent the next six months of my life trying to sing and play like Bob Dylan until I learnt the guitar to ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’.

Who are your musical influences?

Whenever people hear I’m a musician I always get ‘So what sort of music do you lot play?’ and I’m still stumped. I now say that it’s adolescent punk, mainly because my generation don’t listen to punk and it’s a nice easy answer in that they’ve heard of it but they’d never say ‘So are you more like The Damned or The Clash?’. I never get those questions I just get a sort of ‘Oh, ok…’ which is better. But influences… Badly Drawn Boy has always been a big one for me. I guess most of my influences have been from my dad. I now listen to an enormously wide variety of artists that my dad would never even accept as music but what we play never really gets past what I was taught was music by my father. So it’s Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, lots of Joy Division, a band called Magazine, lots of 80s stuff. Lyrically it’s always just been me, as in I’ve always wanted to write songs like the songwriters I love – I want to go and sit in a bar and talk to people and write mad albums like Tom Waits and stuff – but I’ve never done it.

Where do your lyrics come from?

Being told to fuck off by lots of girls. It mainly comes out of rejection from all sorts of things.

You have a diagnosis of autism?

Yeah. I hate this whole ‘labels’ thing. It’s just a way of categorising people, what you do with it is up to you. It’s not a get out clause at all. It’s just saying ‘these people are like this, we’re gonna name it something’. It’s silly to say ‘Autism is just a label’ in the same way as it would be to say ‘Cancer is just a label’ It’s only when people start arguing about whether it’s a get out clause or it’s a label that it gets bad connotations. If you care but you don’t know how to show it, the only way you know how to do it is through how your parents have related to you, through the media, how you see other people relate, how you see them in books, how you see them in films. By not knowing how to do it naturally or instinctively you have to copy, you have to make up this world in which you can find a way to do it. And that may make you come across as controlling but you’re not trying to control anyone else you’re just trying to control your own situation. And so I think one of the only things that I’ve really been inhibited by is the idea of a lot of people that I am cold, that what I feel is merely a manipulation, that it’s contrived.

What are you currently reading?

For A Level English, The Colour Purple [by Alice Walker], Wide Sargasso Sea [by Jean Rhys] and Maya Angelou’s poetry. But by myself, I’m reading ‘The Sandman’ by Neil Gaiman which is a graphic novel and it’s absolutely brilliant and fascinating. It’s based on that German fairytale of the Sandman who comes to you in the night, throws sand in your eyes and gives you nightmares.

What’s the appeal of graphic novels?

They’re like undiluted cinema. Graphic novels are one of the only sources of material which are still unpolluted by a fairytale look, or a Hollywood look. There have been some amazing Marvel Spiderman and Batman graphic novels. But my favourite will always be Watchman by Alan Moore and I’ll always think it’s the greatest book ever written (or drawn, it’s drawn by a guy called Dave Gibbons). Graphic novels have always been the perfect, purest medium to me.

What’s more important words or music?

I’d say I’m more of a lyricist than a music writer in my work, so it’s the lyrics. The music’s just a vehicle for the words. The music’s so you don’t get bored.

What are you currently working on creatively?

Currently we’re trying to record a demo. If anyone’s reading this and wants to get in touch with us…

The future?

My education is going towards being an engineer because it pays and I’m good at it. But musically, I’d love for it to be single income. I’d love to be able to sing ‘King Of My Floorboards’ at the top of my voice in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

Where are you from?

Brixton born and bred. I’ve always lived in Brixton. The music has always had a big effect on me. The first album I ever bought was London Calling by The Clash with ‘The Guns of Brixton’ – that was my awakening to where I lived.

What’s your favourite song lyric?

‘It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding’ by Bob Dylan:

“Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he’s not busy being born
He’s busy dying….
And if my thought-dreams could been seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only”

Hear Joe’s songs here: http://soundcloud.com/user1236955

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