Ed Nash: "The plan is not to have a plan"

Ed Nash - formerly of Toothless, currently of Bombay Bicycle Club, and now also of Ed Nash - is branching out with a new solo venture under his own name. Billed as more personal than ever before, it's a proper DIY venture: home studio, no label - the works. While it wasn't born from lockdown, the quieter-than-planned months since his band's in-hindsight-pretty-prophetic pre-lockdown album 'Everything Else Has Gone Wrong', have been a great help in developing not only his new batch of songs, but in rediscovering his joy for music.

Hi Ed, how's it going? What are you up to today? Hey, thanks for having me back. All things considered, it's going pretty well with me. I'm super excited to get this new music of mine out and start a new musical chapter. Today is looking pretty similar to all the other days over the past six months. I've got a small studio set up at home, which is where I've been spending most of my time, either working on new music or just playing guitar for the fun of it. After years of playing in bands, the joy of just playing kind of went away, so it's great to have it back. What can you tell us about your new music plans? I've got a bunch of songs recorded and ready to go now. The plan is kind of not to have a plan, just put up the songs I'm happy with when they're finished and see what happens. No label, everything recorded at home by me, totally DIY. When did you start working on these tracks? Did it begin as a lockdown project? I'm very happy to say this isn't a lockdown project and is something that has been in the pipeline for years now, lockdown just provided the impetus for me to get going with it. After I released my first solo record, I kept writing songs with the idea of putting out a follow-up album. During that time, we got Bombay back together, which took up most of my time, but I kept writing any chance I had with the idea of doing something whenever Bombay got quiet. With the pandemic making this year's touring plans impossible, I jumped right back into doing my own stuff again. Some of the songs I will put out are three years old, some were written in the past few weeks! What else have you been up to over the past few months? I've been trying to learn skills that will make me as self-sufficient as possible going forward. Like I said before I want everything to be as DIY as possible... I did an online graphic design course at the start of lockdown, so I would be able to do my own record covers and merch instead of relying on someone else. I love that I can just come up with an idea and follow it through without waiting around. Aside from working on this project I've fallen for all the obvious lockdown activities, I've been baking sourdough and growing vegetables... basically living like a retired hippy.