BANNERS’ captivating new album ‘All Back to Mine’ has twelve positive, hopeful tracks that will have you reflecting on your life and reaching for the phone to tell your support system you love them.
Stream: ‘All Back to Mine’ – BANNERS
Every day, when we wake up, we’ve all got this very clean slate. You have this opportunity to make people’s days better or to make them worse, by everything that you do… I think my opportunity to do that is with music.
BANNERS (aka Michael Nelson) did what the brave tend to do: He followed his dreams.
He chased them all the way to Canada where he spent seven years turning those dreams into a reality. But after a long time spent away from the place he called home, the English indie-pop singer-songwriter has found his way back to Liverpool. On April 19th, he released, All Back To Mine – a reflection upon this time in his life and the very human experiences that have come along with his homecoming.
Filled with upbeat and vibrant tracks, All Back To Mine reminds people that life is precious. Whether you are supporting the people you care about such as in the track “Name In Lights,” or falling madly in love like in “Have You Ever Loved Someone,” BANNERS touches on it all. The album truly is a soundtrack to your best life, highlighting every aspect of what makes it worthwhile – love, friendship, family and home.
“What I really love about albums particularly, is they are such a snapshot of your life in that moment when you are writing it and recording it,” BANNERS tells Atwood Magazine.
“It’s almost like if you were to go back through a diary from 10 years ago, or even a time capsule I suppose, of where you were right then and exactly in the world, and where you were emotionally. It’s like a very fleshed out diary.”
Written and recorded over nine months, All Back to Mine shines with BANNERS’ brilliant artistry.
He explains that when he started making music in his early career, sometimes he felt like he did what other people expected him to do or what he thought other people would like to hear. But this time around, knowing and feeling confident about the type of music he wants to make and the artist he has become, he did what he enjoyed and liked. This is the album’s superpower, his authenticity and genuineness.
A prime example of this shows within the final track on All Back To Mine: “All That You Made Me” was recorded in one take. When asking BANNERS why he made that decision, he shares, “It can be really easy now with music to try to take out every little imperfection, and everything starts to sound too shiny and not human anymore. You take every little bit out. So, we just wanted to see what would happen if all the imperfections stayed in, all the little bits.”
Through the soft piano and slower acoustic vocals, the imperfections are what make this song so breathtakingly beautiful and wholesome – adding in a sense of truth not many albums have nowadays.
“I wasn’t like, ‘Right. Now, I’m going to sit down and write an album about this particular experience,’” BANNERS says. “I think you just become inspired. Don’t you? By the places that you are and the people that you’re with. Instead of going, ‘This is what this album is narratively about,’ it’s just about that because this is where I am.”
BANNERS has this deep understanding of how human experiences and the people you meet along the way in life mold you into the individual you are, which becomes a strong theme throughout All Back To Mine.
He even ended up recording a lot of this album with some of his dearest friends on Isle of Lewis at Black Bay Studio. During part of their time on Isle of Lewis, one of his friends was filming him walking along a pier by the studio. BANNERS had thought if he unexpectedly fell into the water, it would be funny and make his friend laugh. So, he did just that. Having succeeded at making his friend laugh, BANNERS smiles. “Maybe that’s just how you got to live. If it will make one of your best friends feel good for five minutes, then go through the horrible pain of jumping into the Atlantic in February.”
Life is all about what you make of it – the shots you take, the people you meet, the dreams you go after and everything in between. Each day you have the chance to do something entirely different. The question is, “How are you going to live your life today?”
“Every day, when we wake up, we’ve all got this very clean slate,” BANNERS says. “You have this opportunity to make people’s days better or to make them worse, by everything that you do. So, if you hold the door open for somebody, then you just made their day a tiny little bit better. We all have this accumulative ability, when we go to bed at night, to have made it a little bit better.”
“I think everyone has that chance. People that are cool take it all the time. There are clearly people out there that do not take that opportunity. But I think if we all do, then we all end up with a world that’s loads better. In a way, it’s quite simple. I think my opportunity to do that is with music really.”
When asking BANNERS what he hopes people take away from this album, it was no surprise when he smiled and said, “I just hope it makes people’s day a tiny little bit better.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside BANNERS’ All Back to Mine with Atwood Magazine as he takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his latest album!
All Back to Mine is out now via Nettwerk Music Group.
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:: stream/purchase All Back to Mine here ::
:: connect with BANNERS here ::
Stream: ‘All Back to Mine’ – BANNERS
:: Inside All Back to Mine ::
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All Back to Mine (album)
I lived away from home for a little while. Quite a long time actually. Sometimes life is happening somewhere else and that’s where you need to go. Sometimes you need to go so that you can come back. And then being back is the greatest gift you could ever be given. This album is the sound of me being back. Back with my friends and family. The most inspiring people in the most inspiring place. I think mainly this is the sound of me being happy, knowing that I’m in the place that I’m supposed to be.
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Name In Lights
I really love this song so you should know that if you don’t love it too then I’m going to take it really badly. And I think you’re great at your job so….This song is like supporting a football team. Supporting your people and not asking for anything back from them. Just total belief. You’re gonna turn up when they’re doing their thing and you’re gonna be the last one clapping when they’re done.
Have You Ever Loved Someone
The type of love that pulls you in every direction where you don’t know which way is up and which way is down. Where you don’t know how you’re gonna put yourself back together enough to go and be a real person doing real person things. How everything has changed and it feels amazing.
Anywhere For You
Life is a journey and it’s going to have its ups and downs. No relationship is simple and nothing worth doing is ever easy. Sometimes you have to let someone know that you’re going to be there through it all. I decided to do that in a song but feel free to just actually tell someone to their face if you’re not cripplingly shy like me. I’m hiding behind big strings and dramatic drums here but you do you. A phone message might be a nice compromise.
In Your Universe
You know that thing where you’re so intoxicated with someone that knowing they’re in the world makes the world better. The thought of seeing them again is all you think about all day. When they walk into a room it’s like all the lights come on at once and all you could ever need is to be near them? Well… that.
There Goes My Girl
All the best people don’t shout themselves from the rooftops. So sometimes you have to do it for them.
C’est La Vie
I wrote this song and pretty much every day since then it’s gotten stuck in my head. I once had a dream where it was the soundtrack to the dream. So there’s been no escape for me and now i’m inflicting it on you where it’ll be really stuck in your head. I’m so sorry.
The Best View In Liverpool
I live in a place that has loads of beautiful bits. Some of the beauty is the stuff you put on postcards and is recognizable all over the world. Some of it is the type of beauty that you’d only see if you were born here. But there’s nothing more beautiful than being with people you love. So the best view is wherever they are.
Broken Hearted
When you see “that” someone for the first time and your heart breaks into a million pieces and you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t go up to them and tell them. The drum fill into the 3rd chorus in this song is so silly, I absolutely love it.
Tell You I Love You
I suppose some songs are the culmination of years of thinking about the world and growing as a person. Declarations of the things that are fundamentally important to you and how you’d like to be remembered and judged down the years. And some are expressions of how you felt in a single moment. Right then. That’s what this song is. That moment you see that person for the first time and everything explodes and you have to tell them you love them. And maybe you won’t even feel like this tomorrow but who really cares? Because all the best things happen in the moment and if you don’t try then you’ll never know.
Life’s Just No Fun
I bought the piano of my dreams. Some strong men carried it up some stairs for me. Then when they went away I wrote this song on it. It’s about how life just isn’t as good when that one person isn’t in it. I really love Regina Spektor so much and I think this song is a bit Regina Spektor-y. I’m listening to it now and I think I might even put a little Regina Spektor accent on in one bit.
All That You Made Me
No one is anyone without other people. This is a song for the people that make you who you are. As a British lad, I find it a bit hard to tell people how much I care about them, so this is my way of doing it. I recorded this in one take which is a fun experience. You get to about 30 seconds from the end, realise you haven’t messed it up yet, and that’s when the urge to really ruin it kicks in. I really like this performance, it feels really honest.
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:: stream/purchase All Back to Mine here ::
:: connect with BANNERS here ::
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© Marieke Macklon
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