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“I Took Time Out And Lived A Bit”: The Return Of Maverick Sabre

It took four days of soul searching for Maverick Sabre’s difficult second album to write itself…

Coached by the likes of Professor Green and Plan B, Maverick Sabre’s first album Lonely Are The Brave garnered him comparisons to artists as diverse as Antony Hegarty and Amy Winehouse. His quick but softly spoken tongue has been resting for the last couple of years, so we called him up ahead of his new album release, to find out where he’s been.

MTV UK: It’s been a day of interviews for you today. Do you find that you get asked the same questions over and over again?

Maverick Sabre: You do, but you know, I understand. You can understand why they need to repeat themselves, but others you think need a bit more work.

MTV UK: What’s the best interview question you’ve ever been asked? Other than that one…

Maverick Sabre: An interviewer read out a passage from one of my songs, a couple of lyrics, and said, ‘I really like these lyrics, explain them to me’. That was a nice question, because it came from a place where he had actually listened to the tunes, written down the lyrics that he liked and wanted me to explain my thoughts behind writing them.

MTV UK: That’s pretty special. So where’ve you been recently? We haven’t heard much from you.

Maverick Sabre: I’ve just been living to be honest. We did three tours; we were touring for a couple of years after the first album. I was coming into the second record and not really knowing what to do with it, so I took time out and I lived a bit. You get your heart broken, go to wherever you need to go to, and I felt like I got to the point where the music was like the therapy session. It was sorting my mind out. I got to a point in life where I needed a change within myself. I was dealing with life in a very detrimental way. I needed a change so I feel like this album has been that change.

MTV UK: Was it difficult to take yourself out of that touring lifestyle and start living a bit more normally?

Maverick Sabre: I wouldn’t even call it normal. It wasn’t like going back and doing a nine till five. You get a whole new different time to absorb everything, which is good, because you’re on the road all the time. It’s hard to absorb things that are going on in your personal life. You step back and you realise, ‘Oh Jesus, all of this has been going on, and I actually haven’t dealt with anything I’ve been doing’. The two years out really made me look into myself and see what I needed to sort out personally before I could really aspire to achieve all of the things I wanted to do with my music.

MTV UK: It sounds like a time of intense self-reflection. When was the point that you thought ‘I’m going to go back to this life that I’ve put on hold?’

Maverick Sabre: A friend of mine was getting married and we went to Barcelona for four days. I switched off my phone and was with new people and had conversations about things very openly. When I came back I wrote the very first tune, which we kind of pushed out as just a teaser, Breathe. That was the first time that I ‘ve ever been able to separate myself from the negativity within me, if that makes sense. I was able to give a more beneficial perspective of me on a negative situation and when I finished writing that tune I felt sonically what we made sounded new and fresh. The rest of the album was complete a couple of months after that.

MTV UK: Sounds like you found some pretty serious inspiration when you were away

Maverick Sabre: It was probably me getting out of my mind most of the time to be honest! A new portal or something opened and it just made me have a bit of a clearer view on what to write.

MTV UK: We just assumed you were in art galleries and eating paella.

Maverick Sabre: Oh no, no, no, no, no! There were about 15 of us, it was a stag do. We were in a rented castle in the outskirts of Barcelona. You can let your mind wander about what we got up to there.

MTV UK: You seem incredibly positive about the new album; is it a body of work that you think will mean more to you than the first album?

Maverick Sabre: I would never say mean more, I would say it means something different. My first album will always be my first album, so I could look back in 20 years and be like, ‘Well that means most to me’, or whatever. For me right now it reflects me, the new, different and grown me. A more alive me. This record has a lot more going on and I know that that may sound like a very bland way of explaining it, but there is a lot more in this record, there’s a lot more being said.

MTV UK: You said recently that you think musicians are not making statements the same way that they used to, and gave Liam Gallagher as an example…

Maverick Sabre: When I said Liam Gallagher, I meant people who actually do their own thing and they’re in their own lane, and they don’t actually care. I’m a massive Tupac Shakur fan. He had the world at his feet and he stood for so much and achieved so much outside of music. Music was part of his message and he didn’t give a damn. He was dangerous, because he was outspoken, and he believed in himself.I feel like a lot of people have become very bland, no one is saying much. I’m never going to blame anyone specifically or judge anyone for that. I want to change things. I feel like I’m not doing enough within society. I feel like for me that’s my pact. I don’t care about anybody else’s pact, they do what they need to do, but I need to bring something back and bring something alive which has been lost in music for me anyway. For myself.

Maverick Sabre's new single (Emotion) Ain't Nobody is out now. You can buy it here.

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