Credit: Found On Internet

Some people can have their cake and eat it too. William D Drake has been enjoying that cake over his impressively diverse career. Not many people can be lauded as a composer and classical pianist as well as claim to have been part of one of the most seminal bands of his generation. Music Towers meets William at the BFI Southbank on the Thames to discover how he gets away with it.

Such are William D Drake’s talents that he has just released two albums of totally different genre on the same day. ‘Yew’s Paw’ (Onomatopoeia Records) is a piano record like no other, seemingly creating soundtracks to silent movies that don’t exist, at times delicate and complex, at others brimming with music hall fun. Briny Hooves (sheBear Records) on the other hand is a very different beast in the singer/songwriter vein with touches of Brian Wilson, late Beatles, XTC, Syd Barrett, Radiohead, prog and even sea shanties. Something you would imagine Thom Yorke would admire.

William D Drake was a member of The Cardiacs for seven years throughout the ‘80s and has played in folk, psychedelic, prog-goth, country rock and indie bands over the years. At first sight, this trajectory would surely undermine any attempt to be taken seriously in the classical world, wouldn’t it? Surely the worlds of pop and classical music are diametrically opposed? Even country mega-star Garth Brooks felt compelled to invent his alter ego ‘Chris Gaines’ in order to cross the divide between the country and the alt-rock worlds (not that it worked). So how does Drake do it?

His enthusiasm, flair and wide experience seem to do the job for him in an understated way. That experience starts at the age of four with William learning to play the harmonium under the tuition of his mother and grandmother. A series of eccentric spinster piano teachers follow, including Rhona Parkinson who, as Drake recalls, “had chicken wire against the back seat in her car so that her Corgi could chew it. Eventually, though, he chewed off her thumb. She told everyone she had done it when she was doing the roses but the dog had eaten it.”