Keir

“I was a support worker for people with severe disability and mental health issues before I got signed. It changes you.”

There’s a common theme running through much of Keir’s material – mental health. For four years, Keir acted as a support worker at Dimensions in Bath, working with people who have autism and severe learning difficulties. For the record, he absolutely loved it, feeling “a deep connection to the people we supported and the darkness they felt.” Keir thinks this is because struggles with mental health run in his family. “A family member was sectioned when she was younger,” says Keir now, “and there’s something about dark inner turmoil I’ve always found an affinity with. My intentions are not to glamourise darkness, but to shine a light towards it. Music is my way of connecting the dots I suppose.”

Born in Bath, Keir was brought up in the small West Country town of Corsham, the child of an English father and a half-Indian mother. His maternal grandfather hailed from Bangalore, and his mother’s mixed-race heritage ensured she experienced racial prejudice first-hand during her own childhood on the Isle Of Wight. The eldest of three brothers – the middle sibling plays drums in Keir’s band live, and on his records – Keir began playing guitar and then keyboards in his early teens, although he readily admits, he set off wanting “to be like Nick Cave and not play an instrument at all.” Keir initially (almost exclusively) devoured pop music, listening to artists like Avril Lavigne and Enrique Iglesias, before his brother turned him onto Jimi Hendrix. After that, a stint as a trashy-garage-guitar-and-drums, White Stripes-influenced, two-piece – with his brother – resulted in him not thinking or particularly caring about his future anymore. “Early on,” admits Keir, “I just wanted to be famous, These days, none of that’s important. It’s like I’m living through some kind of after-life.”
“Art provides some kind of meaning to my life. Art is connecting to people. Art is more powerful than conversation.”

Well, of course, these days includes the Autumn 2023 release of Keir’s astonishing, self-titled debut album on Vertigo/Universal, the fruits of a five-year-long, writing and recording relationship with fellow musical traveller, George Glew. Keir has now successfully transformed “the darkness, joy and isolation of the human condition” into that rare beast, music with a pounding, heartbeat, depth, and an instant, classic feel that’ll make you think you’ve had these songs knocking around the house for years. Either that, or you’ll think Keir has somehow wired himself into some illicit song-writing machine.

Over the past twelve months, amidst a flurry of ground-breaking releases – Blood In The Water, Time (Is A Healer), Lemonade, Voices In The Night, Voices, and now, Bulletproof – Keir has constantly proved himself to be a one-off – with the proviso that he also bears a striking resemblance to artists like Prince and George Michael, artists who defy categorisation. Correspondingly. it’s within the parameters of these beautiful, beautiful songs – tiny snapshots of a life being lived, beatific, sugar-coated assaults on the soul – that we get to hear that voice, a mellifluous, brittle instrument so finely poised and positioned to be able to claim land rights of its own.
“I like people who are real – people who are emotionally truthful, caring, and honest and open about how the world makes them feel.”

Appropriately enough, it seems just about the right juncture in proceedings to let you know that Keir sometimes sounds like nothing – or no one – on Earth. ”Melody comes first for me,” reveals Keir, and then, as if to confirm the diagnosis, “sometimes, I like the sound of the words more than their meaning.” Ultimately, of course, as we witness Keir moving between genres with the ease of an acrobat, we learn that he is “not interested in genre”, and this, of course, is how it should be. Perhaps, it is this sense of sang-froid, that persuaded German late-night talk show, Late Night Berlin to herald Keir as ‘the next Prince’, and enable Keir to be featured on a recent 45-minute ProSieben Music Special, a performance slot usually reserved for more established artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Metallica.

Keir’s hugely-anticipated, self-titled debut album is out now on Vertigo/Universal. The full track listing for the album runs as follows: Lemonade; Bulletproof; Voices; Time (Is A Healer); Say Love; Blood In The Water; Mother; Confession; Voices In The Night; She’s Like A Swan; Shame.

“A real artist should just do their own thing” – Keir.

© Jane Savidge, August 2023.