Tony Cummings talked to Cheltenham-based singer/songwriter EWAN JONES

Ewan Jones

Ewan Jones is a Welsh-born, Cheltenham-based youth worker and also an experienced singer/songwriter who amongst his other claims to fame has conducted songwriting workshops at Greenbelt. Ewan has just released a full length album 'Ordinary' with songs covering "a range of topics and emotions from hope, frustration, rejection, romance, lust, materialism, faith and purpose."

'Ordinary' is far from ordinary. The title track, co-written with Almost Elliot's Nick Boyland, was conceived as a conversation about an idealised relationship that could never be. The driving "You've Ignored Me Lately, Chloe" and the dream-like "Summer" follow the same themes of memories and unrequited love while the instrumental "Wednesday Night At Sea" is a reflection on "the soul that's left adrift on a dark night before the hope of a new day."

Born in Cardiff, Ewan was 12 or 13 when he first got into playing guitar. His was a happy homelife. "My Mum, Dad and sisters were all Christians. My Dad was an accountant by day and a church leader by night and weekends. It was a real blessing. We're all close and involved in church ministry in one way or another." When he was 17 he moved to Leamington Spa for a year before coming to Cheltenham for university. He's been living there ever since.

It was while at uni that Ewan got serious about music. "My first priority was starting a band, and God was very good. The first night I was in Cheltenham I went to a CU event. Amongst a few other people I met a guy I already knew who could play the drums. We both decided to find a bassist as soon as we could and start a band, which happened the same night. That took us all the way through uni and developed and encouraged me as a songwriter. We made a five-song EP 'So Long' that we recorded in the chapel at the college at the time - now a university - in Cheltenham. We called it 'So Long' because it took us so long to make it! And also it was our goodbye thing."

Ewan had little idea what he wanted to do when he left uni. He admitted, "I'd gone to university on a whim. I did film studies, purely out of my love of cinema and not with any intention of it leading me to a useful job. I flirted with the idea of journalism or film reviewer, perhaps for the local paper. But around that time our university chaplains sent round an email saying that one of the local churches was looking for an assistant youth worker. Since I was about 16 I'd felt God was calling me. So my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, Rachel, and one or two others saw this email come round and said 'you should apply for this.' I was the one who wasn't too keen. I wasn't Cheltenham's biggest fan. I wanted to go back to Cardiff, back to Wales. But Rachel was there and we were going out, so I though I'd apply for the job. I got that job and I was working in that church, St Matthew's church. That was 2003, and I'm still there as the youth worker. So it's a bit bizarre. I think I knew all along that God wanted me in some sort of church ministry and youth ministry. Maybe it's just because I'm laid back, but I didn't see how that was quite going to pan out. But it did."

After the band finished Ewan continued as a solo singer/songwriter. He explained, "When I got my own computer with a microphone and a cheap bit of software off a lecturer in college I just started having a go at recording. I'd play a four-chord sequence and sing over it, finding lyrics that I'd written way back when and trying to plant them over it. I was experimenting with melody and harmony, layering my voice over again and again. I really enjoy that recording process almost as much - in fact, probably more than performing sometimes, certainly almost as much as the song writing process itself. If you're working on a song for the first time then the recording is where that song takes shape and comes to life. In the end it either works or it doesn't work, and it's at that point that you can usually hear if you've got a decent song or not."

Ewan's first independent release was 'Not So Now'. He explained, "That was about 12 tracks of stuff that I had recorded between 1999 and 2002. I felt that out of 30 or 40 songs that I'd recorded there were about 12 that I thought were listenable. I asked people in my church if they'd sponsor it. They'd get their name in that cover if they sponsored me enough money to print it, buy the CDs to burn and so on. That was a great experience. I only made a hundred of them and I've probably still got about 12 of them at home in a drawer somewhere, but that was my first one reviewed in Cross Rhythms! People were genuinely encouraging about it. I played one or two gigs off the back of that. Then about two years ago I put together a whole load of other demos. It started off as about 12 songs that I was going to put onto a demo album called 'Behind And Before'. Because it took me so long to do it, about six or seven other songs arrived in the meantime and so I made two demos, one called 'Behind' and one called 'Before'. On one I put the quieter, simpler, gentler stuff, with acoustic guitar and vocals, and on the other one, I'd been a bit more ambitious and my love of rock had taken over for a moment. I put on that some multi-layering I'd done and made a bigger sound."

The EP 'Pretty Binary Opposite' (2008) was the first time Ewan worked with a producer, Cheltenham-based Darren James. Ewan said, "I'd met Darrin when he was a live sound engineer back in the days of Peterson Says, the university band. He's not a Christian guy but I met him at a Christmas service at our church. I gave him one of the demos that I'd made, what was to become 'Behind and Before'. He had a listen and got in touch with me and said, 'I don't like all of them, but I like some of them. Let's have a go at recording them really well.' So we made two new songs and took three of the older song to make the 'Pretty Binary Opposite' EP. For the recording we used a space in the church that is wonderful for recording guitars and vocals and we also used Darren's house and his kit to put that together. He's got a lot of experience mixing and producing. I sat alongside him then. We would meet every week for a year to work on that EP. We still go back and do tweaks now. Because the quality was so much better than what I had done before, it really let the songs shine. I was really happy and encouraged by that."

Now Ewan is keen to get out and gig songs on the 'Ordinary' album, like 'Pretty Binary Opposite', produced by Darren James. One of the most powerful songs on the project is "We Fell Apart On A Thursday" where a lover sings over his beloved in dark times. Such a theme is very different to the kind of triumphalistic sloganeering that sometimes affects contemporary worship music. Commented Ewan, "An easy life was never what Jesus promised. His salvation doesn't offer earthly success, good health, money and a good house - it is a salvation that calls us to serve and to work out our purpose in the light of his grace and an eternal hope. I am hoping to play Greenbelt, which has been part of my history, so that will be a real privilege. But getting to the pubs and clubs, to be a Christian amongst non-Christians is what I'm keen to do. I would be far more excited to be in that situation, serving God with music amongst people who don't know him yet."