THE DARK FLOWERS is the dark country project led by Paul Statham.

Best known as a member of B-MOVIE and PEACH but also as a songwriter whose credits include Peter Murphy, Dot Allison, Dido, Kylie Minogue and Rachel Stevens, for THE DARK FLOWERS’ 2014 debut album ‘Radioland’, Statham brought together a group of guest vocalists that not only included his previous collaborators Murphy and Allison but also Jim Kerr from SIMPLE MINDS and Shelly Poole of ALISHA’S ATTIC.

The songs themselves were inspired by Sam Shepard’s ‘Motel Chronicles’, a collection of poems and memoirs depicting the first 40 years of the American playwright’s life. MOJO magazine described it as “a perfect album for a lonely winter night”. Then in 2021 came a standalone Murder Ballads covers EP in ‘Death & Desires’ from which Tom Waits ‘Dead & Lovely’ with vocals from The Anchoress was a highlight.

2025 sees the release of a second album from THE DARK FLOWERS called ‘Indian Summer’ which again is inspired by Sam Shepard, but via ‘Hawk Moon’, the companion volume to ‘Motel Chronicles’. Jim Kerr and Shelly Poole return while the three vocalists who premiered on ‘Death & Desires’, The Anchoress, David J and Gabriella Cilmi also participate.

In a break between shows with B-MOVIE, Paul Statham chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about THE DARK FLOWERS and the processes involved in realising the concept.

The music styles you have been involved in have included post-punk, new wave, synth, goth, dance and pop, so what inspired you to start a dark country project?

‘Paris Texas’, the film directed by Wim Wenders, has always been a favourite, with its wide-open landscapes and the strange people that can inhabit these tiny, isolated towns. The screenplay written by Sam Shepard led me in turn to his book ‘Motel Chronicles’, which is short story and prose about that same self-thing. I was reading it whilst listening to a movie soundtrack ‘The Hired Hand’ which was composed on old worn instruments that had been left out in the desert heat, so I had a starting point of combining these 2 sources of words and music.

I was listening to Bon Iver’s first album and thought that would give the project more form. But I realised it would be too ‘normal’ so by adding elements of Brian Eno’s album ‘Another Green World’ (one of my top 3 albums of all time!), it could add strange textures, found sound etc. The resulting album was a hybrid of all these things, a sort of dark folk / country-tinged electronica album!

The first album ‘Radioland’ had a long gestation period which started in 2009 and you called upon vocalists you had worked with before like Peter Murphy, Shelly Poole, Helicopter Girl and Dot Allison… how amenable were they to the idea and did anyone need more persuading than others?

Helicopter Girl required a little coaxing! But Dot Allison was working in a similar frame of mind and Shelly is one of my closest friends so the music I gave them had less experimental elements which I then added later, once the vocals were added. Peter Murphy was different, as we had worked together on many of his albums, but Peter’s lyrics are every personal and spiritual in nature so he sort of just played with words from Shepard’s prose but added these incredibly strange and beautiful wailing backing vocals.

In terms of the creative dynamics with your guest vocalists, are there set roles or does the collaborative process differ with each individual?

Always the same; I chose a small portion of Shepard’s prose that I feel is evocative, either complex or simple, create a musical backing and then send both to the artist. Once I have the vocal returned I’m free to then deconstruct the track and rebuild it.

Did you record vocalists in the same room or did things often have to be remote out of practicality?

From all over the place! Jim Kerr mostly came to me though as we were working together on some of his own material.

Jim Kerr appeared on ‘Radioland’ and also features on the number of songs from ‘Indian Summer’, how did he become to be involved and how is he to work with?

I was introduced to Jim through a mutual friend, and we collaborated on a song ‘Return Of The King’ for his ‘Lost Boy’ solo album. We quickly realised we shared similar music / literary tastes, background and humour so it seemed natural to do more. He is a very intelligent guy, great with words and hugely expressive vocal range so on ‘Radioland’, it was a perfect fit. Since then, I have co-written ‘Kill Or Cure’ with him for SIMPLE MINDS album ‘Big Music’ and co-wrote the band’s last single ‘Your Name In Lights’ with him and Charlie Burchill with more tracks completed. He is always enthusiastic and a very generous person with his time and creativity.

What was the idea behind the 2021 interim EP ‘Death & Desire’ as none of the four songs are duplicated for ‘Indian Summer’?

It was getting too long between albums and Covid came along. I now work as well at Solent University and ICMP London, running songwriting modules so doing a cover version EP was just a stop gap really. I specifically enjoyed ‘Death Valley 69’ with David J from BAUHAUS and LOVE & ROCKETS.

David J sings ‘The Stars Stand In’ on the new album, is he a quite different personality from Peter Murphy?

Yes, very different! He was instantly enthused and has produced an eclectic body of work of his own in the more acoustic / troubadour vein. So, working from Shepard’s prose instantly appealed to him. He had also listened to ‘Radioland’ whilst driving across America’s heartland at night so understood the work well.

Peter Murphy is a one-off, a highly individual person, but also with a dark sense of humour and charisma on tap. We have known each other 40 years now and I was also in his backing band THE 100 MEN for 8 years so had performed on lots of US tours with him. We stopped working together for a long time after I left, but it was great to have co-written ‘Silver Shade’ together after a long time not working with him. His new album of the same name is brilliant.

The new album is much more electronic than its predecessor which was very acoustic, in what ways did you want the sound to be different for ‘Indian Summer’?

Yes, I feel you’re always improving the more you continue to work at something, so my skill set had improved in the 12 years between albums. As you get older, there’s fewer good things happen! But one thing is you start to want your work to reflect what you want to express and less about where does it fit in, you sort of return full circle to why you started making music in the first place. I love electronic music and have my own experimental label Loki Records which THE DARK FLOWERS album will come out on via the lovely people at Cargo Records.

What were your chosen tools for constructing the music for THE DARK FLOWERS and does it differ much from say, your more experimental solo instrumental work?

Yes, by a significant margin. THE DARK FLOWERS songs have a recognisable form, and space has to be made for the vocal, melody and lyrical narrative so the experimental edge sort of works in the margins. In my own releases I love basically fucking up sound and recombining elements. I’m a huge fan of synthesizers and sound modules / effects and create long experimental delay chains and send things back in on themselves. Various magazines have given my albums very good reviews so that’s really important to me!

There are several different vocalists on the ‘Indian Summer’ album including The Anchoress and Gabriella Cilmi, what had you heard from these two talents that made you feel they were suitable for THE DARK FLOWERS?

Well, I go way back with Catherine AD aka The Anchoress and obviously the SIMPLE MINDS connection as she became their keyboard player (after ‘Radioland’ album actually). She has a unique voice, is literary minded and loved the idea of translating prose to song lyric.

Gabriella, I had worked with previously and although best known for her big hit ‘Nothing Sweet About Me’, she is a seriously talented vocalist and her lyrics on her more folk / country related tracks pointed to a storyteller, which is perfect for THE DARK FLOWERS project.

Which are your favourite tracks on songs on ‘Indian Summer’, the ones that give you most satisfaction?

Hmmmmmm… I would say ‘Celebrate You’ featuring Shelly and ‘The Dominant Colour Is Rust’ with Jim.

Will THE DARK FLOWERS ever perform live in the future?

Not in the sense of a revue! With all the different vocalists and of course Jim Kerr and Peter Murphy are not UK residents and have genuinely successful and very busy commitments, so to have them commit to come on and sing 3 songs is a lot.

Saying that, I would love to do a very small show, with maybe vocalists, and they could sing any song from the album. That way, people would be coming to hear the album and not to see their favourite front man perform!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Paul Statham

‘Indian Summer’ is released by Loki Records on 13th June 2025 as a vinyl LP and CD, available via Cargo at https://cargorecordsdirect.co.uk/products/the-dark-flowers-indian-summer

THE DARK FLOWERS other releases are available digitally from https://thedarkflowers.bandcamp.com/

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Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
11th June 2025