IN THE CAN

WHEN Sandy Dillon opens the Birmingham Songwriters’ Festival on Monday 24, she’s more likely to be arriving in a furniture removal van than tour bus.

“We play an MFI coffee table on the album and live,” she chuckles. “It’s metal with holes it and sounds great. That’s what happens when you have a home studio. And some of the drums & percussion are actually Guinness cans played with chopsticks. A full Guinness can with a widget sounds different to an empty one, so on See You In Hell we have a full can and on Powder Lady we have an empty one, and, of course, our Irish Greek percussionist George has to drink it between songs!”

And that’s not the only unusual instrument you’ll be seeing on stage.

“George went to Lillywhite’s and brought a tent, and he drilled holes in the pole, to make a tent pole flute. So we do have some very strange instruments.”

Dillon, who came to the UK in the mid-80s, has finally released her debut album, Electric Chair, after two previous recordings were shelved. Categorised by her rough, rasping, husky vocal tones, it’s a mesmerising combination of Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart and Janis Joplin which seems miles away from her top-notch musical training.

“When I was little I started out playing classical, then got to about 12 and started listening to Hendrix and Charlie Parker. It’s the typical downfall: you start out playing classical piano as a lovely little girl and you move into the rock’n’roll/ jazz thing and then go directly to New York in a progressive downhill motion ending up eventually in London.

“I came here to initially work with Mick Ronson, who I met in New York,” she says of the late legendary Bowie side-kick. “The first gig we did here was in 1985 or ’86 and it was at Ronnie Scott’s in London! We played there as a duo, with electric guitar and acoustic piano, so I’m looking forward to this Birmingham gig.”