Featured Tours

Bluetones Frontman Mark Morriss On Tour

• 20th Nov 2015

Glasswerk is proud to present the legendary Bluetones frontman Mark Morriss. You catch him specifically on these two dates in December: Click on them for tickets.

12 December – Surya – London
18 December – Southport Pier

“You are the scream of a jet/ You are a whispered amen/It’s not a question of if anymore/It’s a question of when…
‘It’s Hard To Be Good All the Time”

Can it really be twenty years since Mark Morriss first shimmied into our lives as singer with The Bluetones?

Apparently so. But thirteen hit singles, three Top Ten albums and a collaboration with a national treasure later -more of which shortly- – his ability to sieve poetry from the colander of every day life remains unique. “I always try to add little things that most songs wouldn’t use,” he says of the lyrics on his remarkable first solo album ‘proper’, A Flash Of Darkness. “If I can squeeze a mention of Bergerac into a song (as he does in surefire smash ‘Consuela’) then I’m happy.”

While it might not take Jersey’s finest to track down a copy, it’s fair to say that the release of Mark’s folk-infused solo debut, Memory Muscle, in 2008 was low key, despite string arrangements from the legendary composer David Arnold. However, it wasn’t until The Bluetones split up in October 2011 that he thought seriously about his next move. “To be honest I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he says with typical candour. “So I threw a lot of irons into the fire.”

While one of these resulted in him writing the music for David Walliams’ audio books (“great fun”), he was still writing songs. Only this time, with a view to other people singing them. “It really freed me up. But the songs I came up with were so personal I realized they might be difficult for anyone else to sing them.”