Ervin Munir’s new album ‘Pure & Simple’: Authenticity & songwriting as therapy
Introduction
Hailing from a coastal, Norfolk town, minutes from the sea, Ervin Munir has crafted an album that is both a personal memoir and a universal exploration of human experience. ‘Pure & Simple’, his second album; following on from ‘Broken Compass’ which was released back in 2023, is exactly what it says on the tin. The album, released January 31st, features many deep, personal themes throughout, much like our interview! The album, may just be Ervin’s finest work to date, it features collaborations with skilled musicians, including Aeron Z Jones and Tina Blaber’s providing accompanying beautiful vocals. The stories going behind the album are a journey through love, loss, creativity, and resilience.
Ervin spoke at length about the therapeutic power of music, and the delicate balance of creating art that is both deeply personal and universally relatable. Deep-diving the inspirations behind ‘Pure & Simple’, sharing insights that are compelling, walking through the album, that is such a fitting tribute to those lost on the way.
The Interview
TTM: I’ve been listening to ‘Pure & Simple. It’s probably gonna go triple platinum in this house. There’s so many different themes, so much to explore. What were the inspirations for you going into it?
ERVIN MUNIR: Well, mainly that I’m in I’m in quite a good writing mood, and have been for the last few years. So it’s about like I’m writing maybe a song every sort of 10 days or so, and some of them don’t make the cut. So it’s just really a matter of, whatever I’ve been writing, trying to put it together in a cohesive sort of form that makes sense.
Obviously, there are songs of love and breakup’s and other things in there, and trying to sort of get a good balance with all that and make it feel like it’s ending well, as well. The last track is a song about my dog that died, unfortunately. But that seemed like the appropriate one to put at the end. And it was, an enjoyable process. I think people these days don’t really don’t think albums are useful. They prefer playlists so they can make up lists of their own favourite songs. But there is some thought, that goes into the ordering of songs, and the type of song that’s in any album that I write anyway.
TTM: Is that not, emotionally exhausting for you with the amount of writing that you do?
ERVIN MUNIR: I think it’s therapeutic. I do think it’s therapeutic. It’s also extremely enjoyable. I mean, there are lots of things about the music industry I don’t enjoy but, but I really enjoy that first spark of inspiration to getting the song produced and mastered. Getting it produced is a lovely process. If I’m tapping into things that I haven’t normally spoken about with other people about how I feel about something, if I’m tapping into that, then it makes a song all the more real.
Building The Album & Songwriting Styles
TTM: I do feel like the album flows really nicely.
ERVIN MUNIR: Yeah, and there’s only one track I’d say that’s unusual in this, it’s called ‘King’, which is much more of a folky track, but it’s where I’d probably watched too much Game of Thrones, I think. I sort of had this tragic theme running through my head.
I do a lot of songwriting retreats, and sometimes you get exercises to do… we had an exercise where we were given a book, a book of idioms and and the you had to run your thing, choose a page randomly, run your finger down wherever it stopped, open your eyes. Wherever it stopped, you’d write something about that idea. In the case of ‘Pure & Simple’, that was the idiom, ‘Pure & Simple’. And this guy, Tim Levy, he wrote the words for it. I adjusted the words a little bit, changed them a little bit, but not very much, added a middle eight, and put the melody and the chords to it, and that’s ended up on the album.
TTM: Do you do stuff like Morning Pages, stuff like that? Do you do a lot of journaling to help with the writing process?
ERVIN MUNIR: Don’t do it very often, but I have done it; then you end up with words you would never publish in a song. Yes, I have done that sort of thing. But in general, I use my phone a lot. I use my phone for lyrics. I’ll almost write a poem to sort of get, the lyrics down, and then I’ll sing into the voice recorder. And I love doing that. That’s a really nice way of working. You know, I fancy writing a song. Let’s see what I’ve got in my notes.
‘Happy Home’ got played on the BBC, which is nice, but that was done through an exercise of walking out of the hotel room and writing about the first thing you saw, and I saw a woman driving away in a car, and there was a man sort of like nearby. And so it was about this woman, she’s driving away, and she may never come back.
I’m on a roll at the moment!
Personal Experiences
TTM: Do you draw a lot of inspiration from your own experiences throughout your life?
ERVIN MUNIR: I try to connect it. I mean, the most obvious one for people is to write about breakups. Because we’ve all been through breakups. My wife also died. So I’ve got that’s one of the songs as coming out on the album ‘Three’, it’s is a very… quite a raw song that I wrote probably in the first month and a half after she died, and I was still sort of like grieving. And so, that was more therapeutic for me to get it out to be honest. I left the song for about three – four years, and then I went back to it, late last year, and started recording it and producing it with my producer.
TTM: I’m so sorry to hear about that, Ervin, but I feel like there’s so much light in the fact that you can have that, almost self-therapy, and be able to translate, you know, these emotions and then really do these experiences justice, almost. What do you want your audience to take away from your music?
ERVIN MUNIR: I’ve improved my writing style. I mean, I’m a much better songwriter now than I was five, six years ago. I’d like them to see a sort of a progression there. I’d just like people to identify with it and hopefully identify with each individual song, and hopefully they will gain something from it themselves. Maybe it’ll open up something for them. But I think as a songwriter is a really great way of laying out your feelings on the table.
When I look back at some songs that I haven’t touched for a few years, I can get quite emotional remembering how I felt at the time when I wrote them, There is a slight danger of becoming a bit too self indulgent in songs like that. I think a lot of people will identify with “Last Breath’.
Music Industry
TTM: What keeps you motivated through the music? How do you stay so creative?
ERVIN MUNIR: I’m not doing it for anyone except for myself, so I’m not being pushed to do anything. I do feel a slight pressure to try and keep some momentum going in the streaming world. I do enjoy it, and I do think every experience and every song is unique. The whole thing is quite joyous. But where I start enjoying it less is the promotion stuff. I’m enjoying this interview, by the way. I’d just like to say that, Ross, you’re easy to talk to! Calling people and pushing, I’m not a very good salesperson, and I find that a little difficult and and also don’t like the fact you get a bit hooked on following streams and numbers and things like that.
Really, at the end of the day, the only important thing is that I, I wrote a song and people like that song.
TTM: Is it a lot different nowadays, creating music now compared to how maybe you would have done say, 10 years ago?
ERVIN MUNIR: Well, a long time ago, I had a Tascam, four track cassette recorder, and that was enjoyable as a hobby. But in October ’22, I started getting a bit more serious about it, and played in London and the Camden Club and recorded inAbbey Road Studios. There’s a song on my first album called ‘Carolynn’, and I think I started getting more serious about it.
The only dodgy thing in the creative process, at the moment is trying to avoid or trying not to use AI, and trying to and forgetting about the fact that you’re competing with people who are releasing songs using AI. I don’t know if it can be stopped, or if there can be a way of knowing that a song is AI produced or not? I just don’t know. But I think none of us do, and I think that we have got to be true to our process. I think where it starts falling down is, especially, for new artists and artists who haven’t gained those millions of followers yet is, is how to make it pay.
TTM: What would your advice be to, say somebody who was just starting out on their journey? What routes would you advise that they take in terms of, navigating songwriting and putting together an album.
ERVIN MUNIR: Collaborate with someone, find another person who can sing or play an instrument with you, and move on beyond just having your voice. I think it’s a really great thing to do, and there are loads of ways of doing it. Go to a songwriting workshop or residential. I recommend because you build better relationships with people. Just keep going.
TTM: Isn’t that the great thing about music, bringing people together. I think it’s one of the most magical things, especially for artists. How do you know when you’ve got that good connection with another artist or collaborator.
ERVIN MUNIR: I think it’s like falling in love, and committing, if you don’t try, it’ll never happen.
TTM: How is it bringing stuff to life on the stage, with Cutting The Mustard?
ERVIN MUNIR: It’s lovely. I mean, I think I have a love hate relationship with performing, and a lot of the gigs I do, I’m by myself, and I try and make a show out of it, whether it’s a local pub to gig, or in a bar somewhere. I try and make a show to try and provide some variation and some interest throughout, but I think until I get past the first two songs, I’m always really nervous. In the band, because there’s five of us, we can carry each other. So I don’t feel very nervous about band gigs.
TTM: What would you say is your proudest moment?
ERVIN MUNIR: I was really proud about recording at Abbey Road Studios and doing the Camden gig after that. But when I look at the result of it, the ‘Carolynn’ track turned out really well. And that’s about my current girlfriend, and her name isn’t Carolynn, haha. I know my wife, my late wife, would have been very proud of it as well.
