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Whether a photo, a piece of artwork or something altogether more minimalistic, the imagery decorating the front of an album can often tell you quite a bit about the music within as well as the person, or people, who brought it together. The latter part of that statement is certainly true in the case of Outlaw Boogie – the alias of Michael James Dent, a Dorset-born producer and songwriter now based in the heart of London. Having been a member of several bands over the course of the last decade, the New Year has seen Dent go it alone for the first time, with his debut EP, The Circle, released just the other week. A fleeting glance at the cover will be enough to garner the attention of any United fan, with Dent adorning, of all things, the Magpies’ 2011/12 home shirt!
Described by influential British music magazine NME as having “come from nowhere and already staked a claim to be the most important producer in indie pop we’d never heard of”, Dent kindly chatted to UNITED – the club’s official matchday programme – a few weeks ago, giving us the lowdown on his upbringing, his music and the story behind that cover shot…
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Thanks for chatting to us, Mike. How long have you been a Newcastle fan? And how did you end up supporting the club?
I’ve been a Newcastle United fan since I was about ten years old. I’m always slightly bemused that, having grown up in Bournemouth, the team that took my heart was arguably the club furthest away from me! The reason I fell in love with the Toon was that my late godfather was a Geordie, and a lifelong Newcastle supporter. He sadly passed about ten years ago, but he introduced me to the team that starred Alan Shearer, Laurent Robert and Kieron Dyer and was, of course, managed by the great Sir Bobby Robson. I think the first game I ever watched with him was the demolition of Sheffield Wednesday in Robson’s first home game, and from that moment I knew that was the team for me.
I used to play for the worst Sunday league team in Dorset, and one day I scored a hat-trick. It was probably the only game we won that season, so obviously I took the opportunity to run around with my arm up just like Shearer!
Are there any particular highlights from your time following the club?
I think it’s really fair to say that one of the things that makes being a Newcastle fan a real journey is that it is a constant rollercoaster of emotions. When I became a supporter, we were in the Champions League and we’d been the entertainers of the 90s, and of course those are great memories. I actually really enjoyed watching us each time we won the Championship and I hold those moments close – after a previous season of complete sadness, it was really good to see the team win every week and to see certain fringe players from the previous year truly deliver. Also, the 2011/12 season where we finished fifth, I really loved that team… (Yohan) Cabaye, (Cheick) Tioté, (Fabricio) Coloccini, (Demba) Ba, (Papiss) Cissé – what a season!
What was the thinking behind wearing a Newcastle shirt on your EP cover? And was there a reason why you picked that particular one?
The photo that I used for The Circle was actually taken by my good friend, Oliver James. I was helping him set up another band photoshoot and I was wearing the shirt a lot that summer. It was 2019 and I’d been trying to get a 11/12 home kit for a while, so when I did finally get one I wore it a lot! He took some photos of me on a ladder and, when I started looking at images to use for the artwork, I loved that the picture reflected me as a person, and wearing the shirt really stood out that this release was a bit more personal. Newcastle shirts always look cool as well, so that definitely helped.
“I think it’s really fair to say that one of the things that makes being a Newcastle fan a real journey is that it is a constant rollercoaster of emotions.”
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For readers who don’t know too much about you yet, how would you describe yourself as a musician?
As a musician, I try to include a lot of things all at the same time. I’m very rooted in indie guitar music, but I love all music a lot. If I’m not writing for myself, I’m always working with other people or trying to convince them to let me play bass in their band. I have a brain that doesn’t really stay in one place for very long, so I change my mind a lot on how my music should sound or what I want people to take from it. The Circle is a mixture of indie and dreamy pop music, and I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins and The Cure at the time, so that’s where I was kind of heading this time around. Next time will probably be a bit more different!
Tell us a bit more about your background – was music in your blood from an early age?
Growing up in Dorset, we were quite fortunate to have a lot of places to play. Bournemouth itself doesn’t have a lot of music venues anymore – and there isn’t anything really happening there – but when I was growing up there were a lot of us who wanted to make something happen there, so we made the initiative to find any pub or bar we could play some songs in. My parents are big music fans, so I was always around the classics, and I played all the time with my twin brother, Dick Dent. He’s a solo artist himself; he produces pop music on cheap keyboards and we’ve both wanted to create since we were very young.
You’ve been a member of various bands over the past decade – how have you got to the point where you’ve gone solo?
I’ve always been really open to collaborating with as many people as possible, so I loved being in bands. After I moved to London back in 2012, all I wanted to do was play in different groups to make as much music as possible. However, there comes a point where you want to fulfil your own ambitions, and I started to get tired of everyone having an opinion on something I’d made. For me, it was more important to write songs for myself, and Outlaw Boogie is the perfect vehicle for that.
“As a musician, I try to include a lot of things all at the same time. I’m very rooted in indie guitar music, but I love all music a lot.”
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The Circle is two years in the making. Musically, when you set about the task of creating your first body of work as an individual artist, what were you looking to achieve with it?
I’d always been writing songs for Outlaw Boogie, but I never really had any ambition to do it full time. It was only when I wrote my single The Circle that I thought that this might actually be the best thing for me. I don’t have a lot of expectations for The Circle – I just want to release some good music that I can look back on with some pride. Anything else is a massive bonus, and I’m just grateful that I have enough of a platform for people to hear my music. However, having any of the songs played at St. James’ Park would also be something special!
Everyone’s probably fed up of talking about COVID, so apologies for bringing it up… But how has the ongoing pandemic impacted you? And where The Circle is concerned, has it been something of a blessing, or a curse?
I work as a chef here in London, so when the pandemic started I was put on furlough – like a lot of people in hospitality. It was tough to be away from my girlfriend, Anna, for some time, as we were isolating, and that definitely motivated me to work on the material for The Circle. It’s really hard to call it a blessing because it’s an awful situation for everyone, but that time away from work did help me finish what I believe is my strongest body of work. It also allowed me to come up with an actual plan to release the record on my own, and that’s definitely helped the songs to reach more people. It’s a moment in our lives that we will never really comprehend, but it’s one we can hopefully overcome, and I’m hoping things will change for the better afterwards.
It’s obviously still a bit of an uncertain time for everyone in the industry, but hopefully we’ll see something resembling normality again at some point soon. Now that The Circle is out, what’s the plan for you in 2021?
My plan for the year really depends on how the rest of 2021 goes! I made the decision at the end of last year that I wasn’t planning any live shows just yet, because I’m not sure what kind of place we’ll be in when things resemble normality. Sadly, live performances will probably be the last thing in the UK to go back to the way they were, and it’s a shame because they are incredibly inspiring things. I want to release some more new music in the summer, so I’m recording again at the moment, and I’m also working on some other projects that will hopefully have some songs out before the end of the year. For now, I’m just focussed on getting The Circle out to as many people as possible and hoping that Newcastle finish in the top ten this season!
To find out more about Outlaw Boogie and The Circle, head across to Bandcamp.
