Interview with A.S. FANNING (1/2)
With “Take Me Back to Nowhere”, A.S. Fanning is releasing his latest album on February 6, 2026. We talk to the Berlin-based Irishman about the unusual title, obstacles to writing and much more.
Overstrained?
Orkus: How did you come up with the album title “Take Me Back to Nowhere”?
A.S.Fanning: I think it came out of a feeling of being overwhelmed. I almost drove myself insane writing this album. I had broken my wrist and decided to lock myself in my room and just keep writing until I finished an album. But I ran into a bit of a hurdle. Not being able to play guitar affected me more than I expected, and I ended up just writing page after page of random lyrics with no idea of how they fit together or what I was trying to accomplish. I developed a sort of writer’s block or crisis of confidence, and those pages scattered around my room began to torment me. At one point I even went to hypnotherapy with a friend to overcome the tyrannical hold these pages had on me, which helped.
Oppressive?
O: That’s terrible! What happened next?
ASF: The working title I had for the album at the time was “Greetings from the Depths of Confusion”. But I think “Take Me Back to Nowhere” was born out of this oppressive feeling, the desire to escape completely, the fantasy of returning to a simpler state of non-existence.
Driven crazy!
O: You took a different approach to songwriting. Instead of using a guitar, a broken wrist, as you mentioned earlier, “forced” you to get creative with other instruments like keyboards and drum machines. How did you feel about that?
ASF: I think it’s good. I always like playing with instruments like that. But I usually do it after a song is already written to try out different sounds or production styles that might suit it. The difference with this album was that I didn’t have the guitar to fall back on when writing, which is usually a kind of outlet for me. If I get too lost in the details of the lyrics, I’ll often just pick up my guitar and play it to see how it feels in reality instead of being stuck in my head. This time I didn’t have that option, which I think led to some different song structures and sometimes drove me a little crazy.
Tripartite division
O: The title track “Take Me Back to Nowhere” is divided into three parts on the album. What does that mean?
ASF: I’m not sure. I wrote a lot of lyrics for it and had other versions of it that had a middle section and a long third verse that went in a different direction, and I didn’t really know where that fit in with the rest of the album. I think I was listening to “Red Headed Stranger” by Willie Nelson one day, and there’s this “Time of the Preacher” theme that runs through the album several times, and I thought maybe this song could work in a similar way – as a kind of chorus.
Sci-Fi
O: It is said that you are investigating the extent to which imagination influences reality. How did you come up with this idea? And to what extent does science fiction play a role for you?
ASF: I’m not sure if that’s what I mean. But I read “The Lathe of Heaven” by Ursula Le Guin pretty early in the writing process, which is about a man whose dreams alter reality. I read four or five other science fiction novels while I was writing, mostly books by Le Guin and J.G. Ballard. I think I was generally interested in the imagination and how it relates or reacts to reality. My own songwriting tends to be heavily based on an inner world where reality can often be distorted and twisted in terrifying ways, and I think I found a commonality with science fiction writers who explore similar possibilities in more explicit ways.
Claudia Zinn-Zinnenburg
And how! Here are the next dates:
March 16, 2026 DE-Langenberg, KGB
17. March 2026 NL-Gronigen, A-Theater Gronigen
18. March 2026 NL-Utrecht, Tivoli Vredenburg
19. March 2026 UK-Brighton, The Folklore Rooms
20. March 2026 UK-Bristol, The Louisiana
24. March 2026 UK-Glasgow, The Hug and Pint
26. March 2026 UK-Manchester, The Talleyrand
26. March 2026 UK-London, The Grace
28. March 2026 DE-Altenkirchen, KulturSalon Stadthalle
21. April 2026 DE-Hamburg, Knust
23. April 23, 2026 DE-Dresden, Ostpol
April 25, 2026 DE-Oberhausen, Gdanska
April 26, 2026 DE-Offenbach, Hafen 2
April 29, 2026 AT-Vienna, Rhiz
April 30, 2026 AT-Salzburg, Rockhouse
02. May 2026 DE-Berlin, Neue Zukunft
Do you already have your tickets?
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Watch the video for “Stay Alive” here:
