Love, Loss and Alcohol The much anticipated debut album from singer-songwriter Joe Topping is an acoustic album of completely original songs gleaned from his own experiences, and from the keenly observed lives of others. Songs about the 'low-life's' of Las Vegas to simply being in love, this album is sure to appeal to wide range of audiences. We’ll leave it to Joe to explain more. “The title ‘Love, Loss and Alcohol’ came about simply because most of the songs on the album seemed to be about one or the other, or a combination of all three!

 Track 1: ‘Two bottles of Red’ is a perfect example, you know when your out on a Saturday night and you’ve had too many beers and everyone starts to look more attractive than they did before and maybe you end up with someone you wouldn’t ordinarily choose to end up with, well this is a song about a whole relationship based on this principal, the couple have to keep drinking in order to ‘Stay in Love’.

Track 2: ‘The Flame Danced Flamenco’ is a straight love song, which features Andrew on piano (among other things). Normally it would’ve been Laura who’d be playing the piano but she was unavailable on the day of recording and we couldn’t wait, so while I brewed up the tea Andrew actually learned how to play the piano and put it down immediately, he’s annoyingly talented that way.

Track 3: 'Weep' was written for a dead friend of mine when her granddad died, I didn't know what to say to her so I wrote her a song instead. Before recording began I decided that I really wanted a cello on certain tracks, and whilst having a quiet drink with friends we were talking about a girl we knew from school called Semay Wu who played cello but none of us had seen her for six years. It was at that moment, as if we had summoned her by witchcraft she walked into the pub after just finishing a European tour with her band 'Homelife' and just weeks before she flew to New York to do session work, surely fate was playing a hand. Semay played on both 'Weep' and 'I'd Die Trying'.

Track 4: ‘Drinking to Forget’ was written wandering the streets of New York feeling a little sorry for myself having left a girl in Arizona.

Track 5: ‘Alice’ is about noticing the very smallest of details about the one you love.

Track 6: ‘I’d Die Trying’ as with many of the songs on the album this song features Laura Jones singing harmonies, which she does a wonderful job of. It’s not easy singing with me because I apparently sing them slightly different each time!

Track 7: ‘My Constant Love’ is another straight ahead love song, that nearly didn’t make it onto the album, but I’m glad it did.

Track 8: ‘Sing To Me’ was written in room 15 of the De Beaux Motel, Flagstaff Arizona where I was working as a Landscape gardener, construction worker and toilet cleaner!

Track 9: ‘Wicked Intentions’ was written in a Las Vegas casino, a brilliant place to do some people watching. I was living in the back of my pick-up truck at the time, sleeping in car parks or camping out in the desert and loving every moment.

Track 10: ‘Every Falling Tear’ Whilst spending some time in Victoria, Canada, I got friendly with some of the local street musicians, one of them, “Shaggy” as he was known locally, asked me to play some mouth organ for a gig he had at a strip bar. Naturally I said yes but it turned out that there were no strippers on that night and we were the replacement entertainment, so you can imagine how that gig went. Anyway, I got back to my dorm at the hostel I was staying at, took my trousers off and crawled into bed. I awoke the next morning to find my trousers had been stolen along with my money and credit cards. So there I was, in my ‘Marvin the Martin’ boxer shorts and no money in a foreign land. Luckily someone took pity on me and leant me their jeans to go busking in, which is where I met Jen the Llama farmer and romance bloomed. To cut a long story short I inevitably had to leave, and ‘Every Falling Tear’ was written for Jen as the ferry left Victoria for Seattle as she waved me off from the dock.”