Richard Dawson for Prog Folk

Dawson grew up in Newcastle and became interested in singing as a child, attempting to emulate American singers such as Faith No More's Mike Patton.^[9] He worked in record stores for 10 years before starting a professional music career. He bought an inexpensive acoustic guitar^[3] but accidentally broke it. After the guitar was repaired, he found it had a unique sound and he now uses it as his main instrument.^[2]

Dawson's approach at tackling blues music has been described as an English version of Captain Beefheart.^[2][5] Dawson himself cites Qawwali,^[9] a form of Sufi devotional music, Kenyan folk guitarist Henry Makobi^[2] and folk musician Mike Waterson^[10] as influences on his work. The albums The Glass Trunk (2013) and Nothing Important (2014) feature collaborations with harpist Rhodri Davies, who Dawson describes as "somewhat of a kindred spirit".^[9][10] Dawson and Davies released a collaborative album, Dawson-Davies: Hen Ogledd,^[11] in 2013 and Dawson has also released solo material pseudonymously under the name "Eyeballs". Richard has also performed in the groups Hot Fog with Mike Vest (Bong), Moon with Ben Jones and Sarah Sullivan (Jazzfinger) and played a handful of shows on guitar with Khunnt.^[10]

Since Nothing Important, Dawson has played the guitar through a Fender and an Orange amplifier in series.^[9] He also used synthesized sounds from an iOS application, ThumbJam, and played saxophone despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of the instrument.^[9]

Lyrically, Dawson's material deals with dark subjects such as death. For The Glass Trunk, he searched a database in the Tyne and Wear archives for "death" and took inspiration from old news stories involving murder and bodily harm.^[3][12] The track "The Vile Stuff" from Nothing Important describes a continuous narrative of events, including one where Dawson pierced his hand with a screwdriver attempting to crack a coconut shell while on a school trip.^[5]