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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Keith Emerson ...

Keith Emerson (02.11.44 – 11.03.16)

The Father of progressive rock; the man responsible for the introduction of the Moog synthesiser to the ears of the unsuspecting music lover in the 1960’s; and without a doubt one of the 20th and 21st Centuries (to date) most prolific and talented composers of modern classical music. In a career spanning 6 decades, which has earned him notability as a pianist and keyboard player, a composer, performer, and conductor of his own music alongside the World’s finest orchestras; as well as achieving super success with “Emerson, Lake, and Palmer” - 2014 has been no less eventful for Keith Emerson! With his 70th Birthday approaching, Helen Robinson caught up with him for a very ‘up-beat’ chat about (amongst other things) the re-releases of his solo records, a brand new album with Greg Lake “Live at Manticore Hall”, his favourite solo works, and his memories of the times spent writing and recording with ‘The Nice’, and ‘ELP’.

HR : This has been a busy year for you so far Keith! KE : Yes! I’ve been up to allsorts! [laughs]

Music wise – what can I tell you? Cherry Red , Esoteric, have re-mastered and re-released 3 of my solo albums – “Changing States”, another which I recorded in the Bahamas called “Honky”, and a compilation of my film scores which consisted of "Nighthawks”, “Best Revenge”, "Inferno”, “La Chiesa (The Church)”, "Murderock”, "Harmagedon” and "Godzilla Final Wars”.

HR : That must have been a difficult selection to make based on the number of scores you’ve written! Do you have a particular favourite genre of film to write a score for?

KE : Favourite genre? Boy, well, I just love film score composition, you know? When I first started I had been touring with ELP for some years, and we’d toured with a full 80 piece orchestra but it was just too expensive – we had to drop the orchestra and continue as a trio, which was very upsetting for me. I was entranced by what an orchestra could actually do, and found that with doing film music I could work under a commission and have the orchestra paid for by the film company!

It’s always a challenge. I think a lot of composers like to write dramatic music. I like writing romantic music as well – I’ve also written for science fiction where you can let your musical imagination go pretty much where you want, but generally you have to cater specifically to the film. First of all I like to get a good idea of who the producer and director is, and who is likely to be cast as playing the lead roles. I like to read the script – which helps prior to meeting up with the director and producer. When I wrote the music to Night Hawks I was sent, by Universal films, news of a new film to be made by Sylvester Stallone, a new guy at the time called Rutger Hauer, and Billy Dee Williams, also Lindsay Wagner. It was basically a terrorist film – not the terrorism that we shockingly see today – but back then it was the beginning of terrorism and was quite mild by today’s standards, however it was still sort of ground breaking as far as writing the score was concerned.

It’s about vision with film score work.

Although really it’s all about vision with anything you’re writing, and I suppose many of the disagreements that ELP had during their time – of course a lot of it came to wonderful fruition – were not seeing eye to eye because we had such different tastes in music. Ubiquitous I would say – we bounded from one thing to another. Just when you thought it was getting serious we’d want to have some fun and do something light hearted but I’ve always maintained that variation is essential.

I think that’s what helped ELP quite a lot – especially live - in any particular set you had the heavy stuff like “Tarkus” and “Pictures At an Exhibition”, for the guys in the audience, and for the females who attended reluctantly - dragged along by their boyfriend or husbands and just sit there - I mean, I didn’t sit, I was standing and leaping around [laughs] but you couldn’t help notice the glum looking females in the audience wondering when all this was going to be over.

I think when ELP were together as a unit, we managed to meet everybody’s needs. Greg came up with some really great ballads which sort of got home to the feminine heart, like “From The Beginning” – the feminine heart goes “aaah aint that nice” [laughs] and then suddenly you get the bombardment of something like “Karn Evil 9” and it’s like “Oh GOD”!!

HR : I’d like to talk more about ELP, of course, however there’s so much more outside of that unit , which you have been involved with, that has had quite an influence on modern music. You’ve got an extraordinary and fairly extensive discography, which we can pick whatever you’d like to talk about, but I’d like to start with ‘The Nice’ - “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” ...

KE : Ah Yes ‘’Art is long, life is short” - Lee Jackson came up with that title - he’d studied a bit of Latin ... [laughs]

Going back to the 1960’s then – I suppose it was ‘66 when ‘The Nice’ formed – originally as a quartet. Drums, bass, Hammond organ or keyboards, and guitar player. After the first album we decided to move on as a trio, although I did try to find another guitar player. I actually auditioned a guy called Steve Howe, who was considering getting together with Jon Anderson, and Chris Squire and forming a band called “Yes”. Steve was much more interested in getting with the “Yes” guys, so meanwhile ‘The Nice’ continued as a trio with Lee Jackson on bass, Brian Davison on Drums, and myself on Hammond and keys. It was during this time that I was introduced to a new invention designed by Dr Robert Moog, which became the moog synthesiser, so I was the first to introduce that into live performance.

With ‘The Nice’ we had come out of an era called the underground / Psychedelia.

I was very friendly with Frank Zappa and the mothers of invention, and they were really far ahead of their time.

Frank approached me one day, because I was composing and playing with the London orchestras even then, and said ‘’Keith - how do you deal with English orchestras? They’re hopeless!”

And I said ‘’Well, they’re very conservative Frank. If you really want to make it with the London Symphony, or the London Philharmonic - if you really want my advice, I think you should try and change some of the lyrics of your songs. If you’re going to get in front of the London Philharmonic and sing stuff like ‘’Why does it hurt when I pee?’’ obviously these guys are not going to take very kindly to it!” [laughs]

I’d actually done Bachs Brandenburg concerto #3 with a chamber orchestra and had a degree of success in the English charts- around about the same time , Jon Lord [Deep Purple, Whitesnake] was writing his concerto for orchestra too. I’d already written the “5 bridges suite” which I had recorded with ‘The Nice’ at Fairfield hall in London. So basically Jon Lord and I were kind of both struggling with Orchestras and moving along into what came next musically for the both of us – Jon was a very good friend.

I think round about the turn of 1970, I had noticed what Steve Howe was doing and it was very harmonic, whereas ‘The Nice’ - well we were a bit more bizarre, and I listen back to it now and I suppose I have a slight bit of embarrassment about how ‘The Nice’ were presenting themselves.

And back then I’d started looking at bands like ‘Yes’, and there were a lot of other bands too, who were really concentrating on the tunes and the vocal element, so that’s when and why I formed ‘Emerson Lake and Palmer’ - in 1970 - and endorsed the whole sound with the moog synthesiser. It sort of took off, and became known as what we know today as “Prog Rock”. We didn’t have a name for it at that time, we just thought it was contemporary rock. I mean it wasn’t the blues, it wasn’t jazz, but it was a mixture of all of these things, and that’s when we went through.

The first album of ELP, [Emerson, Lake, & Palmer] recorded in 1970; we were still learning how to write together as a unit, so consequently when you listen to it, you’ll hear a lot of instrumentals; mainly because there were no lyrics and there was a pressure on the band to get an album out. For some reason there was an extreme interest in the band - We were to be considered as the next super group after ‘Crosby Stills & Nash’, which we certainly didn’t like the idea of. That album went very well. Unfortunately the record company decided to release “Lucky Man” - which was a last minute thought – as a single, and it took off. My concern was the fact that, OK yeah the ending has the big moog sweeps and everything like that going on – but how on earth do we do all the vocals live? Thousands of vocal overdubs over the top and neither Carl nor I sang. You know - I sing so bad that a lot of people refuse to even read my lips! And as far as Carl Palmer was concerned he had “Athletes Voice” and people just ran away when he sang! It was a hopeless task of actually being able to recreate “Lucky Man” on stage, so eventually Greg just did it as an acoustic guitar solo. It was that one sort of Oasis, in a storm of very macho guy stuff, where the women just went [in a girly voice] “Oh I like that, that’s nice”. [laughs]

So, inspired by that we got more grandiose and put out ‘’Pictures At An Exhibition” – another bombastic piece based upon Mussorgsky’s epic work. For some reason Greg wanted it released at a reduced price because he said it wasn’t the right direction for ELP to go. So we released it for about £1 and it went straight to number 1! Then the record company called up and said ‘’what are you doing? This is a hit record and you’re just selling it for £1??!!’’, so I said ‘’well yeah it’s a bit stupid isn’t it?” – so when it was released in America it was at its full price and ended up nominated for a Grammy award! ELP had a lot to do to create the piece you know? We disagreed on lots of issues but in order to keep the ball rolling we just moved on with the next one, which was in fact “Trilogy”.

I thought it was about this time in ELPs life that we had learned how to tolerate each other, how to write together, and how to be very constructive. “Trilogy” is a complete mish-mash, you go from one thing to another; there’s a Bolero, and then ‘Sherriff’ – which is kind of western bar jangly piano playing on it. I don’t think you could find such a complete diversity buying a record like that these days. We were very much inspired by our audience accepting that.

Actually Sony Records are going to re release it in 5.1 – they’re doing a wonderful package with out-takes and everything – I’ve just competed doing the liner notes.

We moved on again then, and started the makings of “Brain Salad Surgery” which was a step further.

After that I worked on my piano concerto played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and actually it’s still being performed all over the world - Australia, Poland, and in October I’m going to East Coast America to do some conducting – Jeffrey Beagle, who’s a great classical pianist, is going to perform it then, and I’m going to perform some other new works of mine.

HR : Are you likely to release a recording of it?

KE : Yes I guess it might be ... I’ll let you know. It’s a dauntless compelling challenge. I have conducted and played with orchestras before and I’m very thankful to have classical guys around me who are able to point me in the right direction. I was never classically trained. I started off playing by ear and then having private piano lessons, and then basically teaching myself how to orchestrate. I’m still taking lessons in conducting and I don’t think I’ll ever get to the standard of the greats like Dudamel or Bernstein – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to conduct Wagner, but so long as I’ve written the piece of music I think I’ve got an idea of roughly how it goes! [laughs] Thankfully I’ve worked with Orchestras who are very kind to me.

HR : Do you enjoy the performance as much as the writing?

KE : Actually I enjoy the writing more than the performance. I know I wrote an Autobiography called ‘’Pictures Of An Exhibitionist” but that’s the last thing that I am really. I’m pretty much a recluse. I’ve got my Norton 850 and I’m happy ...

HR : I was going to ask you about the Theatrics on stage – Why Knives and swords? Was there something which influenced the decision to include that as a part of your performance, or was it purely born out of frustration from working with Carl and Greg?

KE : [laughs] Well you see in the 60s, I toured with bands like The Who, and I watched Pete Townshend; I toured with Jimi Hendrix too, and I thought that if the piano is going to take off then the best thing to do is like really learn to become a great piano or and keyboard player, but I also thought “that aint gonna last with a Rock audience in a Rock situation”, mainly because the piano or Hammond organ - well from the audience you look up on stage and it’s just a piece of furniture! Whereas the guitar player can come on stage and he’s got this thing strapped around his neck, he can wander up and down the sage, check out the chicks, and he’s the guy that has all the fun. The organ player meanwhile is just seated there at a piece of furniture like he’s sat at a table. So a lot of what I did was for the excitement of it, and I suppose to exemplify the fact that I could play it back to front. A lot of my comic heroes like Victor Borg, Dudley Moore – they all came into the whole issue too.

I’ll tell you this ok? I once went to see a band at the Marquee club when it was in Wardour Street in London, and I can’t remember this guys name now, but he played Hammond organ - he was a very narky looking fellow, and went on stage wearing a schoolboys outfit which caused a lot of the girls in the audience to chuckle. I stood at the back of the Marquee club and watched his performance - a lot of the stops and things were falling off his organ, so he had a screwdriver to keep holding certain keys down, and then suddenly the back of his Hammond fell off – and I don’t think it was intentional, because he looked really quite distraught, but he caused so much laughter from the audience. I went away thinking “there is something there, I’m going to use that” ... I actually thought it would be a great idea to stick a knife into the organ, rather than a screw driver -the reason for this was to hold down a 4th and a 5th , or maybe any 5th, or say a ‘C’ and an ‘F’ or a ‘G’, whatever, and then be able to go off stage, take the power off the Hammond, so that it would just die away - it would go ‘’whoooaaaaaaaoooooh’’; and then I’d plug it back in and it would power back up and create like the noise of an air-raid siren, and of course the drummer and bass player would react to that. It got really interesting. We actually had a road manager at the time by the name of ‘’Lemmy’’ who went on to be with Motorhead. He gave me 2 Hitler Youth Daggers and said [best Lemmy impression] “here! If you’re going to use a knife, use a real one!”

So that was the start of all that, and people loved it, and actually Hendrix loved it too – somewhere in his archive collection there must be some footage of me almost throwing a knife at him [laughs] .

The phase for it was my objection to the 3 assassinations they had in the USA - JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King - I’d been to America once and seen how quick the Police were to pull out their guns to a woman parking her car illegally – so bizarre. The 2nd amendment will not go away, as much as they want it to. I’ll reserve further comments on that but that was really the whole objective. I was banned from the Albert Hall for burning a painting of the Stars and Stripes, which took some time to get over, but everything worked and they allowed me live in California now. [laughs]

HR : What about the Manticore Hall show, also released this year, presumably you kept burning paintings off the agenda there? Was it good to work with Greg again? and then the complete ELP line up with Carl at High Voltage?

KE : No! [laughs], and Yes ... Actually that was recorded in 2010 and was an idea set up by a manager associate of mine, and an agent in California. I met up with them and they asked how I felt about doing a Duo tour to lead up to the High Voltage Festival in London. They convinced me that it was a big festival ... and the idea was to have ELP on the Sunday night there. So the lead up was a duo tour with myself and Greg because Carl was off with Asia at the time. It had its ups and downs, but it did eventually work very well and it was a very good warm up to doing that Festival date as the 3 of us. I don’t think there was any intention of us going any further with it. I think the resulting “ELP at High Voltage” was good and also I think the album ‘’Live At Manticore Hall’’ - although it wasn’t released until this year, because Greg initially didn’t want it to be released at all - is good stuff too. These things happen with bands, it takes a while for us to appreciate how good what we do is, sometimes.

HR : You’d had quite a break from ELP at that point, KE : [interrupts] I wouldn’t say that I ever take a break, if I can put it so lightly, and it’s not lightly, as to say that it’s kind of like a hobby – if I feel so inclined I will go to the piano and will write a piece of music. If that piece of music seems to warrant being augmented by anyone then I find the right people to do it. I had a great experience last year of going to Japan and hearing the Tokyo Philharmonic play the whole of “Tarkus” – a 90 piece orchestra – I’ve never been so blown away. I worked with a Japanese arranger on the orchestration, and actually used it on an album which I recorded with Marc Bonilla, and Terje Mikkelsen called “Three Fates Project”, which actually didn’t make it anywhere and I don’t know why. It’s a great album, very orchestral – I did the version of “Tarkus” on that complete with the Munich symphony orchestra. I changed it around slightly – I had Irish fiddle players coming in – I suppose, really you could refer to it as being World Music – it’s probably a great example of that. It’s not based upon the ELP solo piano composition that we did on ELPs first album. I don’t think the record companies knew how to market it you know? Was it classical? was it rock? It has the complete amalgamation of group and orchestra. Wonderfully recorded. It really is quite mind blowing. Not that I want to blow my own trumpet! Maybe if the art work had been a little more dynamic then it would have caught people’s attention. I agreed on it, but you see our names and they’re really small - I don’t think people realised who’s album it was.

HR : Have you any plans to perform it in the UK, or other parts of Europe? Scandanavia, for Blackmoon fans? Any tour plans at all?

KE : The thing is, first of all, that the direction that I am going at the moment is very orchestral. And that does take an awful lot of planning. As I say I’m going to play with the South Shore Symphony on the East Coast of America, but touring with an orchestra, as I learnt back in the late 70s with ELP, is very expensive. It doesn’t make any money if I’m perfectly honest. If someone was to come up with the cost of shipping the instruments about then ... but it’s not like dishing out the orchestral charts to an orchestra and then have The Moody Blues come on and play, and the strings do all the backing stuff, you know! This music is the music which I’ve written and really demands quite a lot of practicing.

For instance when I was recording “Three Fates” with the Munich Symphony, in Munich, I was interviewed during the break after the first day by a radio station, and they asked ‘’how do you think its going?’’ and I said “well if the orchestra are still here with me in 5 days time, I should be very surprised” [laughs] . I remember on about the 4th day , one of the members of the orchestra had obviously heard the radio broadcast. As and I walked out into the garden at break time, I passed one of the Trombonists who was smoking a cigarette and he said ‘’well we’re still here”...

There is an awful lot that can go wrong, of course, especially with orchestras. The copyist can sometimes write a b natural rather than a b flat, or they can get a whole load of other things wrong – and that’s what happened this particular recording.

Marc Bonilla actually came up to me on a break and said “I think you should go up to the control room, and look at the score mate, something doesn’t sound right”, so you can imagine the look on my face! So off I go I’m up in the control room; radio through to the rehearsal room and start going through the score and sure enough it was wrong. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard that before, but it was down to the copyists – its the same with writing a book and you give it away to the editor – they can still mess it up – as copyists do with music. And sometimes you’ll get the orchestra, and they’ll just play what’s written rather than put their hands up and say “that doesn’t sound right”, for fear of retribution I suppose – so it is frustrating, but it’s very rewarding.

The Mourning Sun, taken from “Three Fates”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcOI8nDDeU

It’s been quite funny with some of these albums that Cherry Red are rereleasing. I happened to give one to my eldest son. I gave him ‘’Honky’’ and he came up to me and he said ‘’here Dad I’ve been listening to the Honky album and it’s really really good!’’ He and his friends are in their 40s now and they’ve all complimented me on it, so that’s the biggest compliment I could have really.

I was recording that album when he was about 4 years old. [laughs]

HR : Is that your favourite then? Honky?

KE : Oh yeah – I had so much fun making that album and I think it shows in it’s humour. It was great. The objective behind it was that I wanted to record with all the local bohemian people - I was living at the time in Nassau in the Bahamas. I didn’t really experience a lot of problems with the black bohemians – I got on great with them all. There were some great musicians, and I wanted to do a very ethnic album to bring to the attention of the world that we can all get on! I used to drive around Nassau in a limited edition Jeep and kids would run out and yell at me ‘’Honky!’’ and I’d wave thinking ‘that’s kind of fun’. Then, when I worked in the studio I noticed that the black musicians would all greet themselves with the ‘’N’’ word – we can’t say that now - says in an accent “Yo N ...” – so I thought ‘well if they can do that I am going to call myself a Honky!’ And they were horrified!! [laughs] So I bluntly spoke to them and I said “listen you guys call yourselves ‘’Ns’’ so I’m calling myself a Honky, and damn it I’m going to call the album that too!” [laughs]. It was a lot of fun.

*** Honky - a derogatory term for a Caucasian person.

HR : We must get something down about Blackmoon – given that this is the title of the Magazine!

KE : [laughs] ELP, Blackmoon. *sighs* Well ... I remember from this time that Carl Palmer and myself wanted to have a different producer.

It was all well and good that Greg produced all the other albums but – I don’t think it’s a very good idea for any band ; if they’re involved in the writing and the playing, and then one band member decides he’s going to be a producer too. You need someone objective to come in and say that they think it’s too long, or whatever ... whereas if you have a part in writing and playing, its obvious that you’re going to pay more attention to it, and Carl and myself really wanted an objective opinion about how to make it work. The producers that we auditioned were very familiar with ELPs work and were really considerate in how they constructed it. The main consideration - and I think really it was a difficult time because Greg could see that his role as being a former producer of ELP was going to be taken away from him. Whereas for me I felt that Greg’s attention should be more on the writing and the lyrics and other aspects. There is so much that one had to pay attention to when running a band. There are the legal, accounting, and everything else – and above all you have the creative aspect and you really cannot go into a studio and become the producer and wear all these different hats. It doesn’t work, I don’t allow that even on my own music writing. I’m quite happy to go in and play my music as long as I trust that the guy behind the music desk, and the mixing desk, are on the same page, know who I am, and what I’ve done before – so at least there is a rapport where the engineer can see what you are trying to do and he will say – “ah you know what, why don’t we try and go for that you did on Trilogy - lets try it!” You have to work with people who understand you and then you can just sit back and work on it , accept a good idea, be pushed to your limits. The thing is with Greg - he felt that he had been removed from the situation which he had most power and pride in. Whereas I think most pride he should keep as the fact that he s a damn good singer and has written some great music. If you want a great team you have to designate to the right person.

That’s why I had Lemmy as my roadie. If I hadn’t had Lemmy the knives wouldn’t have come out [laughs]. We owe Lemmy a lot! HR : Absolutely. You two should record a duet! Which Instrument would you choose? Moog, Melotron, Hammond?

KE : Hmmmmmmmm. Piano. I’ve always written on the piano. I do have a mandolin hanging on the wall here, which is out of tune at the moment. You wouldn’t want to hear me play this mandolin ...

HR : Because it’s out of tune, or just in general?

KE : [laughs] because it’s out of tune but even if it was in tune I don’t know if it would work. It looks great hanging on the wall though ...

[Keith and I were great pals - I miss him <3]

#keith emerson #lemmy #elp #prog #prog rock

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Jack Bruce ...

JACK BRUCE (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014)

In a career spanning the past 5 decades, Jack Bruce has become one of the World’s most renowned and revered musicians. A songwriter, performer, composer, multi instrumentalist, and legend in his own lifetime. Jack Bruce has played an integral and influential role in the development of modern music over the past 50 years - Through his membership of ‘super-groups’ like “Cream”; a successful Solo career that boasts 18 Studio / Live albums, countless collaborations, and guest performances; an induction into the “Rock n Roll Hall of Fame” with Cream in 1993; an honorary doctorate from his alumni college in Glasgow, and numerous lifetime achievement awards for his contribution to Music. The World held it’s breath back in 2003 as news broke of Jack’s illness and consequent liver transplant, which left him in a coma and fighting for his life. Less than 2 years later, in May of 2005, “Cream” reformed to play four shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and Madison Square Gardens in New York. All four shows sold out in under an hour. Since then Jack has spent much of his time on the road with his “Big Blues Band”, or working closely on new and exciting projects with a variety of musicians - many of which share the privilege of being regarded as the world’s finest. At the age of 71, he has just released his latest studio album “Silver Rails” - 10 brand new tracks which feature an array of talented and respected musicians including Phil Manzanera, Robin Trower, John Medeski, Cindy Blackman- Santana, Bernie Marsden, Uli Jon Roth, Malcolm Bruce and many more, as well as lyrics penned by Cream lyricist Pete Brown, long-term collaborator Kip Hanrahan, and Jack's wife Margrit. I caught up with Jack earlier in the year to talk a little bit about the new record, the man behind the music, and the path he has travelled to the place we find him, in 2014.

HR : When you were still living and studying in Glasgow back in the late 1950’s early 1960s – was there a scene you were involved with back then?

JB : Yes! I was really into Jazz, modern free Jazz – there was a little scene there, a place called ‘’The Cell’’ - of course [laughs] what else would it be called? We used to go and hang out there and pretend to be hip. They were good musicians. I remember a guy called Andy Park who was a very good piano player – I was just a kid, 16 / 17 years old, and it was a very good grounding for me. But in those days if you wanted to have a career in music you had to go to London – there wasn’t a big enough scene in Glasgow. HR : So when you moved on, did the London Scene come as a shock to you, or did you fit right in?

JB : Actually, I ended up going all over Europe before I got to London. Finally, I got to London; met up with Dick Heckstall Smith, who got me an audition with Alexis Corner’s band – Blues Incorporated – so I got that gig when I was 18, and that was it for me! HR :Another band that you were involved with - The Graham Bond Organisation - in particular the album ‘’The Sound Of 65’’ – do you look back fondly on that era? Is the album something you’ve listened to since it was recorded?

JB : I have heard bits of it. I remember the experience of recording it because it was the first time that we went into a big time studio. It was actually recorded at Abbey Road but it was done in 3 hours. That’s how long they used to give you in those days, a 3 hour session - so we did the whole thing in 3 hours and that was with a couple of new songs from me! At the time it sounded quite up-to-date, and very modern, but when I listen to it now it sounds quite dated.

You should never call an album the sound of something of a certain year, because quite soon after that year it sounds really old fashioned! [laughs]. Certainly some good songs on there – Graham was great. I do look back very fondly on the experience of being with that band. It was about 3 years, and working practically every night. We would do 300 gigs every year, probably more, and we never left Britain!

HR: You couldn’t do that here these days!

JB: No that’s right [laughs]. But back then we were opening a lot of clubs. We’d be the first act to play places like the Twisted Wheel, or ‘’The Place’’ in Hanley. Venues that went on to be famous clubs. I remember playing ‘’The Place’’ and we were late because Graham [Bond] had tripped and hurt his leg – it was jammed packed when we arrived and we had to carry in all the gear in ourselves through the audience, set up, and then start playing. [laughs] But it was still a good gig! It was a lot of fun!

HR: In the pre-Cream years, you were already well connected to Ginger and Eric?

JB: I was very connected with Ginger because we used to do a lot of playing together as a rhythm section in different jazz groups, and then Ginger eventually joined Alexis Corners band. So I played with Ginger for years actually - from 1963 until Cream started, in 1966.

HR: There’s quite a well documented history of your fiery relationship with him!

JB: That came in later on to be honest. We always got on really well. I was younger than Ginger – he was already married with a kid when I first knew him, and I was just a little boy really. We had a good relationship, we were really good friends, in fact we always were right up until towards the end of Cream, but it’s all a long time ago ... [laughs]

HR: Was there no question about who was going to form the Trio that became Cream?

JB: Well it was really because of Eric. Ginger asked Eric to form a band, and Eric said, ‘’Yeah but we gotta have Jack in it!” So Ginger came to ask me if I wanted to join, and of course I wanted to join, and play with those guys! Who wouldn’t?

HR: Given Creams commercial success, and the media attention, did you ever feel that it had been more fun to be a part of Graham Bond Organisation, or the lower key projects that you’d been involved with?

JB: No, no, I think the most fun that I had playing was with Cream – up until that point certainly. Simply, it was the most exciting band, especially Live. In the studio I had a lot of control over the direction of the records, of the songs anyway, so that was nice too ...

HR: The songs have certainly stood the test of time!

JB: [laughs] Yeah! it’s amazing how they still get played, and yet we’re not as well known here [UK] as we are in the States. We toured none stop there, and had big hits there, that was where we got really well known, but yes - People still love that band!

HR: There are a number of hugely successful rock musicians cite you as an influence ...

JB: Well that’s always nice to hear, and I know that as a bass player I’ve always been told that I influenced that one or this one ...

HR: You can hear the Cream influences, in particular the track “As You Said” [Wheels Of Fire, 1968], in songs by some of the bands that came after, like Led Zeppelin for instance ... But who influenced you? Who inspired you to become a musician and write the way that you do? Have you ever met anyone who was particularly influential?

JB: I met Charlie Mingus once – great bass player – but really my influences, particularly that track “As You Said” , I would say was inspired by Debussy – French composer. He had this theory about music that kept developing, as opposed to repeating and repeating the same thing.

That was an influence to me in trying to write songs. Trying to invent new forms, even the sort of “pop” songs that I wrote were quite different , like “I Feel Free”, “Sunshine Of Your Love”, “White Room” – they always had a little thing in them that was not absolutely standard ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMnZ9lStWgA HR: Have you got a favourite song that you’ve written?

JB: I think the one that’s stood the test of time for me is ‘’I Feel Free’’ – it’s not exactly a pop song but it’s as close as I could get to writing a pop song [laughs]. It wasn’t as well recorded as it might have been because it was only recorded on 4 tracks and we weren’t very experienced in the studio, But the feeling on it ... Ginger wanted to re-record it, but I knew that the take we had was the one! I could tell we’d never get it, although it had faults, to me that’s not as important as the feeling of it ... so we had a fight about that of course! [laughs]. I was adamant that’s the take we had to use, and Eric agreed, so that was it ... HR: Have you got a particular process for your songwriting?

JB: Well sometimes it’s just a musical idea, and then I’ll work on it with Pete Brown – or he’ll send me some words. On the new record there’s a song called ‘’Reach For The Night”. Pete wrote the words for that on a plane flight from Germany and just emailed them to me - the music just fell into place because of the words. I heard this descending line, that just kept descending [laughs] and it was really very easy. It wrote itself really. Most of my things do, when they’re good, they write themselves ... HR: Did you find that that happened with Silver Rails?

JB: Yes. It was really easy to write, in the sense that each song seemed to follow on from the one before, when I was writing them. The first thing I wrote for it was ‘’Drone’’ – which is an unusual song for me, I guess. One of my kids is into this band called ‘’Earth’’ and he played me a track. The genre is drone, actually, and I thought it was a great style, so I just immediately came up with the tune. I had the words kicking around already, and they just fit.

The musicians that I managed to ‘collect’, if you like – every song was written for those particular musicians, and I was very lucky that they were all available in the limited time that I had - cause I only had 3 weeks in the studio - and that I could get Cindy Blackman-Santana, John Medeski – wonderful Hammond organ player. We have this band called Spectrum Road, which is a free Jazz group, and they played on it with me, with Vernon Reid on guitar. It was just great to have them. And the amazing coincidence that Bernie Marsden was walking out of Abbey Road, as I was walking in, so I said ‘’Bernie, what are you doing?” he said ‘’I’ve just finished recording my album’’ so I said ‘’Turn around, you’ve got more work to do my man!” [laughs]

Also Rob Cass, the producer, was absolutely brilliant in getting exactly the sound that I wanted - and I feel very very lucky to have worked at Abbey Road again ...

HR: So you were happy with the album once it was finished, and the recording of it? because technology has moved on quite a bit ...

JB: Yeah I’ve always liked technology, I’ve never been scared of it. You know it’s still basically the same thing – you go into a studio, and you play! [laughs]. I don’t use all the auto tune and stuff like that ... to me that’s cheating!! [laughs].

The nicest way of recording is Live. If I do an album with Robin Trower, we do it live, just like the olden days. HR: When you’re writing – as you’re a multi instrumentalist – do you prefer one particular instrument?

JB: On Silver Rails, they’re either guitar songs, or piano songs. The kind of rock ones are definitely guitar, and they’ll just be written in my head and then I’ll talk to the guitar player and the drummer about it. The more complicated ones, with lots of chord changes, tend to be written using the piano – they’re more lyrical, as a rule. There’s a song called ‘’Don’t look Now’’ on the album and to me that’s a very typical song for Me and Pete Brown. It’s almost Scottish! HR: You’ve collaborated with Pete Brown from the early days ...

JB: Yeah . On Silver Rails there are 7 songs with his lyrics, one that I wrote the lyrics for, one my wife Margrit wrote, and one that Kip Hanrahan wrote – another old friend of mine from New York – [in a NY accent] from the Bronx! HR: Outside of those established long-term working relationships that you have with people, is there another favourite collaboration, or performance, or guest appearance that really stands out?

JB: There’s one with Rory Gallagher at Rock Palast – it’s on YouTube actually. He didn’t really know the song - we played ‘’Politician’’ - I had to show him how it went in the corridor before we went onstage. [laughs], I liked that - I’d liked to have played more with Rory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXk--eL5-kQ

HR: Despite Being a Jazzman, at your core - your own discography, and projects you’ve been involved with cover a number of musical genres. When you’re just chilling out, or jamming, is it still Jazz that grabs you?

JB: Nah, it’s the blues really. I don’t think of myself as a jazz player at all! I’m certainly influenced very much by the blues, and I would say that Cream, really, was a blues band. For the time, it was a modern take on the blues – and 3 white guys playing it [laughs]. People would say, ‘’Oh it was Psychedelic”, “it’s this, it’s that” and I say ‘’No, it’s just the blues”

HR: Wasn’t psychedelia just a word invented at the time?

JB: [laughs] Yeah! We used it a bit, in the fashion sense - we’d dress up in all those ridiculous clothes [laughs] and had silly haircuts. After Eric first got to know Jimi Hendrix, he said “somebody’s got to have hair like that” so I said “OK but it’s not going to be me!” – it ended up being Eric. I mean I had stuff growing in my hair – some kind of birds, and mice or something – I wasn’t going to give that up! [laughs]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/heiner1947/4482603342/in/photostream/

HR: Is there any new music that you’ve got into recently?

JB: Well there’s that band ‘’Earth’’ and another band called ‘’Om” who I like very much, but I haven’t been listening to a lot of new stuff to be fair. It took a lot of energy making Silver Rails. It was a year flat out to make that album, from the writing to the recording, so I’m just taking it easy right now; thinking about doing another record, other various things, maybe some film stuff ... HR: Have your musical goals changed in the last few years then?

JB: Oh Yeah. I think I’m more interested in being myself now. People say “who influences you?”, and I say, “well really I’ve had such a long career that I influence myself!” ... You know, I kind of rip myself off! [laughs]

HR: Have you ever got to a point where you’ve just sat down and thought ‘’Right that’s it, I’ve had enough!’’ or is music – performing or writing - something you know you can’t live without?

JB: Occasionally, over the last while, but it doesn’t last long, and I always go back out on the road. I had this really great band – The Big Blues Band – and that was real fun! We did a lot of touring ; South America and all over the place. I was on the road for a couple of years and I must admit after that I got pretty tired of the road - Not the playing, the travelling. And it doesn’t matter what level you’re doing it on either, when you’re not 20 odd anymore it really takes it out of you! As a 20 year old you have the power to restore yourself, it takes longer as you get older, to get over stuff! [laughs] HR: You say yourself there, about the length of your career. You’ve been around as all the major musical ‘’booms’’ have happened, and there have been some serious accolades bestowed upon you as a result of your contribution to music ...

JB: Yeah probably a lot of people think I should just shut up and go away!

HR: No! Not at all! Musicians are immortal! You leave behind all of these fantastic recordings which people will enjoy for years to come, so you never really go away!

JB: [laughs] well I guess that’s true – and it’s a nice thought that you’ve made a contribution. I like that.

HR: Has it meant a lot to you, being introduced into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, and receiving titles like the International award for Best Bass Player, Lifetime Achievement Awards and such?

JB: Well people always sort of say ‘’Ah it doesn’t mean anything” but somehow it always does. With the Rock N Roll hall of Fame thing – none of us really wanted to be a part of that, but once you’re there you get sucked into it and it’s actually very moving. I remember even Ginger had a tear in his eye.

The thing that was most moving in that way though were the reunion gigs that we [Cream] did in 2005. That was incredible – I had been very ill, and it gave me an incentive to get well. The year before those shows I was in a coma ... I don’t want to make a big thing about it, but when I think about it now, it really gave me something to aim to get better for. HR: Were the reunion gigs something that you wanted to do then?

JB: Oh yeah. Definitely. It was something that I was always keen in doing. I remember the last time we spoke about it was at the Rock n Roll induction, in 1993. So nothing happened for all that time, and then 2005 - 12 years later - we managed to get it together.

HR: And those gigs were received so well - the shows are still broadcast regularly on Sky Arts ... which is that immortality thing again!

JB: [laughs] Yeah!! It’s nice that people will still look at that in years to come ...

HR: Is it important to you to be recognised for your talent and ability to have mastered the instrument you’ve become famous for playing, or more for everything that you’ve contributed to music over the years?

JB: I don’t really think of myself, although I get these awards, as a bass player. I know I’ve had a big influence on a lot of bass players, but because I sing and play piano and stuff too, I think of myself just as a working musician, as opposed to trying to be the best player. But somehow people say ‘’Oh you’re the best bass player”. [laughs] I’m not going to argue with them! I just say ‘’Ok Fine!’’ I’ve got another lifetime achievement award which I’m flying out to LA to collect in October – so that’ll be fun, hanging out in Hollywood!

HR: It’s obviously your calling ...

JB: Yeah it’s funny the way things work out. I would never have imagined myself as a bass player but I did fall in love with the instrument. At school there was one, and nobody else was interested in it - it was very neglected against the wall. So I just started plonking on it, you know ... turned out I was a bit of a plonker! [laughs]

So yeah ... it’s funny how it was that instrument. It wasn’t a trumpet or a guitar or anything like that. Although I did have little guitars and stuff as a kid, when ‘Rock N Roll’ happened. I remember sending away for this guitar that was advertised in a comic. It was REALLY great – it was the Elvis Presley guitar , but when it came ... it was this little yellow ukulele. [laughs] Plastic. You couldn’t even tune it - It was a rip off, to put it mildly! Terrible ...

HR: Ah that’s not fair ...

JB: No it’s not, they shouldn’t do that!

HR: That could have put you off for life! And then we wouldn’t have had Jack Bruce, or Cream!

JB: [laughs] Yeah! That’s right! HR: Is there anything you’d like to add – something you feel compelled to tell the World that they might not already know about Jack Bruce?

JB: No. [laughs] I think You got it all!

#jack bruce #cream #jackbruce #bass #eric clapton #ginger baker #rocklegends #rockhistory

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Derek Forbes ...

Fans of ‘Simple Minds’, should need no introduction to Derek Forbes. From 1979 - 1985, he formed part of the creative force which drove ‘Simple Minds’ to the pinnacle of their music career and become one of the most successful bands ever to come out of Scotland. His bass lines pushed ‘Simple Minds’ through the boundaries of their experimental post-punk / new wave early albums, to the dancefloor, and more importantly, the charts. In 1985, with the release of ‘The Breakfast Club’ film - which has become something of a cult classic - the single “Don’t You Forget About Me”, catapulted ‘Simple Minds’ into the Top 10 around the world. Around the same time, Forbes left the band ... his reasons for why have been speculated on for decades, and with the recent release of his autobiography ‘A Very Simple Mind’, curious minds may finally find out what happened on that fateful day. Many folks are of the opinion that, with Forbes departure, the band lost it’s sound and became just another pop band, striving to make records and money on relentless tours, without much music of substance. That’s not in any way a criticism of the musicians hired by the band to carry the work forward, but for many fans of ‘Simple Minds’ early work, the new stuff has just never come close.

I caught up for chat with Derek when he was releasing the ‘ZANTI’ album “Broken Hearted City” back in 2018, but hadn’t published it until today! [18.02.2024] HR : We’ve known each other forever, but this is the first time you’ve allowed me to interrogate you.

DF : Aye, and don’t think you’re getting anything exclusive, you know I’m writing a book!

HR : I’ve a wealth of exclusives I could publish already ...

DF : [Laughs] You wouldn’t dare. That look says you would.

HR : I’ll play it safe today!

DF: Keep in printable ..........

HR : How did you get the gig with ‘Simple Minds’?

DF : I had met Jim Kerr when he was around 15. He came to a gig I was doing at Langside College in Glasgow, when I was a Lead Guitarist. We met again in 1977 at the Mars Bar in Glasgow, where I was playing bass guitar with ‘the Subs’ (Subhumans). Jim was a regular at our gigs, he wanted me to join his band, 'Simple Minds'. Jim and Charlie asked me to stand in on bass, after original bass player Tony Donald left, after one gig. My school pal Duncan Barnwell, who played lead guitar along with Charlie, in 'Simple Minds', was instrumental in my joining Simple Minds. I went for an audition with the Rezillos, and a good looking dude got the job, even though Jo Callis had voted for me to join. I was still playing weekends with Simple Minds at that time. They asked me to join full time again, but I said I wanted to get back to playing lead guitar, because that is what I was , a lead guitar player. One night in Glasgow, I turned up at ‘the Subs’ rehearsal room to find that my Gibson Les Paul guitar had been stolen, so I said “fuck it”, and told 'Simple Minds' I was in! I found out later, (2018), that it was Russell Barrie who nicked my guitar, and without whom, I would never have joined ‘Simple Minds’, and they would have been average.

HR : That’s not the most expensive guitar in the world is it? Remember that?

DF : No! That was the blue bass. [Laughs] Wikipedia ... that was funny.

HR : I know things have been tense between you and JK for a while, but what was the camaraderie like in the early days?

DF : It was all fun, although very serious when it came to recordings and song writing. Generally it was immense fun, always laughing and joking, with many a hilarious story to tell. Wind ups galore. We were five young men, who were just about to embark on a meteoric rise to fame. It was a magical time.

Simple Minds circa 1979 : L-R Derek Forbes, Jim Kerr, Mick MacNeil, Charlie Burchill, Brian McGee

HR : How did you work as a creative unit?

DF : Very simply, (forgive the pun, what pun?) The chemistry between the five of us has never been equalled in later formations. The first five albums were the most intensely creative in the bands history , numbers 4/5 Sons and Sisters, had us churning out songs and ideas with such ease, that we couldn’t decide what to leave out, hence the ‘double ‘ album. Which became two separate albums, ‘Sons and Fascination’ and ‘Sister Feelings Call’.

HR : When the bands original drummer Brian McGee left the band, the sound of the albums seemed to change - was that just coincidence?

DF : No! We were so used to ‘Irish Face’ Brian McGee, being there at the back, and it was a real blow to us. This period was the start of the demise of the chemistry. Brian brought a lot to the table, and with the original five guys, we were one of the coolest bands around. Gigs were always sold out. Later, in the following couple of years, we were to hold the record of 10 sold out nights in a row, at Hammersmith Odeon (now the Apollo).

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HR : There’s a distinct difference in style between ‘Sons and Fascination’ / ‘Sister Feelings Call’, and ‘New Gold Dream’ - what prompted that?

DF : I think it was going from one Producer to another, both with their own individual ideas of how the songs should be presented. Steve Hillage was incredible to work with. The fact that Steve was an astounding musician, and a guitar hero to boot, gave us the freedom to express our selves. It was anarchy, as both Steve and ourselves had no one to tell us when to stop! But, what a collection of songs we were left with. Steve got rushed to hospital one day, with a suspected heart attack.. but he was back the next day, and got straight back into the job.

HR : Knowing Steve, it was probably a bowl of stew he’d eaten!

DF : [Laughs] kin’ell, aye! Was it you who told me about that?

HR : Probably - the Deeply Vale collective mind altering incident ...

‘New Gold Dream’ was written by Forbes, Kerr, Burchill and MacNeil, with no mention of a drummer - what happened there?

There were three drummers on NGD. Firstly, there was Kenny Hyslop, (nickname John), on ‘Promised You A Miracle’. It was Kenny who came up with the idea. He used to listen to lots of radio stations whilst on Tour. ‘Promised You A Miracle’ came about from a track Kenny had taped in New York, which he had heard on a black radio station. I wrote a similar bass line to the song, and Mick MacNeil and Charlie Burchill chipped in with their parts. Kenny played the drum parts, and we had the music. Kerr then took the music away and wrote lyrics and melody (what melody?) to it.. hence our first big hit, and, at last, our first appearance on ‘Top of the Pops’!

Drummer number two on NGD, was Mike Ogletree, (nickname Velcro Heid). Mike was the drummer with ‘Café Jacques’, a Scottish band who were managed by Bruce Findlay, (Simple Minds Manager). I saw ‘Café Jacques’ on the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ around 1975/6, (I think), so I was familiar with Mike’s work. Mike’s cymbal work is fantastic on NGD album, and it’s probably the best on any of our albums. As time went on Mike got a bit overwhelmed with the bands ever shining star, becoming brighter by the second. We toured the World with Mike on drums, but it was clear that the job wasn’t for him. Take a step back to the recording of New Gold Dream album. Our Producer, Pete Walsh, had noticed that Mike was struggling with some of the parts, and put it to Mike and the rest of us, that we should bring in a session drummer, to complete the tracks. Step forward Mr Mel Gaynor. Mel finished the album for us, and at one point, both Mike and Mel played together in the Studio, each on a drum kit of their own. I was in the room with them, and we all played together .. the song? ‘New Gold Dream’.

Simple Minds circa 1985 : L-R Mick MacNeil, Derek Forbes, Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, Mel Gaynor

HR : I love the keyboard on ‘Hunter And The Hunted’, but that wasn’t Mick was it?

DF : No - that’s Herbie Hancock! He was working in the studio next door, and I asked him what he thought was missing from the track and he laid that down in one take.

HR : By the time NGD was released, your touring schedule was pretty rigorous - what are your best memories of touring? What was your favourite leg?

DF : Probably my right leg ... I love kickin’. I like meeting people, and travelling through lots of countries, so, all through the years, and albums , there have been many adventures. Too many to talk about.

HR : ‘Sparkle In The Rain’ followed fast on the heels of NGD- it had a different edge altogether, harder somehow, and it charted at number 1 in the UK - how did that feel?

DF : It rained the first night. It was the start of one of the best years with Simple Minds. America, then Australia with Talking Heads, Pretenders and Eurythmics, and back to America with the Pretenders, followed by Japan with the Pretenders , then out to Europe, before going to Barwell Court, home of John Giblin, to write the new album.

HR : Despite touring in North America “Sparkle ..” only charted at number 64 in the USA charts.

DF : Aye, but whilst we were there we were offered the chance to record ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’, which Jim was not keen on doing. We decided that I would sing it, if Jim didn’t, but I managed to convince Jim to do it, and the rest is history..

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HR : Did that success change the relationship of the band?

DF : It made the greedy brothers more greedy. Money seemed to be an issue. It was simpler in the past. When we had no money, we were more interested in the Art... money changes people.

HR : Within months of DYFAM giving Simple Minds the global success the band deserved, you’d ended up parting ways. There’s always been a lot of speculation about why that was - do you want to give us your side of the story?

Not now, no. You know it already, and Jim’s side.

HR : You’d better put it in the fucking book then! We’ve talked round it a lot over the years, but I know it’s a painful memory ... DF : It was like losing my family in a plane crash. I was on my own.

HR : But you managed to land on your feet again not long afterwards, right? I had to spring back into action, so I recruited my friends, Geordie Walker from ‘Killing Joke’, Billy Currie from ‘Ultravox’, Ray McVeigh from ‘the Professionals’, and Ray Weston who has played with that many people, you had best Google him. We went into Richard Branson’s barge Studios in London, and laid down some tracks. Virgin weren’t interested, so I was now truly free. I got the call from my Simple Minds Manager, Bruce Findlay, and he told me that ‘Propaganda’, the German band from Düsseldorf, were looking for a bass player for some Shows in London. The shows were at the Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End. It was billed as ‘ZTT The Value of Entertainment ‘. We played there, every night, for two weeks. The only band missing from ZTT’s roster was ‘Frankie Goes to Hollywood’. The bands who did play were, ‘The Art Of Noise’, ‘Propaganda’, ‘Instinct’, ‘Andrew Poppy’ and ‘Anne Pigalle’.

‘Propaganda’ were Claudia Brücken, Susanne Freytag, Michael Mertens and Ralf Dörper (who didn’t play the shows), myself on bass, and the wonderful Steve Jansen (Japan) on drums.

HR : I know you’re going to frown at me for asking this ; You’re not credited on “Once Upon A Time”, but you did co-write some of the tracks ...

DF : Yes I did. We even did ‘Ghost Dancing’ at the Barrowland while I was still in the band. I didn’t write ‘Alive and Kicking’, which is one of the few tracks that I rate , after my departure. Charlie worked really hard to get me back in the band, and I had a meeting with the band at their Studios at Lochearnhead, Scotland. Jim played me the new album ‘Street Fighting Years’, and I thought it was poor. I left to mull over their offer, which was, even by today’s standards, very agreeable. I was working with ‘Propaganda’ in Abbey Road Studios at the time, and Charlie called to see if I had made up my mind, which I had. My answer was NO.

HR : Just going back to your earlier answer - Brian McGee ended up joining Propaganda - how did that come about and what was it like to work with him on something different?

DF : Going back in time to not long after playing in London with Steve Jansen and ‘Propaganda’, we did one last TV Show called ‘Bliss’, in Carlisle , and that was to be Steve’s last gig with us. One night, at my farm in Kilmacolm, Brian McGee turned up for a peace pipe of three, and I asked him what he was up to musically. He had just left the band ‘Endgames’ and was at a loose end, whose end, I don’t know. I asked if he would be interested in playing with ‘Propaganda’, and he said yes. I immediately called Michael Mertens in Düsseldorf, and he said ok, if you think he is the right man, then he is in. It was as if someone had turned on the fun button. We had the Germans in stitches. We went to London to rehearse for the World Tour. We had recruited Kevin Armstrong on guitar. Kevin said to me one day, after rehearsals, “I am going to meet Bowie and Jagger at 4am in Soho”, but he didn’t tell me why. It turned out Kevin had been asked to be musical director for the Bowie / Jagger performance of ‘Dancing in the Street’... if you know Kevin, then you know his history. He played in David Bowie’s band for years, at ‘Live Aid’ and even through ‘Tin Machine’ and beyond. Most recently he is with Iggy Pop and has had stints with Sandie Shaw and Thomas Dolby, to name a few... the mans a legend and a thoroughly nice bloke.

HR : “1234” is a stunning album, what are your memories of recording that?

Two years with the wrong Producers. During that album, I met my future wife, got married, had our first son, and moved house twice, and the album still wasn’t finished. I loved working with all the different musicians who guested on the album, from writing with Howard Jones, and having Greg Hawkes from ‘The Cars’ play keys on one song, and the top of the tops, was having Dave Gilmour of ‘Pink Floyd’ play a solo on one of my tracks, at Abbey Road, where we were to work for six months, after working in Bath for a year. The album took 2 years to record and mix, and if you include the 2 year sabbatical before we signed to Virgin Records, when Claudia left and they fought to be released from ZTT.. then you are looking at an album where a lot of the songs had been written for four years, before the finished album came out. Nightmare! The musical landscape had changed dramatically by the time ‘1234’ was released.

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Feat. David Gilmour

HR : You rejoined Simple Minds for the “Neapolis” album and subsequent tour in 1998 - but that reunion was short lived , how come?

DF : Have you heard the album??? I told Jim and Charlie that if I was to write a bass line for any of the songs, then I would be wanting a writing credit. Jim said “no, we don’t work like that anymore” it would just be a session in there eyes. I said “ok, you tell me what to play then!” For the most part I redid Charlie’s attempt at bass playing. ‘Glitterball’ was just strumming big, fat bass chords. The track in my head, was quickly renamed ‘Shitterball’. If you watch the ‘Live’ shows with me, then the bass obviously stands out, and I tried my best to make it more Minds like ... the VH-1 Show is probably the best for comparison to the finished album ... the show was miles better. I had fans coming up to me, and saying they didn’t like the album ...

HR : That’s very diplomatic of you - personally I thought the album was awful and I’d have been a bit embarrassed to have been a part of it, but that’s just me ...

DF : [Laughs] Sounds about right

SM 1997 : L-R Charlie Burchill, Derek Forbes, Jim Kerr, Mel Gaynor

HR : You ended up recording and touring with Big Country for a while - did you know Stu and the guys in their early days?

Yes. I knew Stuart from way back in 1977, before ‘Simple Minds’ existed. I was great friends with Richard Jobson. We would go out clubbing in Glasgow, and he would stay at my house, or flat sometimes. Once he said to my mother..”I’ll put you in touch with a good hairdresser “, and her reaction was hilarious.. she was small but very feisty, my mother. Once ‘the Skids’ were big, we, ‘Simple Minds’, would meet up in pubs, usually in London, with the whole band. Stuart was funny, but usually quite quiet, and shy. Jobson had moved to London. He stayed with my long long time friend Ray McVeigh, in De Vere Gardens , Kensington, and it was he who introduced me to Ray. After Bill left ‘Skids’, Richard asked me to join them, but I saw the bigger picture with ‘Simple Minds’. Later on Stuart Adamson told me, that he wanted me to play bass on the brand new band ‘Big Country’, but he was too shy to ask me...

HR : I didn’t realise that - strange that it came around eventually then. Was there a sense of pride when you were asked to step into the bass boots for them?

DF : Not really! I love Tony’s work, and I think the feeling is mutual.

HR : The album “The Journey” was the first one that Bruce Watson had recorded since Stu passed away - it had Mike Peters at the helm - do you think Stu would have been proud of it?

Not really! It was easy to spot who the real writer was. Without Stuart it wasn’t like ‘Big Country’ really, although I thought it was a great album. ‘The Journey’ album had Jamie Watson and I in the Studio during the week, recording and writing parts, whilst Bruce was working at the Naval Dockyard in Rosyth, and only appeared at weekends . Mike Peters hardly showed up, and he only lived about Forty minutes from the studio, and Mark Brzezicki would be off playing with ‘From the Jam’, and getting to the Studio when he could.

The mainstays were Andrea ‘Ando’ Wright (Producer/Engineer), Myself and Jamie ... we were the inbetweeners, whereas the rest were the weekenders. It was a fun time though..

You did all the artwork for that didn’t you?

HR : [Laughs] Controversially, Yeah, and the record store day stuff. I didn’t take the photos though, I’m not being blamed for those. I still laugh about the ‘new shirt’ that nobody could see the pattern on ...

DF : [Laughs]

Big Country circa 2013 : L-R Bruce Watson, Jamie Watson, Mike Peters, Derek Forbes, Mark Brzezicki

HR : On a personal creative front - you released your debut solo album “ECHOES”, which features a number of reworkings of Simple Minds songs. You played all the instruments on that - was it cathartic in a way? A reward for putting a completely personal spin on the compositions?

DF : I am not Cathartic, I am Presbyterian!

It was a mistake that went right. I was booked in the Studio to record an acoustic album of ‘Simple Minds’ songs. I was supposed to do it with Simon Hough of ‘Big Country’, but he had an important gig that had just came in, and had to cancel. I called Andrea, my friend and astounding Engineer, and told her that Simon couldn’t make it. She suggested that I do it on my own, and to bring every instrument; effect pedals, bells, whistles, cuddly toy, and a few Aleister Crowley books ... because we were going to need some Magick ...

HR : Did you put on a big pointy hat and all that?

DF : I did, and I played, sang and drummed everything on my own.. it was a fantastic experience ... I mentioned the fact that it was meant to be an acoustic album on social media and radio, and all of a sudden, ‘Simple Minds’ announced that they were doing an acoustic album and tour... [Laughs] I wonder where they got that idea? A similar thing happened when XSM were doing so well playing all the old songs accurately, to critical acclaim .. then suddenly out of nowhere the 5x5 Tour was announced.. funny that

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HR : XSM. That brings back memories. The Academy tour we did was funny, apart from your sulking. One day I’ll write my own book!

DF : Do that.

HR : You were part of another project recently with Anni Hogan, under the name of ‘ZANTi’ - I must say that the album is absolutely epic! How did your relationship with Anni come about?

DF : Anni and I met fleetingly, years ago, and I was looking for a keyboard player to write with. Andrea ‘Ando’ Wright, mentioned Anni, and I recalled meeting her at a Sci-fi convention, that by sheer chance, I had wandered into..so Ando called her, to see if she was up for it. It turns out that Anni was a huge admirer of early ‘Simple Minds’, and agreed to meet up with me. We met in Liverpool, and later we booked Parr Street Studios, after sending each other snippets of songs and ideas. We got together in the Studio, and finished the songs there, writing like demons.. it was like meeting your song writing soul mate. We just clicked, and we wrote and produced our first album as ‘ZANTi’ on Downwards Records - available in all the usual formats - it’s called ‘Broken Hearted City’.

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HR : Your vocals on the album are something else. What has it been like to work on material that is a complete departure from anything you’ve recorded before?

DF : A dream within a dream.

HR : And will there be more?

DF : You can count on it.

STILL WAITING ..........

Look out for Derek on the road with his current band “Derek Forbes & The Dark”; and be sure to grab yourself a copy of his autobiography “A Very Simple Mind”

#simple minds #80s music #80s movies #big country #bass #good reads #autobiography #scotland #ivor novello #scottish music #david gilmour #propaganda #Youtube

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Keith Scott ...

How many bands or artists, past and present, could honestly proclaim to have captured the hearts, and ears, of a global audience? It seems to me that during the past 3 decades, Bryan Adams has done just that. Since the success of his multi platinum selling album “Reckless” (#2 in Norway’s album chart / #7 in the UK in 1984), to the present day (new album “Get Up” was released 23/11/15) - Bryan Adams has toured the World almost none stop ; playing to packed out stadiums in Japan, India, Scandinavia, the USA, throughout his native Canada, and practically everywhere inbetween. As a recording artist, Adams has consistently produced some of the most popular rock anthems of all time ; “Run To You”, “Somebody”, “18 Til I Die”, “Summer Of 69”, and not forgetting the epic “Everything I Do, I Do it For You” ; from the soundtrack to the Hollywood blockbuster movie ‘Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves’, which spent an amazing 16 weeks at the number one spot in the UK charts. [I know, I know - you either love it or you hate it, right?!] I wonder if it’s fair to say that Adams may not have enjoyed this amount of success, without his loyal band of merry men? There have been a couple of line-up changes, even becoming a 3-piece band for a while - but Mickey Curry was there with BA at the start ; Norm Fisher and Gary Breit since 2002 ; and for the major part of the past 35 years, KEITH SCOTT has been Bryan Adams wing man, and is ultimately responsible for defining the guitar sound that we have all come to know and love.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1954 (you do the math!) - Keith Scott has toured and recorded with Bryan Adams since 1981. A self confessed sufferer of ‘Gear Acquisition Syndrome’ - based on the feast of guitars and gear he’s amassed over the years - he also admits to being “a glutton at the buffet table of sound”. I don’t doubt it, or his sense of humour! In 1992, Gretsch produced a "Keith Scott Nashville Gold Top" signature guitar, to Scott's specifications as a thank you for using his orange Gretsch in the video for "Everything I Do ..." [You’re singing it now, aren’t you?]

Keith Scott is hardly an un-sung hero, and it isn’t too hard to appreciate how he has become somewhat of a legend in his own lifetime - although he would never admit it! - but He even has his very own global following, affectionately known as “Troobies”. There’s an inclusion in the Urban Dictionary which explains : “Troob” - nickname of Keith Scott, Canadian and guitarist for Bryan Adams. Troob is a short version of the nickname ‘Troubadour’ which was given to him by Mutt Lange ; “Look at Troob over there, he sure knows how to rock a stadium”.

Despite the universal fame and attention, little is known about the man behind those beautiful guitars, and huge sounds. In a rare interview, exclusively for Blackmoon Magazine - Helen Robinson dug a little deeper into the life, and the guitar collection, of the loudest , quiet man in Rock ...

HR : Were your family musical at all?

KS : My father played jazz piano a bit. My mother liked to sing and she had a nice voice. Other than that, my siblings and I really enjoyed all kinds of music.

HR : Was there a moment in your childhood where the music just grabbed you, and you said to yourself “that’s it, that’s what I want to do!”?

KS : Like most kids my age, in the 1960’s, popular music was becoming more accessible. We had fewer choices to entertain ourselves, as compared to what’s available now. So, when the Beatles came to North America, our world began to change. They really were responsible for us becoming more involved in music. Also, music ended up being a very big part of film and television, which we viewed a fair amount of growing up.

HR : What would you have done if you hadn’t have picked up a guitar, and joined a band?

KS : Hard to say, but my mother encouraged me to go to college after high school and maybe become a teacher? Which mind you, I never did!

HR : What was the name of your first band? What kind of music did you play?

KS : The first band I actually rehearsed with didn’t have a name, since we were just trying to learn how to play songs . But ultimately, we played whatever we wanted - a lot of David Bowie during his “Ziggy” era. I wanted to be like Mick Ronson! And some Hendrix, Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett era, Alice Cooper , stuff like that. Before that, while I was in high school, I would get together with music friends and jam. There usually wasn’t a complement of enough people to form a band, maybe a few guitars and a drummer or whatever.

HR : You’ve been on the road with Bryan Adams, pretty much since the beginning - How long had you known each other before you joined the band?

KS : We actually met in Toronto Canada in the summer of 1976 via a mutual friend, but I certainly had heard about him. He had been touring as a replacement singer for a band from the Vancouver area, ”Sweeney Todd”, at that time in Toronto. We met for lunch and he was talking about trying to get a record label to give him a record deal with the songs he was writing with his partner Jim Valance. I was playing in a club band named “Zingo” and we had just begun writing our own material. I didn’t start working with Bryan until 5 years later. HR : How did you handle the rise to stardom?

KS : Hah! Well, we were just working away, quite unaware of what was going on. It wasn’t until many years later we took time to step back and look at how quickly the years were rolling by! HR : Do you ever look back and go “WOW!”?

KS : More like, “Cripes, I’m exhausted!”

HR : Ha! Yes - You’ve had a pretty arduous working schedule for the past 35 years. What keeps it fresh for you after all this time?

KS : I think that we’ve always enjoyed the process of trying to come up with something that we might enjoy. Even at the time, we may not realise the value of what is going down - that is the strangest part of the act of recording ideas. It just happens a lot of the time, and it’s a mystery why something works, or doesn’t work. I’ve never noticed if there was magic “formula” at work, there just isn’t one. And when touring, we focus a lot on what the crowd is doing and the energy they usually send back. That is what keeps us feeling good about it.

HR : Has there ever been a time where you’ve considered giving it all up?

KS : Before I worked with Bryan - yes. I had been in a band that had exhausted its means to continue on, and I was having trouble finding people and even ideas to make me want to carry on with it. I wasn’t making much money either! But while I considered doing that, I got a nice offer from another local band named “Bowser Moon” that were extremely popular , and I worked with them for a few years, right up to when Bryan came calling ... 1979-80, around that time.

That was one of the most fun times I ever had being in band. It was very well organized, but there wasn’t much emphasis on writing or recording, so I felt that it was the right time to hook up with Bryan to see how that side of it all worked ... HR : Good move ..! How much of the world have you experienced whilst you’ve been on tour?

KS : Well, we’ve been very lucky to have had the types of songs that can appeal to a very broad base of people. So, the result of that is, we are able to go to so many areas of the world to play. Certainly, in the first few trips abroad we were good tourists - checking out places the normal tourist crowd would visit. But more so lately, we try to gather at a favourite restaurant or something.

HR : Do you have a favourite song to play live?

KS : For many years and still now, my favourite song by Bryan is the title track for “Into the Fire”. It was the right song at the time, for me and still is.

HR : You’ve helped to craft 9 of Bryan Adams studio albums. When it comes to recording - what’s the process? Are you all involved in the evolution of the songs?

KS : In the early years like “Cuts like a knife” and “Reckless” it was the 5 guys in the band in the studio recording live off the floor. There may have been an edit or two, but that was it, and then we would add a guitar here and there, percussion, and some vocal stuff. Then, it was mixed and mastered. Generally, the songs came to the band as finished demos and we may have changed a few small things, but most often a straight copy of the demo arrangement.

When Robert John “Mutt” Lange got involved around 1990, it was different. Basic tracks were pre-done and we came in later to overdub, which was the way he worked. It was a lot more work, but I really enjoyed it and think I learned a lot from it all. He is a very gifted producer/writer and an incredible person.

I would also add that if by some chance, while recording a track live, they kept a solo or something, it was joyous … and rare. I love those moments best. HR : Which album did you most enjoy making?

KS : Well, the first few for sure, since it was new territory for me and very exciting. “Waking up the Neighbours” was a different again, but also very fun to do … and most of “18 til I Die”. For a live session, “Unplugged” was a terrific experience, live and with strings etc. I have to say that in my many years working with Bryan that we have had tremendous people working with us, helping us get through it all, especially the producers. We had Jim Valance at the beginning years demo stages and my first “real” recording experience was with the great Bob Clearmountain, who helped make it all so fun and relatively easy. Along the way, we’ve had several worth mentioning as well; Steve Lillywhite, Mutt Lange, Neil Dorfsman, Chris Thomas, Mike Fraser, Bob Rock, David Foster, Phil Thornally, Pat Leonard and so many others. Again, very lucky to have that experience, and the countless engineers, etc. that contributed so much.

HR : How difficult, or exciting, was the MTV Unplugged session? You turned around a lot of peoples favourite rock anthems, and created something completely different!

KS : It was interesting and challenging to try that. I think Bryan initially asked several people to help out with production/arranging, some of whom had prior experience in that type of setting. But, when a demo tape arrangement of one of the songs came in from Pat Leonard, we really felt that was the right direction to go in. I think he added a lot creatively and in how that session went down. Lucky for us he agreed to do it.

HR : The new album - “Get Up” - is another departure from the conventional sound of Bryan Adams - were you all receptive to the idea?

KS : I was quite surprised literally when I heard about the liason with Jeff Lynne. In fact, one day Bryan asked me to meet up with him in Los Angeles to do some guitar stuff, he then drove me to Jeff’s house! We did a few things there for the track ”You belong to me”, which sadly, they didn’t use in the end. I think it’s a clever partnership and I know Bryan respects Jeff’s work a lot.

HR : Jeff Lynne is indeed fabulous, and not too dissimilar to him, You have a very defined guitar sound and style of playing - how did you develop that? Who were your influences?

KS : Interesting you ask that since its one area of my career that I didn’t give a lot of thought to, as in, ”who are you”? Musically and as a guitarist, I still haven’t figured it out or come to grips with it. I honestly don’t know what that is. I know I respond and react to music when I hear it, or try to record it, and that is the basics of it.

If I’m working on a situation that is a little off base style-wise for me, I will research the idea more, but the true reward for me is to react and be happy with what comes out. And even then, sometimes I’m not aware of that happiness until quite a while later!

Lately, what I have been calling it is a “musical snapshot of what I’m feeling that moment”. If it isn’t good enough, then I’ll hope to try again later.

As for influences - In the beginning, it was Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Terry Kath of Chicago and Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Ritchie Blackmore , of which followed people like, Miles Davis, John Mclaughlin and the fusion era was upon us!

When I began to work with Bryan, it was more about what was going to help his songs, but we stole from everyone! So, I was borrowing more from people of the day; Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Stevie Ray Vaughan, things like that. Soundwise, I had to go with what I thought would work for me at that time. Maybe another player would have thought of a different sound or idea, in the end it is it what it is. In our case, I felt we were all on the same page when it came time to record. And, for the most part, the songs were pretty much written and arranged. We just had to be able to add something that would help the cause!

In the beginning, I was asked to add something at the demo stage, so it was a head start to the final process, which for me, helped a lot. Some songs just suggested a certain sound or approach right away, and some took a lot of work! HR : You’ve been a pretty huge influence on people across the planet For the benefit of any fans out there wishing to know how you achieve that sound - what gear do you use? Any tips you want to share?

KS : As far as the sound goes, it keeps changing every year. My first influences were derived from the people of the day, blues based rock people and some jazzier people, so at that time I was into a rather robust and loud sound. Big amps, like Marshall and Hiwatt. My trusty Fender Stratocaster, that was gained up via a booster pedal of some sort. Over the years, I began to accept smaller amps and cleaner tones with different guitars, to round things out soundwise. I’ve been working on a gear collection for several years now, which gives me a lot of choices from a sound palette point of view. Though, I tend to go back to the same ones more and more … maybe It’s a comfort thing?!

My advice for players is listen well, and be flexible to the situation ...

HR : We know you have quite an astounding collection of guitars – including your Signature Gretsch ; Do you have a favourite?

KS : Well, it seems that I go to a special few when I’m home and in session, because those particular ones are usually a good bet to get successful results.

For a long time, I have been partial to a 1959 sunburst Fender Stratocaster with a maple neck, since it is a very comfortable guitar to play. I found it in the late 1980’s and took it on tour for the “Into the Fire” era. It was starting to get a lot of wear on it, so I made plans to keep it at home. I was reluctant to take guitars from that vintage on the tour after that, since they just didn’t hold up very well. So, I tried to use ones that I didn’t worry about any damage to. Thing is, I always wanted to play the fragile ones!

At home, I keep a nice nylon string close at hand, since I love the sound of that kind of guitar. It forces me to play a bit differently, but the reward is lovely when I do get it right, the odd time! I have a 1954 Fender Telecaster I use a lot and a red 62 Gibson ES335 which is very nice. Also, a ‘64 sunburst Stratocaster which I found in the U.S., in 1983, while on tour with the band ‘Journey’. It’s been a regular piece at sessions. There is a 1956 Gretsch 6120, which has a wonderful sound quality to it. And a 61 Martin D-28 which was the most used guitar on the “Unplugged” session.

But the guitar that was used most in the early years, was a 1970’s era white Stratocaster, which did most of the first recordings with Bryan. It was featured in the video for the song “Please forgive me”. Shame is, I never touch it anymore.

I also love the sound of a 12 string guitar, acoustic or electric. I have a gorgeous Gretsch 12 string acoustic and a Danelectro electric I favour a lot.

HR : Aside from Bryan Adams you’ve played with a number of other high profile artists - Bryan Ferry, Tina Turner, David Bowie, to name a few - do you have any particular memories that stand out?

KS : Hah! A few memories tend to stand out, and after all this time that is the most endearing part of it all. The silly stuff that went on, the stuff that makes fun stories. I was a big fan of the Avalon record that Roxy Music made, so it was a real honour to get to throw a few notes on Bryan Ferry’s record. He is a consummate gentleman! It was a quick session, while I was off in London, in the spring of 1985. Many thanks go to Bob Clearmountain for recommending me for that. At the David Bowie session in Los Angeles, there were comedians hanging around every day. Dennis Miller and Bob Goldthwaite were there, which made in it very funny. They were taking the piss a lot. I was asked to do that via the late Bruce Fairbairn, who was from Vancouver ...

HR : Is there anyone who you would really love to work with?

KS : I haven’t thought about that much, but I would love to TALK to a lot of people that had an influence on me while I was younger. Especially how sounds and sessions went down. Jeff Beck would be one for sure. I’d like to say that I’d like to work with him, but what would he need me there for? Hah! In the 1970’s I was a very big fan of Canadian singer Gino Vanelli, and though it’s a bit out of my realm, I would maybe like to play something with him. The fellow who played on the “Brother to Brother” album, Carlos Rios, just killed it on that. Amazing playing and I’m still trying to figure out what he did on it! I’ve followed John Mclaughlin’s music since my teen years. I would love to meet him one day and thank him for making music that has inspired me greatly over the years. I love great drummers! Billy Cobham, whom i am a fan of. I wish Tony Williams was still around, I miss his playing.

HR : You regularly tour and record with Jann Arden - how easy is it to change mode, and guitars, to play with Jann?

KS : I love Jann Arden! Originally, I wasn’t sure how I would fit in with her band, since I thought her music compared to Bryan’s required a more dynamic approach. More texture type sounds and things like that, but I love the music she makes so I was keen to give it a try. She is talented singer/writer and wonderful person and maybe one of the funniest people I have ever met! I am very proud of the last studio record we made with my good friend, Bob Rock, producing ”Everything Almost”..

HR : When you’re not on the road with Bryan , or Jann, you write and record your own music. “The Fontanas” album is really brilliant - it’s very Dick Dale! Was that fun to do?

KS : Yes! “surf “ style guitar is fundamental to how I look at modern electric guitar, so its been a lesson in music and guitar history for me.

HR : Any plans for a Keith Scott solo album, or more from “The Fontanas”?

KS : I’m very nearly completed the 2nd effort for it! Fontanas 2! HR : One last, and slightly obscure question - Possibly some of the most quoted lyrics of all time come from a Bryan Adams song ; for some people it’s become a code to live by, but is it actually possible? Can you really be “18 Til You Die”?

KS : No, it’s impossible ... but what fun trying!

Check out The Fontanas here http://www.thefontanas.com/index.html

#keith scott #bryan adams #rock #guitar #gretsch #fender #run to you #summerof69 #18tilidie

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Kevin Godley ...

For those of you who may not recognize the name, Kevin Godley was a founder member of hugely successful UK art rock band ‘10cc’; along with Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, and Lol Creme. The band shot to fame in the 1970’s and their single "I'm Not In Love", continues to be one of the best selling records of all time. As one half of ‘Godley & Creme’, KG went on to pioneer the notion of music video and was responsible for iconic videos throughout the 1980’s for artists such as Herbie Hancock, The Police, Duran Duran, Lou Reed & Frankie Goes to Hollywood ; continuing to up his game in solo mode from 1989 onwards by working with U2, Bryan Adams, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, and The Beatles to name just a few ... It’s July 2015 and Godley’s career hasn’t halted by any means - his talents appear to be limitless, and he seems to thrive on re-inventing himself ... Cue his first book “SPACECAKE”, which according to the blurb :- “ ... chronicles the misadventures of a debauched and dangerous masochist as he tantrums his way through the sleazy worlds of Rock & Roll, music video and technology, each squalid escapade dragging him ever deeper into a repugnant maelstrom of sordid excess ... well sort of. A wee bit. Actually ... not remotely. It's all about the work really. It takes you on an interactive tour of his life via pictures, music, film clips and 27 chapters of abstract insight into how everything from the first hits to WholeWorldBand, his music/video collaboration app, got made. It's dark in some of the corners though ... so make sure you bring a torch”. Well, we were intrigued!

Helen Robinson hooked up with KG recently for a chat about the life, and work, of a truly humble, and genuinely funny man ...

HR : Kevin Godley - The Innovator?

KG : [laughs] Kevin Godley ... The Innovator ... sounds like a really bad film idea!

HR : But it’s true! You’ve been a key part of, or been present at the birth of a ‘new’ media on more than one occasion - music video , digital recording apps, and now a 3d biography ...

KG : Well yeah! It is, kind of- but it’s Hardly 22nd Century stuff ; it just uses the technology that’s available to us on a digital platform, and that added another dimension I guess ...

HR : I have to admit that I’m at a slight disadvantage, because I don’t own an Apple device which would let me download it, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one, so could you tell us a little bit more about it, please?

KG : [laughs] Oh dear! Well ... It’s my biography of sorts. It starts from the very beginning – me ... learning how to cope with being a kid growing up in Manchester, and pretty much takes me through to the present day. It’s not the full story by any means. When I started writing it I was trying to figure out what would be interesting to somebody reading about me, and essentially, it’s about the work that I’ve done, and the work that I do, and how I do it, and anecdotes that spin out from doing it. It’s written like a screenplay so there is dialogue in it, and characters in it - all based on reality of course! There are highlighted words, titles or whatever, in the text, that take you to other sources which allow you to watch and listen to clips whilst you’re reading about it - which is actually pretty cool!

HR : It sounds very cool ... KG : It really is! And, doing it in the way that I have, allowed me to look at it from a different angle and turn it into something special - as opposed to just being one solid block of narrative and prose. Oh! And I inhabit the book in two forms – I am ME, but also my alter ego KGB. You’ll have to see it!

HR : I will, at some point, I promise I’ll check it out. I’m not a complete ‘techno-peasant’ - I do have an iPod classic, but sadly it won’t support books ...

KG : that’s because it’s 110 years old ...

HR : [laughs] Well, I’ll instruct my alter ego to save for an upgrade! So - you assumed an alter ego ...

KG : Well, the reason for that was that I haven’t got any brothers, or anyone to say “that’s b*ll*cks , shut up!”, so I created a secondary version of me, to shut me down if I started to drivel on about stuff too much. It’s like a kind of barometer or a set of brakes ...

HR : Aaah I see! I just wondered though – some musicians that I know assume different characters anyway - they have one persona for stage and another for home, and there’s a big grey area left in between where their consciences disappear ... So did assuming another character give you ‘creative license’ to exorcise certain memories that would perhaps otherwise have stayed buried?

KG : Oooooooooh! Good question! The thing is ... I haven’t had a stage life for a long time. You see, I don’t really consider myself to be a performer - I consider myself more a back room boy, more somebody who is behind the scenes in dark rooms with flickering lights and big speakers! I’m more one of those kind of guys – I was never really out front on stage thrusting my hips to the masses, and I haven’t sh*gged my way around the world on crystal meth either, so it’s not that kind of a book!!! Plus I can remember what I’ve done - which helps! It’s such a cliché all of that other stuff anyway ... but you’re right, there is a lot of that goes on. [laughs]

HR : Dangerous ground for our respectable readers! So, moving swiftly along - Why Apple?

KG : Apple because it allowed me to do the interactive thing, although you’ve just illustrated why only having it on Apple is proving to be a bit of a disadvantage, as not everyone has Apple devices, so I think we have to get it on Kindle asap! But what was attractive about the project from day one, was being offered the chance to create a different reading experience - for people to be able to dip into it and watch and listen, and experience the book as well ... That’s what drew me to the project, but strangely enough what kept me glued to it, was the actual process of writing. I’d never written anything of this length before, and to create something that sums you up as a person and is an intelligent and entertaining read for people, it’s quite a task - as you can imagine! It was all very well having all of these things to tap on to watch and listen to, but if the written word didn’t hold up, it was going to be a waste of time. Knowing that – the challenge for me was to write a good book; The kind of book that could exist without all of the flim-flam and window dressing. It’s a bit like if you write a really good song - it’s still a good song if you play it on one acoustic guitar, or whether you produce it in a studio with a full orchestra - you should be able to hear that. It’s the same with the book - you should be able to just read the story and enjoy that. Everything else is a bonus!

HR : Who had the idea initially? Were you approached to do biography and came up with this instead?

KG : I was approached yeah – I’d never even considered it because I never thought anyone would be remotely interested!

HR : It’s the first of it’s kind though - a biography done in this way ...

KG : I think it may be the first that has delivered this mount of activity yeah ... it’s more like an app than it is a book. HR : But again it’s put you at the forefront of another new platform -which brings us nicely onto video! You were a front runner, without doubt, when Music Television first hit our screens, and it’s clear to me that having studied Art is what gives your work an edge ...

KG : Well it’s interesting that you should say that, and I do talk about that in the early part of the book. I had a lecturer at Art college called Bill Clarke who was very influential on me and on Lol [Creme] as well. If you were right handed he would get you to draw left handed , or if you were using a 4 colour palette he would get you to use 2 ; he would get you to paint with a brush in your mouth. He would conjure up various ways of you doing what you do, to shut off what you already knew ; In other words he would get you to do it in unexpected ways to see if there was something extraordinary out there ... A bit like Brian Eno really with Oblique Strategies! That was his mission – to make people do things in new ways to constant keep their brains on their toes, and to constantly be amazing!

HR : Did you experiment with film at college?

KG : No not really - There were no tools at college back then – we’re talking 1965 / 66 – so there were no film courses as such where we lived. We were studying to be graphic designers because it was a proper job, but our greatest love was not what we did at college; rather how we pushed the limits with what we did outside of college - messing around with tape recorders and borrowing 8mm cameras. I think the thing that made us happy was ‘pushing the envelope’ as they call it now. Not always with great results – sometimes with disastrous results; but it was just always interesting to see what happened beyond what you were taught ...

HR : There’s always seemed to be a natural pairing of music and art ...

KG : Yeah they were one and the same ; back in the 1960s - it was an interesting time. It was kind of a revolutionary time, or everybody felt that it was a revolutionary time. Music was so attached to art – art and music were where everything was really changing, and everybody was into breaking down barriers. There were no boundaries as such. That, coupled with this particular lecturer, and just having fun messing around - We had no thoughts about becoming professional musicians or professional film maker s - we were just a couple of kids playing around like everybody else, but I guess we were maybe a little more focussed than everyone else, because we somehow found our way through the confusion of that era to somewhere that allowed us to express ourselves in meaningful ways and commercial ways – we were lucky in that respect ...

HR : You stayed based in the North West of the UK too, rather than feel compelled to move to London – You also had the use of Strawberry Studios in Stockport, which again meant you could record music practically on your doorstep - do you think that helped to keep you grounded?

KG : Initially yes – I think it was very important, because when you’re starting out doing something, if you want to make music and you’re learning to make music, you naturally gravitate towards wanting to sound like your heroes to a degree – and we sounded like The Beatles a little, but we weren’t surrounded by that culture. There were clubs, but you’re right it wasn’t the centre of the music industry, so there were less influences. Strawberry Studio I guess, was our private oasis where we just went to experiment , and there was nobody to tell us whether it was good or bad, or whether it sounded like things should sound ‘up in London’! I like to think of it as kind of inspired ignorance, because that’s precisely what it was! We didn’t know what we were doing, at all, we were just reacting intuitively to the music-making process, and when something felt good ... it was done, and it wasn’t really a matter of comparing it to anything else. The first 10CC album was recorded very quickly - in about 3 weeks ; and there was no time to consider stuff and say “well does that sound like proper music? The harmonies should sound like them, or the drums should sound like those guys” - we just went in and did it. So the full process was less in play, we relied on intuition. A great deal of that was down to where we were, yes – there was nothing feeding into what we were doing. We were left alone to conjure these things up and therefore it was all based on our own ‘taste buds’. It was a great process. It was like “this sounds pretty good, let’s do this, and let’s get it out there”. It’s quite extraordinary to me that people take 2 or 3 years to make an album, I think the most time we ever took was about 3 months, and that included the writing!

HR : When ‘10cc’ began to take off and you were aware of everything else that was going on around you in the industry, were you paying attention to music video when it started out?

KG : I remember the very very beginning of music films – they weren’t videos as such . Programmes like “The Old Grey Whistle Test” and “Top Of The Pops” would show a little film (or get Pans People in – who were brilliant!) when an artist couldn’t be there to perform. Video really didn’t start to become anything until late 1978 / 79 - that’s when it really started ; where the pictures suddenly became meaningful somehow ...

HR : Did you see a gap in the market, and think “we can do better than that”?

KG : [laughs] I don’t think we presumed that we could do better, no! What happened :– we had a track coming out called “An English Man In New York” - not the Sting song – and we were aware of the fact that people were making little clips. Lol and I weren’t a touring band at the time - we didn’t want to perform - so we wondered if we could make a little film that might get shown somewhere, and the thought didn’t go any further than that initially. Then we did a few drawings of an idea that we had, which was a little whacky, and we approached the record label - not expecting to get a positive result - and they said yes! and that they’d finance it, on the condition that we got a proper director to do it. Which was fine, and we didn’t really know the difference between film and video back then, but as soon as we started doing it, it was like “WHOOAAH!!! This is AMAZING!” It was almost as if a hidden switch had been turned back on – the bit that had been turned off from our art school days, that we’d then dedicated to making music – was suddenly turned back on again, and that need to do things visually was suddenly back in play. We took to it like ducks to water!

HR : There are great number of the most popular music videos ever, that were directed by You and Lol – when MTV started out you were really dominating our screens. Have you got a favourite from that period in time? KG : Yes ... my favourite is “Rockit”, for Herbie Hancock, and later “Two Tribes” for ‘Frankie Goes To Hollywood’ – both because they were pretty ‘out there’ for what was going on at the time! I think that’s why, in my creative development – they were so important. When we - Lol and myself - were in music it was 1970ish, and the template had been set by numerous other bands, but when we were doing music video we were there at the very beginning , and we were creating the template. It was like the early 1960s all over again – the lunatics were running the asylum - Because the suits didn’t really know what music video was all about so they were just letting people get on with it. It was only when MTV kicked in and became a commercial success that managers and labels and so forth, began to understand the power of the moving image - but until then, particularly in England, there were only 4 or 5 people doing this stuff, and none of us really knew what the hell we were doing! We were making it up as we went along, and nobody was telling us NO! No one was saying “you can’t do that!”, because they didn’t know ... so we just did it!

HR : Would you strive to get what you envisaged without compromise, or were you aware of your limits and find it frustrating?

KG : No – there didn’t appear to be any limits! First of all you have to understand that it was a big thrill for us to be doing it in the first place . We had almost accidentally fallen into a new career! After doing the thing for ‘An English Man In New York’ - the record was a hit in Europe but didn’t mean anything anywhere else ... But some other artists who’d recently joined our label, namely Steve Strange from ‘Visage’, saw it and wanted us to do a video for them. So, from it being a sort of self generating art project, it became a career because people were asking us to do stuff for them - and it worked because most of the directors working in the medium back then had come from TV, or documentaries, and didn’t really have a feel for music - but we were musicians ... and musicians felt at home and at ease with us, and that was a huge help!

HR : Plus you were artists ...

KG : Yeah, and that’s hugely important, you know? Someone would come to us with a song they’d recorded it and we wouldn’t slavishly say “well yes, you say in the song that you get on a train and you go to Blackpool, and then you meet this girl and you marry her and then divorce her and that’s what we’re going to show” – we could see beyond that [laughs]. We were always after something that didn’t tell the story of the lyrics but summed up the mood of the recording, which was much more pertinent to the medium. Mind you, there’s a lot of the other goes on – people tell crap stories, and they tell them even worse with a video! But back then, for us, it was more about finding a way to engage people that wasn’t that. So yeah in that respect we were artists - we were looking for the truth in the sound ...

HR : Are there any videos that have really made you cringe to a point where you’ve wanted to pull the band to one side and say, “Will you let me redirect this please?”

KG : [laughs] Erm ... well, actually no! I’ve seen other videos that I adore, that I wish I’d done! There are loads of those, and when I see them I think, “God I wish I’d done that!”, but none really that I’ve seen that I’ve thought I could do better ... [laughs] I’m not super competitive - but I’ll tell you which video really grabbed me. It was one of the best video experiences I’ve ever had :- I was up late one night, and switched on MTV – when MTV still played music videos! It was about 2am and I was suddenly looking at Christopher Walken sitting in an armchair in an empty hotel lobby - I had to check to make sure it was MTV – and then he starts twitching, and looking to one side, and I was gripped! Then he gets up and starts dancing and I thought “Ah Man! This is the best thing that I have ever seen in my life!” That was a moment! That must have been like Orson Welles audience hearing “War Of The Worlds” on the radio, missing the beginning and thinking it was real! It was a great idea, and brilliantly executed. There are many like that, that I’d wish I’d done - but I haven’t, and what the hell can I do about it?!

HR : True - you can’t change the past, but yours is really quite brilliant, and I hope you’re proud of what you’ve done - testament to your popularity is the fact that you’ve worked with the biggest bands on the planet ...

KG : Well you kind of don’t think about it whilst you’re doing it ... I’ve thought about it more when I was writing about having done it!

HR : Did you have a “WOW!” moment, looking back?

KG : I had a “WOW!” moment when I did something for The Beatles - I went “WOW!” too much actually! It was the 2nd single that they released when they did their Anthology. They did “Free as A Bird” and “Real Love” ; which was the one I did. The mix they sent us wasn’t a great mix because they were worried about people hearing it before the record was released - it was really rough - Johns voice was really down in the mix and I couldn’t hear what he was saying; so I got a copy of the lyrics and went into the studio and overdubbed my own voice over the top - so that I could at least get a sense of what the song was doing when I was listening to it, because I like to be inspired by a song, but ... that’s actually out there somewhere! The Beatles featuring Kevin Godley is actually out there in the Aether! And it’s like ... How embarrassing! How embarrassing is that?!

HR : But is it embarrassing, or did it sound really good? KG : I don’t remember, this is the thing, I just did it simply to clarify what was there, so that I could hear it really, and I probably tried to sing like he did!

HR : [laughs] Oh even better! Like Stars In Their Eyes! See I feel compelled to seek that out now ...

KG : Oh don’t ... it’s really stupid isn’t it? See I look back on all of this stuff that I’ve done, and I am proud of a lot of it, but I’m very critical of what I do and will pull it apart and say “Ah f*ck I wish I’d done that” or “another 3 hours in the editing room and that would have made sure that didn’t happen” but nobody ever sees that - It’s just me ... I am a perfectionist I guess . If you aim for being amazing, you’ll probably get very good - any less than that and it’s not worth the effort!

HR : Because it’s relevant, in a way, to Apple, and to you having worked with ‘U2’ on a number of occasions - what did you make of the Global uproar when they released their new album “Songs Of Innocence” for free via iTunes? To me, it proved that the World will never be content ; they want free downloads and then when they’re given them they beat up on Bono about it!

KG : [laughs] I thought it was a brilliant idea! I think Bono put it best though, when he said something like “ ... It's like we put a bottle of milk in people's fridge that they weren't asking for, when It was supposed to be on the front doorstep ...” It did rebound somewhat, which was a shame, but you know - what the hell?! They seem to be getting over it! Their new shows are getting some incredible reviews - They always put on a great show ...

HR : They do, they are incredible - and one of the few bands I love that I have never met or worked with ...

KG : They’re an extraordinary bunch of people and probably because they’ve been friends and collaborators since they were kids and it’s been like that since day 1. And they are so incredibly focussed, and they know about video, and they know about film; they understand all the component parts of what they do, so from that respect it’s always a challenge to work with them. It’s not like “Oh yeah man just do what you want, it’s cool” - they’re constantly trying to better everything that they do, so you always have to be ahead of the game - which is a good place to be!

HR : Talking of being ahead of the game - U2 also mentioned that they’re working with Apple again now on a new music platform, which once again puts them in the same arena as you, because you’ve already done that with “Whole World Band” haven’t you?

KG : Yes! I have, but I’m not sure what they’re up to! I think it’s something to do with just delivering more content but the whole world of technology is changing every week so I’ve no idea what stage they’re up to with that at all - I keep hearing about it every now and again, but I’ve really no idea ... it seems quite secretive!

HR : How successful is “Whole World Band” proving to be for You?

KG : It’s doing well. It’s quite disruptive - the technology - but it’s doing well. It’s attracting some interesting people, and the audience is growing every day - the most recent addition is Taylor Hawkins from ‘The Foo Fighters’. So yeah - I’m really happy with the way things are going ; again it’s a completely new area for me to be dabbling in - so I’ve surrounded myself with people who know what they’re doing in the technological space, as well as the musical space ...

HR : Was it your concept originally?

KG : It certainly was yes, and it all stemmed from a TV programme that I received back in 1990 called “One World One Voice” - which was kind of a musical chain letter that went around the world and recorded and filmed musicians adding to a single piece of music that was made by people all over the world. At the time it kind of annoyed me that it was finished, so why put on something like that being tampered with and twisted - why keep adding and subtracting to it, and why couldn’t anyone add to it ... and that thought stayed with me. I had it again, the thought, in 2008 but resolved to actually make it reality. It took a while! [laughs] but it’s real and it’s out there now.

HR : Have you contributed to it yourself?

KG : Yes I have - I’ve got a couple of things on there. I’ve got a drum track on there, and a vocal track, and I’ve added to a couple of other peoples things ...

HR : Have you seen anything, or heard anything that would coax you back into writing a new album or even performing?

KG : Well I have been writing again recently, and doing some singing - I’ve literally just finished, a couple of nights ago, a very strange project called “Hog Fever” which is a movie, but in sound only. It’s got 3 or 4 of my own tracks on there - which is totally new for me because I’d never actually written on my own before.

HR : Really?

KG : Never! Every time I’ve written or recorded - If you look back at the credits - it’s always either Me and Lol [Creme], or Me and Eric [Stewart], or Me and Graham [Gouldman] , or some combination of us. I’ve never actually tackled the business of writing and performing on my own, but it was just a natural move during this project because there was no one else to do it with! So it was required! I had a sound engineer, and a great sound guy who helped to bring it to fruition ... It is a pure audio experience, starring Terence Stamp as a shrink, and I play about 5 or 6 roles in it - something else that I’ve never done before - acting! Which is very bizarre! It’s being released by a company called Black Stone Audio, and it should be out in the next few weeks as a podcast and a download - it should stream and we might even release it on Vinyl. So keep your ears open for that!

HR : Yes - we’ll certainly link to that ... a surround sound version would be great!

KG : Well, yeah! We haven’t done surround sound ... yet ... but essentially sound experiences are relatively limiting these days - I suppose it’s like an audio book on hallucinogenics!! An audio book is someone reading a book, but this is like going to a movie and closing you eyes - it does all the sound effects , the echos, and the stereo pictures - so you’re really there!

HR : Where did that idea come from? KG : I was introduced to this guy who wrote the book “Hog Fever” a long time ago - it’s a book about Bikers and the biker lifestyle. The guy who introduced me to the author said “there’s a movie in this and you two should get together” - which was kind of awkward because he lives in LA, and I don’t, but we forged a great relationship and actually wrote a screenplay for it, but it was too whacky. Everyone was going , “Yeah it’s great but it’s a bit f*cking weird man, you can’t make this!”, So we didn’t. We wrote about 6 versions of the screenplay but couldn’t get it off. And then recently, Richard La Plante (that’s the author) had the idea of doing the original book as an audio book, and then thought, “hang on why don’t we do the screen play instead?”. So that was the beginning of the thought process that lead me to adapt the original screen play for sound - which is not an obvious thing to do! For starters all the visual gags had to go [laughs] - you can’t have those in there because nobody can see it, so you have to replace them with something they can hear, that will help to sell the story ... so it’s been quite an odd learning curve, but an extraordinary one, I have to say ... I loved it!

HR : Sounds great ...

KG : Well I hope other people agree!

HR : It’s yet more innovation! Has it started you on another new path?

KG : Oh yeah absolutely! And the other thing that’s great about it was that it’s a tight little team. We didn’t have to go out and cast it and raise a huge amount of money to do it. I hire a local recording studio for very little cost, and I go in on down time and we get it done quickly, with people who know what they’re doing, and we learn as we go along. Very much like the early days of being in ‘10cc’ to a degree - it’s that sense that you’re doing something interesting. You don’t quite know how it fits into everything else that’s going on, but you get a sense that it does ... in some way!? I suppose only time will tell - I have no idea how people will react to it, at all - but it now exists , so it has to find it’s own way in the world ...

HR : I’m sure it will ... And I’m sure you’ll carry on cooking up new and brilliant things. Since you’re into whacky stuff, I don’t suppose you have a decent recipe for a Space Cake, do you?

KG : [laughs] Take one small child who knows bugger all about anything, and stir for 50 odd years ...

HR : Sounds like a good recipe to me!

KG : Well it’s a start - and who know’s where it will end?

#10cc #spacecake #kevin

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Richard LaPlante ...

You may remember in our recent interview with Kevin Godley that he mentioned a project he’d been working on called “Hog Fever”. Based on an original memoir by writer Richard La Plante - “Hog Fever” has found itself cleverly transported into the realm of an ‘Ear Movie’. There isn’t yet a dictionary term to describe an ‘Ear Movie’ - it’s the first of it’s kind ; it’s innovative, it’s quirky, and it’s really VERY funny. It certainly isn’t your standard talking book, No - it’s much bigger than that! Imagine yourself watching a movie on TV, with your eyes closed ... that experience comes close to “Hog Fever” - it’s a movie without pictures ... and it intrigued us from the moment we heard about it. With an all star supporting cast which includes Oscar nominated actor Terence Stamp, Daniel Ash [Bahaus] , Kevin Godley [10cc], and Richard La Plante ; plus a soundtrack written especially for the story that includes new works by Godley, and La Plante. We hope this is the first of many crazy instalments, and whilst we don’t want to give too much away - we were curious to find out more about the man behind it all. If we could add sound effects to this article, it would mainly be laughter ...

HR: I have to begin by asking how one manages to go from being the front man in a rock and roll band, to becoming a best selling author?

RLP: Who me? [laughs]

Well ... I’ll tell you. We were a rock band called “Revenge”, based on the east coast of the United States . We had radio play; we were scheduled to go on tour, and it looked like we could become successful ... I was living in London, England, at the time. I went to New York to meet up with the band, and I got into a fight with the guitar players brother, because he wanted the guitar player to form his own band, and that would have got in the way of things ... so I broke his nose. At which point, I was hustled off to the police station in cuffs, and he was ambulanced away, and that subsequently ended the band! It cost me a considerable amount of money and 3 months of court appearances. It was just one of those things that happened, you know? I didn’t premeditate it - I just smacked him! The case was eventually dismissed, but I ended up going back to London without any kind of a job, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I still liked the idea of music, but thought that maybe I could just be an MTV video star, and never have to go on the road, never have to have another band! So I wrote a little thing for myself to star in. It was going to be a martial arts adventure song - at the time I did quite a bit of martial arts. I wrote the synopsis, but then couldn’t figure out how I could get it financed to turn it into a video ; and by coincidence or luck or something, I ran into a Los Angeles film producer who had been involved with the movie “Jaws”. He was in London producing a film called “White Nights”, which starred Mikhail Baryshnikov, the dancer. I met him at a party, and he asked me what I did, and sort of out of embarrassment - because at the time I did nothing! - I said “Well I’ve written this video ...” so he asked about it and whilst I was selling it to him he said “you know, that would make a feature for a film”. I then went with him to Gold Crest films (it was post “Chariots Of Fire”, and in the days of “Absolute Beginners”, and “Mission” with Jeremy Irons , that era) and they bought it! With me as the star!! I was going to do the music too, and I thought “MY GOD! Who needs a rock band, now I’m going to be really major?!” We wrote the screen play, we had a whole floor at Goldcrest, and we went off to Spain to recce all the filming locations ; and whilst we were away they released “Absolute Beginners” which flopped, and “Mission” which won a golden palm at Cannes, but didn’t do anything commercially, and in the space of a month ... Goldcrest toppled. So I was left once again, with nothing to do!

BUT - in the interim, a literary agent had sent my screen play to a book company and because they thought it was connected to a major film - I even had the posters announcing it at the film festival! - they paid me a ton of money to write the book. I was never going to write a book in my life! I wrote the thing with a pencil sat at a desk, all longhand! I thought I was going to be a movie star, or a rock star, and I would hire ghost writers! Then I thought, “well what the hell, I don’t even have a job” - so that became my job. After that I wrote books, and they worked. I never really thought as myself as a successful novelist, but now that I look back and see other people trying I see that I did have a really successful career as a novelist, and memoirist ... so that is how I got started. A writer by default! A writer who wanted to be a rock star, and a rock star who wanted to be a movie star - with no apparent credentials for any of them, other than having a big mouth!!

HR : [laughs] So Where do bikes fit in?

RLP: Oh - I had a bike when I was 16, a Norton. An English bike! I got arrested on the Norton for drunk driving it along the sidewalk in Atlanta Georgia. I was always in trouble, period, but motorcycles were part of my image. When I got to London, and Harleys started to be popular, I had always wanted a Harley. They were so beautiful to me, like metal sculptures. I think it was 1987 I got my first, and then I just wanted to customise them. I probably had well over $100000 invested in the one in “Hog Fever” - that bike was built between Fred Ward and the Hells Angels. The president of the Hells Angels had an accident and wrecked it right in front of me! So he rebuilt it, and then I rebuilt it over and over again until it was bought by a guy in Texas who put it in a museum ; when he died I bought it back. Bikes have always been a big part of my life ... and I’ve done my share of pilgrimages ...

HR : “Hog Fever” was a memoir you wrote, about the biker lifestyle, which you’ve now turned into an ‘Ear Movie’ - a film without images - what gave you the inspiration to do that?

RLP: The ‘ear movie’ started as a screen play ... Kevin Godley and I were introduced by a British film producer and that guy for some reason thought that my memoir “Hog Fever” - which was a big cult hit - would make a great movie. It had really great reviews, and I had travelled all over the USA, the UK and Ireland promoting it - It was sort of a send up of myself, as this mid-life urban biker who knew NOTHING about bikes, but who knew everything about how to look good on one! It was about me spending all my money on customising this motorcycle, and I hardly knew how to take a corner on it. It was more “memoir of a poser”! I eventually learned to ride the bike ... So Kevin had got his hands on it and had thought of an angle to do the screen play. Of course I had heard of 10CC, and every time I turned on the TV in the 80s there they were on Top Of The Pops, so I felt pretty honoured that this rock god would be interested in something I had written. So we hadn’t met in person at first, only talked on the phone, when he sent me some pages which were very funny. He has a brilliant wit - he’s very quirky with his humour. I’m generally the funny man, but I’m like the straight man to Kevin! I write the straight stuff and Kevin makes it go crazy.

So we started writing the screen play together, and this producer was going to produce it, and everybody and their uncle was going to direct it - it was very impressive, but the money never came along.

Kevin and I had a couple of meetings but it was the same old story - everybody is going to do it, and then it never gets done, and after a considerable amount of time it really just vanished. Kevin and I spoke sporadically but we stopped working on it.

Then about 4 years ago I started a publishing company [Escargot Books] because I was getting all my old copyrights; knew I could make some money on my old books, and I decided to do some audio books. So I decided that I would record “Hog Fever”. I hired a little studio in this tiny little town that I live in, and I got three days in to it and I thought “this is boring the hell out of me!”, and I just didn’t want to read any more. I didn’t want to do it, but I thought that there had to be some way of making it more entertaining, and I thought of the screenplay. I got home that very night and called Kevin and said “how about doing “Hog Fever”, as like an audio play - like an old radio play?” and he said “You mean an Ear Movie?”. I said “Exactly! An ear movie! We can do sound effects, we can do rock n roll, and a full soundtrack - like a movie without any pictures!” And we were off! Kevin wrote it really quickly - he took the old screen play and adapted it so fast - I was getting an episode every other day ... My friend Terence Stamp was here at the time, and he introduced me to this record producer that he was working with. We went in to him with a couple of pages of what Kevin had written, and fooled around playing all the parts that were written on the pages and this guy said “this is the funniest thing I have ever heard - I’d love to be involved” But that’s a whole other story, his involvement, because he ended up stealing the tapes and it cost us a lot of money to get them back! So that is the origin of how I became a writer not a rock star and then a maker of ear movies! HR : How difficult was it to produce?

RLP: Well we kind of made it up as we went along, and Kevin did a wonderful job in the studio. As you get into episodes 3, 4 and 5, when it starts to layer with sounds and music - I would be so excited when he’d send me an episode, I would put the head phones on and listen - and it was mixed like a rock and roll album. Sometimes I wonder if we could ever do it again, but I think we could ... HR : Kevin Godley says that people thought the screen play was “a bit f***in weird” - but it’s essentially part of your life story they’re talking about ...

RLP: [laughs] It is essentially based on my life, yes - the “Hog Fever” memoir. Some of the episodes are absolutely true ... however ... some of them have been reinterpreted and exaggerated. It’s reality based, but Kevin put a surreal paintbrush to it. But I think that’s the best art anyway. The best lie is always based on a bit of truth, isn’t it? That’s how Kevin and I work together - I tell the truth, and Kevin turns it into a surreal truth ... he takes my reality and elaborates upon it, and that’s where we really become a two headed monster in a way. I’m the research arm, and Kevin is the guy who takes the research to extremes!

HR : Are you contemplating something new?

RLP: Well ... Robert Lords may well emerge from a 20 year coma! I’m on another research mission.

HR : I don’t want to give too much away to potential listeners, but if you hadn’t have bumped into Billy Idol - who would have been your ideal riding companion?

RLP: It HAD to be Billy Idol! When I was in the rock band, I was pretty and blonde haired, and I loved his stuff. I wouldn’t say that he was my alter ego, but I would look at him and wished that’s how we could sound. Billy has that rock and roll fantasy quality, he wasn’t quite real was he, you know? with the lip and the chains ...

HR : You still play guitar, and compose songs -

RLP: I do, I do, I play every day ...

HR : How much of the music did you write for Hog Fever?

RLP: 5 songs are mine -2 are songs that my band recorded that were never released, and 3 that I wrote just for “Hog Fever”. Kevin wrote 4 or 5, Terence Stamp sings one, and then Daniel Ash [ex Bauhaus] has one on there too called “Flame On” - he plays two of the character parts too. Daniel is a good friend of mine that lives nearby - he’s a real rocker, and a real biker, although I’ve never known anyone like him - he has about 40 bikes! To have him be a part of this, with Kevin - it’s special ... The sound track is available with the ‘Ear Movie’ actually. I don’t know what to tell you to expect, you know? There’s really only one way to find out, and that’s give it a go!

Hog Fever is available from Amazon and Blackstone Audio - the soundtrack is available at CD Baby, and all the usual digital stores.

Richard LaPlante can currently be found here at https://www.richardlaplante.com/ He’s giving away his latest book “Real Strength” - it includes a guide to the lost art of breathing, amongst other things.

#realstrength #richard la plante #hog fever #daniel ash #kevin godley #terence stamp #audiobook #ear movie

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with John Lodge ...

JOHN LODGE – 10,000 LIGHT YEARS AGO

Formed in Birmingham, UK, in 1964, “The Moody Blues” are one of the longest serving Rock Bands in modern music history. Today the core line-up still see’s founding member Graeme Edge, alongside Justin Hayward, and John Lodge – who both joined the band in 1966, following the departure of Denny Laine, and Clint Warwick. John Lodge was actually the first choice of bass player for ‘The Moody Blues’, having already been in a band with (Moodies founding member), Ray Thomas. However, Lodge made the decision to finish his apprenticeship as an engineer, before committing himself to a career in music : he laughs, “People would say to me – ‘aah you’re loving this now, these little bands that you’re in, but what are you going to do when you’re 21 and it’s all over?” Ironically, John Lodge was 21 when he joined the Moody Blues, and he hasn’t looked back. With another landmark birthday in sight for both himself, and the Moody Blues, Lodge has also just launched his 2nd solo album. “10,000 Light Years Ago” is an eclectic mix of songs, (the track "In My Mind" – co-written with Alan Hewitt - nominated for Best Anthem at the Prog Awards 2015), that marks a long awaited return to solo recording for Lodge (who plays acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and sings all the lead vocals on the album) ; Featuring guest appearances from ex ‘Moodies’ Ray Thomas, and Mike Pinder ; current ‘Moodies’, Alan Hewitt, Norda Mullen, and Gordy Marshall, alongside Bad Company’s Brian Howe, and veteran session musicians Mike Piggott, Brian Price and Chris Spedding - who adds some classic lead guitar. I met up with John for a chat during the recent Moody Blues “Timeless Flight” tour ...

HR : You’re often referred to as a living Legend.

JL : [laughs]

HR : I don’t suppose it’s something you envisaged for yourself but, am I really sat here - in a private dressing room - with a living Legend?

JL : [laughs] NO! No, not at all! As a boy, I was really not interested in music. I never thought that it would be part of my life. There was nobody in my family who was at all musical. And then I saw a couple of movies when I was about 12 years old - ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’, and ‘Rock Around The Clock’ ; there was just something about that movie - something clicked with me, and I thought “ hang about, I would really like to do that!”. I was quite fortunate then - one of our neighbours sons had been in the armed forces, and had returned home with a guitar, which he couldn’t play – so his mother asked my mother if I would like to buy it, which I did – for about £2 and 10 shillings! I was 13. It was an awful guitar but it had steel strings, which was brilliant, because up to that point all I had seen were Spanish guitars with nylon strings. The challenge then was to learn how to play it, because there was nowhere where you could go and learn. Nobody was teaching Rock n roll! So I watched American TV shows like Perry Como, who had acts come on like ‘The Everly Brothers’, and ‘Eddie Cochrane’, and I’d try to work out how to play the chords from them. Then I found Buddy Holly, and that was it. As soon as he came along with ‘That’ll Be The Day’ and ‘Peggy Sue’ and all those songs – I sat in my bedroom religiously every night playing these songs over and over again, trying to work out what a 12 bar was! I actually saw Buddy Holly - He came to Birmingham Town Hall, and I had front seats in the circle! It was brilliant! He was a Legend!

So talk about a Legend, or a living Legend – no, it never occurred to me that I would ever be referred to as that. [laughs]. I’m just really pleased that people have liked my music, and the Moody Blues, and that’s what it’s about for me. In 1966, when we all got together, I became a Moody Blue, and that’s who I am ...

HR : Your new solo album, is entitled ‘10,000 Light Years Ago’ - does it seem that long since those first days in Birmingham?

JL : Do you know?It doesn’t at all, time flies and It’s really funny because I think I know what “Alice In Wonderland / Alice Through The Looking Glass” was about now! I look back and it’s as though it’s a different person. It’s like you see it from a different perspective somehow ... That’s why I wrote that song on the album “Those Days In Birmingham” because I do remember standing looking in the window of Jack Woodruffes music shop, staring at a Fender Precision bass guitar with a poster that said ‘Direct From America’ – but when I’m looking at it, it is as though someone else is looking at it ; it’s not me looking at it now – it’s really strange.

HR : Was that the first bass that you bought?

JL : No actually – when I was listening to all the early Rock n Roll records (Gene Vincent, Gerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard) I realised I was listening to their left hand, on the piano, and that’s what intrigued me. I really enjoyed the drive of Rock n Roll, and I’d spend days learning these different riffs, but on guitar, because there was no electric bass then! The first bass that I had was a Tuxedo Bass – it was a solid bass, and I didn’t have it long because it wasn’t very good ; then Hofner brought out a bass called the ‘President’ (in actual fact I still have the catalogue) so I got one of those; a blonde, semi acoustic – really nice, but of course it wasn’t the bass that all of the Rock n Roll people from America were using! So, I got that first Precision bass in 1960, and it cost £115!!! That was a huge amount of money. You could by a new mini for £400 - but it has played on nearly every Moody Blues recording, and in the album sleeve of ’10,000 Light Years Ago’ there’s a picture of me as a 15 year old boy standing with that bass, and next to it, a photo of me with that bass now.

HR : Well, you got your money back on it!

JL : [laughs] I have! Great!

HR : You say time flies - Is it difficult to believe, that it’s actually 38 years since your last solo album?

JL : I know ...

HR : What prompted you to do this one now, after so long?

JL : I’d been wanting to do a new album for a long time, about 10 years, and I thought it may be a Moody Blues album so I was waiting to see if the right time came about for that first. About 3 years ago I was approached about re-releasing my first solo album on 180 gram Vinyl, which I did. I went into the studio and remastered it. Whilst I was listening to it, I thought Wow, this is the sort of sound that I really like – not a cd or a digital download, this is a real sound! Full frequency bass! None of this MP3 rubbish. [laughs]. And then the record company asked me if I’d be up for doing a brand new album, and I thought about it ... But! Recording in the studio has changed so much since the last time I made an album, and I don’t particularly like it - for me it’s not intimate any more. When I’m in the studio I like to have my own space – to create something, whether it’s on the bass or acoustic guitar, which no one else would have done for that particular song. Over the last few years it seems to me that most records are made in the control room – there’s a producer in there, and an engineer, and everybody is talking, and making cups of coffee, and suggestions are thrown around like scraps of paper – and for me it’s not conducive to the process. You need to listen to the track and create something there and then. There’s a magic in that. A song can end up completely different to how you first demoed it if you’re given that ‘space’. There’s a song on the new album called ‘Simply Magic’, that until I went in the studio I hadn’t even thought about the bass part – I’d written it on acoustic guitar – but as soon as I heard it, I got the bass straight away and the basic track then, was done in one take - If I’d just been sat in the control room with all of those other people, I know I wouldn’t have heard it like that. We might have messed around talking about it for days ... So I had to find a way to record, that made me feel really good about making the album, and gave me that creative space ; and I suddenly realised that the 4 people I wanted involved, myself included, all have our own studios, and I thought “I Know!”. So I made the demo at home first, then sent it over to Alan Hewitt in L.A to give me a rough idea of what he thought – and then he’d send it back to me, and we’d talk about it - and everything is on email, or face time or Skype, right – it was brilliant! We’re sitting in our studios, and I can see him like he’s just across the way, but we are thousands of miles apart. We are in contact, but there is no one else!

HR : You got your space!

JL : Exactly - I got my space! And there’s no one else involved, which I absolutely loved! [laughs] Then I’d take it to Gordon Marshalls studio, not too far from me, and I’d say that I thought we should try a Springsteen type drum feel, or A Vince Gill type thing, and he would do his best to realise my ideas - put his drums on, send it back to me ; then we would tweak it ; then I would send it back to Alan because he made sure that the sound quality was great – then I would send it to Chris Spedding (who is ALWAYS on the road working!) and he would put the guitar parts on when he had time – so there was no pressure on him, and again we Skyped about it whilst we perfected stuff. It was a very space age project, for me! When I had finally collected all of these parts together, I did actually book some studio time out in Florida, in Naples, at the Mix Factory. There’s a fantastic engineer there called Doug Tracy. I put all the bass guitar on then, and the acoustic parts ; we recorded the vocals. My friend Brian Howe from Bad Company came along and did the backing vocals and harmonies, with Alan. We put it all together there, but what was really good is that Doug is an old fashioned kind of engineer, and he would collect it all in protools or whatever, but he has all of this outboard equipment, so we would put it all back through there, and back into the studio, and record some bits of it again so we got a real live experience. A proper album.

It was the best of both worlds really – freedom and space ; all that equipment, combined with all of the state of the art technology. And it was perfect, to me. I got the buzz that I had, at the very beginning, when I couldn’t wait to get in the studio and record a new song and play it to people! All those years ago ...

HR : So there may be a 3rd album in a shorter space of time?

JL : Well you never know!

HR : Do you stockpile songs with solo albums in mind? When you’re writing for the Moodies, have there been songs that you’ve thought “I’ll hold that one back ...”

JL : I think probably ‘10,000 Light Years Ago’ was going to be a Moody Blues song, but I knew that the title of MY album had to be called ‘10,000 Light Years Ago’, and that the title track had to be the last song on the album. It’s a big statement for me, about who I am.

I do write a lot of other stuff though - for friends, and for charity, and just for my own satisfaction sometimes - I think I’ll do something with it one day, but then getting musicians to commit is difficult ...

HR : No comment!

JL : [laughs]

HR : Did you write ‘10,000 years ...’ from scratch, or is it bits and pieces that you’ve saved up?

JL : No I wrote it from scratch. The whole thing. The title track is an interesting song – the point of the song is to get your mind to think a bit .. The album just seemed to write itself. Hard to explain, but it did, just write itself.

HR : That means It must have been the right time to do it ...

JL : Oh yeah, definitely.

HR : You reunited with ex Moodies Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder for the album, and also involved some of the current line-up ; Alan Hewitt, Norda Mullen, Gordy Marshall – has that been a good thing working with new and old band mates on the same project? JL : Oh yeah! I like drummers ... I’ve always liked drummers. A lot of my best mates are drummers ...

HR : Presumably because they’re the other half of the rhythm section?

JL : [whispers] As far as I’m concerned, you don’t need anyone else. Honestly, you can make anything work just bass and drums! I actually did a gig once – just bass and drums. I play a lot of golf, and one night there was a Gala night that people had paid a lot of money to be at, and the band didn’t show up. So they came to me and asked if I could do anything – I’m not sure what they expected – but a mate of mine was there ; Kenny Lynch [Comedian] - and he’s a drummer, so I asked him and he agreed that if I play bass and sing some harmonies, we can probably pull this off, and we did! I don’t know where they borrowed the bass guitar and amp from, but we ended up – the two of us – doing Drifters song, and things like Lucille. You don’t need anyone else! [laughs]

But going back to your question. I really like Alan Hewitt. His spirit is in the same place as mine, and we both like a lot of the same things ... and you need that when you’re trying to create music. Norda Mullen is always around, has always got her flute, and she’s fabulous, so that was an easy call to make. But when I wrote the track “Simply Magic” I realised there was a flute part on it that only Ray Thomas would understand. We’ve been friends since I was 14 – we had a band together before the Moodies . So I called him up. I told him I’d written this song for my Grandson, and asked would he come and play on it – which he did ... and he asked if I’d thought about asking Mike Pinder to record Melotron on it too. I hadn’t seen Mike in 30 Years. We had corresponded once or twice but not physically been in touch. So I called him up too, and he was over the moon to be asked, so I sent him the track and he added his layer to it, and then I actually saw him recently, when the Moodies played in the USA. It was really good to see him , and his family – you don’t realise how much time passes by ... and we all grew up together, It was an important time for us.

HR : So no disrespect to the afore mentioned personnel, but if you could have put a dream band together to record or perform, who would be in it? JL : The people I chose! HR : That’s sweet - but what about Buddy Holly?! Would you have recorded with him if you’d had chance?

JL : ABSOLUTELY! Absolutely would have recorded with him. I would have loved to have anything to do with that. Over the years I have managed to perform, and record, with a lot of my heroes. In fact, and this is coming out soon! I formed a band for Gene Vincent and wrote a song for him in 1964, and there’s an album coming out this Summer - a Gene Vincent album - and that song is on it, recorded by another band. I’ve recorded a song for the album too, called “Important Words “, with Chris Spedding on guitar. So you know, I played with Gene, with Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson, Gerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley – it’s been great! But I think – in a dream band, the people have to want to be a part of you, and Someone has to be in charge ... and you know if I’d have had people like Buddy Holly involved, then out of respect, I would have wanted them to be in charge, and then it wouldn’t have been my album! [laughs] So no – everyone who played on the album, Brian Price and Mike Piggott too - who came to me through Chris Spedding ; When you get the right people, you share the vision. There has to be someone at the front, but it has to be a shared vision. I’m absolutely thrilled – even with the people who mixed it or me, and mastered it. I actually cut the vinyl version of it myself at Abbey Road studio – with an engineer who was probably the same age as me! - but it was brilliant to have that. It was important that everyone got excited about it! And hopefully the fans will too ... HR : Talking of shared visions – You, Ray Thomas, and Justin Hayward – all cite your “2 Shows in One Day” at Madison Square Gardens, as your favourite memory of the Moodies – was that a real turning point for you? Did you ALL believe that’s when you’d made it?

JL : Yeah! We got a gold ticket award for one day from Madison Square Gardens – I don’t think anyone else ever got that. Well in fact they never let it happen again because there were 20,000 plus people trying to leave after the first concert, as another 20,000 were trying to get in to the next one, and the traffic in that part of New York is congested anyway! We couldn’t believe it, It was absolutely amazing!

Then, about 6 or 7 years later someone asked us how we thought we could beat the Madison Square gigs, and I said to our manager at the time – Tom Hewlett (lovely man who’s no longer with us) – why don’t we do Madison Square Garden, then cross the river and play the Meadowlands, and then fly straight to Los Angeles and do the LA Forum. They were the 3 biggest gigs in America at that time. And we did!

HR : Wow!

JL : In those days, it seemed as though you could do anything , and it would work. And it wasn’t just the band – it was the whole excitement of the record industry; record stores, kids going to concerts. It was very different to how it is now. Going to the concert was a really exciting, really big big thing – it wasn’t because mum and dad had bought you the tickets like seems to happen now for all the pop idol type things. You went to see artists back then because you’d bought all their records, and saved up for the tickets ... There was a whole different buzz about it. People seemed to experience such different musical journeys, somehow.

HR : “10,000 Light Years Ago” is very much about your personal journey - looking back, is there anything you would do differently?

JL : Aaaaaah. I don’t know. You know – I’m very much about the now. People have asked me a few times why I don’t write a book and include all my stories and such, but I’m not interested in spending hours thinking about it – if I did that, then I wouldn’t be spending time thinking about making a new album, or what I should be looking towards in the future. The whole album came about because I had this saying that was going through me for ages “the future is always in reach but the past is gone forever” and I kept thinking to myself, ‘what does that actually mean?’. We use the word ‘now’ but there’s really no such word because as soon as you say, “now”, it’s gone! [laughs] So it doesn’t exist, and I thought, ‘well the past doesn’t exist, because it’s gone’ – but it did exist of course, and it’s made me who I am today, but like I was saying earlier – with reference to “Those Days In Birmingham” – it’s like I am looking at someone else doing all that. I don’t see myself there anymore, but all of those influences have brought me to where I am today, and that’s what’s interesting. That’s what’s important ... the ‘now’ ... that’s just gone! [laughs] HR : Looking to the future then - You have some time off from the Moody Blues for a while. Any plans?

JL : Well, we have to see how the album does, but I would love to tour it, I really would love to play the songs live. Try to play places where the Moodies don’t go, like Scandanavia ... There’s the cruise coming up too ... HR : Ah yes, you and your Wine!

JL : You make me sound like a wino!

HR : I’m curious about the Wine ... JL : MY Wine, yes, well that’s a long story ... but I got interested in wine in the mid 1970s, for real. Good wine. In the years after that I bought nice wine, and enjoyed it with dinner and all of that, and there are 3 areas of the world which I really love – Burgundy in France, Bordeaux in France, and the Nappa Valley in California. I really like California, so I’m over there when I met a guy called Bob Hitchcock who has a winery, and he asked me if I’d like to make a boutique wine, in 2002, and it was fantastic. And it’s gone on from there. I have 3 wines in the range now ; It’s named after my son and daughter – “Krisemma” – Kristian and Emily. Emily sort of got involved in the wine trade in a way, and met some folks from Bordeaux and mentioned that I would love a wine from that region, so we had a wine made out there too in 2011, which is 2 cabernet sauvignons (one from Pauillac, one from Margaux), and a merlot from Castillon – and we just WON at the international trade fair, a bronze medal! I can’t believe it! And then we’ve just had a white wine ; a Chardonnay, made by Richard Kershaw down in South Africa who makes these exceptional Chardonnays. It is currently at the port waiting on me picking it up, and we’re going to launch it on the river cruise on the Thames. There’s something really magical about having your own wine, and I love the whole thing. The French have a word for it – “Terrior” - and it doesn’t just mean land, it means everything about wine; where it’s grown, the seasons, the vineyard ... It is quite special. When you open it and let it breathe - it’s really exciting, and it’s ours ; It’s great fun ...

HR : Can you make a single malt next please?

JL : Well, someone wanted me to make a gin!

HR : Living Legend Gin! JL : [laughs] Now, That’s Rock n Roll!

#john lodge #the moody blues #moodyblues #bass #rocklegends #rocknrollhalloffame

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Ray Thomas ...

Ray Thomas (29.12.1941 - 04.01.2018)

RAY THOMAS – Founding member of The Moody Blues, admits that success happened quickly for “a bunch of lads from the Midlands who could play a bit”. For Ray himself that musical journey began as a boy – “I always sang, being a Welshman” laughs Thomas “ in school choirs, and the Birmingham youth choir”. Progressing to a one string bass in a skiffle group in the 1950s, Thomas eventually bumped into fellow ‘Moodies’ founding member, Mike Pinder. The two headed to Germany where Ray admits that they were “ripped off”, and returned to Birmingham aged 21, determined to carry on as musicians.

Thomas recalls that what they found on their return to Birmingham, amongst the 250 or so bands on the circuit, was “complete disillusionment! – ‘Brum beat’ wasn’t taking off as the next ‘Mersey beat’ like people had anticipated, and bands were breaking up left right and centre”. Having heard Blues bands touring the circuits in Europe, and in the midst of the scene in Birmingham falling apart, Thomas and Pinder decided that Blues was the way forward. The only other Blues artist in Birmingham at that time was Spencer Davis. Together, Thomas and Pinder approached Denny Laine, who was living with Graeme Edge and his parents; landing Graeme the drum stool on Denny’s recommendation. Disappointingly for the band, John Lodge was not in a position to turn professional musician at the time, and in his place they recruited Clint Warwick. “We Bascially formed a Birmingham supergroup!” exclaims Thomas, “I don’t really think any of us expected the speed at which things took off for us after that”. And it’s true – after only a short spell playing in Clubs around Birmingham, ‘The Moody Blues’ were picked up by a management company, and moved down to London. With the current re-release, marking the 50th Anniversary, of their first album “The Magnificent Moodies” [Cherry Red Records] - I caught up with Ray Thomas for a chat about the beginnings of a Birmingham Blues band, who went on to be considered as global pioneers of progressive and orchestral rock ...

HR : “The Magnificent Moodies” is a very fitting title for a first album, considering the success you went on to have!

RT : We felt, at the time, that it was a bit pretentious to call it that, but management thought it was a good idea!

HR : Do you have any particular memories of recording the album?

RT : It’s been 50 years, and you tend to forget certain things, you know? But I do remember finding “Go Now” ...

We were a working band at the time, just moved down to London, and we’d play anywhere. One night “Manfred Man” pulled out of a show at The Marquee Club, and we stepped in for them, which lead to us being offered our own regular night there. It was a major breakthrough for us in London. The Marquee Club was the place to be seen, and people would queue around the block to see us perform heavy blues. We had talked about putting together an album of songs that we performed live, but Studio time was like gold dust in London at the time and we just couldn’t get in anywhere to start and lay anything down. A friend of the managers from America used to send over boxes of singles and acetates, and one day we came across “Go Now” by Bessie Banks and her brother. It hadn’t been released, but she had laid it down as a demo which was very much lighter and slower than our version, but we loved the song.

At the same time, the Marquee were building a studio at the back of the club. We asked if we could go into the studio and record it. However, the studio was still pretty much a building site, apart from the control room which was almost finished. So we went in there and set up amongst ladders and bags of cement, and recorded “Go Now”. We were the first band to record in Marquee Studios - we were lucky with that. We ended up doing about half the album there – and the other half was recorded at Olympic Studios.

HR : When “The Magnificant Moodies” was released, did you ever imagine what followed?

RT : It was a bit of a shock, because from forming the band to having a number one with “Go Now”, it was a relatively short space of time.

We were all elated , but didn’t realise what a big hit it would be. We were a bit naive really ... It was a massive hit across Europe, especially France. We spent a lot of time touring France, with a lot of the big blues artists. And proof of how naive we were :- We used to stay in Paris – on the West Bank, in the ‘artists’ area. We rented a studio there and recorded a song that Denny wrote called “Boulevard de la Madeline” – he’d seen the signpost on the street and romanticised about it to the point of writing the song, but the Parisian’s ended up in arms about it. When we played it on stage we would silence the audience! What we didn’t realise is that “Boulevard de la Madeline”, was bang in the middle of the red light district! We didn’t know!

We had success in a LOT of countries, incredibly. America loved us, but oddly enough - “Go Now” wasn’t a hit in the states. They released “Tuesday Afternoon” instead, and that did OK.

HR : “The Magnificent Moodies” was the only album that you recorded as that first 1964-66 line-up wasn’t it? Would you have been happy to carry on and record more music in that genre, or were you ready for a change? Did you embrace what came after Denny and Clint left?

RT : The thing was, Clint was married with a couple of kids, and his wife wasn’t happy about the time he was spending on the road , so he went back to Birmingham to run the family business.

Denny left more or less at the same time, to go solo – he fancied trying out songs with a string quartet, which he did, and had a certain amount of success.

I felt like The Moodies were worth the perseverance, despite things having slowed down a bit for us, and had no real issues about carrying on with a change of band members. I’d worked with John Lodge in a band called “Elright and the Rebels” – I was Elright of course – a right a bloody prat! John was actually our first choice of bass player when we formed ‘The Moody Blues’, but his dad wouldn’t let him do it until he’d finished his apprenticeship. Same as my Dad, but I was a year older than John. We all came from working class backgrounds where our parents knew that music was a dodgy game, and wanted us to have a trade to fall back on. In that 12 months whilst John finished his apprenticeship, we’d had a number 1 hit with “Go Now” – so when I called him up, he was down to London like a shot!

I found Justin quite by accident really. I was sitting in a club called the “The Scotch & St James”, which was the meeting place for bands back then, having a drink with Eric Burdon [The Animals] and he was in the throes of putting a new Animals together. I mentioned that I was looking for a new guitarist / singer. Eric had put an anonymous advert in the NME, “Top recording band needs guitarist”, and found who he wanted - so he gave me all of the applications he hadn’t yet gone through, and fate handed me Justin.

And that was the new Moodies.

HR : When you enlisted John and Justin, the band took a different direction musically ... RT : Musically we were moving towards using strings and stuff anyway - If you could have listened to what Mike and Denny were writing towards the end of that time, you could hear that influence creeping in. Justin aided that because he had a much softer voice ...

HR : “Days Of Future Passed” was the first album released with the new line-up; the rhythm and heavy blues, suddenly having been replaced by the orchestral opening of ‘The Day Begins’, and a very different vocal sound ... How was that received?

RT : To tell you the truth, it went down like a cup of cold sick with the record company! [laughs] Before we recorded it – Decca, who we were signed to, had installed this new ‘Deramic’ sound system – best described as Wall to Wall stereo, instead of that old ping pong stereo sound. They wanted us to do a demonstration disc for this sound system, to send out with their reps, and asked us if we would go in and play a couple of standard Rock and Roll numbers; to compliment that, they wanted Peter Knight (composer) to record a couple of classical numbers, and these would become the demo ... but it was going to be rubbish!

So, Tony Clarke - one of Deccas top producers - and Peter Knight put their necks on the line for us at that point. Again - We couldn’t get into the studio to record ‘Days Of Future Passed’, so we approached Tony and Peter with the idea. They liked it, and helped us to record the whole thing in about 8 days - we recorded “Legend Of The Mind” in the same session.

We never actually recorded with the Orchestra ourselves. The roadie would take over what we’d worked on each night, to Peter, and he would then write the bridge for the song. At the very end Peter recorded the orchestra, and then stitched it all together.

We were absolutely bowled over by it. We had achieved exactly what we wanted.

Every Tuesday, Decca would get all of their producers together with what they’d recorded during the week, and the powers that be would sit and listen and decide what they were going to do with it.

Tony played them “Days Of Future Passed” and they said “What the bloody Hell is that?” They didn’t know how to market it because it didn’t fit into any of their pigeon holes. Fortunately for us that afternoon, a chap called Walt Maguire who was over from America - the head of London Records [American Decca] - said “Christ! If you’re not going to release that here, give it to me, I’ll release it in America. It’s fantastic!”

So they decided to give it to him and agreed he could do that, and also decided to release it here. Nobody got into trouble, on our account, and that was the beginning of the new ‘Moodies’, with “Days Of Future Passed”!

We had ‘The Beatles’ come around to our house that night and played it to them ... and they loved it. We were good friends with them, especially George and John. They used to bring stuff for us to listen to too, because they trusted our judgements on it. There was none of that back biting in those days. Everyone was just busy being creative.

We supported them on their last English tour – with Denny and Clint. That was a hoot! I don’t think I dare say too much about what we used to get up to ... But you could see they [The Beatles] weren’t going to do anymore. They were writing some beautiful songs, but you couldn’t hear them. All you could hear was “Ladies and Gentlemen, The B ..” and then there’d just be screaming. The truth is, that they got totally cheesed off with it. They wanted people to listen to what they were doing. The fans were their own worst enemies really ...

HR : Talking of your connection to The Beatles - You were managed by Brian Epstein for a while. Surely that couldn’t have gone better could it?

RT : Well that’s debatable actually. Brian Epstein, was in love with a Bull Fighter in Spain and used to go over there a lot. He had a big organisation by the time he was managing us, but when he wasn’t there, nobody was making any decisions in his absence. We were reliant on all of these people to get us the work, and look after our affairs. They were our agent as well, and things had been quiet for us for a while when a promoter in France contacted Epstein’s team wanting us to tour over there again. So we agreed to it. We touched down at the airport in Paris to crowds of press folks, and screaming fans! We didn’t know that the record company had released “Bye Bye Bird”, and it had been a massive hit there. In short - This promoter had literally paid us peanuts for this tour, and we were a bit pissed off about it all. We went down to see Brian at his house as soon as we got back. There was a bit of a heated debate and I actually said to him “You’re the head of a crap organisation” – so he had a dramatic tantrum, threw us out of his house, and told us to meet him at the office in the morning. When we arrived there, he’d got together all his heads of department and in front of us asked them all about what had happened. He just got blank responses. At which point he stood up and said “You’re right, I am the head of a crap organisation”. Then he asked us what we wanted, and we asked for the contract back. So he sent his legal guy to get the contract, ripped it up into pieces in front of us; told us we were free, wished us luck, and we left the office ...

HR : Well his luck must have rubbed off on you, given the continued success you went on to have. You’ve got a fairly impressive discography there, as proof! RT : Yes I suppose I have really! I’ve lead one hell of a life!! [laughs] I was with ‘The Moody Blues’ for over 40 years, until my health prevented me from carrying on in 2003. It wasn’t a falling out or anything like that, I just had to pack it in. On Doctors orders! I’ve no regrets though. I was approaching 61 years old, had played everywhere I’d ever wanted to - except Sydney Opera house which I would have love to play!

Do you know? We were the first band to play Madison Square Gardens, in New York, twice in the same day, and the City Council put a block on that ever happening again because it brought the traffic in Manhattan to a standstill with everyone trying to get in and out! [laughs]. I went for a walk between shows that day, with our publicist, and thankfully nobody recognised me. We used to get mobbed wherever we went as a group, and to be honest that day I just fancied bit of fresh air and some roasted chestnuts from the street vendor! As we’re standing there, some folks walked up to us asking if we had any tickets – they thought we were ticket touts! It annoyed me even back then, people asking $400 dollars per ticket! So I walked up to one of these touts and asked him how much he wanted for two tickets, and he actually only wanted $200, so I handed it over, and carried on eating my bag of nuts! Next thing, a young couple came up asking for tickets and I said, “I have got some actually” – and gave them to them for free. Our publicist looked at my like I was crazy and said “What the bloody hell did you do that for?” and I said “because I’m going to get one hell of a kick out of knowing that when I walk out on stage later, that that young couple will look up and realise that I’m the bloke who gave them their tickets!”

HR : Do you have a favourite album amongst the 14 that you recorded with the ‘Moodies’?

RT : Well I don’t know really because I always say that they’re all our children. I have different memories of different albums and they all mean something. I love them all. You know, when you start with absolutely nothing and end up with something like “To Our Children’s Children’s Children” – it’s very rewarding. We had a lot of fun playing around with sounds over the years. They were happy days.

HR : And what are you up to these days, post ‘Moody Blues’?

RT : I’m still doing a lot of recording – I’ve never stopped recording really. Solo albums, collaborations and all of that.

Just before Christmas (2014) I was working with John Lodge again. His solo album comes out soon. It was just like old times ...

I’m hoping to record a new solo album this year too – gives me something to do amongst fishing trips! I like to keep busy ...

I’ve just recorded with an Italian ‘Prog’ band, who paid me in Pasta! [laughs] I’m not kidding ... about a month later this huge box of pasta turned up on the doorstep from Naples!

And then I went out to record with a Russian band - the son of a billionaire oil baron, who thought that I was God!

HR : Well You are regarded as a pioneer of progressive and orchestral rock – that’s verging on God-like!

[laughs] At the end of the day - I’m just a guy from Birmingham, with a bit of talent, who got lucky ...

#ray thomas #the moody blues #orchestral rock #the beatles #justin hayward #john lodge #moody blues #flute

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Martin Turner ...

“... Time was when there were things around that bothered me, The crime was I couldn't start To change my history...”, but as we all know - history cannot be changed ; and the undisputed fact remains that throughout the 1970’s as the popularity of rock music soared, “Wishbone Ash” formed a vital part of that era’s rich tapestry of sound. Considered to be major innovators of twin lead guitar harmonies, the bands contributions to modern music landed Andy Powell and Ted Turner the accolade of "Two of the Ten Most Important Guitarists in Rock History”.

“Wishbone Ash” played their first show to a crowd of 500 people as openers for ‘Aynsley Dunbar’s Retaliation’ on November 10th 1969 - a performance which would lead to further support slots throughout the coming year with ‘Slade’, ‘T-Rex’, ‘Taste’, ‘Caravan’, ‘Mott the Hoople’, ‘Smile’ (featuring future members of Queen), and ‘Deep Purple’. There was no looking back for a young band which had only formed a few months before, under the watchful eyes of manager Miles Copeland, founding member Martin Turner, and drummer Steve Upton. Over the next decade - a succession of top 40 albums and fairly constant touring schedule, boosted “Wishbone Ash” to the dizzy heights of fame. Despite the departure of Ted Turner in 1974, his replacement Laurie Wisefield fit the profile perfectly , and the change of line-up did not alter the speed at which the band achieved a place at the top of their musical genre. By 1980 however, things began to change - everyone in the industry was feeling pressure from their record labels to move with the times and produce more commercial sounding albums. In the case of “Wishbone Ash”, tampering with a winning formula had far reaching consequences which not only affected the bands popularity, but also resulted in the departure of Martin Turner ... A brief re-grouping of the original line-up for 3 Albums in the mid 1980s, may have rekindled the fire for those who were drawn to the early masterpieces, but by 1996 the band that people had come to know and love was completely dismantled. In the 20 or so years that followed, numerous line-ups and poor chart performance of albums, left Andy Powell as the only member of the band that still tours and records as “Wishbone Ash”. For the band and fans alike - in the very beginning, and most importantly : “Wishbone Ash” were about the music ; the songs, the craft, the spirit, the performances ; that touched the lives of music lovers all over the globe. Alongside that, for many fans, Martin Turner WAS and still IS “Wishbone Ash”. Not only is he admired for his passionate vocals, and upfront style of bass playing ; History proves that Turner was the key creative force, and central to the initial critical, and commercial success of the bands most revered albums.

Martin Turners relationship with “Wishbone Ash” has been nothing less than, shall we say ‘strained’, for the past 35 years. His personal life mirrors the highs and lows he experienced in the music industry - and yet, there is a spark in Turners eyes; a tangible, boundless creative energy which flows through him - a beautiful soul that’s been presented to us across the catalogue of “Wishbone Ash”, and solo albums which he’s produced over the last 45 years.

Music has been his world - his love, his downfall, but ultimately the light which has shone for him throughout good times, and dark times when he strayed from the path which he knows he was destined to walk. Having spoken to the great man himself at some length and depth, Helen Robinson is fairly sure that the extraordinary life of Martin Turner is indeed, Written In The Stars ...

HR : Has music been a spiritual journey for you, as well as a creative one - or are they intrinsically linked? MT : Music for me, and life generally, are very interconnected. Right from when I was a young lad, I discovered that however much I tried to escape from the music business, and maybe do something else a bit more sensible or reliable - there was absolutely no way! Fate would always contrive to bring me back to it. It’s been a tough ride sometimes. Music is my first love, and I know that I have a gift, if you like. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a Wizard; in the sense that you take something invisible when you tune into the cosmos, and you write songs. You’re given an energy which is completely invisible. It comes through you - you write it, you record it, you play it, you produce it, and then it ends up on a record going back into the air in the form of sound waves, and becomes completely invisible again. It’s quite a magical process really, and I know that it does affect people’s lives because they write and tell me how it’s inspired them, or got them through difficult times ... in some respects it’s like Wallpaper - a background to your life. It’s been very important to me, and when I say that I feel like a Wizard - it’s what I do , but I don’t profess to have a great deal of control over it. Inspiration and creativity comes to you when it’s ready - or when you tune in correctly - it’s very unpredictable!

HR : Sure! Song writing Wizardry, but also a master of bass guitar ... You learned to play guitar initially - what or who inspired you to choose it over other instruments?

MT : Well I’m quite unusual really. Music was in my family ; my Grandmothers played piano, and my Dad was an absolute music nut. I thought it was the ‘norm’, but clearly it was unusual, that I would sit for hours with him and listen to classical music, and some popular music as well. When we reached that age in the early sixties and guitars were starting with Bill Hayley - *Sings* 1 2 3 O��clock, 4 O’clock rock - that’s when I got interested! I had a friend who lived in the last house on my paper round. He and his brother had acoustic guitars and I encouraged him to teach me to play over the period of about a year, which he was more than happy to do - and that got me off the ground. HR : What prompted you to switch to playing bass? MT : My younger brother Glenn, was also playing and we reached a point where we were getting good. We could play all the popular tunes. The great thing about guitar is that it’s an instrument which you can begin to play on, and operate ‘by ear’ - you don’t need to use sheet music. We were very non-technical and learned everything by ear. Anyway - Someone asked us if we had a band, and if we’d play at the local youth club. So we said yes, but actually we were both guitarists at that point, so someone had to switch to bass - I lost the toss, and ended up on bass. The only problem was that we didn’t have a drummer, so we had to borrow one from another band, but we nicked him and he stayed with us for a number of years. That was fate - as it happened, I am a very natural bass player. It came to me naturally, albeit somewhat unorthodoxly. I really went straight from playing guitar with a pick, to playing bass with a pick - and I’ve done it that way ever since - which as I say, was unorthodox, but it gives you more distinct style ...

HR : Did you feel that you needed to prove that bass could form an upfront part of a song, as it does in your recordings?

MT : Well back then we were a three piece. My brother, myself, and various drummers until Steve Upton joined us in 1965, and then moved into Wishbone Ash with me. And when you’re a 3 piece everyone has to double up - Glenn had to play lead and rhythm at the same time, and likewise for me, I had to sing vocals and play bass at the same time, but I would mess about playing lead guitar lines that my brother was too busy to fit in - and that’s just what we did. I guess it carried through ... yeah ... HR : When you’re writing songs - do you write guitar melodies, or do you hear basslines first?

MT : I’m a weird one. I jot down ideas all the time. Funny things that I’ve heard; titles, themes, or melodies that pop up, and I record them. But ... ... ... I need to get into what I call a trance-like state. I’ll be playing away and all of a sudden I will hit a spot where I can see the whole song; I can hear it, I can feel it, usually I’m scribbling down lyrics, and it all comes out in 5 minutes. It’s almost like it comes from outside of me, through me, and I have to put it down quickly. I make a sketch of it, if you like, and then I can play it to my guys, and we mould it from there ... I’m a bit of an odd one really!

HR : Not really, I don’t think so ... You’re a channeller of creativity!

MT : Well I’ve spoken to people who believe that what you’re doing is channelling energy from the spirit world, or the cosmos - call it what you will - things that need to be said, come through you ; and I think that’s plausible ... why not? I’ll give you an example if you like?

HR : Please do ...

MT : My grandmother, who was down in the West Country, whilst I was living in London - she visited me as she died, in the middle of the night. It was quite a strange experience. I could feel her at the end of the bed, almost see her, and there was this intense feeling of love coming from her towards me, and then it was almost like there was a wind in the room, but nothing was moving, and she vanished into the air. I was sitting there upright in bed thinking “what the heck?”, I couldn’t make any sense of it really, but it was like she put her hand on my chest and told me to go back to sleep, which I did. The next morning I called my mother to enquire about my Grandmother, and she said “She died in the night Darling” ... So I wrote a few things down, in relation to that, and then maybe a year later we were in the studio - Laurie Wisefield, Steve Upton, and myself - just jamming on a tune and Laurie said to me “Mart, sing something over this” and I said “I haven’t got anything”. Laurie suggested I look at my little book, so I did, and I came across the stuff about my Grandmother and thought “I can’t sing this”, but I did. I opened my mouth and sang, and it fitted like a glove. And that’s the song “Life Line” ... Very interesting ...

HR : It is, and I’ve had similar experiences - I completely believe that there’s more to the known universe ...

MT : Yes ... Yes! I mean - I didn’t relate to it at the time - it was a loss you know, someone was gone, but we get a bit too hung up on death, I think. Death, and birth, are the two kind of portals to this existence. Who knows what comes before or after? Maybe if your spiritual journey is good enough, you get an upgrade and go to some other planet on the other side of the Universe that is all about peace and love ... instead of war, and bloody turmoil!

HR : Fingers crossed!

MT : [Laughs] that’s me being idealistic ... but I’ve always been ‘open’ to these things. I’ve had all kind of strange experiences, and powerful dreams.

HR : Maybe it’s a creative thing? I’m an artist, and I can relate ... perhaps we should write a book?!

MT : Probably two ...

HR : Ha! This chat is as good as, for now! Your history with “Wishbone Ash” is ... tricky? but it has formed a huge part of your life ...

MT : Ummm. Well it has, yeah - and it’s had its good times, and its bad, like anything else! I allegedly left the band in 1980 -That’s not actually what happened; The best description really is that the band left me ... They wanted to go a different route that I was absolutely not willing to agree to. It was a bit conspiratorial really! Then, we got back together in the late 1980s when things hadn’t gone well for them at all. The last album “Strange Affair” was aptly titled - that’s when Steve Upton jumped ship, and I followed shortly after. Since then I’ve appeared a couple of times at special events and shows, but mainly throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s, I was working away behind the scenes in the studio, putting together re-masters, and special editions; the “Lost Pearls” record - which were songs that we’d recorded in the olden days and not proceeded with - it was quite a difficult album to compile because a lot of the tracks weren’t finished, there were lots of bits and pieces to add - vocals, guitar and all that to put together, but it was a very creative project. So, I was busy doing all that alongside Mr Andy Powell, who was still out on the road, calling himself “Wishbone Ash”. The album releases were timed to coincide with his tours in the UK, which was OK but the last one I did was around 2003, because that’s when things started to go pear-shaped ...

HR : I’ve only really heard rumours, but feel free to give us your side of the tale ...

MT : [laughs] I don’t do bitterness and resentment and all that - but the facts remain ...

HR : Then let’s not leave it open to debate ...

MT : Well - it all got stupid really! Andy basically tried to shut down my website, which was legitimately registered to me as wishboneash.co.uk, his was wishboneash.com - At that point, we were notified by Andy’s lawyers, that he had actually registered the name back in 1998 as a trademark owned solely by him. So we - Laurie, Steve, Ted, and myself - weren’t happy about that at all! I was the author of the name - Wishbone Ash - it’s not a lift from a book or anything, it was an original thought - and in that respect I’d always considered it to be my intellectual property, but I’d never registered it because we were a band! The name had no value whatsoever until we’d grafted together for 10 years throughout the 1970s when the band was a BIG band - touring all over the word, selling huge amounts of records - so for Andy to be calling his band “Wishbone Ash” and legally cutting us all out of the loop, was just ... well it just isn’t fair. Is it? Andy got very upset about me going out using the name, “Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash” - but you know ... I was the main contributor throughout the 1970s and my band were going out performing Wishbones songs from that period, and doing it well - and why shouldn’t we? For me, the live performance is all about the spirit of the songs that I crafted, and I don’t want to be in the studio all the time - But Mr Powell feels that it’s in breach of his registration of the trademark, however, the rest of us don’t agree that it was a legitimate thing for him to do. How could it be? It completely ignored the bands history, and our history, and any rights with regards to the name. The whole thing ended up going to court, and they pretty much found in favour of Andy. He wanted to go further, and enforce a ban which would prevent us from using the name “Wishbone Ash” in any way, shape or form, but the judge ruled that to be unfair and tantamount to denying someone a CV, so I am allowed to use the name in an ‘historic context’, but the whole thing caused immense damage and bad feeling between us all. It was billed as a trademark dispute, but it’s crystal clear, that it was actually about trying to put the rest of us out of business, Me in particular, so that Andy Powell could function and make it economically viable, for himself. The whole thing was really sordid, and the complete opposite of what Steve Upton and I set up the band to represent ... but, such is life!

HR : Mmmmm, sadly life sometimes boils down to ego and greed ...

MT : You’re absolutely spot on! They do seem to go together!

HR : It’s a toxic mix though, I’ve seen it too often in business - but you’ve moved on! Which we’ll come to in a moment, but just going back to “Nouveau Calls”, “Here to Hear”, and “Strange Affair”- did it feel positive to regroup the original members to record again?

MT : Yes! It was spooky really because the minute the four of us were in a room making music, it was so easy; like a well oiled machine that had been left in the garage for years, and you got it out and it just worked. Particularly Myself and Steve Upton - we’d been together since the mid 1960s - we got on great as people, and with band stuff, he covered the day to day workings in a managerial sense - organising, hiring and firing, accounts, you name it - he was brilliant at that, and I took care of the musical side - and with the 4 of us, it was very balanced unit. When you’ve got four individual, powerful personalities together - obviously sometimes there’s tension and disagreement, but overall you recognise that particular specific entity has something special that amounts to that kind of magic ... HR : So, what changed after “Strange Affair”?

MT : Mid point of recording “Strange Affair”, Steve was having a bad time of things with his marriage breaking down, and he just wasn’t up to speed. I was trying to get him to focus, but the other guys weren’t happy, so we had a discussion and Steve felt that what he needed to do was step aside and let us find someone to replace him whilst he went to sort his life out. I couldn’t believe it - after knowing him from all those years - within 20 minutes, he’d packed up and gone. That was it. So, from that point by default, because Steve wasn’t running of the business side of things, Andy started to take over, and I was trying to get the record finished, while he was asking me to sign cheques and stuff - a shiver just ran up my spine thinking about it! I knew it wasn’t going to work beyond there. Sure enough - Andy called me up on my birthday and I thought “how sweet of him to remember”, but he didn’t have a clue what day it was - what he was actually calling about was to tell me that he didn’t think it was working out, because I was in the UK, and he lived in the states and could make more money organising it from there ... so we called it a day. Which felt absolutely soul-less ... to me.

HR : Spiritually bankrupt ... unlike the musical legacy of “Wishbone Ash”! Thankfully you’re still out there performing it; in particularly “Argus” - which was the best selling “Wishbone Ash” album. What compelled you to re-record it and release the “Through The Looking Glass” version?

MT : Ah [laughs], well ... what happened was ... Having written most of the “Argus” album, I wanted to perform the whole thing on stage. The original band did most of it in bits and bobs, but never the whole album from start to finish. I felt that was something that was a bit special and would be great to do, and the fans would love it -So we got together at my managers recording studio to rehearse - to make sure we were actually capable of performing the whole album, as its quite tricky! Whilst were rehearsing , my manager said - “why don’t we record it whilst you’re rehearsing, and if it’s good enough we can put it out there” - I said “What the hell for? That’s a bit of a weird one, but if you really want to, we can try it”, so I took the idea to the band and they said “we can’t do that - that’s a classic album!” - so I said “well with all due respect, I can do that - I’ve done it before and I can do it again! It’ll be the same but different ... “ It wasn’t an easy thing to do. We couldn’t completely change it all because people want to listen to the album they know and love, but I knew we could embellish it. Given that it was recorded in 1971 / 72, I knew that with today’s technology alone , it would sound a lot clearer and we could put a lot more emphasis on the arrangements - so we agreed to record it, and strangely enough we did it in about the same time as the original was recorded. Post recording - I took it home to listen to it at my own studio, which I know inside out. It had all been recorded on computer, and I could hear that it sounded so clinical, and digital, and I wouldn’t have been happy for it to go out like that. I’m very fond of old analogue, valve equipment, so I transferred it all to my system, and mixed it all on my system - which warmed it up, trashed it up - it changed the sound of it anyway, to something that I recognised to my ear-oles , as being what the music was about!

I was living, at the time, in Guildford - on the hill where Charles Dodgson is buried - also known as Lewis Carroll, who wrote ‘Alice In Wonderland’. I was walking through the graveyard one day, and I stopped and asked him if I could use “Through The Looking Glass”, and I got the distinct impression that he was cool about it!

The looking glass is an old fashioned expression for a mirror - and that’s exactly what the album is; It’s a reflection of the old album from the 1970’s. I was a bit apprehensive about it at first, if I’m honest - it was a very strange and difficult thing to do, but it’s an accurate depiction of the album, and more importantly it was an accurate depiction of my band and what we were doing at the time. Some people loved it, some people hated it - because they preferred the original - and why wouldn’t they? But I was happy with it overall - once I got it mixed. I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to sound - I’ve spent decades in the studio. I’ve been into it since the 70’s - I like to make decisions about sound. I’ll physically hands on mix it so that it sounds right to me. I’m very hung up on sound, and am quite uncompromising! Mixing involves wearing a different hat altogether - it’s a very cerebral exercise, but you have to also give it the feel that’s part of you too ... If you put it into the context that I gave you earlier : from the sketch, you record - which is like painting a full technicolor picture, and then mixing is more like sculpting - chipping away, and smoothing until you reach a point where it looks, and sounds and feels right. It’s very easy to go too far and over cook something, but there is a point you reach when it’s just right. It might have flaws, it might not be perfect, but it that’s what you’re looking for! Recognising that is intuitive, it can’t be taught ...

HR : Part of your gift. Outside of the studio, you’re still performing live - what keeps you connected to the music?

MT : That’s the absolutely fascinating thing about the “Argus” album, and Wishbone music generally ... A lot of the melodies that I write are what I call ‘pseudo classical’ because I was brought up on classical music - but they wouldn’t be recognised as such because it’s an electronic band playing them - but even the “Argus” album and the other music ; when you play it 40 or 50 years later, it still sounds really fresh. Like Classical music, which hasn’t aged. A lot of other music recorded in that era, sounds really dated , you know? But amazingly Wishbones music still has legs, and lasts and sounds fresh. It’s great to be able to perform it live because it still sounds modern somehow. I love it - I wouldn’t be doing it if it was a bore, and my heart wasn’t in it ... The band work amazingly well together, and the audience reaction is still inspiring and gives us a real kick.

HR : Your new album - “Written In The Stars” is your first solo album since 1996 ...

MT : Gosh, yeah - My solo album in ’96 really was a solo album! Quite a lot of the tunes on there, I was playing pretty much everything myself. This is very different, this is a band - this is me and my guys. We’d never recorded together before and it turned out to be a very creative and enjoyable process, and we want to do some more! The feedback has been really positive ... there’s an appetite for what we do! It’s brilliant.

HR : Did you choose your current band line-up based on chemistry or musical ability?

MT : [laughs] The most important thing in a band dynamics are the personalities. Yeah I’d agree with that. There are 1000s of guys out there who can play guitar well, or sing, or play drums ... but you need that energy, that positivity, that sense of humour, that willingness to die for the cause ... The guys that are with me now tick all of those boxes.

HR : If there was a period of your personal history that you could revisit - would you change anything, or would you just want to relive it the way it is?

MT : Mmm. No? I mean - Everything happens for a reason. History is a learning process. There’s a spiritual aspect ... I went through a really difficult time in the 80s, and didn’t really know anyone who could relate to what I was going through. I ended up letting everything go - wife, kids - my world collapsed around me. I’ll be honest - I was a young guy who lived a pretty dangerous life. Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’roll. I know looking back that I was pretty rough on some of the people around me. The life I lead, being on the road -I was like a gypsy and told myself that I couldn’t afford to fall in love and all of that - but I reached a point in my life where I actually didn’t like myself at all, and was just not at ease in my own company. It was very very tough, it was really hard, but I kicked my life through that minefield, and here I am now. I did fall in love, and I have a great relationship with my children, and I’m still making music. If I hadn’t have hit rock bottom I wouldn’t appreciate what I have now, and I know that ... and now’s a good place. But I was in pretty desperate shape a couple of times, and in a very dark place, and I remember ... I came over Barnes Common the night that Marc Bolan died - I drove through the debris about 4am, and thought “wow - someone’s had one hell of a smash there” ... The next day I found out that it was Marc. David Bowie came back and stayed at my house - he didn’t want to be in a hotel on his own. He’d just gone back to Switzerland after having done a video with Marc, and he was really upset. Years later when I was ... desperately disturbed - divorced and all the rest of it - I got up in the middle of the night, I couldn’t sleep and was roaming around in Putney; I went back over Barnes Common, and I stopped - in the early morning mist, dawn was just breaking - and I visited the tree where Marc had died - which had become a shrine to him and was festooned with messages. There was a message on there that hit me really hard - it said “Marc, Why did you leave us?”. That resonated with me personally; I thought if I did something stupid at this stage, and it was all over, that’s what my children would say to me. So I realised that I had to sort myself out, and I did ... wasn’t easy!

You have to get to know your spiritual side, if you want to survive, and if you’re going to become a whole integrated person, but it’s difficult if you’re in rock n roll music. You reach a point where you’re very successful, you’ve got a lot of money, you think it’s going to last forever, people adore you, and you can be forgiven for becoming a bit of a monster - and especially with the drugs thing ; It’s dangerous and psychic, and you push people out of the way, to get what You want. I don’t think I was ever a complete monster, but I understand the process - and if you don’t keep your feet on the ground and you believe all the press write about yourself ... it gets out of control. The whole prima-donna thing happens when you start to repeat your own press releases word for word, and you don’t give anything real, and you’re trying to protect an image that people believe is real about You, but it’s just bollocks! [laughs] We’re all human in the end.

HR : Yep, as you say - we all enter and leave by the same portals. Looking to the future then - have you any unfulfilled ambitions which you’re driven to achieve, or will you continue to leave it to Fate?

MT : Ooooh. OOOOH! Hmmmmm ... I would love, more than anything, to keep making music that people relate to, and if it’s successful all the better, but I’ve lived long enough to know that money brings as many problems as it solves, but if I do what I’m supposed to do, and make music, and stay passionate about it , and other people get passionate about it ... I can’t ask for more really.

There are places that I would love to travel to. I’ve been all over the world, but there are still places that I haven’t seen - India is one, and probably most importantly for me would be Russia. Having grown up on Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff - I would love to go there and perform because I would hope that people would recognise in my music the influences and where it came from and what its inspired by. There’s been such a big divide between the East and the West - I’ve been fascinated by Russias history, the geography of the place - Stalin, the 2nd World War. There are so many things about Russia that I would love to make contact with - see it, feel it, taste it - just find out if I have more in common with your average Russian, than I do with the average American (having lived there for years and toured there extensively) - I suspect that like people all over the world they want the same things - they want to go out have a bite to eat, and a drink and a laugh and to make friends and have a good time. Hopefully I’ll get there one day - if I’m meant to go there ... I will!

#martinturner #wishboneash #argus #rock #prog rock #bass

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hmel78 · 4 years

Text

In conversation with Anthony Phillips ...

1967 – the World watched on as San Francisco experienced it’s ‘Summer Of Love’, and listened on as music reached the dizzy heights of psychedelic rock; Classical music seemed to be drowned out by the screams accompanying The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who … Meanwhile, at Charterhouse school - one of Great Britain’s finest ‘public’ educational establishments in the idyllic English county of Surrey - a handful of budding young musicians, were busily trying to prove to their masters that banning guitar practice as a punishment for missed homework, would not stop the musical revolution that had begun to happen within it’s own splendid Gothic walls! Unsurprisingly, there is a noteable list of ‘Old Carthusians’ – including the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, amongst numerous artists, actors, poets , sportsmen, TV personalities, journalists, politicians, and Bishops! – but we doubt that they could ever have imagined that they would also nurture, and eventually include in that list, the founder members of a band called … ‘Genesis’. Perhaps you have heard of them?

Peter Gabriel, Michael Rutherford, Tony Banks, Christopher Stewart, and … Anthony Phillips. Despite his departure from the band in 1970, Ant has never strayed from his musical path. His solo discography boasts in excess of 30 albums; in addition to that he enjoys an incredibly busy, and successful career as a TV and ‘library’ composer; and has been involved with a number of musical projects including collaborations with fellow ‘Genesis’ band mates Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Peter Gabriel - but it hasn’t all been plain sailing … Helen Robinson, caught up with him to find out more : HR - So where did your musical journey begin?

AP - I was pretty much self taught at school. I studied music later, but in the beginning I was self taught. I briefly had guitar lessons from a chap who was very impressive. My mum used to buy me the Beatles sheet music, and kindly send it down to me at ‘Charterhouse’ – and this chap would just look at them and read from the piano score, with guitar ‘shapes’ written in fret numbers as opposed to tablature – and he would play the chords and the melody on this beautiful classical guitar. I just wanted to be able to strum the chords to the songs and sing along really, and I think at the time he was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t prepared to go the classical route … Anyway I didn’t. Then formed a band at school – doing Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Animals, The Shadows - Hank was a big influence - and that took me up to starting to write my own stuff; A lot of it with Mike Rutherford. I met Mike when I was 13 – the other Genesis guys were quite a bit older so we didn’t get together with them for a couple of years. The school band – The Anon - was people more my age. I was the babe of Genesis!

HR - Indeed – and with that in mind, how much input did they allow you to have on the debut album – “From Genesis To Revelation”?

AP - The first album I didn’t do an enormous amount of writing – it was very much dominated by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks. The second album – “Trespass” - was much more of a ‘group’ album. In fact, myself and Mike were responsible for the basis of 3 or 4 of the tracks on “Trespass”. “Visions of Angels” was my piano track originally. Songs like “Looking For Someone” were Peter Gabriel songs that the rest of us developed the instrumentals around. I had a reasonable amount of stuff on “Genesis To Revelation”, but Mike had very little – we came much more into play on ‘Trespass’.

HR - You’d left the band by the time their 3rd album was released. Did they take any of your ideas forward into “Nursery Cryme”? AP - Actually, I was responsible for mucking about with a few ideas that ended up on the album, way before I left - Mike had this weird tuning of F# which we played about on. That song became “The Musical Box” later – so, yes, a couple of ideas made it.

HR - Do you ever listen back to the first two albums, and hear things that you would change?

AP - I don’t often listen, no - and I haven’t listened to them enough to have any really strong thoughts. I think if you don’t listen for a while then it’s quite pleasant. If you have a period away from these things, you tend to forget what you thought was wrong, so then it’s not so bad – but I must say that when you listen repeatedly, then you start to think “oh dear”, I could have done that differently. We all felt that the business of putting strings on “Genesis To Revelation” - which necessitated reducing the backing track to mono -was a bit of a disaster. Whilst our playing wasn’t the best, the album had a rough, raw power to it which, that process of adding these high wheeling strings to, made it lose something, and anodyne, perhaps. I know that our producer was trying to give it a more commercial edge, which I understand, but I don’t think it really came off - and it was at some cost too!

HR - Would you re-record or re-mix any of it again now, in your own way?

AP - No I don’t think so. I think it is of its time really. The other thing of course is that it’s physically impossible now. That reduction process, means that things were erased, so we can’t get back to the original stages even if we wanted to. That’s all changed now, mercifully, with computers . You can get back to any stage these days – providing you remember to save it!

HR – Ah, yes! The wonders of modern technology. And … NOT saving things! [laughs]

AP - Yes – we’ve all done it!!! It’s all so easily done. We take too much for granted with technology. You can become over reliant on it, and lazy! I do fall into that trap myself sometimes actually – musically. I don’t think enough about original sounds I just tend to buy virtual instruments. T hey are wonderful, but if you think back to albums like [The Beach Boys], “Pet Sounds” and [The Beatles] “Sgt Pepper”, those sounds were created, they weren’t just there at the push of a button!

HR - I know you’re quite experimental with your solo work … Once you’d left Genesis , how easy was it to move into a more classical sound with your compositions?

AP - I found it difficult! I could play by ear, but learning to read music at the age of 18 was incredibly hard to grasp. It was a different discipline of course, of not looking at the guitar or the piano, whilst reading music. My motivation in doing it, was because I wanted the ability to orchestrate ; Not having had that set of skills in Genesis , we couldn’t really have any input into the orchestral approach because we simply didn’t really understand it. Tony Banks did more than the rest of us, although he wasn’t orchestrally trained, but he could read music. So I wanted the power to orchestrate. It wasn’t simply about being able to read music, or being able to play piano pieces – It was definitely to understand notation, so that I could write orchestral pieces. I had a ‘Road to Damascus’, if you like, after I left Genesis, and listened to all sorts of composers. “The Karelia Suite”, by Sibelius, was my epiphany. I suddenly thought “this doesn’t sound like classical music!”. I must have listened to the wrong things, or maybe my ears weren’t ready to listen as a child, so I had a lot of catching up to do. There was a huge ‘pop’ / ‘Classical’ divide as I was growing up in the 60s – it was rancorous between the establishment and the young tear-aways, and hippies. It was a wonderful voyage of discovery though, but frustrating at the same time – technically - I loved doing Bach ‘Chorales’ and things like that, but some of the exercises I had to do, I found quite dull.

HR - Having honed your skills then, did you find that it made a difference to the music that you wanted to write? Did you find yourself wanting to bridge the gap between pop and classical – through a ‘progressive’ angle?

AP - Hmmm, Bridge the gap is interesting. It didn’t make a great deal of difference to me in terms of the progressive wing of my writing – I think I would have grown into that anyway.

With Genesis - There were some moments which were quasi classical, but I don’t think they bridged the gap really, no. Tony Banks was very familiar with the classical repertoire, so you could argue that his chord sequences were classically influenced. What studying did for me, was give me the ability to do - with the more markedly classical wing of things (although you may argue that it’s a fine line to distinguish which bits are prog, and which are classical!) – was cope with them better.

On “The Geese And The Ghost” for instance, having studied orchestration, and knowing how to write the parts, I didn’t have to get an arranger in. I could think for myself and make my own judgments on which instrument to add where. Plus – arrangers inevitably, like anyone else, tend to have their own styles which then reflect on the piece, which might be good, but it might not be necessarily what you want. So it really did help me in that respect.

HR - Genesis certainly didn’t carry any of that vibe forward, into their commercial phase …

AP - No! Well, the post Gabriel group gradually became more and more commercial didn’t they. Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were quite different animals really - Obviously Peter did some successful commercial things afterwards. To be fair to them [Genesis], it would have been very difficult to carry on that way – especially post punk, and disco eras. There was almost a unilateral, multilateral, Palace revolution, that everyone had to start doing that! It became very unfashionable to be ‘prog’ and have such complicated long and drawn out pieces of music.

My timing was peccable - I’m not sure there is such a word, but I like it anyway! - coming back into the business, because I walked straight into the teeth of punk! Whilst I had nothing against it, in the sense that if I had been 10 years younger I would have been doing the same thing –what I did object to, was being asked to go into reverse gear, and start doing simple pop stuff, because I’d out grown it.

So I think it actually, for the purposes of the market, became very difficult for groups to stay true to their former selves and continue to produce classically based music. I don’t think it was a conscious direction on behalf of a lot of groups to start to simplify their music, they just were not given much choice. It didn’t do England a great deal of credit the way that everyone cashed in on that - there was so much clichéd nonsense around and people were saying “this music hasn’t got any balls!”. In a lot of European countries and the States, different styles were able to co-exist much better, than here in the UK. It was the fault of the record companies rather than a lot of the punk musicians really - they were just happy doing their own thing, but there was a lot of unpleasantness at that time. There were a lot of people who were heroes one day, and then being knifed in the back the day after by the people who had been adulating them! Which wasn’t anything to be terribly proud about …

HR - Not at all! But, something to be proud about is this lovely re-issue of your debut solo album “The Geese And The Ghost”!

AP - Yes! Absolutely! It’s just come out again, and in surround sound too, which is the first time I have had a surround sound album, and they have done a fantastic job with it! Particularly the instrumentals – it really does make a difference to have that experience of surround sound. And they’re releasing limited editions on Vinyl too, which is fabulous because that is when the artwork really comes into it’s own. Vinyl seems to be having a bit of a revival, which is great! MP3s are OK, but the sound is pretty impoverished really one you’ve narrowed the bandwidth of the sound. It sounds like a different album really, with that treatment! HR - When you started work on “The Geese And The Ghost” originally - Did you write it from a fresh perspective or was it something that you had brought forward from Genesis?

AP - It was actually written from a period as far back as 1969 / 1970. Things that Mike [Rutherford] and I had played around with then. There were some additions and refinements made between 1973 / 1974. Recording began in 1974, although the main body of it was done in 1975 – which is actually 40 years ago, isn’t that terrible?! And then, because they were now unfashionable times, we really struggled to get it released - so it didn’t come out until early 1977, by which time some of that material was over 7 years old!

HR - When you were selecting musicians to work with, what influenced your decision to ask Phil Collins and not Peter Gabriel?

AP - Well, Mike and I wrote together, and Peter and Tony [Banks] wrote together - when we came together as a group, that modified a little, but that initial pairing pretty much stayed the same way. So, because Mike and I had all this unreleased music – which was frustrating –at the earliest opportunity ; at a time where solo albums looked like a possibility - we wanted to use this material. We had done a single with Phil in 1973 which ironically was written about the previous Genesis drummer, Jonathan Silver, who was on the first album. I had written this with Mike – a very uncharacteristic kid of loose country song called “The Silver Song” and Phil came down and sang the demo and did such a great job of it. You see, Peter was married, so whenever we had any time off - he went home to spend it with Jill ; whereas Phil was foot loose and fancy free and had tons of energy. The single never got released for various reasons, but when it came to “The Geese And The Ghost” he was the obvious choice because the three of us had worked together before. HR - I’m glad you mentioned Jonathan Silver there – with regards to him, and John Mayhew – were they just hired guns for the early Genesis albums or did they have creative input?

AP - No, they weren’t hired guns as such, but by the same token they didn’t have a huge input, but we did group compositions on all the tracks on those first 2 albums – so whilst they weren’t writing huge swaythes of chord sequences, they were putting in little bits here and there. Jon Silver was full of energy and ideas about arranging and how things were connected. HR - We never really get to know the dynamics of the early stuff, which is why I was curious. It has always seemed to me, that Phil Collins became Genesis … or is that an unfair judgment?

AP - Well he had the big commercial success and I don’t think it would have been easy to keep him unless he had the lion share of the writing credits, although I think they’ve shared the credits pretty well … I think it’s sad to see him fall so far from all of that these days, with the press in particular, but he was colossally successful, and I think the group would have been looking the gift horse in the mouth if they hadn’t run with Phil.

The media can be so cruel. I remember a duel review of “The Geese And The Ghost” being handed to me from the states. One called it a “mellow rock classic”, the other said it was “music to wash dishes to” … and sadly you seem only to remember the bad ones!

And do you know, that it was the album that very nearly never came out?!! It sat on a shelf whilst punk roared away, and I’d given up on it to be honest. It was 15 months between finishing it and it being picked up to be released. For the first 3 or 4 months I was quite hopeful; by new year 1976 I was beginning to lose hope, and by the summer I was definitely starting to think about other things, and applying to go to music college full time.

It was a pretty soul destroying time – I’d spent a lot of time and energy on it; a lot of angst , and thought, apart from hard work, had gone into it … And then right at the 11th hour, while I was going for auditions to music college for the following year - suddenly it was picked up by an American record company. It was never actually released on a formal English record company label - it was released by the Genesis management company with whom I was with at the time – ‘Hit And Run’ – so like I say it’s the album that nearly never was!

HR - If it hadn’t been picked up then, do you think you’d have given it another shot down the line?

AP - No … I don’t actually. I think I would have gone to music college, and ... Good point! What would I have done at the end of it? I think I would have carried on composing, definitely, but I’m not quite sure where I would have come out at the other end, because the progressive scene had long gone, when I finished college in 1979– [laughs] Yes - in a parallel world what would I have done? I have absolutely no idea! I would probably have ended up as a music teacher.

HR - Did you teach, at some point?

AP - Yes … yes I did funnily enough. Whilst I was studying, I taught classical guitar - which helped me a lot. I had always played acoustic guitar, but didn’t play proper finger style - my right hand was quite basic, so I studied classical guitar as well as piano when I left Genesis, and teaching then helped me to pass the Classical Guitar teachers exams (as opposed to the performers diploma). I taught at a couple of different schools. One was Pepper Harrow ; which was like a progressive borstal for kids who were very bright, but who’d fallen foul of authority - not so badly that had to be interned, as it were. A great number of them had come from some pretty horrific backgrounds, but a number of them have gone on to do great things. Some of them were brilliant musicians! I remember wondering what I was letting myself in for initially, but it’s something that I look back on with a great deal of affection. They weren’t just guitar lessons – they were much more - the music was a vital part of these guys rehabilitation.

HR - Sounds like you’d have made a fantastic teacher, had all else failed! Given that “The Geese And The Ghost” almost didn’t happen – did that fill you with confidence to carry on to do the next album straight away, or had it discouraged you a little?

AP - Oh I’ve had more than my fair share of discouragement over the years! The album that came directly afterwards was “Wise After The Event” and I was immediately told that it had to be an album of songs – the writing was on the wall for these straggly instrumental albums - and it was time to crank up the electric guitar into a heavier rock genre, or don’t bother turning up, kind of thing.

“Sides” was originally going to be called “Balls”, which was cocking-a-snook at people for saying that my music didn’t have enough balls! At the time it seemed to me to be so ludicrous to have this blanket approach across all music - so that’s why we had the cover with the table football table on it - But the powers that be, over-ruled “Balls” and we had to change it to “Sides” ; because it did have one side that was more overtly commercial than the other, which is a little more instrumental.

I was lucky at that point, because the “Private Parts and Pieces” idea just came out of the blue really. I had been recording and stockpiling quite a lot throughout the year when nothing was happening with “The Geese And The Ghost”, and I asked if it might be possible, as a foil to this more rock orientated stuff, to be able to release an album of piano pieces, guitar pieces – sort of home recordings, which made up in their atmosphere and mood, what they lacked in technical perfection - and they said yes!

The first X of “Sides” was released as “Private Parts And Pieces” - as a freebie. It wasn’t actually “Private Parts and Pieces I” because it was a one off, but that numbering thing became sort of a generic term for my albums which were more homespun and simple – you know, small scale, as opposed to the more magnum opuses.

Not that I was able to do a Magnum Opus for quite a while! There was the “Invisible Men” album, which had a certain amount of record company backing, but that was again released around the time of the ‘New Romantics’ – more bad timing! I’d just bought my first house, and was under huge financial pressure with about 18 lodgers to pay the mortgage! So there was big pressure on to have hit singles and get paid, and so I didn’t do another full scale album for about another 6 years. I was lucky to still have this ‘outlet’, with the small scale releases, to continue to get some music out there during the 80s - when the climate was very much against the more classical stuff - at least I did continue to get piano, guitar, synth - slightly more imaginative stuff - out there, but all very much on a small scale.

Thinking about it, it was actually a full 7 years gap before I had the opportunity to do another large scale album at the end of the 80s. It was a frustrating time that too, I can tell you. I had rather a chequered career for a while. I was doing a lot of songwriting, and aiming it at other artists. We would keep getting close, but then, the management would lose the artist, or the album was canned. They weren’t collaborations or anything, but we had some placements in the works for Sheena Easton, Roger Daltry and people like that, but they never worked out. We had a song covered by Bucks Fizz – who promptly had a coach crash! So I had a run of bad luck with that really. It was an interesting time – I was trying allsorts of different things whilst my own music wasn’t making much money, and whilst trying to pay for the new house. It didn’t quite come to being a cat burglar, or an assassin, but I did give it some serious thought!

HR - Your celebrity friends could have hired you to assassinate the music press …

AP - [laughs] Yes …

HR - Is there anyone in particular, that you would like to collaborate with? AP - I thought you were going to say Assassinate! I don’t know these days … about collaborations … Mike and I were always a good team but we have gone in different directions now. I’m not sure that he’s interested in doing complicated instrumental stuff any longer. He did ask me if I wanted to be involved with the Mike and Mechanics albums, but I knew that I couldn’t see the whole project through with the touring and everything, which is what he needed. And it’s not necessarily my bag if I’m honest, although I very much respect what he’s achieved. I think maybe we’ve gone too far down different roads now to make anything work. Steve Hackett and I have talked about writing together a few times, but it’s always risky when someone is your friend. Working relationships do change things, and I’m not sure I’d want to risk my friendship with Steve!

With my TV library music, I do collaborate with quite a lot of people then anyway, so I’m not one of these musicians who doesn’t want to work with anybody else.

HR - When are you at your happiest then? When you’re working on solo stuff and you’re completely in control of it (and I’m not insinuating that you’re a control freak!) …

AP - Ha, NO! Actually, a great friend of mine calls my studio the spaceship! And I’m completely happy in there when I’m just mucking about with all the wonderful synth sounds, creating tapestries of colour with sound – Love it!

And also playing guitar, which increasingly seems to happen late at night in front of the TV. Just picking up a guitar – 12 String or Classical – when these ideas enter my head at absurd times of the day. On the recordings you can invariably hear Alan Hansen and Match Of The Day commentary in the background! And I do actually present demos to my library producer, with TV programmes going on in the background.

HR - What sort of boundaries are in place with your Library writing? Can you remain true to your ‘album’ style, or are you tied to a brief?

AP - I have a lot more freedom these days to create some varied pieces – guitar, synth – it’s very varied, and that’s what I love about it, but it’s hugely competitive, and the recession spawned a lot of ‘under-cutting’ - the market is flooded, and the rates of pay have dropped! I feel very fortunate to have done well at a time when it was less competitive, and to have continued to do it. It’s incumbent on me to keep writing as much as possible - I can’t afford to take my foot off the peddle. So when things come up, I don’t ever really have a blank page because of the stockpile of guitar, piano , synth, and orchestral library pieces already down – I have all of this material ready to go, rather than start from scratch. Some of them are slightly rough and would need to be redone, but the mood is there, and if someone came to me tomorrow asking for such and such, I would hope that I have something that would suit. Unless they asked for a bagpipe concerto. I haven’t got one of those. It’s unlikely to happen, but you never know …

HR - So when we end this conversation, you’re going to go and write one …

AP - [laughs]They’re not a pretty sound when people turn them off you know! What they don’t tell you is that when they’re warming up and cooling down they sound like a sick cow! It is a racket! We had a funny incident on the road with Genesis actually. Peter Gabriel was a little bit accident prone, and slightly absent minded on stage, and used to play the accordion in Stagnation, a bit – in quite an unconventional way, not like jolly French stuff with the onions and the beret - but he would put it down during a very quiet section and if he didn’t put it down properly, it would make this kind of squealing noise going off into the distance, and suddenly we would sound like a John Cage outfit! People would look up completely startled! Another thing he would do – he was a good flute player but struggled with an A flat in “The Knife” which was our closing song – and Tony Banks had to remind him before we went on, that you had to tweek the flute to tune it by a semi-tone. Occasionally Tony would forget to tell him, and Peter wouldn’t remember; The lights would dim, and we’d be ready for this lovely moody bit, and BANG! He would come in a semi tone out! That was pretty tense I can tell you! I love all of those instruments …

HR - What’s your favorite instrument?

AP - Ooooh Tricky. I think pushed to answer that, I’d have to say 12 string guitar 1st, followed very closely by piano, Classical guitar 3rd, and underwater sousaphone 4th …

HR - And, may I say you play all 4 brilliantly!

AP - Aww thanks …

HR - I’ll look forward to your underwater sousaphone symphony at some point, amidst the forthcoming re-releases! Were you looking at reworking your back catalog, or was it something that you were approached to do?

AP - They approached me! [Cherry Red / Esoteric Records]. Not to put too finer point on it but I make the majority of my living from my TV music, and the album work has always been a very nice foil to that, but it’s not been my bread and butter, as it were. I’m probably one of the only artists who has ever said to a record company – “are you really sure you want to do this?” And they did, so I was a bit surprised really! I gathered they were in the business of picking up back catalogs– and I hate the world ‘cult’ – but of people who have ‘cult’ followings, and it felt like entirely the right thing to do. It feels a safe place to be, and with a decent company who have their act together; after having had so many years of uncertainty with this stuff.

HR - How much influence did you have over the way that the 2014 anthology “Harvest Of The Heart”, was put together?

AP - Not a lot actually, but entirely by choice. I wrote a little bit for the blurb on the boxset, but as far as choosing what songs to include – I couldn’t make the decision. It was too difficult – I mean, I dither anyway, at the best of times! And I’m not in any way trying to imply with arrogance that this is all so wonderful, but it was just too hard for me to decide. I’m not a good judge of what other people would have wanted, and to be frank I don’t like listening to a lot of it anyway, once I have done it, otherwise I start to pick it all apart and convince myself that I could have done better … So I was very happy to leave it up to Jonathan Dann, who runs my website ; and Mark Powell (Boss of Cherry Red), who went through all of it. He deserves a medal for that!

HR - I know it’s unfair to ask an artist what their favourite piece of their own music is, but – do you have one?

AP - The albums I’m most proud of , would be “The Geese And The Ghost”, and an album called “Slow Dance” ; which was the first album that I did when I came back after that 7 year hiatus in the wilderness, as it were …

HR - Was that [Slow Dance] released under your own steam outside of record label jurisdiction?

AP - It was actually! I did that off my own bat, and once again ended up having a bad time of it! We’d done an album called “Tarka”, and there was a bit of an upturn in the 80s with the ‘new age’ boom. I’d been doing what was effectively ‘new age’ for a while, but suddenly people realised that, after about 5 years! So I borrowed some money from my management company to crank up my gear, in order to enable me to do a larger scale record. This was in lieu of a small advance from the record company, who then went bust! So the rights to my songs were impounded, under US laws, and my catalogs were frozen (as assets) in the states for a number of years and I couldn’t get them back - so it was a pretty chaotic period in terms of America, but also I had to finish what I had started here! So I pressed on with this album, very much in debt, because I’d bought the gear, but then hadn’t got the advance to pay it off! Looking back I’m not sure how I kept going really because the record was very complicated … But I did have an ulterior motive which was to try and secure a publishing deal with the then’ Virgin Publishing’ under Richard Branson. I don’t to this day think he realises what he let go of when he sold it on to EMI – it was such a wonderful company to be a part of. Ultimately, I got a deal, which got me out of the mire; I finished what became “Slow Dance” and then Virgin came in and released ALL of my albums onto CD for the first time, so I was very fortunate then. I owed a lot to that record in the end. But it was a real blood, sweat, and tears album, and it wasn’t just mentally painful to listen to afterwards – it was literally physically painful too ; I would writhe around and cringe listening to it because I spent too long on it, and it sounded awful to me. It tried to do too much. It’s quite filmic, and unabashedly lyrical - It’s very orchestral at times and some of it is artificial; the sounds at that stage weren’t particularly brilliant and in hindsight it would have benefitted from more real orchestra. I think I could listen to it now … There is a two year rule – don’t listen for something you did for two years, and you’ll forget what was wrong with it!

HR - Would you re-record it, now?

AP - Well – it’s one of the things that will come up for discussion, funnily enough, because we are planning to release some more in surround sound, but it has to be practical to do because it’s a very expensive process, and Cherry Red are very fair, but they know we possibly won’t sell a million copies. I would like to do “Slow Dance” yes. I think any of the orchestral albums would really benefit from being in Surround Sound. The bigger it is, the more there is going on, and the more you can throw around the room. The re-release schedule is a bit torturous actually. Up next is “Private Parts and Pieces” with a bonus CD of material from the time, and … I don’t want to give too much else away really, but we will be doing more … maybe “Tarka”, eventually.

HR - Would you like to get any of your compositions to a point where an orchestra could perform it live? AP - Oh You bet! I’d love it!! There was a performance of “Tarka” in Australia, but it was with a scratch orchestra, so a rather mixed affair. It’s quite hard [Tarka] although it’s not an incredibly difficult score, but it needs some very good players to do it justice. These things are just so incredibly expensive to put together though, aren’t they?

HR - Yes, they are! Do you ever perform?

AP - I don’t … no. My experience with Genesis made me very tentative about performing, but to be honest - the thing that I enjoy most is composing. I’m a terrible practicer! The process of playing something over and over again, just bores me to tears!

HR - How about conducting then? AP - Gosh no, I’m not a good enough conductor – I did study it for a while, briefly, but I’d be much better on a bus! I know the moves, and the beats, but it’s that business of making the left hand totally independent of what’s going on with the right hand – that’s really difficult. It’s an extraordinary art! And when I go to see an orchestra, the conductor always seems to be so far ahead, that I can’t ever put it together!! When I was first studying I used to get the orchestra seats behind the Albert Hall proms, which are the ones behind the Orchestra where you’re looking directly at the conductor – and some of the conductors seemed to be so far ahead of the orchestra, that we used to joke that the conductor would be in the dressing room toweling down, whilst the orchestra were still finishing off! I don’t understand it!! It’s one thing that I do regret in life actually – I would have loved to have been in the middle of a big phat orchestra when something like the “Rites Of Spring” [Stravinsky] or “The Planets” [Holst] is being played. That must be amazing! Even to just play the triangle or something! I’d love to do that …

HR - There’s always time! What about your life outside of music? Do you ever divert from your musical routes?

AP - [laughs] It would seem not to the untrained eye eh? I have a lot of friends and probably spend too much time socialising, and eating out, so I burn the candle at both ends too often. I spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, and God-children – I don’t have kids of my own but keeping up with all of them makes life pretty full! It is a difficult balance to keep because I really can’t afford to fall behind with work stuff and that involves an endless amount of mind boggling admin with the album career, and for composing for the library - I have to keep up with all the new technology in the studio, and the new sounds – endless changes! I love sports ; all sorts of sports … I’m a big film man - love films. Probably my favourite music is in film scores these days. My big musical heroes are film composers – amongst many, my favourites are Ennio Morricone : particularly ”Cinema Paradiso” and the wonderful ”Gabriel’s Oboe” from ’The Mission; John Williams, ”Schindlers List”; George Fenton , ”Shadowlands”; Thomas Newman , ”Shawshank Redemption”; Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri and many others … so, yes! How do I actually find time to work? That is the question ... Not too long after we’d had this chat, Ant got the opportunity to work on a re-release of “Slow Dance” ; here’s the verdict ... HR : So the ultimate question is, forced to listen to it again, have you grown fonder of Slow Dance during the re-mastering, for this re-release?AP : My own view in general, which I appreciate may be very different to that of other musicians, is that when you come back to an album not having heard it for ages, it has novelty value and you think ‘that’s not bad at all’….! That’s why i prescribe the ‘two year rule’. Don’t listen to a piece, album, whatever, for a while and you will forget what it was that you are aspiring to that made you feel dissatisfied with its original outcome !Alas, repeated listens gradually bring back the issues that worried you at the time ! And the more time spent on an album (in my case Slow Dance, Geese were particular long campaigns) the worse it is. QBG and I flew through PP3 in the lovely summer of 1981 and it all remained fresh and therefore untarnished in one’s memory. This naturally makes us completely unobjective when it comes to judging our work ! Slow Dance was such a painstaking haul that when I finished it I found it excruciating to listen to.You have a mystical image of how a piece should sound and capturing this remains tantalisingly elusive ! Perhaps this very frustration is what drives you on to try and do better …?So yes, at first pleasantly surprised, with a few reservation, then gradually I began to feel ‘could have done that better - in many instances !But there are sections that I am still quite proud of and I know it is a piece that has been a moving experience for number of people……. HR : When last we spoke, You were enjoying the opportunity to take your recordings into the surround sound arena - has this one surpassed your expectations?AP : The Surround was a tough one : the toughest of all the re-releases thus far….Perhaps not harmonically but certainly in terms of the arrangement, the album was in parts very intricate and both the balance and flow hung by a thread. Any slight change and the wheels would come off. And they did ! It presented an almost insurmountable challenge to Simon Heyworth and Andy Miles, as there were effects on outboard gear (now either absent or defunct !) that weren’t recorded to tape and therefore had to be somehow ‘reconstructed’. On the other hand instrumental albums such as this and particularly 1984 ( a feast for the guys with all the weird, tricky sounds lending themselves well to sonic spatial manipulation !) do benefit from the size and ambience that 5.1 affords. So my considered view is that the more ambient, floaty parts benefit greatly whilst other sections slightly less so….But what does the musician / composer’s view count…..? It is only the audience’s opinions that ultimately counts ! I am happy that we try to give anyone repurchasing these albums enough extra material to make it feel worth it !

#genesis #modern classical #anthony phillips #ant #cherryred #cherryredrecords #esoteric #prog rock #prog #classical #composer

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Long Distance Calling ...

Very occasionally I come across a record that really stops me in my tracks. “TRIPS”, from Munster based “post rockers” ‘LONG DISTANCE CALLING’ [released April 29th], did just that. Appropriately titled - “TRIPS” - the bands 5th studio album, takes you on a journey through a soundscape of rock, pop, metal, alternative, and ... Prog! Along the way, the band themselves saw a change of line-up (the amicable departure of Martin Fischer, and the addition of Norwegian vocalist Petter Carlson), suffered the deaths of 5 grandparents, and experienced the birth of a child - so on a number of levels, this record pushed them out of their comfort zones ; but ... ... ... they’ve created something that is truly stunning. When presented with the opportunity to speak to Jan Hoffman (bass) and Florian Funtmann (guitar), I wasn’t going to refuse!

HR : As a band, ‘Long Distance Calling’ were once described as ‘living in their own bubble’ - before you entered the bubble, who or what inspired you both to become musicians?

Jan Hoffman : Wow, that´s a tricky question J Well, I always had a very strong connection to music. Not as a musician in the first place, I started playing an instrument pretty late - about 17 I think - But I always had a strong emotional connection to music since I was a kid; it made me feel good or made me cry. I always felt a strong bond. I guess that´s what made me become a guy in a band, so I could create and share my own emotions through music. I guess my first love was Michael Jackson, haha. Later I started to dig Pink Floyd, Metallica, Tool etc. I don´t really care about style as long as it´s good and it´s able to set me on fire in some way.

Flo Funtmann : There are lots of different kinds of music which inspired me to become an artist and musician myself. My first contact with music was Cat Stevens and Bob Marley, because my parents were listening to them and I really loved it. They were also listening to soul and 70s rock. When is was 9 I got my first record, as a present, which was AC/DC. From that day on I was totally in love with rock music. Soon after that I discovered Guns N Roses which was like an epiphany: “This is what I wanna do :-)”. When I got older I started to listen to different kinds of rock music and began to step into the world of death metal while still listening to all the other stuff I liked before. Nowadays I consider myself more as fan of good music in general than of a certain genre. Though I have to say my preference is still rock music.

HR : “TRIPS” is ‘Long Distance Calling’s 5th studio album, and it would actually seem that you burst the bubble, stepped outside of the box, pushed the envelope ... Is it very different to your other albums? Was it as challenging to make, as it sounds? What did producer Vincent Sorg bring to the process?

FF : The whole process of writing, rehearsing and recording the album was very challenging but fun at the same time. For this record we knew we had to do something different than before. We knew we had to get out of our comfort zone and Vincent was the right guy to do the job. He pushed us to try harder and to question every idea someone came up with. He pushed us to work harder on arrangements, grooves and melodies. He also was like an observer sometimes because we had so many ideas for this album that we needed someone to separate good from bad and ok from awesome.

JH : I don´t think it´s very different from the last album, ´cause we also had about half of the songs with vocals there and we had one vocal song on every album so far in the past. But I think it´s the most emotional and diverse album we have done so far. Like you said, we pushed the envelope and tried to leave our comfort zone, and we are really happy how it turned out.

HR : For anyone who might never have heard your music until now - what should they expect from listening to “TRIPS”? Is it true to say that they may never have heard anything quite like it before? If someone said “Oh you sound like ...” - Who would you feel most proud to be compared to?

JH : It´s hard to say from the band´s perspective but I really think we have created something unique. It´s a trip through different sounds and styles, all under the LDC umbrella. I could live with the term “Modern day Pink Floyd” probably.

FF : I always say we sound a bit like an modern and heavier version of ‘Pink Floyd’, who spent a day in the desert jamming with ‘Kyuss’ while listening to ‘the Cure’. Actually it’s not easy to classify our music and especially “TRIPS” in one certain genre. Of course it is rock music. Maybe atmospheric rock. HR : What is your favourite track on the album? JH : Wow, that´s hard to say! It changes from time to time (which is good I guess) but I reeeeally like “Rewind” and “Plans”. All in all, I´m really into all the songs on the album and I am proud of it.

FF : Yeah that’s a difficult question because at the moment I like all of them very much. I can say that I like “Getaway” a lot because it´s something we have never done before and I totally love 80s Action Movie soundtracks. Beside that I really like “Plans” because it´s split in two different styles - The first half is very chilled and dark, while the second half is just simply stadium rock.

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HR : Have you started to think about a 6th album? How far are you prepared to push the boundaries of your own creativity as a band? Do you think you have found a working formula that you are going to stick with for a while? Will you return to just instrumentals, or will Petter Carlson remain as vocalist?

JH :We are not really thinking about it yet J. We want to enjoy the new stuff now for a while and we never plan in advance, we just go with the flow. And we try to avoid formulas! Regarding Petter: definitely maybe J

FF : That’s true - for us every album stands alone. There is this whole cycle with writing, recording, waiting for the release and touring for every album. After this is finished we start to think about our next album. I know that on our next album there will again be something different from the previous ones because we like to experiment and try new things. Like you said to push the boundaries of our own creativity. You never know what will happen. And I love to do it like this!

HR : You’re heading out on tour soon. In the past you have toured with some big names, and played at some huge festivals - what has been the LIVE highlights of your careers so far?

JH : Yes, we can´t wait to finally hit the road again soon! We were really lucky with tour supports in the past, that´s right. There are many highlights but for me personally maybe the show at Rock am Ring and the shows with ‘Deftones’ and ‘Dredg’.

FF : There were lots of great things to remember. For me as a music fan it´s always nice to play shows with your idols and to find out that they are really nice guys. When we toured in Russia that was very nice and special as well, because I just thought: “holy shit – I am the guitar player in a band - like 50% of the people I know are as well and I get the chance to play in Moscow and St. Petersburg and there are actually people coming to see me/us perform on stage!” In general I love to travel the world and see places that I might had never seen without being in the band. I´m very thankful that I have the chance to do what I do, and people are interested in what I do.

HR : There’s a recurrent theme throughout “TRIPS”, and that’s time travel. There’s a great lyric in the song ‘Presence’ that says : “We all have our time machines don’t we? Those that take us back are memories, and those that carry us forward are dreams”.If time travel was ever invented, and you had the opportunity to explore - where would you go first? JH : That’s very good, tricky, and dangerous question! I think it´s good that it´s not invented (yet?) because we are human, and humans tend to do stupid things. Maybe I only would go back to one day in my childhood just to see if this matches with my memories and to see my (now dead) grandma and grandpa in a good time of their lives.

FF : I would go back to the late 70s to steal ‘Bostons’, “More Than A Feeling” and become rich as f@ck :-)

Jan Hoffman Flo Funtmann

Further musings with Jan ...............

LONG DISTANCE CALLING - BOUNDLESS

2018 is already looking like a great year for new music - starting with the forthcoming masterpiece from German post-rockers ‘Long Distance Calling’. “Boundless” once again finds the band as a 4 piece - Florian Funtmann (guitar) , Jan Hoffman (bass), Janosch Rathmer (drums), and David Jordan ( lead guitar) - and their return to producing a fully instrumental album. I will admit that it came as a surprise to me following the success of 2016’s “TRIPS”, which sits firmly in my Top 10 albums of all time, and incorporated, for me, a perfect balance of vocal and instrumental tracks. So, curious to know what prompted the decision to return to instrumentals, I caught up briefly with bassist Jan Hoffmann :-

JH : We just started writing last January without any plan behind it, but realised pretty quickly how easy and fun the writing process was with just the four of us in a room, like in the early days, so we decided to go on like this, and go a bit back to our beginnings as a band. As much as we like the last two albums, they were pretty complicated to write - but we needed to leave our comfort zone back then. Now we feel well, and comfortable, to be back to the core of the band and let the chemistry between us do the tricks.

HR : For some people, it’s difficult to listen to instrumental albums because there’s often a need for lyrics that help to tell a story - what were you imagining when you were creating the songs?

JH : When we write songs (especially instrumental songs), we always want to create a soundtrack to a feeling and this topic was very important for the new album. It should be the soundtrack to the life and to a journey into the unknown, that´s why the album is called “Boundless”.

HR : You know, they are soundtracks to feelings. I was drawn in from the first listen, and I think you capture emotion in a number of ways - which is almost impossible to try to explain to anyone who hasn’t yet heard the album, so we should let listeners know what to expect ... In three words Jan, can you describe the album? JH : Wow, that´s difficult haha but ok: DARK, INTENSE, BEAUTIFUL

And I agree entirely! I feel that the band have every right to be proud of what they have created with “Boundless” - it really is nothing short of phenomenal. It’s very thoughtfully composed and a compelling listen, from start to finish. If you’re particularly into soundscapes and soundtracks, then you MUST check it out - equally, if you’re a fan of prog, hard edged melodic rock, with maybe some electro thrown in, or if you just simply love the sound of soaring guitars, then I’m sure you will hugely appreciate this record too.

Judge for yourself on February 2nd 2018, when “Boundless” is released through InsideOut music. More info at www.longdistancecalling.de In the meantime, here’s their official video for “Out There”

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#prog rock #guitar #new music #bass #trips #progressive rock #rock music #atmospheric #Youtube

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Petter Carlsen ...

Earlier in the year, you may remember that we caught up with ‘Long Distance Calling’, and discovered that they had recently asked one of Norway’s finest vocalists to join them as lead singer on their new album, and tour of Europe. When we went along to a show, we also discovered that Petter was the opening act each night - at which point, it seemed like a great chance to grab him for a chat! Born in Alta, not so many years ago, Petter Carlsen has spent much of his life creating beautifully personal and atmospheric music, reflecting the cold, dark and wild surroundings of northern Norway. His debut album “You Go Bird” was released in 2009 and turned on many Norwegian ears. His second album “Clocks Don’t Count” was released to incredible reviews in 2011 in Europe, through UK indie label Function Records. Subsequently Petter really began to gain ground as an artist, and has picked up fans all over the world whilst touring as special guest with UK band Anathema, Danish artist Tim Christensen and throughout clubs and festivals in Europe, September 2014 saw the release of his third album “Sirens”; produced by Wetle Holte (Eivind Aarset, Anja Garbarek) and mixed by Christer A. Cederberg (Anathema). With all of these musical achievements, and long distance touring, it would seem that Petter has travelled far in life -and with much more travelling on the horizon, we were curious to know, how he got from there, to the here and now ...

HR - What first interested you in music?

PC - I became very fascinated by a lot of music at an early age, but the band that made me want to learn how to play the guitar was Metallica. The first time I heard ‘Fade to Black’ I was blown to Pluto and back (via Jupiter). Then I had to put together a two week intense promo campaign towards my mother to get her to invest in a guitar and amp. She did.

HR - Who taught you to play?

PC - James Hetfield! haha. Some friends of mine had a head start, and I learned a few chords from them. But mostly I listened to music and tried to play the songs with the help from my ears and hands and some tabs. However I early started exploring how to write my own songs. That was the main aim all the way. My first band was called ‘Burger Heads’ and our inspirations was Metallica and Paradise Lost + other heavy bands.

HR - Is there a lively music scene in Alta?

PC - Yes, and It’s growing. There are a lot of youngsters that are eager up there, more now than before I think. There are more songwriters now and less cover bands. It’s a small town, but there is something going on. We have a very nice festival in the summer called Aronnesrocken which was founded on the idea of creating a scene for the up and coming. We also have a place called ‘Huset’ which translates ‘The House’ where there are lots of creative and hungry souls making music, and dance and other forms of art.

HR - Blackmoon Magazine is sold in ‘Puska’s Music’, and we have heard a lot about it - how much of your youth did you spend in the Alta store? And as an adult too?!!! ;)

PC -The legend’s original name is Gunnar Schwaiger, but everybody calls him Puskas. The store was quite big in the ninetees, and I was there very often - always exploring new bands , trying to find gold. I did. I remember quite a few times sitting down by the bar with headphones on and being blown away by Metallica, Paradise Lost, TNT, Seigmen etc. I got a fulltime job there in ’99 and quit school (university). I don’t regret it. I enjoyed working there very much.

The store is still going strong despite that Puskas lost his beloved wife and partner for the last years.

May it last forever!

HR - Given the wealth of music you had the opportunity to listen to - Who have been your biggest influences?

PC - Anathema. I discovered the ‘Eternity’ album at Puskas too :) In recent years we have become friends and we have worked together for many occasions. They are very generous. It’s family.

HR - And what about Norwegian musical heroes?

PC - Åge Aleksandersen, Kari Bremnes, Kvelertak, Wetle Holte, Aleksander Kostopoulos, Motorpsycho, Seigmen, Jaga Jazzist and a lot of people I’ve been so fortunate to work with!

HR - Living so far north, in Alta, did you feel distant from the opportunities that may exist in the music industry?

PC - No , I didn’t. Ignorance is bliss haha. However I was quite young when I moved to Oslo, and I was 25 when I went ‘all in’as a musician. I didn’t dare at first. So I worked as a sound engineer for a long time before I was ready to give it a shot with my own music.

I have to mention that I don’t think coming from the outskirts is any set back, quite the contrary. I’ve had a tremendous support from people in my hometown.

I have always been back and forth between Alta and Oslo. I have a lot of contacts both here and there. I found my musical companions in Oslo , but I also have quite a few in Alta. Besides that, I am really happy to travel outside Norway and do gigs.

HR - What do you feel was your first real success?

PC - hmmm. Going to the next round in UKM with ‘Burger Heads’ in ’96. UKM is a cultural event for young artists.

HR - That’s pretty impressive! You have another project ‘Pil and Bue’ - how is that going? How did the partnership with Aleksander happen?

PC - Pil & Bue is going very well. We are both very excited about it and at the moment we are doing festival shows in Norway. We have done two albums so far and are starting to work on the next this autumn.

The reason we met was because I needed a stand in drummer on a couple of shows for my solo project. At last his name came up and he was free and keen on doing the gigs. At a shabby hotel room in Amsterdam we talked about how we began playing music. It was quite similar for us, we started out with heavier and more aggressive music. His first band was called ‘Sinnsyk Ugle’ (Insane Owl) and was a hardcore band. We decided then and there that we should start a rock band. A few weeks after we returned to Norway he called me to let me know that he’d bought a new Gretsch drum kit, perfect for our plan. And as we felt that we didn’t need any more members, the band was up and running in no time. It felt good going back to the roots, and it still does. I’m happy that we met, cause the collaboration is very good.

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HR - You’re about to tour Norway too - how does it make you feel to play to your home town?

PC - It’s always a little different than other shows. For a long time I didn’t enjoy those shows as much as others, but I think that’s over. Now I am more relaxed about it. I feel that I have a lot of fans and supportive people there, making it a pleasure.

HR - How did you meet up with ‘Long Distance Calling’?

PC - Zoetemeer, the Netherlands, October 2010. I was supporting Anathema on their entire european tour, and LDC joined in for some shows in NL and in Germany. We hit it off straight away and have been friends ever since.

HR - on tour you are both vocalist for them, and opening act with your solo material - Do you enjoy the experience as a whole?

PC - Yes, I do! We have a very good time on the road - even though I don’t speak german haha. The initial plan was to bring Pil & Bue as a support act but illness in Aleksander’s family made that impossible. How fragile we are. It was a bit challenging to do the solo support when people were expecting a rock show, but all in all it went well. I learned a lot on tour I think.

HR - Do you feel like you have to be two different people - to be able to perform as a solo artist, and as part of a band on the same bill?

PC - Good question. It’s two very different set-ups but I’m the one who’s singing, and singing both my own stuff and LDC’s stuff comes natural to me. Takes a lot of focusing though, but I enjoy the challenge. So I guess the answer is no.

HR - Will you be involved with their future projects?

PC - I don’t know at the moment. We talked about writing together ... Let’s see what happens. Would like to give it a go. I know that we’ll be doing a new tour early next year for the ‘Trips’ album.

HR - And as a solo artist, and also Pil & Bue - what’s next?

PC - On the solo side I am making a new record. It’s gonna be a little different this time. The plan is to release it next spring.

Pil & Bue is the main ship as of now. We are two people and we have a certain responsibility for each other. The solo part is easier to initiate when it’s a little quiet in the P&B camp.

HR - Which of your compositions are you most proud of - solo or with a band?

PC - Impossible to say. I have to say I’m proud of them all. That’s a good feeling.

HR - And If you hadn’t become a musician, what would you have done?

PC - There was no other option!

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#folk music #singer songwriter #norwegian #new music #music #heavy rock #prog rock #Youtube

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Jerry Donahue ...

Jerry Donahue was born in New York - the son of USA Forces big band saxophonist Sam Donahue, and actress Patricia Donahue - but grew up in Los Angeles, which is still his home today.

Encouraged by his parents, Donahue took classical guitar lessons as a child, but it was Gerry McGee (who later joined The Ventures) who made the biggest impression on him, when a 14-year-old Donahue witnessed him perform. Donahue then took lessons from McGee. Throughout high school Donahue formed a succession of his own bands and recorded his first album, aged 15, with “The Zephyrs”. At college in Germany, Donahue ‘roomed’ with “Freebo”. Donahue encouraged him to play bass and together they formed a band called “The Avengers”, playing in local clubs, US armed services bases. etc. “Freebo” went on to become the bassist with Bonnie Raitt, Dr John, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Ringo Starr, to name but a few.

Jerry Donahue first moved to the UK in 1961 and, after finishing scholastics, took a job in 1968, working at Selmers Musical Instruments in Charing Cross Road in London, where, apart from selling guitars to the likes of Eric Clapton (his first red 335, used for Cream’s farewell concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall), Justin Hayward, Barry Gibb, and more, Donahue also got his first taste of being in a professional band from there, and he has never looked back. In a spectacular career, spanning the past 5 decades, Jerry Donahue has been a key member of globally renowned bands such as “Fotheringay”, “Fairport Convention”, “The Hellecasters” and “The Yardbirds”, also touring with many renowned international artists and has also enjoyed huge success as a session musician. Technically, Donahue mostly plays in finger-picking or hybrid-picking style with his right hand. However, his left hand technique made him famous among guitar players: Since his first encounter with guitarists Gerry McGee and Amos Garrett as a teenager, Donahue was fascinated by, and eventually mastered the technique of, string "bending". Telecaster master, Danny Gatton, praised him as "the string-bending king of the planet". Around 1997, Fender made a Jerry Donahue signature Stratocaster in Japan, but Donahue's style and technique are closely associated with his signature Fender Telecaster and Telecaster in general. His signature Stratocaster was even modified with a metal plate under the bridge pickup to more closely emulate the heftier Telecaster sound. More recently (2005) Peavey released the Omniac JD signature guitar. The current guitar bearing the Jerry Donahue name is the Fret King Black Label JD model, designed by Jerry and world renowned guitar designer, Trev Wilkinson. Guitarist magazine in the UK have given this guitar the coveted Guitarist's Choice award with 4.5 stars out of 5 rating, proclaiming it “Jerry Donahue’s best yet”. Still dividing his time between living in the USA, and the UK - I caught up with Jerry at his Lancashire home, whilst taking a day out of his immensely busy schedule to chat about his life as a musician, and all that he has in store for 2015....

HR : Is there a huge difference between the folk scenes here in the UK, and the USA?

JD : It’s quite different because the British folk scene never quite made it in the states in the 60s and 70s when it was at its peak. With the mainstream, Rock n Roll, you had all the bands that were big in the UK like The Beatles, The Animals, The Rolling Stones, etc., and all of the bands who were really big in the USA, like Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Beach boys , and all of that, but they were just as BIG in both countries and embraced by everyone, whereas during the folk scene you had so many people over in the States like Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and many more – all iconic folk people - but, over there, they weren’t really in tune with what was going on in the UK – we had so many great folk artists and music ; Sandy Denny, “Fairport Convention”, “Fotheringay”, “Steeleye Span”, “Lindesfarne”, “Magna Carta” and so many more! When I play some things over in the States now, even if we’re just playing in a bar, the whole room becomes silent when we play this English folk rock – it’s like a new kind of music to them. They don’t remember it; they don’t hear it as dated, because they missed it the first time around! The stuff really leaves a big impression on American ears.

Did you find it frustrating back in the 60s and 70s, that you weren’t getting wide-spread recognition for what you were doing?

Well, yes I guess so, but there were a lot of frustrating things that happened back then - The untimely end of “Fotheringay”, for a start! When I finally got my hands on the tapes of “Fotheringay 2” – nobody knew we had done another album because it got shelved when Sandy Denny was impelled into going solo after her second consecutive Best British Female Singer award in Melody Maker, magazine’s readers polls.

The powers that be had wanted her to go solo after she left “Fairport Convention” for the first time, and really it was her winning the second “Top Female Vocalist” award (on this occasion when she was with Fotheringay) above the likes of Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield and more – through Melody Maker (who were huge at the time, alongside of NME).

The second award – which came at the time we were in the midst of recording the second album - really sealed their decision to yank her out of the band and persuade her to go solo. She never wanted to do that. None of us were particularly happy, to say the least, about the way any of that worked out – it was a total misreading of the fans’ intentions, and made as much sense at the time as pulling Paul McCartney out of “The Beatles” if he had won it for best male vocal the year before! You know? Beatles fans wouldn’t have wanted him going solo then, and likewise with Sandy, the majority of her fans were, by no means, happy about her leaving the band. “Fotheringay” had become a most popular band by that time, and that decision really pulled the carpet out from beneath everybody.

People didn’t want to see her leave “Fairport” the year before, but there was a quick recovery with the introduction of “Fotheringay” and the success we had with the first album. People really loved it.

But it didn’t end her relationship with you all, or “Fairport Convention” ...

No, and it’s all related. We did a lot of gigs together with “Fairport”. There was no animosity. She left simply because, with all the new material that Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick were writing, her outlet as a songwriter was becoming increasingly diminished. In total empathy re the potential dilemma, they supported her decision to leave and even helped her to find musicians for what was later to become “Fotheringay”.... As far as her subsequent departure from Fotheringay was concerned, we never blamed her, as we realised the pressure she’d received from the powers-that-be, to go solo. It ended up being an unfortunate career move for her, but none of us could know that at the time.

So how did you become involved in the first place?

Well, before I was known, at all (I had little to no profile up to the end of 1969) I’d been in a band with Albert Lee called “The Poet & The One Man Band”, though, my first experience in a fully professional setting (i.e., no day jobs). Sandy had asked Richard Thompson if he knew any guitarists who could do the English folk thing but who also had an American/country sensitivity, too. Sandy’s husband – Trevor Lucas – was a big fan of that style of music - Bob Dylan, The Band, Little Feat, etc. So Richard recommended Albert [Lee] (who was getting to be pretty well known). But he stayed only for a couple of days into rehearsal because, as much as he liked the music, it was very medium tempo, a little low key, and not really the best vehicle for his upbeat guitar style). Albert had already suggested the bass player for them, Pat Donaldson, and then Pat recommended me. Having been in a band together before, he thought my style of playing was just right for the music Sandy and Trev were performing. Actually Pat bulldozed me into going along – at the time I was perfectly happy in a country band called “The Tumbleweeds” with Dave Peacock – from Chas and Dave (long before “Chas and Dave”) on bass - but Pat persuaded me to go along to the session with Trevor, on the pretence that if they heard me play, I would maybe get a way in to session playing through that.

It only took one number to convince me to join – it was “The Way I Feel”. I just loved the harmonies and that inspired me to come up with that arpeggiated riff, which they really fell in love with, and ... that was it!

Would you say that “Fotheringay” was your favourite project?

Pretty much, yes ...

I was there from the beginning (apart from a couple of days rehearsal they’d had with my buddy and former band-mate, Albert Lee) - it wasn’t even a band until a week or so after I’d come on board. In fact, it hadn’t even got to the point where there were any shows booked or recording studios visited. That would come together as soon as we’d sit down and figure out what to call ourselves. We worked purposefully and came up with a plethora of offerings that were ultimately reduced down to two remaining faves: Tyger’s Eye and Fotheringay, the latter of which won, three to two.

And, from that point, it was to be the same line-up the whole way through. It was the nearest thing to a family that I can say I’ve ever felt in a band. It was very much a team effort - we enjoyed each other’s company so much and just loved the music we shared together. Sandy or Trevor would offer a new song and, en masse, we would work to shape it, capping it with the Fotheringay spirit.

It was a very rewarding time for me - I was still at the beginning of my career really, but starting to write and it’s really why it was so devastating to me - when she was suddenly yanked out and we couldn’t carry on making the second album. We’d been so excited about the way it was going, and it just ended ... ... .... I was never totally able to close the book on what happened to our special band. Even with the death of a loved one, in time you start to move on, but with this, it just kind of never went away. Every now and again I would approach Island Records, and ask them if I could please have the tapes to complete the record, but their response was always “Well why would we give it to you?” and I would tell them, every time, that all I wanted to do was finish it and give it back, but they would always come back with “What’s the point? We’re not interested in releasing it anyway”. So they wouldn’t even let me finish it. They saw “Fotheringay” as a ‘flash in the pan’, and were totally disinterested ... So when did you start to put it together?

Well, 2007 I finally got in touch with an administration at the label who were prepared to try and make it work. Prior to that I had hit one wall after another, the record company kept rewriting the contracts, and wanted to lease it to me, incorporating stipulations such as, if a six month of a lapsed release availability were to occur at any time, the rights would immediately revert to them - basically I couldn’t agree to it.

Eventually, Universal/Island Records found a loophole, and ultimately the surviving members and the estate of Sandy and Trevor, bought the tapes and the rights back from them: being an unfinished work, they realised that they couldn’t do anything with it, even if they’d wanted, a detail that allowed them, contractually, to actually release the work to us – it was amazing! They simply ascertained what the 1970 sessions had cost (a pittance to today’s standards), and asked us to pay them back, which, of course, we happily did.

However, the new record company we subsequently leased it too, then put me under pressure to get everything together for a 2008 release, compelling me to rush the mixing process. As that 5-year lease has now reached maturity, I’ve found the time to rework the selections in question, and we’re now planning an enhanced Spring 2015 release with new cover and notes, as well as a song that hadn’t been ready for inclusion on the 2008 version, and as well as some very interesting and often very funny studio chat that occurred in between takes, as the tape continued to roll.

Some of the mixes I have left alone but (most likely), about half I‘ve redone - because not all of the backing vocals were complete, or included at all, on the 2008 release (Bob Dylan’s “I Don’t Believe You was half finished) - we’d, of course, run out of time! This new release has afforded me much freedom to transfer it to digital and find all of the perfect bits from all the takes that were available to me, to put together the best performances and make this a truly wonderful album at this stage in time.

Pat [Donaldson], and Gerry Conway also got on board to help me finish it. Gerry re-recorded some of his drum parts, and Pat wanted to change some of his bass lines. And we added our backing vocals. We don’t have Trevor and Sandy with us to re-do their parts, but, thankfully all their ‘guide’ vocals were there, and personally I think that Sandy often effected better ‘guide’ vocals than subsequent re-recorded vocals. She used to get very nervous when the red recording light would go on – when the focus was totally on her. She would always give a great performance, but she gave a spectacular performance at the outset of a song’s recording, when the focus was more on the band. She would just sing the “guide”, to see us through. Just imagine: she was having the most fun at that time, when the song was freshest – she’d be more inspired and, of course, she would have the whole band performing with her in the room – which is a huge difference to being in a control booth, on her own, with a set of headphones, whilst the band are sat up in the control room, all studying her! As previously mentioned, the new release will also include some previously unreleased material, and there’s also recording of chat between all of us in the studio -they used to leave the tapes running between takes and some of what was said was hilarious, so that’s going to be bonus material, and I’m sure the fans will love it. There was very little ever heard of Sandy, bar a few interviews at the time. Its’ a much better master and there are new sleeve notes – it’s much more complete, and I’m really happy with it now.

This material that I waited so long to work on - all of those songs that we were so excited about at the time, and that we thankfully had the chance to take out on the road then - finally available to everyone to enjoy. It was quite an emotional experience - in a good way – hearing all the voices coming through the headphones made me feel like I was actually back in the studio with them! It was the nearest thing to having a time machine! [Laughs] It helped me considerably to find personal closure on the original dissolution of the band now, too ... How long in total has this taken to come to fruition?

Well, it was 37 years back in 2007! So ... as of today - 45 years!! That should be in the Guinness Book of World Records, surely?! [Laughs] Talking of Fairport Convention now – was that an organic transition once “Fotheringay” had been ‘shelved’ as a project?

Not entirely, no - after “Fotheringay” dissolved, I started calling around for work. I’d done some session work with Gary Wright – he’d been in a band called “Spooky Tooth” by that time, long before ‘Dream Weaver’! [laughs]. He had just finished an album and needed a band to take it on the road, so my fellow Fotheringay band mates, Gerry Conway, Pat Donaldson, and I - joined Gary Wright for that. We subsequently worked on another recording for him, where George Harrison played acoustic guitar, on one of the tracks. Unfortunately, though, George’s record company wouldn’t let Gary put his name on it! Following that Gary had a call from Johnny Hallyday’s manager, and asked Gary if he would be the Musician Director – Gary brought Pat and me into the equation, and as a result of that Johnny booked Pat to play in his band.

And at that same time, Johnny’s then wife, singer Sylvie Vartan, recruited me for a tour of Japan, which I then recruited Dave Peacock for, on bass. Following that tour, Sylvie and I flew back to LA where Johnny had booked me to record and MD another studio album. We did a live tour off the back of that, lasting the better part of a year! By that point I was missing England and wanted to head home. In the meantime Trevor Lucas had been asked by “Fairport Convention” to produce “Rosie”, and I was asked to join them for the record, which subsequently led Trev and me to join the band. They knew me pretty well by then since “Fotheringay” had done a number of tours together with them, 18 months prior....

I was with “Fairport” from the middle of 1972 - one year after Richard Thompson left. They’d carried on without him and had Simon Nicol upgrade from rhythm to lead guitar. But when he left, though they auditioned and toured with a few others, Trev and I were the next recording members, essentially replacing Simon and Richard in the band. Trev and I remained then until the very end of 1975.

I recorded four studio albums with them - “Rosie”, “Nine”, “Fairport Live Convention” (titled “A Moveable Feast” in the US), and “Rising For The Moon”. There was also one track from this new line-up (Trevor Lucas, the three Dave’s [Pegg, Swarbrick, Mattacks] and me) that was included on a concurring Island Records release “The History Of Fairport Convention” – boy, was that ever a premature title offering! [Laughs] Imagine writing the history of Fairport Convention in 1972! They might have waited 40 years or so....

I think it slid for a while, maybe they’d thought it was coming to an end. but the new line-up when Trevor and I joined, and even more so when Sandy rejoined in 1974, of course, seemed to become an important time for the band, giving it a boost for the fans ; and giving it new life - we lived up to their expectations and “Fairport” became popular again.

Do you have a favourite out of those 4 albums?

Oh, I like them all. There are songs on all of them which I love very much. Probably the best overall, would be “Nine”. I’ve heard it from a number of sources that “Nine” has been considered the best post-Thompson album.

“Rosie” we came in on mid-way. They had Richard on guitar on one track, Ralph McTell on another, but the remaining songs were recorded with this new line up, with Trev, me and Dave Mattacks back again on drums. Of course the line-up changed again when DM left a few years later, giving rise to a couple of new drummers (Paul Warren, and Bruce Rowland), This was not long before Sandy, Trev and I were to move on....

Arguably the strongest piece of music that’s documented of that original “Nine line-up plus Sandy” is on the new re-release of “Rising For The Moon” – it’s a re-mastered 2 disc set including some live tracks, and a bonus CD that hadn’t been previously released. Held back for many years by Wally Heider studios was their recording of a live gig that we’d done at the LA Troubadour in 1974. The record company hadn’t paid them for the tapes. Thankfully, though, Heider had hung onto it all of this time. And it’s now considered the best gig we have a recording of, of that particular line-up.

Thankfully the record company never lost interest in “Fairport Convention”! [laughs]. Outside both of those projects, you’ve had a great solo, and highly successful session career too. Do you prefer going it alone as opposed to being a part of a bigger project?

Oh no. I’ve always been a team player. I loved being a part of “Fairport” and “Fotheringay”, and “The Hellecasters”. With “The Hellecasters”, I wrote a third of the material, and with “Fairport” I wrote “Tokyo”, and also “Dawn” with Sandy – but regardless of whoever wrote it, it ended up being OUR music, and we would arrange it together and give it the presentation that people still enjoy today.

I had a great time working with Joan Armatrading, Andy Fairweather Low, The Proclaimers, Chris Rea, Gerry Rafferty and people like that, but with any session stuff, you’re pretty much playing other peoples songs and you don’t feel quite an integral part as you would as a full band member - an equal member within the creative process.

I do have a new solo record coming out next year – all instrumentals once again. I manage to do one every decade, whether people are ready or not! [laughs] I don’ know what it will be called yet ... How about “One Every Decade”?

[Laughs] That’s a great idea! Out of all those people that you’ve worked with as a session player – do you have a favourite collaboration?

Well not really. I’ve done so much and everybody is different - I enjoyed working with all of them, in various ways. I’ve been working on a great album with an artist from Fife – Janey Kirk – it’s called “Streets Of Loneliness”, and I’ve really enjoyed that – it’s close to completion now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzKE1qQJw-4

I toured for a time with Warren Zevon – I was the first person he played “Werewolf of London” to, sitting at the piano - I can hear it again in my head now ... hopefully not for the rest of the day! [Laughs]

Bruce Springsteen came up to me after a gig at NYC’s Bottom Line club, and said “really nice guitar playing” – which was quite a compliment coming from him!

I missed out on recording with Warren, because I had had a call from Glyn Johns asking me if I would join Joan Armatrading, and that was going to be a more permanent arrangement.

After that, I stayed in LA and started a project with Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who had moved over there because they were frustrated that their hits in the UK weren’t making it Stateside, so they catered their sound more to the American market and ended up having six number ones in the time I was with them. We had a great band together out there called “Thieves” - Gerry [Conway] was with us - they moved him out from London together with his family. We were all on great retainers, all our bills paid, taxes paid, we had houses. It was a great time. But success eventually went a bit to their heads, I believe, and the partnership soon ended at the end of 1982.

Gerry went back to England and joined Jethro Tull. When “Thieves” then dissolved, Rusty Buchanan, the bass player, Linda Lawley (one of the 3 girl singers), and I started up a kind of fun cabaret band called “The Roomates”, and that did us really proud for about 3 years – certainly paid the bills ... until I made the move back to England, and started getting involved in the “Fairport” Cropredy Fesivals, as well as recording albums again, such as with Linda Thompson, Doug Morter, Cathy Lesurf, Gerry Rafferty, etc.

I met Doug Morter (ex “Magna Carta”) who, as producer, enlisted me to play on Cathy Lesurf’s album, resulting in a life long friendship. Consequently we formed “The Backroom Boys”, who are still playing together periodically. We also formed “The Gathering” - myself and Doug, along with Ray Jackson from “Lindisfarne”, Rick Kemp from “Steeleye Span”, Clive Bunker from “Jethro Tull”, and my daughter Kristina, 4-time Fairport guest at the Cropredy festivals - that was quite a line-up. 1990 is when The Hellecasters started, and I was back and forth between England and the States again, and a whole lot of other session stuff ensued in between!

Who were the Hardest Artists to work for?

Chris Rea was quite demanding but actually, Gerry Rafferty was probably the hardest gig I ever had. It could take quite a long time to find exactly what he wanted. The “North and South” album was very rewarding for Gerry, and myself, though. I was involved in that from that start - it took about 4 years to record, and bits were done whenever I was in town. Gerry would do basic tracks, and then work with me on the rest. There was one solo that he brought in Bryn Haworth for, but apart from that I play guitar the whole way through that album. It’s arguably his best album!

I’m glad to have been on “City To City” too – that’s when I got my foot in the door with Gerry. I was actually on the road with “Fairport” at the time they were recording that album. Gerry had saved “The Ark” until last, as it was his favourite track. “Baker Street” etc. were already down.

I literally got back into town to a string of messages that my wife had taken down from Gerry and Hugh Murphy, his producer, and I said “ah that’s great, I’m really tired, so I’ll call them first thing tomorrow”, and she said “I think you better call them tonight because I believe, from the last message left, they may be finishing up tonight or tomorrow.”

So I called up and was directed to Marquee studios, spoke to Hugh who said “Well we’re actually just into mixing the last track, “The Ark”, and we have to hand it to the record company tomorrow, but if you can get down tonight we’ll replace the guitar and mix it first thing tomorrow”.

So off I went, from Putney to Soho, and laid down the solo that a lot of people say is one of my best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDwpMfv6kkg Gerry Rafferty - The Ark (2011 re-master)

What do you feel is the best guitar work you’ve done?

The Ark was one of those, actually – another would be the solo on “One More Chance” from “Fairports”, “Rising For The Moon” album. My solo on a track off Joan Armatrading’s “Joan Armatrading” LP called “Tall In the Saddle” caused Glyn Johns to throw his arms around me when I was called into the Control room. That was a triumphant moment, as you might imagine!

The Proclaimers were great too, and I’ve ended up having a couple of their tracks becoming my most famous works – “I’m On My Way” was featured in the first “Shrek” movie – I believe that was the one I’m thinking of. And, they’re another example of how things in the UK don’t always make it Stateside at the same time.

“500 Miles” I know was a huge hit here in the UK, but in America at the time, it only sold a handful of copies – it happened for them eventually, but not right away, and that was actually down to it being used in the film “Benny and Joon” , which starred Johnny Depp, and Mary Stuart Masterson. I didn’t even know it had been used until this one afternoon, I went to see the film with my daughter, Kristina, and as the film started up, I thought “I recognise that opening riff there”, and Kristina looked at me and said “Dad that’s you, isn’t it?”

What happened is the Director hadn’t decided on any music for this dance scene, and asked Mary Stuart Masterson if she would bring along something she liked, that had a beat. She turned out to be one of the handful of people who had bought “500 Miles” (upon its prior US release), and the Director fell in love with it there and then – he was so impressed that he ended up using it as the opening theme tune! This was 3 or 4 years after its (500 Miles) initial release that was all but ignore in the States. With the success of Benny and June, the Radio stations finally picked up on It and, it them became a huge hit in America.

I wanted to ask you about Kristina and her connection to your music, alongside her own career....

Yes, Kristina has been an integral part of keeping Sandy’s songs alive at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy festivals. At any Cropredy show there’s normally one girl who does the Sandy Denny spot – they’re always looking for different people to do it, but Kristina was invited back four times in the space of just over a decade. She was 19 the first time....

2008 represented 30 years since Sandy’s passing and they invited five girls along, as well as Robert Plant (as a surprise guest). To my delight, Robert chose Kristina out of the five, to sing “The Battle Of Evermore” with him. It was a big moment. Her voice fits Sandy’s songs so well, many people have said.... And there’s still a lot of love out there for Sandy, you know? It’s not too long ago that a 19 Disc box-set was released by Universal – it was presented as the complete works of Sandy Denny – Fotheringay were asked to lease the tracks back to Universal for that, which gave me great personal satisfaction! [laughs]. The success of Fotheringay 2 on Fledg’ling Records was the cause of their sudden interest in the band. It received a great response, too from the UK mags and papers – 4 and even 5 star reviews. Rolling Stone Magazine described “Fotheringay 2” as “a Sandy Denny masterpiece” ... you don’t hear that kind of praise so often these days!

Mick Houghton is releasing a Sandy Denny book at some point in early 2015, and we’ve got this re-master of “Fotheringay II” coming out in the near future; Universal are actually releasing a “Fotheringay” 4 disc box-set too, with the addition of some sessions we did Live at the BBC, and I’m mixing a ‘lost’ tape for them from a Festival performance we did in Rotterdam, both studio albums and a DVD of a Beat Club performance from 1970 – all this new footage of Sandy is really great. I feel 2015 could well be the Year Of Sandy Denny – and quite rightly so!

If we could get some shows together to mark all of this, then it could work out so well for not only us, but the book, the Universal box set and the enhanced version of what will be Fotheringay II. Watch this space ...

Jerry FB public page: https://www.facebook.com/jerrydonahuemusic

#jerrydonahue #fairport convention #robert plant #gerry rafferty #joan armatrading #folk music #johnny depp #benny and joon #500 miles #jethro tull #chris rea #hellecasters #fender #bruce springsteen #chinnandchapman #warren zevon #the proclaimers #gerry conway

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Brian Parrish ...

1973 - the year in which emerging talent included ‘AC/DC’, ‘Bachman Turner Overdrive’, ‘Bad Company’ , ‘Stillwater’, ‘Television’, ‘The Tubes’ ; albums were released by ‘Wishbone Ash’, ‘Nazareth’, ‘Uriah Heep’, ‘Thin Lizzy’, ‘Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’, ‘Aerosmith’, ‘Mike Oldfield’ ... to name just a few. ‘YES’ were already big on the scene, as were ‘The Rolling Stones’, ‘The Who’, ‘David Bowie’, ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Led Zeppelin’, ‘Wings’ - it’s really quite a mind-blowing list isn’t it? A seriously exciting time to be around for any music lover, but imagine being a musician at the heart of that scene ... Enter Brian Parrish.

For many of you reading this, Brian Parrish will already be a familiar name - amongst many fans of ‘prog’, he is held in high regard as the guitarist / vocalist with ‘Badger’, but this is by no means all that he should be remembered for, or associated with. In fact, to document ALL of his history would require an entire magazine edition of it’s own! ‘Badger’ were co-founded by keyboardist Tony Kaye after he left ‘Yes’, along with David Foster - the pair found drummer Roy Dyke, who thus suggested Parrish, and voila! Rehearsals began in September 1972, a deal with Atlantic Records followed in quick succession, and with the dawn of 1973 came their first album “One Live”. From a ‘fame’ perspective, it might seem that ‘Badger’ was the point at which Parrish suddenly appeared on radar, but prior to this he really hadn’t been a stranger in the music industry. Parrish had grown up in the “Skiffle” era and says that he “saw the Light“ when he heard Lonnie Donegan, and the wealth of American Roots music at the time. He Received his first guitar at the age of 11, and despite passing his 11+ exam a year early, cites “once I had a guitar in my hands I had no more interest in, or use for, formal education” - by the time he was 17, he was in a touring band, and shortly after that the doors opened wide to the world of music and songwriting, on landing his first ‘professional’ job as lead guitarist for rock n roll legend Gene Vincent. During the next few years of touring, and residencies at the Star Club in Hamburg with ‘The Londoners’ [aka ‘The Knack’], Parrish had also landed himself a publishing deal and achieved success with songs that he wrote for Johnny Hallyday, & ‘Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich’ amongst others. He was in demand for sessions, playing on albums for Jerry Lee Lewis, Graeme Edge (‘TheMoody Blues’), Jon Lord (‘Deep Purple’) and on hits for the likes of ‘Medicine Head’ (“One and One”), and all the while striving towards his own solo career. Whilst preparing demos for a solo album, Brian ran into old friend Paul Gurvitz (formerly of ‘The Londoners’ / ‘The Knack’) who agreed to help with vocals. The blend of harmonies was so good that they decided to make it a joint project - ‘Parrish & Gurvitz’. George Martin (the 5th Beatle) heard the P&G tapes, and subsequently signed them to his newly formed production company - the resulting album which he produced was hailed as the debut of the “next Beatles”, however it wasn’t long afterwards that ‘Parrish & Gurvitz’ went their separate ways. ‘Badger’ marked the next milestone in Parrish’s career - “One Live” entered the U.S. Billboard charts, and was widely acclaimed. The band had already toured with YES, and Black Sabbath ; and then suddenly, in what he describes as the hallmark of his “bad timing” , Brian Parrish elected to leave the band more or less on the eve of their American tour ... A solo deal with Chas Chandler (manager of Jimi Hendrix and Slade) followed, but his debut album “Love On My Mind” proved to be less successful than he anticipated. From there he moved increasingly into production and writing, becoming what they call a “back room boy” rather than a performer. Whilst he continued to take session work, his live performances all but stopped- yet throughout the years, he has never stopped writing. Brian suffered a brain tumour in the late 90s - the ensuing surgery, whilst 100% successful in removing the tumour, left him without hearing in his right ear ; meaning he has had to re-learn the recording process in the absence of a “stereo” picture - it did not, by any stretch of the imagination, deter him from carrying on with his career in music! In 2004 Brian returned to the stage when invited to perform in Hamburg as a special guest for a “Star Club Night”. In 2007 he released “End Game” - his first album of original songs for 30 years, and also formed a band. They still play regularly. This year [2016] saw the release of “Traveller” - a ‘concept’ album in which BP takes us on 13 of life’s journeys, with notes to the listener along the way : “We are all travellers with a one way ticket for our own unique journey through life – and our choices define us”. One thing is for certain, Brian’s choices have certainly defined him, and his life has indeed, so far, been a colourful one in which he muses “Music has dominated my journey, intensifying my experience” , and hopes that his own music is enjoyed as part of yours. He continues to work, exploring new directions, and tells us that “the best is yet to come”! If the new album “Traveller” is anything to go by then we will all be in for a treat. “Traveller” itself is one of those timeless records which contains something that will appeal to just about every taste in music. We caught up with Brian recently - curious to know more about “Badger” as there is very little documented, and also the bits before, inbetween, and afterwards, that have formed the road map of his own journey ... Helen Robinson : By the time Badger’s “One Live” was recorded you were already a ways towards carving a successful career in music ; your first professional gig was with Gene Vincent - how did you land that?

Brian Parrish : I started young. Somehow getting a publishing deal at around age 17 ( I am not necessarily saying my songs were good, but the publishers obviously thought I might make some money for them - that´s how it works). Our band had done tours of American Army bases in Europe with success, especially among the black soldiers - I believe this was due to our material being R&B (black) influenced. I knew nothing of “race” issues - quite naive, I was! Upon our return we got the opportunity to try out with Gene Vincent, as Paul’s [Gurvitz] father was working for Don Arden, who handled Gene in the UK. I think our musicianship was limited at that point, especially when you consider that Cliff Gallup (one of the all time greats!) had been Genes guitar player in the original ‘Blue Caps’ ; Jeff Beck still cites Gallup as a great influence. Where we scored, was stagecraft - we had been learning from the get go ... and possibly because we were cheap! Both, I imagine!

HR : From there you toured and recorded quite extensively with ‘The Londoners’, and you also had a brief stint with ‘New York Public Library’ - so what made you want to go solo?

‘The Londoners’ worked pretty much nonstop through 64 / 65, scoring heavily in the “Star Club” Hamburg, where we were hugely popular. We also worked and recorded under the name ‘The Knack’, and had a near hit with a Ray Davis song. ‘The Kinks’ connection also came about through Paul’s father, who by then was working for their management. We recorded 4 or 5 other singles - one may have been written by me. They went nowhere. Finally, shortly before Christmas, I announced that I wished to be home for Christmas Day, so please accept no gig if offered. There was a job offered in maybe Scotland or Wales (I am not sure, but in pre-motorway Britain it would have been a slog) and the money was good, but I said “I am not doing it!” They gave me an ultimatum: Play or leave the band. I left, of course. In order to keep playing I joined ‘NYPL’, who as ‘The Cherokees’ had played the “Star Club” with us. They had a hit under their belts but opted for a new name and a fresh start. We released some singles, not all of them bad, some written by me, and all of them died. For collectors only, I am afraid! When I had the offer to do something solo, I took it.

HR : You became highly sought after as a session musician, and made an impact within the song writing world - what’s the most memorable thing in that period of your career?

BP : I played more sessions than I can remember. Things with Roger Cook, a bunch for ‘Dave Dee, Dozy, Mick & Titch’, for whom I also wrote some songs. It was all very eclectic. I would like to say I stayed true to blues roots, or whatever, but the truth is, the work came up and I took the jobs. Ken Dodd was one, for example. For credibility points I would add that I did a couple of sessions for Paul Jones. In the following years I would play with Jerry Lee Lewis, Tony Ashton (another Star Club friend) and Jon Lord, but there were many that I do not remember. Someone told me I was on a session with Robin Gibb. I really do not remember! Complete blank. I did have some early songwriting success with Johnny Hallyday - Huge in France and Europe. I remember the publishers were very pleased, although Paul Gurvitz (know as Curtis then) asked “Who is he?”

HR : You actually teamed up with Paul Gurvitz next, and were signed up by none other than George Martin! That’s kind of a big deal isn’t it?

BP : The way that happened was that I started a solo project with Lou Reizner, and began working up material in his Knightsbridge apartment, which he gave me the keys for while he was away in the States ... Me and a Revox . I was taking a break and walking in the street nearby when Paul drove up - “Whats happening ?” etc. I told him what I was doing and said “Come and listen”. Paul and the drummer from ‘The Knack’ had formed a trio with brother Adrian, calling themselves “Gun”. They had a respectable hit , but 2 albums later had called it a day, so Paul was free and I invited him to sing harmonies with me on my project. Our voices have always jelled, so when Lou returned from the U.S. I said “what about if we did this as a double act?”. In the spirit of the times he said “OK if that’s what you want”. I persuaded Paul to call himself Gurvitz (his real name). I said “it’s more memorable and has authenticity. Think of Art Garfunkle”. We recorded a pretty good album at Island studios, with the guys who would later be our band. Lou drafted in a manager from Canada, and he ran to George Martin with the tapes, without Lou Reizner´s knowledge. Et Tu Brute? He was a snake really. Long story short , George loved us but wanted to re-record the songs, jettison a couple, and most importantly produce the album. ‘The Beatles’ had just disbanded, and had been huge, so this WAS a big deal. We were not overawed, but were ready to learn stuff and listen to his comments and suggestions. He absolutely respected our instincts, but was able to enhance everything when scoring string parts. Also having worked with John and Paul he was very open to experimentation sonically. No digital effects and limitless tracks in those days! He demystified everything for me, and there is no occasion in front of a mixer, or working on harmonies when I do not draw on what I learned. A master-and a gentleman. Being hailed as the “new Beatles” was ultimately the kiss of death. We needed time to develop our own identity free from misconceptions and a public who did not WANT a NEW Beatles! We had inherited the infrastructure but we were not ‘The Beatles’, nor wanted to be!

HR : No, no I see how that would have been detrimental, even with the backing of such major business influences - so, ‘Parrish & Gurvitz’ was short lived?

BP : Yes. We toured the States with our band a good six months after the album came out. Disastrous timing. No-one would invest the kind of money and logistics demanded of touring without a current “product” to promote and sell. Also we had started on the second album - a more electric, rockier thing than the acoustic vibe of the first one. The band were great but the style of presentation was unexpected, and the new songs not known even to those who had heard the first album. The management were inexperienced in this, and we had already moved on stylistically. We were not about to bow to the demands of the U.S. Record labels “We didn´t sign a ROCK band!” - so the plug was pulled two weeks before the end of the tour. We returned to the UK, and went into the studio to finish the second album, but the honeymoon was over and we could no longer keep paying the band. They joined ‘Peter Frampton’ as an already slick working unit. We dumped the management. Paul and I separated - he going into a project with his brother and Ginger Baker, and I was approached by my friend Roy Dyke who was playing with Tony Kaye. “We need songs, a guitar player and a singer” he said, “I can do those things” I said. Cut to next scene : the rehearsal rooms where Badger would be formed.

HR : Ha! Yes - ‘Badger’. I would like to just sidestep there for a moment though, if I may ... It’s 1972 - that point in music history may well have been the ‘peak’ when you look at the wealth of talent and genuine passion for music that existed ; and remarkably the fact, as you’ve already pointed out, that by that time ‘The Beatles’ had disbanded ; Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin were already gone - what was it like to be a working musician throughout that time?

BP : An unbelievable time, Yes ... We hung out with a lot of these people. I saw Jimi at a club called Blaizes for the first time. Looking like a black Bob Dylan playing “Like a Rolling Stone” with an upside down Stratocaster - but sounding otherworldly. I could not figure out what he was doing, never mind how he was doing it. I was barely three feet away. He played someone else’s guitar upside down (left hander, was Jimi). He freaked everybody, Eric [Clapton] included. We would meet all of these folks in the clubs. Janis chased our bass player all around the Revolution club I remember. He was quite innocent and the Jack Daniels toting Lady would have devoured him for breakfast! As you say, these artistes were all gone by ´72. I do not know if there were “lows” on a conscious level, but the substance use had hit high levels and I nearly died on a couple of occasions. I was rehearsing at one point with Paul Kossoff, who was in a worse mess than I - and as we know, he died sometime later. Keith Moon, who had been a friend was another. There is quite a list of drug casualties. Better not to dwell upon it. Mostly it was still an amazing time for creativity and one still had the feeling that everything was possible. We were in the vanguard of the counter culture and we were changing the world. HR : I’m in awe Brian, actually ... It really did change the world - certainly the face of music. To be a part of that would have been exhilariating, I’m sure. I’m fascinated, because I missed it all in person - there was so much going on politically, and musically - including the birth of ‘prog’ ...

BP : Well, The “prog” thing which was often quasi-classical and Gothic in tone, may have been started in ‘67 with “Whiter Shade of Pale”. All the classically trained players - Emmerson, Wakeman etc. thought “Right! We´re on now!” - By 71 /72 it was in full swing. West Coast music flourished, Blues music was marginalised but “Soul” with a message thrived (Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Staples Singers) -even the Godfather of Soul, James Brown was smart enough to catch the Zeitgeist -“I´m Black and I´m Proud” he sang and it all resonated with the Civil Rights movement.

HR : It all goes hand in hand. But ... going back to You , and to add further perspective to what you were doing in 1972 - Elvis was still around, Lennon and McCartney had gone solo, and many of the UK’s (even the worlds) best known, best loved, bands and artists were already established in the public eye - ‘The Who’, ‘The Rolling Stones’, ‘David Bowie’, ‘Pink Floyd’, ‘Elton John’, ‘Led Zeppelin’ , ‘Genesis’, ‘Queen’, ‘Black Sabbath’, ‘YES’ etc ... taking all of the afore mentioned artists into account - they were the people you hung out with, but how conscious were you of them as competition?

BP : I think any musicians forming a band at that time just got on with the job in hand. There were plenty of acts I really liked, but I regarded none as competition. David (Bowie) was a primped up Marcel Marceau acolyte, who would brilliantly morph into whatever took his fancy, exploring Dadaism and so on. Great - but nothing to do with my universe. ‘Zeppelin’ were huge of course (we sat together in Madison Square Gardens to watch Elvis during the Parrish & Gurvitz time) ; ‘Paul McCartney & Wings’ were flying (the correct verb I assume),and I had been privileged to be around Air Studio when Paul with orchestra arranged by George Martin recorded “Live and Let Die”. Breathtaking. ‘Queen’ were nothing like as successful as they would become, but the others you mention were already very big. When Tony Kaye left ‘Yes’ and we began to rehearse ‘Badger’, I had little interest in what ‘Yes’ had been doing - seeing our music simply as the best we could do together without labels, and by extension no comparison, let alone competition with anyone in particular ; certainly not Tony´s ex band. I wasn´t even sure we were that good, to be honest - and I was always insecure about my own playing. We have had enough compliments over the years (my guitar playing included) that I am able now to accept it with good grace and gratitude!

HR : And so you should ... Not only was “One Live” your debut album, but it was also Live (funnily enough!), which was somewhat of a rare thing to do - why did you release that as opposed to a studio recording?

BP : It was not an artistic choice, but a practical one. We were playing with ‘Yes’ who had ‘the Stones’ Mobile Studio on hand to do a “live” concert recording. To record ‘Badger’ also, was going to cost a few reels of tape and some mixing time to follow. I was not sure it would work, but I remember the “Rolling Stone” review at the time said it was the favourite album (of the reviewer) and if this was what ‘Badger’ could do live, may they never feel the need to set foot in a recording studio. It was a fluke really.

HR : Is it completely Live, or did you work on it afterwards?

There was just a little overdubbing /repair work. Notably on one song (would you believe I forget which one?). We had recorded the songs on two separate nights, and as we listened to a version of the song in question all of the vocal mikes went down half way through. Not in the auditorium, but the recording microphones. The version was great, and there were tempo discrepancies with the recording from the second night. In the digital age this would call no problem, but at that time this was a big problem. Could we lift the vocal from the second night? Splice the 2 halves together despite the tempo problems? Some of the instruments spilled onto the mikes we were singing in, so to re sing in the studio would still leave us with a significant change in sound. Our engineer Geoff Haslam helped us mix and match various parts with minimal re-singing. We tried to keep it as “live” as possible for the sake of integrity. Actually the night following the Rainbow concerts we played in Glasgow, and this was without question a much better performance. It was not recorded! HR : Typical! When you consider the impact this album had, amongst all those other huge albums in 1973 - did you feel that the band should have been bigger, or lasted longer than it did?

BP : Well one sees everything differently with the benefit of hind sight. The “business” or “career” head might have advised “Stick with it. Ride the train! The band is getting such a reaction, growing in popularity, so with touring and so on you could push the album higher in the U.S. charts, to further cement what you have done-and in time, maybe come up with a good second album”. We will never know. I would be interested to hear what the others might answer to this question. I left the band pretty much on the eve of the U.S. tour, as you know. The drug intake was prodigious to say the least, and I was becoming disenchanted with the work rate in terms of working up new material. Frustrated songwriter stuff, but not being “sober”, of sound mind and body (!) my judgement might have been impaired. I may have been too hasty. The others thought it was a tantrum, or something I could be talked out of, but it wasn´t. It was a lousy business move on my part, I would be in a better position today, if I had stayed with the band whose popularity was increasing (and if I had not died, as so many did!). Whatever. I dropped the band in the lurch, and still feel a little guilty about that. I liked them all, and still do. We had something……. Writing wise I was travelling in an altogether funkier direction - and whatever ‘Badger’ were, they weren´t funk (I reject the “prog” label). What happened next was Jackie Lomax replaced me and lo and behold, took them in a funkier direction, with the addition of Kim Gardener on bass. Jackie was a great talent, but the public did not want a reinvented ‘Badger’, so the second album more or less bombed, and my solo album did little better.

HR : Well “One Live” has certainly stood the test of time and secured some loyal fans! Given that you were the main songwriter, how do you feel about the fact that so many people still cite it as a pivotal moment in their musical journey?

BP : At the time I was not so impressed with it. A little bemused even. I was arrogant enough to think there would always be another door opening for me, with something interesting behind it. I had always bumped into people who liked what I did and assumed it would stay that way. I forgot a crucial factor, which is that a young artiste / band is much more marketable. That´s another theme, however. Over the years, right up to the present day I have heard from many people who hold “One Live” in special regard. I also have had feedback from many young people, including musicians, who love it. I think it has to do with the energy. I included a ‘Badger’ song in a concert last year and it seemed so fast! I thought “My God did we really play a whole set at this pace?” It was exhilarating on one level, exhausting on another. Overall I am much more comfortable with ‘Badger’ these days. I think it was a very good album in retrospect. I feel vindicated in respect of the writing (although there are lyrics I would change if I were to do it today) - I would definitely change the album credits to reflect the fact that I wrote four of the six pieces. ‘Badger’ has given me a little cult status. Just a little, mind you, but enough to prove I lived and played on the planet. Oh ... and I am not finished yet!

HR : Well that’s good to hear - we like having you around ... I’m curious about another dynamic of the album - “One Live” - it was produced by Jon Anderson of ‘YES’, but with the departure of Tony Kaye from their unit, were the band friends, or foe?

BP : Should I talk about Jon? First of all I like him. We are very different kinds of people - and certainly his approach to recording is a little more “clinical” than mine, shall we say? I believe that if anyone “produced” ONE LIVE it was Geoff Haslam, the engineer who spent every studio hour with the band and technically and creatively had as much to do with the finished product as we, the writers and musicians. He was great at recreating the live ambience and getting it on tape. Jon came in very little and tended to focus on vocals more than anything. Long story short - I think the folks who would take care of marketing fancied the idea of having Jon’s credit on the sleeve. This would maintain the link with the ‘Yes’ fan base. I see that, of course. Certainly, whatever the undercurrents might have been between Tony and the ‘Yes’ guys, we were all friends. I greatly admired Steve Howe, without wishing to do what he was (is) capable of. I was more pentatonic based, as is David Gilmour, for example, but Steve was perfect for the band. Rick Wakeman too, was a good mate. Great player, funny, intelligent guy and fond of a drink. He fit very well with us on a social level. Remember we played the concerts with them when the recording took place. All friendly.

HR : Happy Campers! You also toured with Black Sabbath - knowing Ozzy, I can only imagine the shenanigans! Would we be wrong to assume that it was one big party?

BP : A detailed answer to that question would be mostly unprintable. Shenanigans does not begin to cover it. We had a break in the tour - 5 days, a week maybe. Ozzy did not want to break the party up. He loved us and said “Come and stay at our house - all of you”, including road crew. We tore it up. I am not sure his wife was amused. She kept a pretty low profile. On the road it was all the smashed TV sets, drink and nonsense you would expect. We were thrown out of a hotel in Italy (Bologna, I believe), passport numbers taken and both bands and the entire crew - perhaps 25 / 30 people were banned for life. This was at 4.30 in the morning, and not in any way to do with noise, breakages (for which we paid) but something less than respectful our party did to a statue of the Pope, which was on the same floor as all our rooms. There were Mafia related events which took place during the Italian leg of the tour which would take a lot of space here and these stories are perhaps best left untold. A party, certainly. I paid my bill in brain cells, I fear.

HR : Hmmm. I’m laughing, but ... not at the brain damage! Maybe it was for the best that you left the ‘Badger’ party when you did?! You next signed a deal with Chas Chandler, which really marked your biggest step towards becoming a solo artist didn’t it?

BP : Yes it did. I had some material which had not “clicked” with ‘Badger’, and having left the fold I knew that whatever happened next, songs would be a valuable currency. I had friends with connections to Chas. He had managed Jimi, who had recently passed, and was already back on comfortable (pop) territory with ‘Slade’. He loved my stuff and told me he was starting a new label and that I could have complete control over the recording. I believe I should have had a co producer, or at least a second pair of ears in retrospect. That is another theme, however. HR : That album “Love On My Mind” was tagged as “Blue Eyed Soul” on account of it’s funk / soul vibe ... You were essentially being true to the style of music you loved, but did you enjoy making the record?

BP : White boys can´t do soul - or they are certainly not supposed to! Actually I think the songs were good and, in the main, came out as I would have wished. Good arrangements, some great musicians. I found my own performance less convincing. My singing always seemed detached to my ears. If I had not been wearing the producers hat, concentrating on arrangements and so forth , we might have got a performance. Few could do that. Prince showed us all how its done subsequently. As it is, the notes and arrangements are OK, everything in its place, but it seems emotion free, at least to me. Blue Eyed soul indeed! I am far better equipped to produce myself today, but would always wish for a co producer (as I have in the shape of Steff Ulrich on TRAVELLER). You have to stretch yourself, and it helps when someone is pushing, and offering creative criticism. I bowed to Steffs instincts more than once whilst making TRAVELLER, although I could have pulled rank and said “My songs, brother. I´m the boss” - I think the album is better for my not having done that. Ah humility at last! I am sure we will talk about that later.

HR : Sure ... and we’ll talk more about “Traveller” too, but around the time of “Love On My Mind”, Did something change for you at that point? It seems that after working so hard for your first solo release, you then made a move towards the production side of the business, becoming - as you say yourself, “A back room boy” - were you more comfortable there?

BP : This was never planned or envisioned. I had publishing deals as folks always liked my writing. I should have stuck out for recording deals in tandem with publishing, ensuring that records would come out with my name on. At the very least some level of success might have been on the cards as some were still anticipating some news from the guy who had been with ‘Badger’. It was a strange time. I had no band, no records out, some sessions certainly - but publishers pushing me for material. Most publishers were not what I would call working publishers as they once had been. Less and less were we seeing covers generated by publishers. This was the beginning of the “writer/producer” era. Many people were finding artistes as vehicles for their material and producing them. Alan Tarney is a case in point, producing Leo Sayer, Cliff Richard, Barbara Dixon and so on. I did a little of this, producing Alvin Stardust, for example. Not my finest hour I think. I was still torn between the need to play and sing and not to be limited to one genre and the fact that the publishers vision was often at odds with the labels. I was kind of fading into the background rather than choosing it. There was a point where I was getting “clean and sober” as the popular expression would have it, so there was important stuff to focus on there, and I never for a moment stopped writing ...

HR : You also worked on the “Many People, One Planet” project through the United Nations?

BP : This was an interesting, and somewhat unexpected detour. The concept was to provide education resource packs for underprivileged Italian school children. There is a huge divide between those schools which had computers and up to date visual aides, and the poorer schools where, for example, if the roof of the school needed fixing the parents would give up their time to do the work. A North / South divide basically. The resource packs were re usable, and so passed along to the other students in succeeding years. My job was to persuade companies to get behind it financially. In return for which they would receive a small credit on the laminated packs. Many people became involved, including Zucchero - something of an Italian musical icon. The high point for me was to travel to Rome to meet some very excited school children, attend the launch at the UN headquarters there, and the director had privately asked me if I could formulate some words to address the UN ! I had the experience of hearing my “speech” delivered in Italian. Of course we were provided with headphones and little handsets where we could select a language. There were live translators speaking French, English, Spanish and so on. Quite exciting. I thought “I am addressing the UN!”. I wasn´t of course, but actually seeing the joy on the faces of the kids was a necessary humility shot.

HR : Sounds like a rewarding detour ... meanwhile, a 30 year gap between solo records ensued ...

BP : A gap between publicly released recordings, certainly - I suppose it must seem that I just disappeared, although I never stopped writing or working in music, as I said. You may know I was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1999, which was kind of a banana skin in the road at that point. I had been experiencing unpleasant symptoms, including hearing problems for some time. No need to dwell on any of this as I am super fit these days! I had the successful operation to remove it early in 2000. I was left deaf in my right ear, so some re-training was necessary. All far behind me now ... but my first foray into live music following this was in Hamburg in 2004. It was strange as the information I was getting onstage soundwise was completely different. It wasn´t easy, but I resolved to work as much as possible in this altered “soundscape”. More gigs followed, some in Germany, and to make a long story short I have lived here since 2006. I wanted to see how I could function recording-wise . In the 5 or 6 years since the operation - my “recovery years” if I can put it that way, a lot had changed technically. I opted for a small multi track digital recorder, which I had then to learn to use. It was not only that I had dropped off the Radar from a public standpoint. I had missed stuff!

HR : So along comes “End Game” in 2007 - It’s a completely solo album in that, on top of the writing, you play ALL the instruments too. Did you feel a greater reward from producing a record like that?

BP : It was a “necessity as the mother of Invention” scenario, I would say. I was alone working with my digital recorder laying tracks alone as I had for a long time when I made demos. So I played guitar tracks, of course, but also bass , some keyboards (which was laborious as my skills are less than rudimentary). I did all vocals. I have much experience with harmonies. ( you may notice that many tracks on the new TRAVELLER album have harmony vocals by me - not all though, as I love the texture of girls voices. The “amen corner” as Ray Charles used to call it) I also worked with a digital drum machine. I was not really wonderful with it - there are people who could do it so much better. I think the ENDGAME songs are pretty good, and it was an important stepping stone for me. That said, I would like to re record the material utilising the recording methods (and musicians) I had for TRAVELLER. Actually I have started tinkering with some of them in my studio. I think you are familiar with the “live” version of “Many Moons Ago” (from ENDGAME). There is a vid on YouTube. This is an example of a good song (in my opinion!) changing, especially dynamically, with the participation of a group of musicians.

HR : Yes - it is a good song, I will vouch for that - I love the album - Time and Tide particularly. I would urge people to seek it out ... You’ve touched briefly on your hearing, and having to work around that these days - You’ve found a new love for performing , so apart from your ‘altered soundscape’, is it a different experience to when you were playing at first?

BP : Very different. In some ways I am more confident as I have a better idea of what I am doing these days. I can draw on a lot of material from my back catalogue. When I started I was too nervous about introducing my own songs into the act, and our focus was in being creative with other songs which we liked. I always tried to make some kind original statement in the interpretation of other material. That is something which continues today. I enjoy performing R&B tunes, for example - but if you want to hear the familiar arrangements get a juke box or go see a cover band! These days I love contact with the audience. Some musicians are less comfortable in a stage environment and just get their heads down and play, probably speaking very little. We don´t do lasers and dancing(!) but there is a performance element, which I like. Bruce Springsteen has talked about a time required to psych himself up, to go out and “be Bruce Springsteen”. I identify a lot because there is a zone which I find I must enter in order to pull it off. It´s a “front man” thing, probably.

HR : Haha! You know, I have learned over the years not to invade a ‘front man’s’ zone before he goes onstage ... I’m not sure people who haven’t grown up around the business ever truly appreciate what it takes to psyche yourself up, but - we’re onto at least the 3rd different theme if we go down that road now! Which, talking of 3rds, brings us nicely to your 3rd album - “Traveller” - which you’ve mentioned a couple of times there. It’s just been released, and is sort of a retrospective collection of songs about your own journey through life ... was it an emotional album to make?

BP : Well I am not sure it is ALL about my journey through life. Some of it has to be of course, but I wanted it not only to be about an individual experience but through character songs, which most are, to reference a commonality. You must have experienced that thing of thinking “I wonder if other people have felt this way? “ ... This is personal, individual, as I perceive it, but with millions of people on the planet I can´t be “the only one”. Some of TRAVELLER was personal and emotions do come into play, yes . I had a lot of material so the final choice of songs, the sequence, even the time between tracks was something I paid a lot of attention to. In an age where few people play an album right through and listen as we used to, this was perhaps, superfluous, but I wanted the experience to be there for anyone who elected to listen in this manner. HR : How did you decide on which tracks, or journeys, to include?

I had around fifty songs - some accumulated over time and others newly written. I had the song “Traveller” and had wanted to loosely base an album around the idea of each of us being a traveller and that each of life´s experiences may be perceived as a small journey, each of which contribute to our life story and the greater journey. My task then was to choose songs which would reflect some of these experiences. I knew right away that I could reference various musical styles - dip into musical waters I have sailed in, and that this might enhance the sense of variation in our experiences. I threw out any ideas of chronology right away. It is not, nor is it meant to be, my life story. The label calls it an “acoustic road movie” and I like that. My deliberations regarding sequence was about taking the listener through a series of moods. The opening song “Land of the Night Games” is about falling into the dream state. Dreams do not follow any conscious logic. They just are. I wanted to start with this as a preparation. To give myself and the listener permission to go anywhere. In this way themes like sex, loss, our spiritual quest, death, faith, joy, reflection etc. can be explored whether I have written from a personal perspective or in character, which I do quite a lot. “Angel of Death” for example, is not about me, although each of us will cross that bridge eventually. I could talk at length about how this came about, as I could with each of the songs if time and space would allow. I am not sure how important or even interesting this would be. Suffice to say that there was a song called “Oh Death” which was part of the African American blues / folk story which I never forgot. Library of Congress stuff. Alan Lomax was the Marco Polo of American folk music. Without his obsession and tireless enthusiasm we would have none of these recordings. There is more to this shit than Robert Johnson!

HR : HAHA! Well, musically, I think it’s fairly eclectic - for anyone wishing to check it out, there’s some blues, rock n roll, funk, a good helping of classic rock, some great guitar work, it’s a little jazzy in places, with a hint of country, and even a ‘nod’ to Bruce Springsteen - generically the influences are clear, but how much have you been influenced by other musicians?

BP : Now we are into an area I enjoy talking about, because this relates to my own journey! I have inevitably been influenced by everything I have heard. I have been required to play in different styles / situations so I guess it is not too difficult to slot into different genres. As a writer my only limitations are to do with technical ability. First and foremost I am a music fan, so when I am noodling and something comes up, some kind of shape, I try not to hinder the process. I try to get Brian out of the way and listen. At some point I might think “ah this is kind of an R&B thing”. The task then becomes trying not to be too generic - not to churn out a musical cliche´. On TRAVELLER I had no problem developing the songs consciously drawing upon different genres - so that “Slow Riding” for example is absolutely recognizable as coming from a “soul” tradition, but hopefully with modern production values and some arrangement features which are not purely from that time. Your comment about different styles on the album is precisely the obstacle which kept labels from getting involved in the 80s and beyond. “We don´t know how to market you. Are you Rock? Blues? Soul / Funk? Prog?” The answer would have been “yes” .

HR : At least you have the freedom to create now ... We talked earlier about your musical peers in the 70s - many of whom WE, the fans, would call our ‘heroes’, but I guess to you they were just friends - so beyond them, have you any defining moments where you’ve met or worked with the people you’ve looked up to? BP : It is always great to play with people who are good at what they do. In my early teens I saw what you might call a “pop exploitation” film which included Little Richard and a clip of Gene Vincent doing “Be Bop-Alula” which galvanised me. Just a couple of years later I was playing with him. For a young musician it was like winning the lottery. I was and still am in awe of George Martin, from whom I learned a great deal. Peter Green was a good friend of mine back in the day, although we lost contact as he became increasingly withdrawn and suffered mental problems. A truly gentle soul - and I am glad that he is around and still playing. Herbie Hancock got up with my band a year or two after my solo album came out and blew us away. He only inspired me to practice! I worked with Eric Burdon, as you may know, and played a Wembley concert with him and Carlos Santana. I met Carlos and his wonderful band back stage and marvelled at what they were doing together. Their example of interaction is something I took away with me. Years later I wrote a Latin style tune - not really my forte ´style wise, but a good song and maybe I was drawing on the Santana experience. I think a writer is like a magpie ! Those birds steal things, and I strictly avoid that, but I certainly borrow stuff. I have contact to many people whom I hold in high regard. I met Albert Lee on a Jerry Lee Lewis session in the 70s and we catch up when he gets to Germany - He lives in California where some of my British musical friends (Tony Kaye, Brian Chatton ) are living. They hang out together certainly, but I am happily ensconced miles away, here in North Germany where I have a small circle of musicians as friends. Otherwise I meet some great musicians who come through to play the Music Hall where I live, including my big favourites - Little Feat, our friend Eric Burdon played here not long ago. I get to meet them when they come through but writing is mostly a solitary occupation, so I am pretty much in studio captivity. I do socialise a little and for example Blue Weaver, veteran keyboard man from the Strawbs, Bee Gees and before that, Amen Corner is a really good friend who lives here in the village. Not surprisingly he is on a couple of tracks of TRAVELLER , and he is my “go to “ guy if I have technical problems - He is way better than me with technology. A half a step away from being a gadget freak. He is always telling me of the new toys he has bought for his studio. So there are dinners and inevitable improv sessions.

HR : I saw that Blue is on the album too - It’s a really interesting record, and you’ve paid a great deal of attention to the ‘whole package’ - the artwork etc ... in a way you’ve referenced an answer to this question already. With regards to the way that people listen to, and experience an album in a digital age - do you feel that somewhere in the evolution music, we’ve genuinley lost something?

BP : Each generation believes that their time is the best. The young discover sex and somehow think they are the first despite the biological contradictions inherent in having parents! It is common for the older generation to be nostalgic and trumpet “It was better in our day!”. So maybe if we accept that knowledge as a given we might still consider that some things may actually have been genuinely better even when not viewed through the rose coloured glasses of age. So, yes, the packaging was definitely an attempt to provide an interesting visual aide as with some of the album sleeves from the classic rock times. There are the obvious examples among the “prog rock” fraternity. I designed a booklet with lyrics and photo montage illustrations, fully realising that most people today do not listen to music in the depth that we used to, much less sit reading the sleeve notes and illustrations. A 12 “ album sleeve was of course a better canvass to work on. I need glasses to read my booklet ! I hope the music stands up well alone. It is not in the Gothic / mock Classical style we might think of if we talk of “concept” albums, But I am fond of saying I have just released the last concept album - but hopefully it is not all too cerebral. I want the layers to be there if you look for them, but equally the listener can read the lyrics, comments and credits and just enjoy the pictures without seeking any explanation. In an age where everything is commodity music is not regarded as “art” by most people. It has to compete with video games, all kinds of apps and other entertainment options, so the sense of wonder has left the planet, and creative people are less revered. Folks mainly think that everything is digitally programmed! Few think about the writing I suspect. There is an interesting documentary on the late Tom Dowd, legendary producer of Coltrane, Aretha, Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton and many more. He could accept that times and methods change but lamented the fact that so little music today is performance driven. He talks about computers and plug ins from “Toys R Us” and the heavy use of samples etc. Understandably he maintained we have lost something. We have so many programmes and techniques used to recreate the sound and excitement generated in a time when the tracks were recorded live on analogue machines. It is supremely ironic.

I know I am being very “wordy” in my answer to this question. Simply put, I know that most download one song at a time and have little patience to sit and listen to an entire album created as a single piece of work. The concept is alien. Many cannot even listen to one song without looking at selfies on their cell phones, texting a friend. Multi tasking is seldom spiritual. People are not in the moment, are seldom able to do one thing at a time. The attention span of people these days is ridiculously short. I have noticed some people are incapable of listening to one song through without talking, interjecting . It is disrespectful to the artiste, of course, but people do not intend this.

I had a decision to make. In the face of some of negativity, people were saying “why produce a CD? Almost no one buys them” and “ Forget about doing a book. Who will read it? Put the information on your website if you wish. That way your true fans can access it-but otherwise forget it” ... I did the book despite this and the label love it, thankfully. I wanted to make some kind of statement. The album and booklet are there in one package should you wish to listen and experience the project as we used to. I doubt that I will do anything like this in future, although songs are already in the pipeline.

HR : Well I, and I am sure anyone reading this will also be interested in whatever you produce for us down the line ... but for now - do you have any great words of wisdom to impart to your fellow travellers?

BP : I do not really do “words of wisdom”! I have learned a little and this is a process which continues, however - these lessons are for me hopefully informing the way I spend my time. I practiced Buddhism for some years and became a leader in the lay organisation. At some point I realised that this was the biggest joke of my life - and the joke was on me. I had nothing special to impart to anyone else! I learned more about Spirituality, if you will, from alcoholics and addicts in recovery who had reached a point of acceptance and purpose through suffering. Most do not want to pay the price of love. If there is a reason for our being here I believe it is to learn to love. As we travel we understand “love” differently. It is quite hormonal when we are young. Later we might confuse sentimentality with love, or sympathy. There is no love without suffering, without sacrifice - but love is everything, I believe. Big topic. One for the book, perhaps. No words of wisdom for fellow travellers, then - I would merely say “Good luck” ...

#brianparrish #guitar #badger #prog rock #prog #rockhistory

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hmel78 · 4 years

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In conversation with Malcolm Foster ...

Malcolm Foster is perhaps one of the Worlds quietest musicians when it comes to speaking to the press, but he certainly isn’t shy of the ‘limelight’. Throughout the 1970’s and 80s, Foster spent most of his time on the road, playing at the planets biggest gigs, including Live Aid. It’s doubtful that you will not have heard a record that Malcolm Foster has played on during his impressive career; be it with the “Pretenders”, “Simple Minds”, “Chris Thompson” ... or “Tight Fit”? When a rare opportunity presented itself recently, I caught up with Malcolm to find out a little bit more about the man behind the bass ...

HR : Was there a defining moment in your childhood that made you pick up a bass guitar and want to become a successful musician? A particular song you heard, or a performance that you saw, which blew you away?

MF : It was never really a conscious decision on my part to play bass guitar as such. I had tinkered with cello at school, but at 13 it had failed to grab me. The defining point for me was turning 20. I had been made redundant from my job as a trainee quantity surveyor in early 1976 - a career chosen in the main by my father and his connections - and so I had moved out of home and stayed initially on the sofa of my brother Grahams flat in Wimbledon. His band “Blitz” were gigging around London and had landed a UK support tour with UFO. I entered the world of ‘rock n’ roll’ as the Ford Transit driver for the tour, but kinda locked onto the bass and what it did for the band. They were a high energy blues unit so it was 12 bars for Africa. After that I worked with Graham and taught myself to play, eventually - after three months or so - getting the bass gig with “Blitz”. Within the year we were riding high. We had added a second guitar player, Robbie McIntosh; we had changed the name to the “Foster Brothers Band”; and been signed to Elton Johns label, Rocket Records. It was 1977 and the door to music and bass playing had opened wide for me ...

What make or model was your first bass?

It was a lime green/grey sunburst Egmond bass. It had the styling of a Gibson 335, semi acoustic, but with considerably less attention to detail and the action of a cheap double bass. I remember the bloke in the arcade store I bought it from in Kingston said that the filthy black strings were to enhance the sound and not to clean them! It cost me £8 but I got a lead thrown in. Strangely enough, a bunch of years later I was on a break from a “Pretenders” tour and I went out for the evening to a bar in Tooting, walked in and the young Pakistani bass player in the band was proudly bashing out a tune on the old beast. The last time I had seen it was at my brothers place, probably around late '77. I had moved to a Precision as soon as I could, realising that they were MUCH easier to play, and of course every bass player who was anyone had one then. Needless to say, I was happy for him to be using it and very glad it wasn't me. I would love to think that it still graced someone's collection but I fear it is now probably landfill.

How was your experience of working on the UK music scene, and trying to make a name for yourself before getting your first big break?

Because of the initial lift given to me by being part of the “Foster Brothers” and the Elton connection, I got a fair few sessions working with all sorts of artists from the period. One of the very early ones was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by “Tight Fit” which went straight to No.1 in the UK and guaranteed a lot more work for me. Rolling on into the '80's I started working with “Mud”, touring the US air bases in Europe and having a ball. From there to “Rocky Sharpe and the Replays”, a great doo-wop band that invited me to record and tour, through a guy called Mike Vernon (Blue Horizon) who had produced the “Fosters” first album. My world took yet another step up one evening when I got a phone call from my old band mate Robbie McIntosh, who had just returned from the US having been 2nd guitar in a band called “Night”, run by ex-Manfred Mann singer, Chris Thompson.

Question - Would I like the bass gig? The current player, Billy Kristian, was leaving and they needed someone there and then. It took me about a second to accept. I can recall that first rehearsal, meeting this larger than life voice and just being blown away with the professionalism and musicality of the band. There followed a huge learning curve in the subtleties of bass playing, driven by “Night's” recent US gigs with “The Doobie Brothers”, which had injected a fantastic groove into their music. A very formative two years with lots of gigging across Europe and an album under the name “Chris Thompson and the Islands”.

Tell us about working with Chris Thompson ...

It was a magical time, truly. Chris has an amazing voice and at that time ‘Blinded’ and ‘Davy’ were being played heaps on the radio, so we had great attendances at most of our gigs. In those days there were hundreds of places to play, 7 nights a week, across London, the UK and Europe so we were on the road a lot. The band had become Chris on vocals and guitar, Robbie Macintosh on lead guitar, myself on bass, Paul Wickens on keys, and Mickey Clews on drums - and we kicked arse! And if we needed extra vocals we called on the services of Stevie Lange and Vicky Brown! I grew up musically and spiritually with these guys, and learned my stagecraft from these people. How to play accurately and still put on a great show. How to make sure that the audience get above and beyond what they pay for, and most importantly, how to travel the world with a small tight group of entertainers and crew for long periods of time and not kill anyone! :-)

Following that you got your first really big break with the “Pretenders” - How long did it take you to say “Yes”?

Pretty bloody quick! They had just come back off tour and were restless. Both Robbie Mac and I knew Jimmy Honeyman-Scott, and Jim had already talked to Robbie about taking on the main guitar role as he (Jimmy) wanted to play keyboards. It had been mentioned that they were sacking Pete Farndon but at that time he was still officially there. Then Jimmy called me and put in on the line, as had Robbie with “Night”. Did I want the gig? I said “yes!” straight away of course, firstly because they had a very successful album out at the time, secondly because I loved the music and Chrissie's song-writing, but mainly because I knew that I would at last get to tour the States. It had been a dream that had so far eluded me and this guaranteed me the opportunity. Then Jimmy died and to all intents and purposes I thought it was past, but Chrissie had spoken to Jimmy and he had told her about us so when it all calmed down we got the call from Dave Hill at Chrissie's management office to prepare for rehearsals - Just like that. Very businesslike and driven. That fact was bought home to me pretty quickly when in mid 1983 we were asked to play at the US Festival in San Bernadino. We rehearsed for a couple of weeks then played three warm up gigs in Dallas and Phoenix before the main event, which turned out to be one of, if not, the biggest gigs ever. 680,000 people! It was a free gig put on by Steve Wozniac, of Apple Computers fame, who paid us, and all the bands, shitloads of cash to play. Even better, we were on stage just before David Bowie. Fantastic day and the cementing of the band as a live entity.

You were with the “Pretenders” for quite a while, through “Learning To Crawl” and “Get Close” albums and tours - What did you enjoy most, or what’s your favourite memory of recording / touring with the “Pretenders”?

Now there’s a difficult couple of questions!

The most enjoyment would without question be playing live, wherever it was. We were a very close unit and prided ourselves in always pulling the gig off, even with the most adverse of circumstances, and stretching ourselves musically was all part of the touring process. I personally felt that there was a need to prove how good we were, arrogance really but very necessary for me, at least, to support the big machine. I had never been confident to dance up to this point, much to the chagrin of former squeezes, but with a bass in my hand and the set list we played I felt like I could do anything and so I began to develop a more mobile style of stage presence which suited me down to the ground. I could prowl around and interact more widely, and of course the technology was available to do it without difficulty.

“Pretenders” – ‘Middle Of The Road’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ0uTZQ1ySE

There were many, many highlights throughout my tenure as bass player. As you have put me on the spot I will give you the Top 3, as I see it :-)

At No.3 would be arriving in Australia in Jan 1984 as a touring package together with Simple Minds, Talking Heads and the Eurythmics. All four bands were at the top of their individual games, playing out of their skins and there to make a mark. We played over two nights at the Narara Festival, then spent two weeks playing the large arenas in all the major cities across the country, taking turns to support or headline and guesting with the other bands on particular songs. We carried on into New Zealand and conquered the audiences there too at the 1984 Sweetwaters North and South, in Auckland and Christchurch respectively. At that point we headed into America via Hawaii for our own tour (Learning to Crawl) with the most amazing memories of Australasia and the knowledge that we had worked alongside the best the music industry had to offer at that time, and had not been found wanting. We felt invincible and I was particularly proud of Chrissie and Martin for coming through the adversity and insisting that “The Pretenders” had the balls to come back and play amongst the quality of bands we had just worked with.

At No.2 would be the 1987 “Get Close” tour in general. I was working in London and got a call from Stan Tippens, the tour manager, asking if I would like to join the tour. I knew they had gone out with Bernie Worrell and T.M. Stevens on keys and bass just a few days before, because Jimmy Iovine had used them for the greater part of the album. Stan told me that Chrissie was not at all happy with the band as it stood live and wanted to reform the 1984 band. Rupert Black and I duly reported to Heathrow 48 hours later and were flown to New York on Concorde, driven to Philadelphia by private limo and ushered into the Philadelphia Spectrum in a stealth huddle to be stood up at the sound desk in the shadows to watch the show, knowing that they were going to sack Bernie and T.M. at the end of the evening. It was a unique experience for me because I had obviously never seen Chrissie (and Robbie) work an audience from this angle before and I was stunned. The gig is a blur because I was trying to pick up the basic arrangements of the songs I knew, let alone the new songs and we knew we only had two days to rehearse and pull off the next show. But we did and that tour just kept growing and growing as the album sold. We finished the tour in January '88 in Rio de Janeiro, with Johnny Marr taking the guitar role at very short notice as Robbie McIntosh had left the band to work with Paul McCartney. All in all a very memorable and unplanned year.

No.1 is Live Aid. For many reasons. Here's a couple.

I remember the record company gave us a gross budget to get some cool clothes to wear at the show. Rob, Roop and I went out and spent about £20 at a Salvation Army shop and that’s what we wore on stage. Many people have commented on our gear over the years, particularly Rob's knotted Mr Gumby handkerchief. It was a statement. Why spend thousands on our looks to support a charity for starving children. I hope the money we didn't spend went into the coffers where it would do more good.

On the other side the backstage area was a who's who of rock and film. To be able to casually chat with the Beach Boys or Tom Petty, share a beer with Warren Beatty, be cordially invited into Jack Nicholson's Airstream caravan for Colombian refreshment or have a joke (and a few more beers) with the E street guys. For a dedicated ‘rock 'n roller’ such as myself it was Nirvana

The show itself was so fast. Just four songs. The crowd roared and sang along. They clapped, cheered and gave us their souls for a short while. Then it was over. No debrief or comments. It was our day as musicians to drop the egos and stand up for real. I have played many large shows since then but none will ever come close to Live Aid as an all encompassing and qualifying reason for playing my instrument.

“Pretenders” – ‘Back On The Chain Gang’ [Live Aid 1985] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz8u2opXTEc

The bass playing shoes for “Simple Minds” were pretty big ones to fill! You joined them post “Streetfighting Years” at a time when they were still enjoying the pinnacle of their career, and touring constantly – was that daunting, or were you confident that you would fit right in?

I had followed their career closely since touring with them in 1984 and knew that I could cope with the songs I had listened to up to that point, and the very large stages. The previous albums had been high energy drone driven Gaelic masterpieces with great dynamic and memorable bass lines to get my teeth into. I certainly had some trepidation about slipping into the more anthemic, longer style of arrangement that they were known for live. I was used to "wham bam thank you ma'am" songs. Then I heard “Streetfighting Years”. And for the first time I realised that this would be a very exacting gig, but the allowance for adding my own flavour was evident. John Giblin's masterful fretless playing was a joy to work with and the whole album ebbed and flowed with subtle tempo changes which Jim, Charlie and Mick wanted to match live. We rehearsed in Lochearnhead at the studio for a while, bringing in Mel Gaynor of course and then Lisa, Annie and Andy, until we had a 3 and a quarter hour show! And that first night in Florence was a watershed of emotion for band and audience alike. The lads knew that all the hard work had paid off and the audience (and reviewers) took to the new style and members with kindness. Probably one of the most stressful gigs I have ever played!

Again, you stayed on with them through their next couple of albums and subsequent tours – “Real Life” and “Good News From The Next World” - What did you enjoy most, or what’s your favourite memory of recording / touring with “Simple Minds”?

As with the “Pretenders”, there were many but the standout was recording the live film 'Verona' in the beautiful Roman amphitheatre there. We had flown up a week before to see “Pink Floyd” at the same venue and the size of the project ahead was obvious. It was the most ambitious filming of a band to date with multiple cameras positioned around the stage, the stadium and the surrounding cafes and bars, all shooting throughout the show, put together brilliantly by filmmaker Andy Morahan and tour manager Paul Kerr. It depicts the “Streetfighting Years” tour show, intercut with cameo shoots and real time cuts to external cameras. We had one show, so only one chance to get it right. We discussed it as a band and choreographed certain songs for the cameras, extended sections of songs for the visual audience effect. It was a mighty undertaking that even today stands out as a wonderful moment in time captured for posterity. Loved it! We obtained the somewhat dubious honour of being the best live band in the world that year too, whatever that meant!

“Simple Minds” – ‘Waterfront’ [Live in Verona] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069ZgrzrM68

There’s a fairly stark contrast between the sound of those two bands, yet your bass playing defines their sound during the periods that you played with them – are you fairly adaptable with your playing style, or do you prefer a certain genre?

I try to be as adaptable as possible within my overall approach to whoever I am playing with. I am definitely not a slap player for instance. Sure I use the occasional thumb slap to emphasise a particular moment in an arrangement but not as an ultimate style. I have a passion for music to be played on the very edge; at any moment it could slip but through the indefinable and mystical world of musical telepathy a band can soar. By the same token comprehensive rehearsal can give you a massive edge live, slick tight arrangements and a guaranteed 'show' because you are not thinking about the songs. They become part of your DNA. “Simple Minds” were intense in their preparation for live touring, no stone unturned, literally months of honing the show to create the best we could possibly give. But the confidence that it gave us to project the live show was palpable, a real boost.

“Simple Minds” – ‘Let There Be Love’ [Real Life] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ0uTZQ1ySE

“Simple Minds” – ‘She’s A River’ [Good News From The Next World] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SiGnAi845o

What would you say is the proudest moment of your career so far?

Standing on the stage at the old Hammersmith Odeon on the “Learning to Crawl” [Pretenders] tour in 1984, knowing that I had seen so many famous players grace that stage during those early years and now I could add my name (so to speak) to the list. I know that I have reached higher self congratulatory moments at various times over the years but this one defined my heart at the time and it has stayed with me.

And the most embarrassing moment?

Walking on stage with “Mud” for the first time in a canary yellow silk suit, '50's style, baggy trousers, big collar and winkle-picker shoes in front of 1500 US aircrew waiting to party. By the end of the show all was well, but I really hated that suit and I think they probably did too!

Is there anyone in particular who you’d love to jam / record / tour with?

I think right now if I were given the chance I would love to tour alongside Chrissie Hynde again. Her music has been a tangible part of my career obviously, but I fully respect the way she has maintained an integrity and is still a fine songstress and supreme vocalist. I'm hoping she will tour Stockholm down here in the New Year. It would be great to see her. Out in the marketplace? I would Love to record with the Foo Fighters. Right up my street as far as ‘rock and roll’ at its true core. And the chance to kick arse with Dave Grohl? Priceless. Fantasy gig? Kate Bush. Loved her since day one but Mr Giblin once again is doing a stalwart job right now. As far as a loose session is concerned I would love to have a jam again with the guys who made up a little known but widely appreciated band called Dean Martins Dog. They know who they are :-) And just because Im way down in NZ doesn't mean I can't come and play with your band too! Give me a call.

You’re based in New Zealand now – was that a pace of life which appealed to you above the UK, or anywhere else you’ve seen as you’ve toured the World?

Actually I married a Kiwi lady in 1985 and had always said that we would come over here to live when the family situation was right. There is an international perception that NZ is a quiet backwater off the coast of Australia but that is false. True, it is still a reasonably sparsely populated country with great food, fabulous beaches and plenty of open space (travel doco done and dusted). It offered us as a family a more total package than the UK, so to speak. We have been here since 2000.

Is there a vibrant music scene in NZ?

It is beginning to appreciate what it has musically. Lorde has opened the eyes of so many kids here and provided a seed to budding writers or performers. The Kiwis have had some excellent home grown original bands over the years but one major problem is now that the venues are thinning out and the majority of bar owners want cover bands, original music is relegated to almost a second rate career. I try to support any of the young bands I am recording through that mire and see their potential as players. You don't have to play 'April Sun in Cuba' or 'Smoke on the Water' three nights a week to be appreciated as a musician

Do you think there’s more opportunity for young musicians in NZ?

We do have a grant system here that supports a small number of bands or artists every two months. As with anything involving money these days there are strict criteria to follow and it relies heavily on the artists own marketing skills and promo package through Facebook etc. to reach levels of popularity that satisfy the ‘star chamber’ at the top. It is a fact that the damage done by the public rape of musicians by the likes of “Pandora” will have a knock on effect. It is difficult to envisage yourself as a successful player knowing that it is extremely hard to make money in the business as it stands and that someone else could well be enjoying the benefits of your hard work. I hope that this phase of music's deconstruction is brief. I long for a simple and safe download/payment system that truly works for the musician not the suit, and we can get back to a truly vibrant scene that allows the artist to recoup their worth and gives the punter something more than a Rick Astley tribute band.

Is NZ hanging on to a more independent approach, as opposed to selling it’s music scene out to corporate monopolies?

There is a distinct lack of record companies here. Most were only ever side offices for the Australian motherships. Once again, out of here independently, “Lorde” has cleaned up with very little input from any majors. I believe she had a small budget as a development advance from one company but I guess that was payed back fairly quickly. It’s what the people here call the 'No.8 wire' mentality. Belief against all odds.

What are you working on currently?

I’m currently working on two separate album projects as well as gigging live with a couple of different setups. Here’s a rundown of the recording side of things.

The more completed of the two is from a guy called Thomas Murphy. He has worked his way through the hip-hop dance scene here as a dancer and choreographer and has just gained a BA in Music. His songs are quirky and infectious, ranging from street rap with a twist to beautifully constructed ballads. I’m hoping to get the final vocals on and get it mixed by February (NZ biz shuts for Jan) and Thom will be focusing on videos and live shows for next year. Keep your eyes and ears open for him!

The second album is from a lady called Saskia Anderson. It is much more classic in its approach. Sas has a very mature voice inside a young body so it is very much a learning process and therefore the songs follow more fluid arrangements as we build them up. There are a couple of songs that she has sung that send shivers up my spine. I think people will love her.

Do you enjoy all aspects of music production?

Yes I do. From that first glimpse at someone else's dream to handing over the CD/USB/Vinyl at the end, I am usually totally involved. I vet projects carefully to find people with a passion and a natural talent, whether they are aware or not, their aspirations for their album etc. I have a small studio at home running Apple/ ProTools which caters for most things other than live drums or finished vocals but I have access to a mate's facility who has a great live drum area and a scoped vocal booth with a bitchin' old Neumann! This allows me to keep each project under control and also lets me edit outside client hours without having to travel afterwards. Ideal!

I won’t embarrass you with a mention of how many years it is since you bought your first bass for £8, but all these tours and experiences under your belt - which bass do you own / prefer these days?

My main bass is a Fender Precision. Can’t really beat them, active or passive, for playability and reliability.

I also have a strange green unnamed five string which I would never use live but it records fantastically. I also have another couple of Fenders, one acoustic and one with active Bartolini innards, and I am at present negotiating for an original old Steinberger with a mate who bought it new 1,000,000 years ago :-) For the anoraks, I use Hartke head amps, Ashdown cabinets (8x10) and Dean Markley 45-105 strings (125 for 5 string). The only live effect I use is an Octaver.

Anything you feel compelled to tell the world, which they may not already know?

Always look on the bright side of life :-)

#malcolm foster #bass #simple minds #the pretenders #chrissie hynde

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hmel78 · 4 years

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Brief conversation with Alan Hewitt ...

Alan Hewitt is no stranger to Blackmoon Magazine, having been interrogated by us in the past! With so much going on in his life at the moment, we thought we’d take the opportunity to find out some more, and keep our readers in the picture ... As resident keyboard player with The Moody Blues, Alan spends much of his life on the road, but in-between times keeps himself busy with his own incredible solo career. With the launch of his brand new project, ‘Alan Hewitt & One Nation’ , currently taking the World by storm; plus the recent success of John Lodges album which was co-written by Hewitt - we are sure that there is no end to this great man’s talent! We were once again very grateful that he found time in his schedule to meet up with Helen Robinson ...

So here you are on tour with The Moody Blues – how does it rate as a ‘day job’?

Incredible! We have a great group of talented people that really enjoy what they’re doing. There’s lots of musical freedom to express your ideas and the music is wonderful to perform. What more could you ask for?

You’ve worked with both Justin Hayward and John Lodge on their solo albums and tours too – most recently with John on his album “10,000 Light Years Ago” ; how was that?

Perfect! John had been wanting to do another solo album for a while, so we would write songs while we were on tour with the Moodies, and then go back and forth until we finally would have something we really liked. Then I would go to work in my studio working on arrangements and recording. After that was ready, we booked ‘The Mix Factory’ in Naples and spent a week or so recording vocals, bass and guitars. I took it back with me to LA to put the finishing touches on, and mix with my long time partner Paul Klingberg whom I worked with Earth, Wind & Fire . And it’s doing really well - One of the songs on the album I co-wrote “In My Mind” has been nominated by the Prog Awards for “Anthem of the Year”!

It’s a great tune! In fact it’s a great album. I know John is pleased with it. And what about Justin? How does working with him compare?

Well, I was asked to do Justin’s solo tour to support “Spirits of the Western Sky” which was great fun. We rehearsed in Genoa, Italy before embarking on an east coast US maiden tour. It was filmed and released as “Spirits Live” at Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta. I played keyboards and sang backing vocals. It has since been released for the PBS television network in the United States, so check it out!

It always amazes me that you ever get time to focus on yourself Alan, but your own solo career has been really successful, and also varied – what keeps it fresh for you? I love doing new projects and trying to bring them to fruition. I really love doing different things, but they all have my stamp on them - So even if one is Jazz or one is Rock, there’s things that make someone that knows my music go, “hey that’s Alan Hewitt!”. I take that approach whether it’s a film, television or an album . The thing that makes the happiest is being able to still create and be a conduit to write new songs and compositions. It’s a gift I don’t take lightly.

And it is a gift! Your new record is no exception – Alan Hewitt & One Nation : Evolution. It has already won Global Music Awards for Best Album and Best Instrumentalist in 2015. It features some pretty high profile guests too – how did the project come about?

I’ve always wanted to do a full on fusion record and I was lucky enough that a record label was willing to take a chance on it. I knew some of the musicians I wanted on it and started out by getting a hold them to see if they were interested. To my surprise all of them on my wish list were totally into it. So then it was time to go to work and write the songs, do the arranging and temp recordings, which I always do. Since I play most of the instruments, I like to lay down the keys, initial drums, bass and guitars. But the magic begins when we re-do the tracks with some of the best musicians on the planet , and they add their identity to each track.

This project came together so effortlessly and was a total joy to do.

You have a break from ‘The Moody Blues’ coming up - what are your plans?

I’ll be doing some shows with “One Nation” in August. We are playing back to back shows at OC Tanner Amphitheater which is in beautiful Zion National Park . Both shows will be recorded and filmed as well. There is also a Christmas tour with Alex Boye in the works. I’m always doing music for television and film as well as just having a good time!

Well you live in the Capital of Good Times! Is Life in LA as Crazy as it always looks?

It’s as crazy as you want to make it, but I actually choose the opposite and try to keep things calm and serene as much as possible.

Really?

Yes ... ... ...

Really??

Really ... ... ...

OK I believe you ... Before I hijack your fridge for Iced Tea, is there anything you feel compelled to tell the World?

One thing that drives me to stay in the public eye is to keep making people aware of the cruelties that animals have to go thru everyday. If it wasn’t for PETA, Humane Societies, ASPCA and others we wouldn’t know how severe it is. I know people want to just bury their heads and pretend that it’s not happening, but it is in the worst way. Just last week they had a dog eating festival in China butchering over a million dogs, some that were pets and had been taken from their owners front yard. I urge people to get involved because you can make a difference!

#peta #onenation #moodyblues #alanhewitt #newmusic #themoodyblues

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hmel78 · 4 years

Text

In conversation with Dave Oberle ...

A Gryphon, is a legendary creature with the head, talons, and wings of an eagle, and the body of a lion - they’re also a band from the UK who, following a lengthy absence, have returned from various personal quests, to once more bring forth their magical sounds to knights and maidens throughout our wondrous lands. What am I talking about?

Gryphon - like the mythical creature which inspired the group's name - is a hybrid of astounding musicians, from varying backgrounds, whose aim was to fuse several different musical styles into their own original music.

The group formed out of the Royal College of Music in London, in the early 1970s. Whilst the founder members were studying classical courses, both had strong musical interests in other spheres ; fascinated from an early age, by medieval and pre-classical music, with a passion for everything from Church music to contemporary folk and progressive rock. This diversity of tastes and influences encouraged them to form a group with a 3rd member, who had predominantly folk and jazz-tinged tastes. For a short while they existed as a trio - playing in simulated medieval eating houses! - until ‘Gryphon's’ line-up was, for then, completed by the arrival of former rock band drummer, David Oberle, in 1972 ; securing his roles of lead vocalist, and percussionist.

From that point on, the group really took shape. Drawing initially on a nucleus of renaissance pieces and re-arranged folk tunes, they easily developed their own distinctive style. By the beginning of 1973 they had started recording their first album for Transatlantic: "Gryphon (TRA 262) - and, with that record's release, there was a great surge of interest in the group. 5 albums, and a number of high profile tours later, Gryphon were lauded in a wide variety of newspapers, had appeared on several major television shows, and performed the unique feat of appearing on BBC Radio's 1 - 4 (inclusive) all in one week!

All this served to highlight how ‘Gryphon's’ music was universally acceptable. It stimulated the interest of folk, rock and classical buffs alike, and delighted all age groups. And then ... they went away. But where did they go? Were they whisked away on some fairytale adventure?

38 years passed by before the band reformed to play live shows, and it’s taken them 41 years to release their 6th album, aptly titled “ReInvention” (out now and available from all the usual places).

Sounds jumped at the opportunity to speak to Dave Oberle, who despite ‘Gryphon’s’ inactivity over the years, has certainly kept himself busy - he was a key member of the original Sounds Magazine team , and went on to be a founder member of rock magazine Kerrang! He’s also a producer of heavy rock bands via his label Communique Records. We caught up with him, whilst he took a break from wandering the not so mystical realms of social media ... DO : It’s a great thing, Facebook, for discovering who your fans are. We have a great number of under 25’s that have tapped into our music, and it pleases me hugely to see the rise of interested younger people in the progressive scene. It’s great for us to see what’s beginning to happen - kids are getting in touch with us as they’re discovering our records in their father’s collections, and loving it!

HR : So, you’re inspiring future audiences - Are they musicians too?

DO : I think a lot of them are. I think Gryphons root fan base has always been musicians - without wanting to sound pretentious, Gryphons music IS musicians music. You have to have some understanding of music to appreciate what the hell we’re doing! I think it would be fair to assume that most people who follow us play an instrument, but you never really know ...

Over the years we’ve all agreed that we felt our music reached people who liked all sorts of music - we’re pretty eclectic ourselves - there are a lot of influences , right the way from rock through baroque, medieval, renaissance, blues, jazz, classical - everything you can think of in one huge melting pot.

HR : In the very beginning, what prompted you to combine traditional folk music with medieval?

DO : It started off - Richard Harvey and Brian Gulland met each other at the Royal College of Music. Brian was studying choral and Richard was studying early music. They both played in a classical music ensemble called ‘Musica Reservata’. Gryphon came together properly once Graeme Taylor, the guitarist , joined ; who’s influences were people like John Renbourn and that style of guitar playing ; then rather unusually they approached me to join them - bear in mind at the time I was playing in a heavy rock band. So bringing a heavy rock drummer into something like that was a little strange ... but it worked! The one thing that was missing, I think, was a solid rhythm. I had to adapt what I was doing to fit in - it was quite difficult for me to go from playing rock to playing 5/4, or 7/4!

We started playing in folk clubs, really because they were the most open minded to what we were doing and took us seriously , with our folk influence. Further than that we didn’t know what was going to happen.

HR : Quite - You were pioneers of the sound at that time ...

DO : Well there were bands around like Jethro Tull, Amazing Blondell, which were in a similar vein and leant towards folk with a medieval tinge, but we were certainly the first band to step into that area and bring in front of the general public.

HR : I can’t imagine that Crumhorns and Bassoons had ever been used in rock music before ...

DO : NO and probably never will be again! [laughs] I think the actual sound of Gryphon is what attracted people because nobody had heard instruments like that - not quite true with the people who were interested in medieval music - they would have know what a Crumhorn was, but the average person in the street wouldn’t have had a clue!

I suppose it was a period of education for people who weren’t sure what was going on. Once the band got going I remember we did a concert at the Victoria & Albert museum in London, which was more like a lecture where we explained what the instruments were, and where they came from - from there the whole thing just expanded ; suddenly medieval instruments became interesting, and people associated the sound with what we were doing, and it was a very different sound - it still is.

We were out playing recently and I was amazed by how many people come up who are fascinated by the vast array of instruments that we have on stage. Between the 6 of us in the new line-up we’re playing between 50 and 60 instruments. It’s a hugely diverse sound.

HR : The expanse of festival stage is really ideal then, when you have what is essentially a mini orchestra! Gryphon had had quite a hiatus before you reformed to play live - what inspired the reunion?

DO : When the band split up in 1977 we really just disappeared without trace as many bands did under the onslaught of Punk.

The idea of doing a farewell/reunion gig had been on the cards for quite a few years but it had never been talked about seriously. Finally he were all together one evening and it was decided that we should go ahead and just do it. It was 2009, and at that time we had nearly 200,000 hits on our website, so we thought that there was definitely something going on and that the support for the band was still very evident.

We decided on a London venue - Queen Elizabeth Hall on the south bank - and we managed to fill the place without any advertising. Then it all fell flat again because the various members of the band had other commitments, but our presence started to grow through social media from there, and in 2014 we decided to put our toes in the water again. In 2015, we did 6 shows all of which were brilliantly well attended, and in 2016 we were invited by Fairport to go and open Cropredy too - which was just perfect.

HR : It’s remarkable really, especially as you didn’t have any new music to promote at the time ...

DO : No. We were not in a position at that time to have a new album ready, so we decided that we would just go out and play material from the first 4 albums plus a couple of new dances.

HR : You’ve got quite a spectrum of musical styles to perform, but from a recording perspective, why did you move from acoustic to electric on the early albums?

DO : After “Midnight Mushrumps” when we got to “Red Queen”, we’d be taken on by Worldwide Artists - which was run by Brian Lane , who at the time was managing YES, Rick Wakeman and couple of others. Rick was a friend of Richard and Brian’s from the RCM, and he introduced us to Brian Lane. Within a few weeks of being signed up, we were on our way to America to support YES.

During that time, we’d all been great fans of the prog scene, and the Canterbury scene - Caravan, King Crimson etc - and whilst we weren’t pressured in any way, “Red Queen” was really our first step into prog ; using a lot more electronic instruments, and taking a bit of a step back from the medieval side of things - Brian was still playing his bassoon and we still used Krum Horns and recorders, but it wasn’t to such a great extent. Richard now had a great Rick Wakemanesque bank of keyboards surrounding him for a start, and we moved into a different phase ... “Red Queen” was the album that we toured the states with.

HR : I can’t imagine the magnitude of touring with YES - they were huge! DO : It was amazing! The response in America was great because we were so quintessentially English , playing all these really weird instruments, and so we went down a storm. We played at places like the Houston Astrodome, and Madison Square Gardens in New York. Definitely the highlights of my musical career would centre around those dates. We came back to the UK and did another leg with them here - probably 150 dates in all. It got to the point where we knew their music as well as they did, and for the last few dates of the American tour in the mid 1970s we would go onstage and join them for their encores, which was quite an experience.

HR : Given that exposure, and the fact that you’d already changed your sound for “Red Queen”, was it a conscious decision to move back to a more traditional sound?

DO : Sort of, yes. The album after “Red Queen”, was “Raindance” - there were still hangovers from “Red Queen”, but there were a lot more, I suppose commercial sounding shorter tracks - we’d been into doing 10 - 15 minute tracks, and suddenly we were producing 2 and 3 minute songs.

The thing about ‘Gryphon’, I believe, is that if I was to play all 5 albums to someone who didn’t know ‘Gryphon’, they would think they were listening to 5 completely different bands. There’s nothing that really specifically links the albums, apart from certain sounds, but in terms of composition and arrangement they are 5 VERY different albums. If you listen to the 1st and the 5th, there is no comparison - you’d be very hard pushed to say “Yes that’s the same band!”

HR : Does that mean that you’ve never labelled yourselves?

DO : We got labelled by other people .... I worked for Melody Maker and for Sounds, so I knew why it happened , journalistically - back then, things had to be pigeon-holed because if you didn’t fit in a pigeon-hole you didn’t fit, full stop. These days music is so diverse that you can’t put a band into a pigeon-hole, a band is what it is, but back then we were classed as “medieval folk rock”. Actually Chris Welch tagged us “13th Century Slade”!

HR : [laughs] that’s brilliant, but I probably shouldn’t laugh ...

DO : No, it took a long time to shake off! It was very funny, and a great thing for our PR guys, but we weren’t Slade. Having said that though, in the popularity stakes - our average audience did, and still does, range from Hells Angels to Nuns, and so far as I know we are the only band who have ever managed to get onto BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the same week - which gives you an idea of the breadth of our audience, and even BBC 6 Music recently played the whole of “Midnight Mushrumps”.

HR : You have quite a few unique achievements to your name ...

DO : We have?

HR : Weren’t you the only band ever to play at the Old Vic?

DO : Ah, yes! The reason for that was - we were approached by Sir Peter Hall , who was running the National Theatre at the time and he asked us if we’d write the music for the Royal Shakespeare Companies production of “The Tempest” ; which is where a lot of the music from “Midnight Mushrumps” came from. It was originally written for the RSC, but was adapted and is how “Midnight Mushrumps” came into existence. That was a huge honour, and a one off.

‘Gryphon’ are a bit of a one off really, aren’t we? I don’t think there are any comparisons - I seriously can’t think of anything that gets even close to what we are and what we’re doing. There have been a few copy cat bands along the way, and a few bands who have gone along similar lines but I still think Gryphon is unique, and all 5 of the albums are unique in their own way - but what it really comes down to, more than anything else is the standard of musicianship and composition - and now we’ve got Graham Preskett in the band too, who has played with everyone under the sun, and getting him onboard was a major achievement. He was Gerry Rafferty’s keyboard player and arranged all the big hits like Baker Street and Night Owl, and things like that. He knew Richard at college too, so there’s some old school stuff going on there, and he’s been invaluable in terms of helping to recreate the sound.

HR : That kind of chemistry is very important

DO : Oh completely. You have to have the right people in a band like ‘Gryphon’ or it wouldn’t work. And it does work. People are still playing the music, people are still interested, and really Helen, what proves it to us is the amount of people who came out to see us last year. I’m immensely proud of the band and the guys that I work with. Richard in particular, who’s gone onto write film music and work with Hans Zimmer, and worked in Hollywood with a lot of people - he’s an incredibly talented musician. It’s very strange, how a bunch of naughty school boys as we were back then, have all ended up being in prominent places in the music, and film industry.

HR : Is it not the naughty schoolboy edge that keeps it fresh for everybody?

DO : Absolutely! The other thing about ‘Gryphon’ is that it was all very irreverent and a big joke as we were concerned, certainly at 18 and 19 years old - but what is great is that feeling has carried on even after 38 years of not playing together. When we get back on stage we slip straight back into the flinging insults at each other, and it keeps the audience involved.

HR : 38 years was quite a break though ...

DO : [laughs] yes - yes, and mainly because everyone had gone off doing other things, there was no other reason for it - it just wasn’t until 2 or 3 years ago that we could take up the gauntlet again. Richard had been out on the road with John Williams, the guitarist, who decided to retire from touring - and that was the first time that he was available, and with him being the front man, we could NOT do ‘Gryphon’ without him. He wanted to carry on playing live, because writing film music is actually quite a lonely existence, and the only time you ever get to hear what you’ve written is when the orchestra is playing it, and its being recorded, and then it’s gone. I think in every musician, whatever they do, there is a desire and a need to play live. It’s completely different to being in the studio where you can overdub, and re-record and correct mistakes - out there live, you’re exposed and what you produce that night is what you produce and that’s it - from that perspective for any musician, playing live is incredibly important. It comes and it goes. You create in that moment. If you’re lucky, when you try to record or film a live album, you’ll capture the essence of what you’re trying to create, but it’s tough, and can go really wrong! We played at the Union Chapel in 2015, and we filmed the 3rd movement of “Midnight Mushrumps”, which really gave people who can’t come and see us, a taste of what they’re missing!

Gryphon - “Magic Mushrumps 3rd Movement”, live at Union Chapel 2015 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYMK6tWbUOA

HR : Talking of studio albums - It’s been 41 years Dave ...

DO : [laughs] We’d been promising our fans for a long time, but because of various things going on for various members of the band, it’s just been impossible. I’m sure people think “but you’re musicians, you can write an album in a week and get it recorded” but with ‘Gryphons’ music we probably write about 3 minutes in a week!

HR : But it is here ... FINALLY! Are you happy with it?

DO : Yes we are. We all think that it works very well. New material but with the feel of the old Gryphon. We have indeed ReInvented ourselves. A difficult thing to do after 41 years. Our fans have responded really well to it and we appear to be getting some good airplay and reviews.

HR : Was the material written over that vast break, or is it all pretty recent?

Most of the material is recent apart from “Ashes” which should have been included on the “Raindance” album but was rejected by the record company much to our annoyance. We have given it a makeover and are very pleased with the result. The longest Track “Haddock’s Eyes” was written by Graeme and is based on the ‘White Knight’s Tale’ from Alice Through The Looking Glass. We have tried to re-connect with our ‘Alice’ roots and John Hurford who did the cover artwork and design was really helpful with this.

HR : Did you feel that it was important to stay true to ‘Gryphons’ original sound?

DO : I think that any band who forget their roots and where they came from are in danger of losing their way. We did for a while after “Red Queen” so when a new album was finally discussed we felt it important to ourselves and our fans, to remain true to that original direction. You can hear it very strongly on “ReInvention”. It’s everything you would expect from a Gryphon album, Folk, Prog, Jazz, a strong medieval flavour, classical overtones and downright straight Rock.

HR : I have to say that I think it’s worth the wait, so Congratulations! And in the personal life of Dave - are you working on any new projects outside of Gryphon at the moment?

DO : No – Gryphon is taking up all my time at the moment. HR : You haven’t been completely off the musical radar over the years though have you - can we mention your involvement with ‘Gandalf’s Fist’? They seem to be very popular ...

DO : Aaaaagh! ‘Gandalf’s Fist’. Yes! I recorded vocal sessions for their “Clockwork Fable” album. Dean Marsh is a very talented young man, and I have great hopes for them - Even more so after Classic Rock Magazine voted them number 3 in their top 100 albums. That’s really quite an achievement, and I’m chuffed and quite proud to be involved with them. It was the first thing I’d been happy to put my name to in the past 10 years.

HR : Well, between them and Gryphon, you’re doing a sterling job at helping to keep the British prog scene alive so - thanks Dave!

DO : You’re very welcome. It’s nice to know that people are still following what we’re up to, after having taken such a long break. When you come back after that length of time, you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen. We could have leaped out there and ended up playing to 3 people, but we didn’t, and it’s nice to know that the music is still appreciated ...

HR : It’s called standing the test of time ...

DO : Which is more than we have! [laughs]

For more info, or to get your hands on a copy of "ReInvention", please visit http://www.thegryphonpages.com/

#gryphon #progressive rock #orchestral rock #crumhorn #kerrang #reinvention #drumminglife #percussions #drummer #daveoberle

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