When I was in grade 6, J. GEIILS BAND’s Freeze-Frame album was one of the biggest albums happening, with 2 huge hits that were heard regularly. Eventually I picked this up, but I’d also picked up it’s predecessor not too long after, not knowing much else of the band. Yeah, I went back and picked up most of their back catalogue, when used LPs were dirt cheap. The earlier stuff I was less keen on, but they had some cool album covers!
Anyway, 1980’s Love Stinks would be my favorite album from the band. It was their 11th release, and 3rd album for EMI. The previous album, Sanctuary is pretty good too; it featured the hit “One Last Kiss”. Although the J. Geils Band, from Boston, originally was known for their R&B and Blues sound, and party band atmosphere, in later years they came around to a more, almost mainstream rock direction, particularly with Love Stinks. Most of J. Geils Band’s original material was written by singer Peter Wolf, and keyboard player Seth Justman, with the band doing much less covers by this point. At this point the band was also changing their image with the music, in time for the video (MTV) which came a year later. Love Stinks came in a unique cover design by Carin Goldberg, with the front featuring a seeminglyhappily married couple in the 50s, the back cover featuring childhood photos of bandmembers, and the inner sleeve consisting of various love themed pics and headlines. Pretty weird at the time.
Love Stinks starts out with 2 of the albums best tracks, the upbeat “Just Can’t Wait“, this one featuring that classic old organ and hand claps. “Just Can’t Wait” would be the 3rd single in North America, and hit the charts in Canada and the US. The next track, “Come Back” would be the album’s first single. Both songs go so well together, the latter with a more modern sound, more synths, heavier guitar, and a big drum sound. “Come Back” is my favorite here; love the instrumental section which features a guitar break, and highlights with an unusual drum section, and keyboards. The synths here and closer to the end remind me of things like Gary Numan’s “Cars”, and Alice Cooper’s “Clones”. “Come Back” would be a Top 20 hit in Canada, top 40 in the US,. “Night Time” is the a;bum’s lone cover, originally a 1965 hit for the New York band Strangeloves. The first side ends with the band’s comical track, “No Anchovies Please”, with Peter Wolf narrating a twisted tale, reminiscent of Brownsville Stations “Martian Boogie”
Side two opens with the album’s title track. Another big hit single, and like “Come Back” – a little more hard-rock. “Love Stinks” was performed by Adam Sandler in the movie The Wedding Singer (the J. Geils version appeared on the movie’s soundtrack, volume 2). It was also covered by Joan Jett, appearing as a bonus track to her Hit List compilation in 1990, as well as industrial metal band Bile, in 2002. Peter Wolf, himself would include a live stripped down version of this on his 2016 album A Cure For Loneliness. I always thought this song was meant as a bit of comedy, but it was penned following Wolf’s divorce from actress Faye Dunaway, which makes me wonder if any other songs resulated from this experience(?)
Next up is “Tryin’ Not To Think About It”, another excellent song that features a heavy riff, and a hard driring pre-chorus, but in between there’s pop, funk, blues….just a cool tune. “Desire” is the album’s ballad, again a really good memorable track that would’ve made a fine single. The album concludes with an old school J Geils type party rocker in “Til The Walls Come Tumblin’ Down”, which is perfect closer after everything else here.
Freeze-Frame came out a year and a half later. With Wolf only co-writing on half of this, leaving Justman to write most of the album, as well as produce it. I really liked the singles off it – “Centerfold” and “Freeze-Frame”, in particular, which drove the album to #1 in North America. But overall I found this album a bit more pop-ish, less guitar, and less memorable songs. A 3rd single, “Angel In Blue”, a ballad, also made the top 40, but beyond this I am much less keen on this record overall. A live album, Showtime, was released a year later. It contained 11 tracks, but omitted 2 of the band’s more recent hits – “Come Back” and “Freeze-Frame”! It made the top 30 in the US though. Soon after, internal conflict, largely Wolf disagreeing with the band’s more modern ‘techno’ direcetion, lead to his being fired. J. Geils Band continued with one more (largely forgettable) album soon after, while Wolf had a couple of successful solo albums in the 80s – Lights Out (1984) and Come As You Are(1987). The J. Geils Band broke up in ’85, but reunited with Wolf on a few occasions, even touring without the band’s guitarist and namesake., John ‘J’ Geils, who, sadly passed away in 2017.
New Tribute To BADFINGER Legend “JUST LOOK INSIDE THE COVER – SONGS OF PETE HAM”. To Be Released June 19 on Y&T Music
Includes new recordings by Ron Griffiths and Bob Jackson of The Iveys and Badfinger
Y&T Music is proud to announce the release of a special tribute album, “Just Look inside The Cover – Songs of Pete Ham,” featuring 22 new recordings of songs written by Pete Ham. This very unique tribute album features songs that were only previously released as home demos and never recorded by Badfinger.
Pete Ham was one of the 20th century’s greatest overlooked artists. Certainly, the Swansea, Wales-born musician received some recognition: three of his songs – “No Matter What,” “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue,” all recorded by his group Badfinger – were hit singles, and the popularity of those songs endures to this day. And “Without You” – co-written with band mate Tom Evans – would become a standard when covered by American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. With Badfinger, Ham made seven albums, all of which are today recognized as classics of melodic rock.
While the total output of Pete Ham penned songs released during his short lifetime would be less than 40 songs, he proved to be a startlingly prolific songwriter. Thanks to the diligent archival work of people working in close cooperation with The Pete Ham estate, demo recordings of many of these and previously unknown songs have come to light in recent years and are the focus of this tribute.
Many of those songs, compiled on several posthumous Pete Ham albums, demonstrate that Ham’s songwriting prowess yielded a bounty, the like of which would be astounding even if created by an artist who lived much longer than his brief 27 years. They also underscore the fact that Ham could – and quite often did – write excellent songs that were well outside the musical scope of The Iveys or Badfinger. Moreover, Pete Ham exerted great influence upon countless artists who came after him, many of whom weren’t yet born when he tragically took his life in 1975. His gifts with words and melody continue to inspire musicians and listeners alike.
This tribute features some of today’s most renowned artists in the field of melodic and indie rock, each providing their take on a gem from the largely overlooked portion of Ham’s creative output. Given complete creative control, some take the approach of arranging the song in a way that suggests how Badfinger might have done it; others use Ham’s words and music as a canvas upon which to paint a picture all their own. Just Look Inside The Cover also includes new recordings by Ron Griffiths, and Bob Jackson, both who have recorded and toured with Pete Ham, as members of The Iveys and Badfinger.
THE SONGS
1. Mike Delevante – A Lonely Day
2. Pezband – Tulip
3. Sharp Pins – Just How Lucky We Are
4. Eric Dover – Leaving on a Midnight Train
5. Arlan Feiles – You’re Such a Good Woman
6. Bill Lloyd – Our Song
7. Rob Bonfiglio – Hand in Hand
8. Mary Karlzen – Dawn
9. The Fraternals – Catherine Cares
10. Fernando Perdomo – Time is Mine
11. Mic Harrison And The High Score – A Little Bit of Rock and Roll
12. Tobin Sprout – Keep Your Country Tidy
13. Humbert – Little Mary
14. Steve Barton – Ringside
15. The Parlophonics – Makes Me Feel Good
16. Richard Barone (featuring The Midnight Callers) – I’m Only Human
17. Darren Hayman and Robert Rotifer – Love Will Be
18. Mark Healey – It Doesn’t Really Matter
19. Jeff Alan Ross – The Day Begins
20. Ron Griffiths – Take Good Care of My Baby
21. Bob Jackson – Just Look Inside The Cover
22. Tobin Sprout – Keep Your Country Tidy (Reprise)
Canadian rock writer, music podcaster, and on-air radio host from New Brunswick has penned a new book on legendary Canadian band APRIL WINE. On Record: The April Wine Album Review follows in similar style to Tim’s books on Night Ranger, Y & T, and Kansas, with input from fellow fans discussing the band and each of their albums.
There are not a lot of books on April Wine (see Myles Goodwyn’s Just Between You And Me, and Ritchie Henman’s High Adventure), so as a fan (and honored to be a contributor), I am really looking forward to this.
You can order On Record: The April Wine Album ReviewHERE.
ASHLEY HOWE began his career in 1970, and more recently retired. I had the pleasure of interviewing him this time about his career, where he began as tape operator, and becoming an recording engineer and producer, before relocating to the US to work in television & film sound (where he’s picked up a few EMMY Awards!). Although many Uriah Heep albums will recognize Ashley’s name for the many Heep albums he’s credited on (including producing Abominog & Head First), we discussed a number of other bands Ashley worked with in the 70s and 80s, as well as what he got up to when he left the UK. Ashley has a lot of great stories, and I’m sure (and yes, I did ask!) they could make for an entertaining book someday!. Although Ashley might play it down, but I would say the man’s had a legendary career in the recording business, having been connected to many classic bands and big albums.
We started off this conversation bringing up his recent appearance on Rock DayDream Nation‘s Youtube show, which was a ‘reunion’ show….
Enjoy the read. All photos were kindly sent by Ashley. I have also included images of albums he worked on over the years (click on the images too!).
You had a reunion recently!?
I had a little reunion with the wonderful Uriah Heep. I do want to just say one thing, a mutual friend of ours, Peter Goalby, that gentleman deserves so much respect, and so much acknowledgement, and the stuff he’s putting out now is just as good as it was 40 years ago.
Yeah, there’s a lot of what-ifs there with that stuff, right? There’s a lot of Wow – if this had come out, what it should have.
Yeah, should have. But just a wonderful gentleman, and one of the best singers I ever worked with, and I was lucky enough to work with some great singers, Freddie Mercury and people like that. Peter’s just, he’s just way up there….
To kick off, I started when I was 16 and three quarters, or 17, in late 1969, with Uriah Heep, and the first project I worked on, and that has a history to it, 15 albums later, and et cetera, et cetera, …but there’s a few stories along the line that people might find interesting.
How did you get into all the, to the technical end of the music stuff?
Well, actually, it’s a good situation. I was in a school group with a guy called Peter Coleman and Richard Dodd. Richard Dodd is a very famous engineer, very accredited, Peter went in first of all, and he became famous very quickly, and he was working at CBS, and I went to CBS to record our little band and snuck in after the Hollies, and decided that this is something I’d like to do.
I actually applied to the BBC, because they were advertising for school leavers in the south, so I went there, and I got my interview, and the guy said, “Oh, absolutely fantastic. How many years experience have you had in television and recording?” I said, “Well, I’m still at school”. He said, “Well, we can put you in the accounting department, and when you’re 32, we’ll re-review you”.
Well, straight from that interview, I went to a studio, and I was greeted by the studio manager, who turned up about 20 minutes late. The receptionist had told me to sit down and have a cup of tea, so eventually he came down, and as he came off the elevator, he saidHi don’t get up , and he said, “What’s your name?” I said, Ashley Howe, and he said, “Don’t F……g talk to me while you’re sitting down. Let me just tell you that I fire people in 30 seconds.” And this is the first interview at a real studio.
I then went from that interview to Lansdowne, and at that point, I was feeling a little uncomfortable, and I walked in, and the gentleman that I met Adrian Kerridge, very famous, and he’s sitting behind his desk with his suit on and everything, and I just, he said to me, “What exams do you have? And I said, well, actually, I’m pretty ignorant, really. I don’t really have A-levels or O-levels, but I’m really willing to start at the bottom, be a tea-boy, and put everything into it.” and then I said, “but I think I need to leave, because I feel so intimidated with you behind that big desk.”
And so I’ll never forget this, he took his tie off, took his jacket off, came down, pulled the chair up next to me, and he said, “What are your interests?”, I said, “Everything”, He said, “What are your hobbies?” I said, “I don’t have hobbies. I’m just interested in music.” And that was it, then I started at Lansdowne. Just to cap this story off, years later, I was chief engineer. The guy that was nasty to me turned up to get a job at the place. I turned around to him, I said, “Don’t F….g talk to me while you’re sitting down
That’s quite the beginning. There was an interview posted with Alan Parsons, and he had a similar where he just showed up and took anything type of job.
So, what was the first album you worked on, the first Uriah Heep album!?
That was the first one I worked on. In those days, you worked on a lot of different clients that were coming in through the door, left, right, and center. You’d be doing four or five sessions a day. Yes, that was the first one I worked on. And I have some interesting stories about Lansdowne, some funny stories, but if you want band stories.
Ashley on the right, w/ Bob Buttersworth, taken1970, while working on the first Uriah Heep record
Yeah, a bit of both. Lansdowne, is that where you were primarily?
That’s where I started off, and then I eventually moved over to the Roundhouse Studios, which Gerry Bron bought, and then took myself and Peter Gallen, the two engineers that pretty much worked on all of his projects, over to there.
When I went over to the Roundhouse, I became an in-house producer as well. I worked with bands like Hawkwind and Motorhead. I did Overkill with Motorhead, Overkill, and there’s some fun stories from those sessions
When we started to do the album, we were using a drum riser, because the studio was a little dead. We brought in a wooden platform, but Phil was hitting the drums so hard, they kept moving off of it. We tried bricks and everything else. In the end, Phil got two nine-inch nails, and hammered them through his bass drums and into the platform. Another story happened during the first playback. They came upstairs, and Lemmy said “Stop the tape! stop the tape!” So, I stopped it. Lemmy said “There’s something wrong.” And I’m thinking, well, I’m not that bad an engineer. There’s only bass drums, guitar, and vocals. He said, “No, no, I can hear my bass.” And I said, “Well, of course you can, you’re playing it.” He said, “I don’t want to hear it.” I said, “Well, I really don’t want to hear it either.”
The last thing was that I used to have to wake up Fast Eddie with a broom because he’d fall asleep on the couch. He’d wake up very violently, throwing punches, so I’d poke him in the stomach with a broom, and he’d wake up swinging.
One day I made the mistake of cleaning Lemmy’s bass guitar, because it was so sweaty. When he came in, he couldn’t play it anymore, so he had to go out and get some axle grease.
What music did you grow up on? Before you got involved, what were you listening to, and what bands were you going to see and such?
I was listening to everything on radio. In that era, there was so much great music, but more importantly, great songs. I always thought of myself as a song person.
I didn’t really stick to one genre. There was a lot of American music, a lot of Quincy Jones, a lot of jazz, and of course Led Zeppelin. But really, all the commercial stuff.
Are you familiar with Discogs, the website?
I’ve seen it.
I went into that because it’ll have a listing of everything you’re credited on. It’s quite a thorough listing. A lot of the bands you worked with, I wasn’t familiar with. I had to go back and listen to a few things that were kind of interesting, like Capability Brown, Rare Bird. You did a lot of different bands over there.
What were some of your favorite lesser known artists, that you worked with?
I loved working with Rare Bird. I actually did a little bit of percussion on one of their records. I thought they were very good.
One of my favorite projects was one of the first things I engineered – a band called Spiteri. I think they’re still getting recognition for it today. They very Santana-esque.
I also enjoyed working on Spencer Davis. That was an interesting experience because I was actually told not to bother recording him. I recorded him anyway.
I had a very diverse engineering background. One day I’d be working on the Pink Panther movie, another day with Colosseum. Colosseum was another great band that I worked with.
Ashley in the studio with Venezuelan band Spiteri, 1973
That was the one with Mike Starrs on it, right?
Right. It was a lovely album to record because they all wanted to make an album that genuinely reflected what they sounded like. They told me that most engineers would start EQ’ing things before even listening properly to the drums. Nowadays, some people don’t even record drums—they fabricate them.
John Hiseman and Gary Moore both said it was the first album where they felt it truly sounded like them. In fact, I don’t think I used any EQ on John’s drums. It was a great collaboration between very talented people who wanted to make a record and connect with one another. That was a lot of fun.
Hawkwind was fun too, especially with Ginger Baker. There was plenty of drama. We recorded an entire album and then Hawkwind – who had a habit of firing people – fired the drummer! We had to replace the drum tracks. I think we were working on 16 tracks or 24 tracks, and I didn’t have a way of preserving the original drums. So, we brought the new drummer in and he played the entire album in one go. One take. I had to wake him up between takes.(haha) But it was that was a good experience.
Babe Ruth were an interesting band. Very good. They never really got their due. I know they had some following in parts of Canada and UK and that.
Yes, good band.
A little story from those sessions: the producer would often want the guitar tracked six or eight times. We knew after two or three takes it was already huge and wasn’t getting any bigger, so we’d just pretend to keep recording.
It’s interesting because the last one is where they had a lot of change in the band and new singer. I imagine that one probably gets forgotten the most. But you had a lot of name guys in that band that went on to other things.
Well, a lot of these groups—including Heep—went through many different people, eras, and styles. It was a learning experience for everyone at the time.
Thank God for Led Zeppelin not conforming and not following the norm. If you wanted “Whole Lotta Love,” you had to buy the album.
I’ve often wondered, like Zeppelin obviously is the biggest band of the 70s, but all these other bands that, like Deep Purple, even Black Sabbath, they end up going through so many changes. You kind of think that the whole thing about Zeppelin being so popular still is the fact that they just left it where it was.
And that’s the key.
I hate to make the comparison, but it’s a bit like the mafia. You’ve got everybody together, things are working great, and then everyone wants to be the boss. They can’t stay in their own lane, and eventually they all get whacked.
There are very few people who can leave a successful entity and make it on their own. Rod Stewart is one example. He had Faces and then branched off successfully. People can branch out, but in the end, many should stay as they are.
You’ve got to admire bands like The Rolling Stones. They simply are what they are. They do what they do, they’ve got their own clique and there’s a reason those things work.
You should never try to change something that works, because most of the time it won’t.
You did the first Angel Witch album, a little more metal there.
I think I was kind of branded, not branded, but nicely mentioned as the “man of metal” at one point. I could tell you a few stories about the Nugent album.
Yeah, you did Ted Nugent, Penetrator. You had Brian Howe on that album. Is it true you asked Peter (Goalby) about doing that album?
At one point, I’d asked Peter when I was doing it, and I think Peter was not free. And in actual fact, when I was trying to come up with a different person to do that, I was walking in the Atlantic and I used to go to Atlantic Studios a lot to get demos and that sort of stuff, and I heard a demo going on with Brian’s voice. And I said, “That’s it. That’s the guy!”
It was difficult to convince Ted to use someone. In fact, one of the reasons I did the album is I said, “Ted, if I’m doing this, I’m not even using anybody you know as musicians. I’m going to bring in outside guys, get an outside singer, and use some outside songs.
The reason we arrived at that point was that John Kalodner had heard the Heep albums and stuff. I believe he was a very good friend of Ted’s—whatever the situation was—and he told him that he should give it a shot because of the way I did things at that time.
So I went in with Ted, and we sat down. I went to meet him, and he said, “I’ve got to tell you, I was just with a very big-name producer, and he told me all my songs were fantastic.”
He played them all to me, and I said, “Well, then you should use them because you’re going to be paying a lot of money, and you’ll have an album. But it’s not going to be what I think you should do. But that’s OK.”
I thought I’d blown it. As a matter of fact, I came back straight into the Uriah Heep album that I was doing in the middle of, got a call, and he said, “When do we start?”
He was the most wonderful man to work with. Huge—biggest ego ever. (Laughs)
On the first day, I had Billy Squier’s band in New York for a week rehearsing, and I brought in six outside songs that we were working on.
Funnily enough, Ozzy was next door. I went to Ozzy and said, “I’m going to be doing Ted next door. Do you want to meet him?” He’s like, “I don’t want to meet him—he’s crazy!”
But Ted was nothing like you’d imagine. I mean, he’s got a big ego, there’s no doubt about it. Long story short, he comes into the rehearsals after a week off. Everybody’s a little intimidated because he comes in with a big presence—no doubt about it.
I needed to know that I was controlling the band because I knew he’d be difficult to control. So he comes in, and I tell him to start the first song. He starts playing, and I stop everybody, but he carries on playing. I said, “Ted—stop, stop, stop, stop.” In the end, I went over and pulled the guitar out of his hands. “We need to have communication. That was me trying you out.”
So he said, “Well, I’m deaf in one ear.” I said, “Which ear?” He said, “Well, I always put my good ear to the amp.” It was a 200-watt Marshall.
So, I got the roadies to put the amp on the other side. And I said, “OK, put your bad ear to the amp and your good ear to me.” And that’s how we started off.
I think there was a lot of respect between the two of us. He spent four days on the album. But on the first day that he went down to do the overdubs, he comes in and he didn’t talk to me at all. I recorded his guitar in the control room . He started playing a song and I stopped him because it was a little out of tune.
So I said, “Could you tune the guitar, please?” He took his pistol out of his bag, dropped the bullets out, put them back in one by one. The assistant was now ducked under the desk. He flicked it around, rolled it in his hand, and held it up.
I said, “OK, asshole, you can load a gun. Can you tune a guitar?” He said, “Nobody speaks to the Nuge like this.” And I said, “I’m getting divorced—I don’t care.”
We got on great after that. It was really good. He did everything.At the end of it, he went away and came back three months later to hear the finished album.
He said, “I’ve got to tell you, it doesn’t sound like me. Nobody wanted me anymore.” It was a calculated album, and it did him good. He was very impressed with that.
“Draw the Line” was a big hit. And that was, I interviewed Jim Vallance there last year or earlier this year, and that was one of his. That song got done by quite a few people.
Yeah, well, it was an interesting era at that time. And I was starting to get a bit of a reputation for taking outside songs into the situations, which I’d like to point out was not done because of the inadequacy of the people I was working with.
It was done because I think there are very few artists nowadays who can come up with ten or twelve songs that are all great. Adele can pull it off, but most people are always going to have four or five brilliant songs.
I kind of wanted to give everybody their best shot. And I think because of that album, his career took off again. It wasn’t a massive album—it might have gone gold, I’m not sure—but it was designed that way.
What I also found was that using outside songs increased the playing level and improved their own material because you’re trying to prove something. I actually prefer a couple of Ted’s songs to anything else because I think it made him try harder. It certainly didn’t do him any harm.
“Draw The Line” certainly suits him, it doesn’t come off as a cover.
It shows his brilliance as a guitar player, which is another thing.
I’d never really heard Ted before. I’d heard “Cat Scratch Fever.” It’s like when I worked with Yes—I hadn’t really heard Yes before.
But I didn’t think that made any difference because it’s about what you’re doing at the time. It may even have helped in a way to change the model a little bit or give him a different direction.
My opinion of a producer is that he shouldn’t be telling everybody what to do. He should be capturing the performances.
That’s what’s difficult about being both an engineer and a producer. If you’re a self-critical engineer, you shouldn’t be worried about every little pop. There are pops everywhere and all that sort of stuff. But if you clean those up, you can lose performance.
Anyway, that’s my idea. Production should be about encouragement and then telling people when to stop.
I think Freddie Mercury, who was a perfectionist, would still be doing “Bohemian Rhapsody” over and over again if someone had let him. But he nailed it. You won’t get it better than what’s on the record. I don’t care how many melodic changes you make—that’s the best it will ever be.
To me, a producer needs to tell someone when to stop. At least in my career.
What about Brian Howe?
Well, I discovered him and insisted that we put him on the Penetrator album. And the way I work is always kind of one-on-one.
The way I work is always kind of one-on-one. I don’t have other people in there because I find it’s difficult to put someone in a situation where they have to perform. And it’s even more difficult if you’ve got a bunch of people standing around waiting for them to perform. So I like to work one-on-one.
Anyway, on the first day of recording, we were at the Record Plant. I took Brian in, gave him the song, and we started going through it.
He absolutely would not cooperate with any of the ideas I had.
So I said, “Brian, you’re only here because of me. We can fire you and bring someone else in, but I really think we can make this work.”
And he said, “Well, I don’t want to sing it that way.” I said, “In that case, this is the way I want you to do it. If you don’t do it, then it’s not going to work.”
I got a little belligerent, and I actually locked him in the studio. I turned all the lights out and left.
I came back two hours later and said, “Are we ready now?”
He said, “No.”
So I turned the lights out again.
I think I came back about ten hours later. I turned the lights on and said, “Now are we going to do it?”
So we did it. He was a little reluctant, but I think he started to get into it.
To cut a long story short, we played it to Nugent the next day, and he went absolutely bananas.
He said, “Oh my God, this is fantastic!”
From that point on, Brian and I got on. Well, we didn’t really get on, but we got on well enough to make it through.
Years later, I saw on his website that he complimented me for doing it, and we became really good friends.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see him before he died. Over the years, we became friends.
I kind of kept that story back because I had a call from his sister and she wanted to know what had happened. To be honest, I didn’t tell her about that because I didn’t see any need to. But it was the truth.
And from that album, he got into Bad Company, which was not a bad move at all.
Now, the other album I thought was interesting was the Wishbone Ash Twin Barrels Burning. But there’s two versions of it. The remix, I don’t know why.
Oh, I didn’t know there was another version. I didn’t know there was a remix.
Yeah, there was a different mix for the U.S., I guess.
Yeah, the U.S. tends to do that. I really didn’t agree with Abominog being rearranged in the U.S. because it was a concept album. It had a meaning, and I really put it together for a reason.
It started off with the old “Too Scared to Run,” which was like, “Yeah, this is the ’70s Heep,” and then it went into “Chasing Shadows” and stuff like that—“Now we’re going to be the new Heep.”
Then the end of it was “Think It Over,” which was really kind of a message to the fans saying, “Okay, I’m not sure if I like this because I love what they used to be.” And to the new people: “Hey, you haven’t heard the old stuff, but this is a mixture.”
But they mucked it up, in my opinion, when they reformatted it.
There’s a few albums like that in the 70s and 80s, where they just, you know, between the US. and the UK, they changed the running order on that.
Yeah, A&R people. In my opinion, there was only one great A&R person, and that was John Kalodner.
I’ll tell you a little story. I was at Atlantic, and they commissioned me to do an album with Lita Ford. We went in, and she didn’t want to be produced by anybody. So I was about three weeks into rehearsals, and she wasn’t cooperating at all.
I got paid by the record company and everything, and I said to them, “Well, now I’ve got time on my hands.”
They said, “Okay, we’ve got this other band called Malice.”
I said, “Okay, great!”
So I went into Pasha Studios and started recording Malice. To make a long story short, I kept sending them rough mixes—“Take a look at this…”—and they kept saying, “No, don’t worry about it. Carry on.”
So I carried on and finished the album.
Quiet Riot was next door doing the remake of “Cum On Feel the Noize” and that sort of stuff.
I went to play back the album for the A&R guy, and he said, “Oh, crap, I didn’t realize this was heavy metal!”
I said, “What are you talking about? It’s called Malice! I mean, it’s not going to be called Mary, you know.”
And he said, “Well, we didn’t sign this, did we?”
I said, “Apparently you did, because you gave it to me.” (Laughs)
That was a classic example of an A&R guy. And he was actually at my wedding.
I wanted to ask you, last time you had mentioned that Twin Barrels Burning had started out as a different title.
Yes.
Well, what happened there was that it was originally called The Nature of the Beast—“It’s Just the Nature of the Beast.”
I’m trying to remember what it was… There was the April Wine album The Nature of the Beast.
So at the last minute, they changed the lyrics and everything to “You Make My Engine Overheat,” which, to me, kind of ruined the whole point of it. It changed the whole thing.
But yeah, that was the decision they made because they thought it would be too comparable to the April Wine album.
I know they still have the line in the song, “Nature of the Beast”, but obviously they took, they changed the title.
And that was another interesting little situation.
We were recording at The Sol, which was Jimmy Page’s studio. We were working away one night, and all of a sudden the roadies or security guards came over and said, “We’ve got this guy trying to get into the studio.”
I thought, “Who is it?”
So we looked at the camera, and it was Jimmy Page—the guy who owned the place.
I said, “I think you should let him in.”
He came in, and I was trying to get him to do a little cameo, but he just spent a few hours talking and hanging out.
I learned something from that. I learned that you can have the same guitar with a different player and it’s totally different. Clapton could play a note on his guitar, and I could play the same note, and it just wouldn’t be the same.
So it was very interesting.
It was a fun album to work on. The studio was so dead-sounding that Trevor Bolder and I went to another studio in the middle of the night, and I recorded all the bass parts in one night because I just couldn’t get a bass sound there. Not to say someone else couldn’t have, but I couldn’t.
It ended up fine.
I didn’t end up mixing that album. I think I had to move on to another project because we’d overrun at some point.
I grew up on that band, so I loved it. Having the opportunity to work on a Wishbone Ash album was a lot of fun.
Yeah, it’s a good album. It’s kind of more of a straight forward rock album for them. The song Trevor wrote, “Hold On”, was probably the standout track for me.
I thought it was a good rock album, I think it stands up. I don’t remember, but as you know, with these recordings there’s always some drama going on somewhere. I don’t believe there was any drama on that album at all. It was kind of fun, and we did it as quick as we could because it was a limited budget.
Speaking of ‘Drama‘, you were credited on that album as well! Was that a strange atmosphere with that line-up of Yes?
Very strange.
Again, I wasn’t that familiar with Yes beyond Fragile and that sort of stuff. Steve Howe is an amazing guitarist.
I did all the guitars on the album. They had four studios running at the same time. One person was doing keyboards, and they had six slave rooms.
It was obviously going to be the end of the band because it should have been five solo albums.
Funnily enough, the first time I met Chris Squire, I’d just been working on, I think, a Pink Panther movie or something. Peter Sellers was an absolutely wonderful person.
I said to him, “Would you like a cup of tea?”
And he said, “Actually, I’ll go make you a cup of tea.”
The next day, Chris Squire comes in and says, “I want a cup of tea.”
I said, “Okay, well, the kitchen’s that way,” because I was busy mixing.
And he said, “Well, I’m Chris Squire.”
I said, “Okay, I’m Ashley Howe. The kitchen’s that way.”
The drummer turned around to me and said, “Wow!”
But Steve was just a wonderful person.
I’ll never forget: he was in the control room working out a part, so I put the tape at half speed. He was doing this part with a lot of finger work.
They said, “Okay, let’s record it.”
So he goes downstairs, and I leave the tape at half speed, thinking we’re going to record it at half speed and then speed it up afterward.
He said, “Oh no, put it back to full speed.”
Now we’re twice as fast.
He transposed the entire thing and then said, “Now let’s do a harmony.”
I thought, okay, you might not like the guitar tone, but you can’t fail to admire the technique.
He was wonderful.
He brought in thirteen amps, and we tried about a hundred different guitars for every overdub. In the end, we wound up using the same guitar and the same AC30 combination we’d started with.
But he always said, “I need to try this.”
Unfortunately, it should have been a Steve Howe album because a lot of the guitar work was taken away. When everybody came together, they all played over each other. They literally let the keyboard player play over the guitar parts.
You had to take a lot of stuff out just to make room.
So it was obviously an attempt to solve a difficult situation.
I don’t know if it was one of their worst albums. It was certainly a pleasure to work on.
It’s different, obviously. I kind of like it for being a little more modern…
“Machine Messiah”…There’s a couple of great tracks on there.
But yeah, you got a lot of great things out of it. I mean, in time, you got the next Yes album and it’s a different lineup, and you got Asia and all that.
One other thing I’ve got to show you, I picked this up a couple years ago, a very strange album, Mike Maran.
I recognize this, Mike Maran. He was a fantastic session keyboard player. In fact, he was very instrumental in a stage-show called Time, for Dave Clark. We had Freddie Mercury on it, Laurence Olivier, Ashford and Simpson, and a lot of other people involved. Mike was very much an instigator of most of the arrangements, and we recorded a lot of stuff in his studio.
At what point did you kind of get out of the kind of the rock producing in the UK and then coming over to moving over to America in that?
Well, between 1980 and ’85 or ’86, I was still doing a few bands. I worked with a band in Australia called The Angels, and I did a few other albums during that period.
But around 1986, I basically stopped doing as much.
To be honest, I was getting a little disenchanted with the way the music business was going. People weren’t using big studios anymore.
A little example of that is that I did an album with John Sinclair and a band called Estrella in 2010.
All done on Pro Tools. In fact, he would send me the files and the overdubs, and in the end I mixed the album on my MacBook—128 tracks.
The big studios weren’t being used anymore. It was becoming too easy for people to do this stuff. Then the age of plug-ins came in. We used to spend all that time trying to work out sounds and tape phasing with our hands, and suddenly it just became too easy.
I didn’t want to get into the disco era and that sort of stuff. I did a few disco records, but to me the music business was changing.
So, what actually happened was that I got married.
I did Time, got married, then came back and worked on the Time project, which involved doing all the films and mixing the double album with all the different artists for Dave Clark back at Lansdowne. That was a lot of fun.
Then I actually went into television on the post-production side. I was fairly successful. I won eight Emmys for post-production work—various long-form shows and things like that.
I also did a lot of live television. By moving into post-production, we ended up working on the Massenburg console, so I still got to do some good audio work. It was just a different genre and a different approach.
I went from 128 faders to five.
What exactly will you be doing as far as the sound goes?
Well, it depended. I actually ended up doing a lot of soap operas, where I’d be editing dialogue, adding sound effects and music, and balancing the entire show.
I also did a lot of live post-production for Monday Night Football, for example, where we’d do the opening segments.
I worked on a lot of 20/20 broadcasts and Primetime Live, along with various news broadcasts. Those were live post-production situations where material was constantly being brought in, and I was putting it all together and either airing it immediately or balancing it while it aired.
It was challenging. It was a smaller use of the skills I had, but it still incorporated many of the same processes. I think I managed to change things a little bit, and it eventually made me the highest-paid audio engineer in television, which was great.
I had a separate contract above the union contract. I won eight Emmys doing it, and it was a lot of fun.
With some of the long-form shows, I developed a reputation where producers would simply bring me the tapes, leave me alone, and I’d mix everything overnight by myself and hand back the finished program.
I developed a reputation where, if a project came to me—and I’m not trying to be big-headed; that’s just how it was—there were five other engineers, but they kept booking me. So I was highly paid, working constantly, and enjoying it.
Then, when Disney decided to shut down a lot of its operations, I moved out of post-production and into the live production area.
That wasn’t nearly as much fun. It’s like air-traffic control, but without the rewards.
At that point, they were trying to get rid of people through pure attrition. They even employed people whose job was essentially to watch for your mistakes.
There’s nothing quite like doing a live broadcast to 60 million people with someone standing over your shoulder waiting for you to open the wrong fader so they can write a report about it.
It wasn’t a very pleasant atmosphere, but I wasn’t going to let them use that as an excuse to deny me a full pension. I ended up with lifetime entrance privileges to Disney and things like that. So, I stayed with it.
I’d lost a little bit of enthusiasm—not interest, because I still loved what was going on—but I didn’t totally agree with the methods being used nowadays.
Maybe that’s because I’m old-fashioned. As engineers, we grew up with no second chances. Now you’ve got three million tries. Back then, if you screwed up, you screwed up.
The early Heep stuff was done on eight tracks. We’d be dropping in a bass solo on the backing vocal tracks, and if you didn’t come out of the punch-in at exactly the right moment, there were no more backing vocals.
There was no margin for error. I think that forced everybody to work differently.
You didn’t have computer mixing. You’d mark the tape with a Chinagraph wax pencil, and that would be your base level—not bass as in bass guitar, but your starting point.
You’d move the mix around manually. If you pushed the drums up, you’d probably have to push the guitar up a little too because the balance had changed.
You played the mix like an instrument. Once everything became computerized, it just became too easy.
And speaking of engineers, in those days we cut tape and spliced tape. I was taught by a guy called John Mackswith, an incredible engineer. He made me edit using bent scissors that looked like this.
Once you learned to edit like that, it wasn’t anything like using a splicing block. I kept saying, “Can I buy a pair of straight scissors? I don’t want to make a mistake.” And he said, “Just don’t make a mistake.”
That was the way I was trained. And I didn’t make a mistake. But it’s all changed now. To be honest, it’s become too easy.
And you moved into movies as well?
Yeah, I did soundtracks to a couple of the Pink Panther movies. And I did the recording to Time. Are you familiar with Time?
No.
Okay, well, it was a theatrical production—a musical theatre project—with Cliff Richard and, as I mentioned before, Burt Bacharach, Ashford & Simpson, Freddie Mercury, and a lot of other major artists who appeared on the album.
The production itself was staged at the Dominion Theatre in England, which seated about 5,000 people. We had a live recording studio underneath the theatre, which was fantastic.
Richard Dodd, who is my best friend—we’ve been friends since we were five years old—worked on it with me. Richard and I later got to do Raging Silence together for Uriah Heep, which was great.
So Time was a concept project that Dave Clark put together. It ran in the theatre for years and featured Laurence Olivier.
We had to record Laurence Olivier, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease at the time, so we literally had to help him into a chair.
I’ve got a lovely story about him. His image was being projected onto a 15-foot holographic head that flew around the theatre.
A guy named Simon Napier-Bell was heavily involved with the theatrical side of things. At that point in time, the biggest productions had maybe fifteen hydraulic systems. His show had something like sixty.
The stage would actually tilt up vertically with performers standing on it. The amount of technology involved was incredible.
I also went to Laurence Olivier’s house to record him personally for some overdubs. Later, we needed him in the studio for filming.
Because of the Parkinson’s, we had to physically secure him in position. Even the slightest movement would become exaggerated on the giant holographic projection. A small shake could move his nose halfway across his face on the screen.
One day, a mailroom boy came in with a message for him. He looked downstairs and realized, “That’s Laurence Olivier.” He was completely starstruck.
Laurence noticed him standing there and said, “Please excuse me. I’m working at the moment, but I need to come upstairs.” He walked up to the kid and said, “Hello, I’m Sir Laurence Olivier.” The poor kid was practically shaking. Then Olivier said, “I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting.” What a wonderful man. What a great human being.
That was the technology we were working with at the time, and it was a lot of fun.
I started out doing the first few performances live. We recorded the raw performances, and once the production got going, I think it ran for four or five years.
That was another collaboration with Richard Dodd because he’d already done half of the double album. Richard and I were fortunate enough to work together several times over the years, and it was always a lot of fun.
Were you on like set for a lot of any of the movies and stuff that you’d meet a lot of people over the years?
The movie work was mostly recording the music—a couple of songs here and there for each production. Even that has a nice story attached to it.
You had to be heavily unionized to work on those sessions, and I wasn’t part of the union. Dave Clark pulled a few strings because he wanted me to do the work. I said, “Great, I’d love to do it.”
But there were all kinds of restrictions. I wasn’t allowed to speak directly to the person operating the recording machine. I had to tell another guy what I wanted, and he would relay the message.
At one point I went out to mic up the musicians and tripped over a microphone cable, pulling the connector out of the wall. I went to plug it back in and they immediately said, “Oh no, don’t touch that!”
So we had to wait fifteen minutes for an electrician to come and plug it back in. Meanwhile, we only had about thirty-five seconds available to record a thirty-second piece of music.
I said to the guy, “Put it into record.” He replied, “You can’t talk to him. You have to talk to me.” I said, “Okay. Don’t put it into record.” He then turned to the operator and said, “The engineer in charge of the session would like you to place the machine into record status.” We just barely got the take recorded.
Afterward I asked, “What would have happened if we hadn’t gotten that?” And the answer was, “You’d have to book another twelve-hour minimum session.”
Then the same person proceeded to tell me, “I don’t understand why we’re losing all our recording business in England.” Dave Clark turned around and said, “Next time I’ll just record in Germany. It would be cheaper to fly all the musicians there. Why the hell do you think you’re losing business?”
It was a very strange atmosphere. But despite all the bureaucracy and obstacles, we got it done.
Photos by Marc Bryan-Brown/WireImagefrom 32nd Emmy Awards
Are you still active?
Not really, to be honest. Retired…Well, I say retired. I was let go—or they tried to fire me—from ABC, but I was a little smarter than they were. So I ended up with a pension.
I went back and did something with John Sinclair. I’m always open to doing things; I just don’t really need to do it anymore. And I don’t want to spend too many more days in studios. I mean, I spent most of my life in studios.
Have you considered putting some of your stories down in a book?
Well, it’s funny you should say that. I have a lady who contacted me. I believe she’s interviewed a lot of engineers—Richard has been one of them. I think she’s interviewing a bunch of engineers and putting them into some sort of “top” category or collection. So she’s going to come and talk to me.
I would love to do it. I don’t know. I mean, I tell people these stories, and they’re mostly nostalgic, but they also take me back to those moments. A lot of people have said, “You should share them because…”
There’s some interesting stories, not even just with the Heep stuff, but obviously like Motorhead and Yes.
Well, I think I’ve got enough stories to make at least a couple of pages interesting. So, in answer to your question, and ironically enough, she sent me a text yesterday saying, “I’m coming back up your way. Let’s get together.” I know she’s interviewed a lot of very, very accomplished people. I don’t consider myself a big name, but I think I’ve contributed something.
I’ve probably got my name on a couple of million records, but that’s not really the point. I think I actually helped some people, and I think that’s important. So yes, hopefully I’ll have something worthwhile to say and eventually make it into a book somewhere.
And then I’ve got the Uriah Heep stories. I used to be a bit of an idiot. (Laughs) Well, I’d always try to make everybody laugh.
There’s a story from when we were recording “The Wizard.” I’d set Ken up at Lansdowne under a spotlight with a chair in the middle of the room while he was doing his acoustic part. I’d also found a great big cardboard box and written “10 Tons” on it. I positioned it above him where nobody could see it.
As he started playing the intro, I dropped it onto him and covered him with a ten-pound weight, which was very Monty Python. Gerry Bron got pissed off at me and fired me—then rehired me.
I used to do silly stuff like that.
Gerry was one person I never got to interview.
He was an interesting man. I have to say, he looked after the people who looked after him. At the ripe old age of nineteen, he bought me a BMW, gave me a separate contract, and did things like that.
I was doing a lot of engineering work for him, and later Peter Gallen and I worked on the solo albums by David Byron and Ken Hensley. Then Gerry gave me projects with Hawkwind, Sally Oldfield, Motörhead, and various other artists.
So he was very supportive, and I certainly owe him a lot.
British keyboard player, producer, Paul Bliss can be found on the lone album by Dog Soldier, which also included Miller Anderson and Keef Hartley (both of the Keef Hartley Band), he went on to work for various bands before forming The Bliss Band, and releasing 2 albums – 1978’s Dinner With Raoul and 1979’s Neon Smiles. The 2nd album received good reviews, but it’s the album’s last track, “That’s The Way That It Is” (clocking in at over 7 minutes!) that would gain the most notoriety for it being recorded by a few other acts, notably Graham Bonnet for his 1981 solo album, following his time in Rainbow, and then being a comeback hit single in the US for Uriah Heep, on their 1982 album Abominog. Ironically Heep’s then-new singer, Peter Goalby had been replaced by Bonnet in Rainbow!
Songwriter, Paul Bliss recalls that the song was inspired by “just a discussion between two friends with a difference of opinion about something political. I always put more weight behind the music than the lyrics…..which is why I always liked writing with my songwriting partner Steve Kipner because he was so great at meter”.
Recalling the songs creation and recording – “The guitar riff was mine but Bliss Band guitarist Phil Palmer and producer Geoff Westley layered many tracks of guitar to get ‘that’ sound. If memory serves I think there was a track or two recorded at half-speed to get that 12-string effect. “
On the few covers of his song, Bliss notes – “I have heard all the versions and particularly liked the Uriah Heep version…possibly because it was the best known.“
Although it was never released as a single for The Bliss Band, Paul recalls that the track did get airplay in Brazil.
The Covers…. For the most part I’ve included covers that were officially relased. There are a few other fairly decent versions on Youtube from cover bands.
GRAHAM BONNET, 1981
Fresh out of RAINBOW, Bonnet included the song on this 1981 solo album Line Up , which included Mickey Moody, Cozy Powell, Jon Lord, and others. Bonnet’s version was released as a single in the UK and in Australia, in October thqt year. In the UK, it hit #76. It’s a very good version, shortened to just under 3 and a half minutes, a bit laid back, with the focus being on Bonnet’s voice. Line Up also included 2 Russ Ballard (Argent) covers – “S.O.S.” and “Liar”.
URIAH HEEP, 1982
Included on Uriah Heep’s 1982 comeback album, Abominog. This was released as a single and video. It reached #25 on the rock charts, and was close to the top 100 singles, as well as the video being in regular rotation for some time.
Ashley Howe (Producer, 2002) – “The Way That It Is, which I think was a very nice track for them, we originally recorded that at Ridge Farm Studios, and it had the Hammond C3 organ on it, and it was far more ‘Uriah Heep’ than it ended up, but what I tried to do with that was I had originally recorded that as the ‘old’ Uriah Heep, and the old Uriah Heep sound, but we ended up scrapping it because basically it ended up as a good song, but it felt like the ’60s. so what I did was I stripped the whole thing down and I re-started it more along the lines of Journey, like ‘Who’s Crying Now’ – type of feel to it. And we retained the song, which was a good song, and I think just having the whole band out, then they all join in on the 2nd part of the first verse – they came in as Uriah Heep. And I think it was a good new sound for them. “
THE PRESIDENT, 1983
From this Dutch band’s 1983 album By Appointment Of. This was also released as a single. Curious to hear from anyone who knows how this version was received in the Netherlands back then.
BLACK PEARL , 2011
I’ve included this version, even though it is a live video only as it features Stef Fontaine (I believe the vocal was re-recorded and dubbed in). Fontaine would replace Peter Goalby in Uriah Heep, briefly in 1986.
Canadian rockers TEAZEreunited in 2019, I was fortunate to catch that first show in Windsor, Ontario. An energetic rock performance, and great evening. From 1976 to 1980 Teaze released 4 studio albums, plus the classic Tour Of Japan. Following 1980’s Body Shots the band split up, but their return has been most welcome, and with the release of last year’s Live In Leige, a new studio album seemed to be the next step. The first single, “Man Of Vision” is instantly likeable and recognizeable as Teaze, and among the 11 tracks, there’s a new take of their classic “Sweet Misery”, as well as an excellent cover of Rainbow’s “Man On The Silver Mountain”. More on Rev Your Engines in a few days. Check out the press info below, as well as “Man Of Vision”. The album comes out on CD, May 29 viaDeko Entertainment.
TEAZE, the iconic Canadian rock band, is back and stronger than ever, ready to captivate audiences on major stages worldwide. Known for their explosive sound and electrifying live shows, the band continues to build on a legacy that stretches back to the mid-1970s while proving that their best days are far from behind.
Formed in Windsor, Ontario, in 1975 by bassist and vocalist Brian Danter, guitarists Mark Bradac and Chuck Price, and drummer Mike Kozak, Teaze quickly earned a reputation for their high-energy live performances and powerful melodic hard rock sound. Their early albums produced fan favorites like “Rockin’ With The Music”, “Boys Night Out,” and “Sweet Misery,” helping the band build a loyal following in Canada, Europe, and Japan.
Now, decades later, Teaze is experiencing a resurgence. Recent live performances have drawn enthusiastic crowds, including sold out shows in their hometown region and memorable appearances alongside legendary acts. The band’s chemistry, musicianship, and passion remain undeniable, connecting longtime fans with a whole new generation of rock audiences.
The next chapter for Teaze arrives with their highly anticipated new album, Rev Your Engines. The album captures everything fans love about Teaze, soaring vocals, huge guitar riffs, memorable hooks, and the unmistakable energy that has always defined the band. At the same time, it introduces a fresh, modern edge that proves Teaze is not simply reliving the past but pushing forward with purpose and confidence. They just dropped their new single “Man of Vision” and as founding member Bradac comments, “Man Of Vision is a powerful rock anthem in the grand tradition of Teaze classics like “Heartless World” & “Touch The Wind”. MOV speaks of a righteous person living in a world of chaos, facing uncertainty, searching for truth, and rising above all fear.”
Rev Your Engines is everything Teaze has always been about, big guitars, powerful vocals, great songs, and that same energy that made people fall in love with the band in the first place,” says the band. “We’re proud of where we came from, but this album proves we’re not living in the past. This is Teaze, right now, louder and stronger than ever.”
As Teaze continues to perform live and prepare for the release of Rev Your Engines, the band is proving once again why they remain one of Canada’s most enduring and exciting rock acts.”
Rev Your Engines Man Of Vision Turning The Night Away Gotta Rock Let Me Go We Are One The Man On The Silver Mountain Wonder Can’t Stop Loving You City Of Roses Sweet Misery
British guitar player Sam Wood has had a busy career so far, and in the last few years his name has rose amongst us classic rock fans, having joined Thin Lizzy spin-off band BLACK STAR RIDERS a few years ago, guesting once with SAXON, and more recently substituting in for Mick Box of URIAH HEEP, for the band’s Scandinavian tour in January & February.
This was a very enjoyable interview as we discussed the bands Sam has played with, such as WAYWARD SONS, and including the details of his recent shows with Uriah Heep. As I go to post this Sam has a few dates left on a UK tour with one of his other bands THE DEAD COLLECTIVE, who have just announced their self-titled 4-song Ep is available for Pre-order (on limited red vinyl, no less!). We also chatted about Sam’s favorite bands and record collecting. Enjoy! *Check out the links below.
I want to go back and you can give me talk about some of your early stuff and how you got into recording and, playing in general as a professional musician. And what kind of got you to where you are?
Well, I suppose since I probably, like a lot of other people who are in this game when you start, you never really think about, when you’re a kid and first sat down with a guitar, you don’t really think about what I’m going to be doing when I’m older. You just find something that you love doing and you do it because you love doing it. You’re not doing it because you think there’s going to be a future there. But before long, you start to realize, ‘Oh actually, I really love this’. Yeah. And wouldn’t it be great if one day I might be in a band that might be playing in front of people or whatever. And so, quite quickly, I suppose it became apparent that it was going to be something that I wanted to dedicate my life to really or pursue at least.
So, when I was playing in a few bits and bobs here and there, but it wasn’t until I went to Uni when I when I moved up north. I went to the music college in Leeds, which is only about 15 miles away from where I am now. And that was when it really started.
And all of a sudden you go from being just a guitarist or a drummer or a singer or whatever you are – all of a sudden you’re put into this mixing pot of really talented people, and that just brings your game up.
That was that was a wonderful experience having all of that. And then I suppose I’ve just been playing in bands ever since, really. And it depends how in depth you want to get with it. But there’s a there’s a nice sort of lineage from being there all the way through to Blackstar Riders and everything. We just as with everything, it’s meeting the one right person. And they’ll say, ‘Oh, you might be good for such and such’. And before you know it, that link has been made and you go from there really.
If you sit down and think about it for too long, it gets quite scary – thinking, well, if one link in that chain hadn’t happened, you don’t know what you might be doing instead.
I find it interesting, because I gather you’re in your late 30s, so you kind of kind of came after that whole ‘classic rock’ tag had already started. So, a lot of the guys you play with are probably a lot older than you, so…
Yeah, as I like to remind them.(lol) But, I was very much brought up on my dad’s record collection. He was he was big into his 70s rock, glam-rock – T-Rex, Slade, Sweet, Thin Lizzy, all those guys. And so that was very much my musical education. That’s sort of informed, I suppose, how I play and the kind of where I’m I feel myself headed as a player. All the things that come more naturally to you because that’s what you’ve been listening to your whole life. And so and so it does mean, as you say, now you find yourself often in or around members of bands or playing with members of bands that you grew up loving, which is such a such a treat, but it’s an honour more than anything else. What an incredible situation to find yourself in.
It’s funny because I grew up in the ’80s mainly and I get the whole, ‘well, you’re listening to bands that are from the 60s and 70s’. But here you are playing with bands that your dad kind of grew up with.
Absolutely!
Can you give me your shortlist of some of your favourite players and albums and stuff?
Oh, great. I mean, probably the obvious ones….Mick Ronson, obviously. All the Thin Lizzy guys, particularly the Scott and Brian Robertson era. But all of them, all the way through from Eric Bell, all the way through to John Sykes; we’ve got Gary Moore, Snowy White in there as well. And Randy Rhoads and Michael Schenker.
I’m not really allowed to class all the Thin Lizzy as a guitarist as one, but I am for the purpose of this, so.. I’d say those four really are, the kind of foundation of probably what my style, or my interests really is as a guitarist. There’s a lot of other stuff in there. I was always a huge fan of Ritchie Blackmore. He’s playing Deep Purple and Rainbow. Hendrix as well, I always, always loved. But it was mostly those guys.
And a lot of the earlier I’d say the glam-rock guys, Andy Scott out of Sweet – What a fantastic player he was… and still is, of course. It’s one of those things whereas time goes on, you realize there’s a lot of a lot of other players who have made their way into your playing, the Saxon guys, for instance, Paul Quinn and Graham Oliver. I listened to a lot of Saxon when I was a when I was a kid. And I got the incredible opportunity a few years ago to step in with them, take the place of Paul’s side of the stage. So, learning the parts, I didn’t realize how much it kind of already seeped into my subconscious, and is there in my that I’ve picked up as part of my own playing style, which is lovely. It’s lovely when you when you find those parts that you didn’t realize were in there.
Yeah. Saxon was a band I got in later on in life. I’ve kind of seen them a few times because they’re not over here too often, but they came over with UFO a couple of times. So that was good. I love the Randy Rhoads stuff with Ozzy and that run of the Sweet albums in the 70s. People always put them down as a glam band, but if you are kind of a pop band, if you listen to four or five albums in a row, there’s pretty hard rock stuff.
Oh, absolutely. listen to all the B-sides. That’s the thing. They had the hits on the A-side that were written for them, but they were allowed to do their own B-sides. It always sounded to me like they just wanted to be Deep Purple. You know, they’ve got big riffs, big solos. What a band! And they had these huge harmony vocals as well. They could do it, as could most of the bands from that time, to be fair.
What was kind of your first professional recording type gig?
First, well ‘professional’ is a tricky word. Coming out of Uni, I was in a couple of bands that were getting out there as much as we could. You know, young kids, 20, 21, bought a van, just driving around the country, playing as many gigs as we could. Without a clue, really what we were doing, we just saw if we’re playing, playing more gigs, that’s what we need to do. We did some really cool stuff. Actually, we ended up supporting Wishbone Ash, a few other reasonably good sized gigs for where – for a band on our level we got quite fortunate with that. That was a band called ‘Treason Kings‘. And it was through Treason Kings that I ended up meeting Toby Jepsen from a band called Little Angels. And he ended up producing two EPs for us. And the whole time we were in the studio I was hounding him and saying, you know, ‘If you need a guitarist for anything, if I can be of any help. Please let me know. I’d always like to do it.’
Then one day out of the blue, I got a call from Toby saying he was he was putting something together. Now, originally, this was meant to be, he had a record contract for a solo album and he wanted to put a solo record together. So, he got he asked me if I’d play guitar on it. And we had Dave Kemp, who was one of the horn players in Little Angels, but he was on keys, and Nic Wastall from a band called Chrome Molly. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them (?), another new wave British heavy metal band from the UK. Fantastic band. And Phil Martini on drums, who I knew from The Choir Boys and Joe Elliot’s Down and Outs. None of us had played together before, but we all sort of came down and met in the middle, came from our various locations in the UK and just had a couple of days of rehearsal. Not even rehearsal, just room and time in a rehearsal space to have a play about with some ideas that Toby had.
And very, very quickly it became apparent that something really gelled. And that doesn’t always happen. You can put huge bunches of musicians together, really good musicians together, and sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn’t. And that’s not a slight on anyone; it’s just sometimes the chemistry with, not even as people, but with your playing doesn’t fit or whatever. But this really did. It really slotted together really nicely. And before long, we’d sort of turned it into a band instead. Instead of it being this solo album for Toby, it became a band. And that was where Wayward Sons came from. So that, in terms of being the ‘first’, that was the first band where it felt like I’d moved up. Because where it was with Toby’s past, we got a running start and we could start off with, his fans. He’s had a good solo career in the meantime, The Little Angels fans. So you can start off on quite a good footing. It felt like a real gift to be to be brought into that world, for somebody in my position where we’d just been in a transit van driving around the country trying to do what we could. That was the first real thing, and that was 10 years ago now, 10 years since we first got in a room together. And it just feels like it’s been just a very exciting journey from then, really.
What’s the current status of the band? It’s been a few years since you guys have had anything, right?
Yeah, well, it’s still very much ongoing. We were playing last year. There were plans for us to be doing something this year. But that has ended up, as often happens just through one reason or another, I think that’s looking like it might not happen now, but it’s still very much an ongoing concern. And we will be back at some point with some new music and some new dates. But no real concrete plans for that as yet. We all we all want to, and we will do it. That’s just been like so many, you know, COVID was terrible for lots and lots of bands and lots of artists and everything – we all know that. The biggest trouble that we had during COVID was not only that we were we in different parts of the UK, some of us were in different countries as well. We lost so much momentum through COVID that it that it has been a struggle. We’ve still been working since then, obviously, we’ve had had an album since then. But just felt like it’s taken a while to kind of get the wheels turning again on everything. But what it what it also has meant is that because we haven’t been on the kind of treadmill of it all, we now can afford to take the time and do things properly and just come back when we’re ready, and when the time is right. And I know we will. I’m looking forward to that.
What have kind of been the highlights as far as festivals and stuff you guys did over there?
The whole trip of that of that band so far was such a big part of my learning curve, as I suppose, a professional musician, on that level. So there’s been a lot of stuff that has that has been an amazing first time doing this or that. Download Festival really was a particular highlight. We were actually offered the main stage in 2020, but obviously, Covid came along and scuppered that, and so we were bumped onto 2021. Then that got cancelled again. Covid. But they stuck to their word and they gave us a slot in 2022 to open the main stages. I’ve been to Download, Download Festival was the Donington Festival, the Monsters of Rock in the UK. This is the legendary rock festival in the UK. And I’ve been there as a teenager and in my early 20s and camped for the week and seen all my favourite bands coming through. So, to get the opportunity to play on that stage was incredible. Absolutely incredible! And the fact that we opened the main stage on the Friday. the first day of the festival. And it was the first day back after Covid, after all that long period of nothing happening. It just felt like this this triumphant kind of return to everything. It was wonderful; It was absolutely wonderful. What an honour to be up there. I loved that. That is a real highlight, it’s got to be there for me.
That must have been crazy because you guys have those festivals over there. We don’t have a consistent festival, I don’t think, over here. Like, that one central one that everybody looks forward to every year.
I suppose we have the added benefit of being such a small island. And Donington is pretty much slap bang in the middle of it. So, everyone is able to congregate in one place where I suppose for you guys over there, it’s a much bigger place, it’s much harder for it to be a kind of central point, I suppose.
What led to the Black Star Riders gig? I’ve seen the band a few times over here with I think Judas Priest.I saw them as Thin Lizzy with a few other bands as well. But so they’ve been over here quite a bit. There’s obviously had a number of guitarists before you, so you’ve kind of followed Scott Gorham and Damon Johnson in that.
Yeah. BSR I know obviously, that it’s a modern band and a current band, but still very much a band that I grew up with. The first album came out in 2013, I was 24 at that point and a massive Thin Lizzy fan. So all of a sudden there’s new music coming out with the Thin Lizzy guys. Scott’s on guitar, Ricky singing. What’s not to love!? And it sounds like Black Rose era of Lizzy. Fantastic! Wayward Sons did a UK and a German tour with BSR in 2019, and I had been out on an acoustic tour with Ricky and Damon the year before that, which was both of those were a lot of fun. I just stayed in touch, I suppose. And I had heard through the rumor mill that Scott had been thinking of stepping down from BSR, keeping the idea of doing something with Thin Lizzy alive, but wanted to step down from BSR and nothing had been announced or anything like that. I just thought I’m just going to message Ricky and just, basically said to him ‘I’ve heard this might be the case.’ I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least make contact just to say Hello, just as I had done with Toby in the studio with Treason Kings years before that – ‘If ever I can be of any service or any help, please do let me know.’ …No one ever feels completely qualified for a job, you know, it would be arrogant or it would sound arrogant to say so. But I mean, for me, being such a huge Thin Lizzy fan, I sort of felt like I know that I can approach this band from the right point of view, playing wise. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
I’d hope I would be able to give it a good shot. So I got a nice reply from Ricky, saying they weren’t looking for anyone or anything. Then probably about a year or so later I got a call from Ricky about stepping in with his solo band, the Fighting Hearts. If you haven’t seen or heard Ricky’s solo stuff, you’ve got to check it out because it’s absolutely fantastic. Some fantastic albums, great tunes. And so, I was I stepped in for a few gigs with them. And not long after that, I got the got asked about the BSR thing. Again, this was after covid. After Damon Johnson they got in Christian Martucci from Stone Sour, Corey Taylor’s band, who’s a fantastic player. But they it was working because (obviously) Corey Taylor was busy with Slipknot, and when he wasn’t busy with Slipknot, he’d be doing Stone Sour, so that would be the time that Christian was with him. And then in the time that Corey was with Slipknot, Christian would be on a cycle with BSR. And that was how I understand it, that was how that was planned to work. But then obviously Covid came along, levelled the playing field. Blackstar Riders was ready to go with a new album and a new campaign at exactly the same time that Stone Sour was. And so all of a sudden that threw all that out of balance and they needed a guitarist. So I, again, very fortunately, found myself in the position of getting that phone call. And obviously you say Yes to that when that comes along.
So, you were obviously familiar with all the albums, the catalogue?
Oh, absolutely! As I said, I’d been a fan since day one of the band. So learning the stuff, so much of it I already had and already knew, at least to listen to. That was such a such a ‘pinch me’ moment, on two levels. Firstly, sitting down to learn those songs to actually be a part of that. But then actually getting in a room, and you turn up and there’s all the flight cases, Black Star Riders flight cases, and Lizzy stuff’s all there. And you get in the room, and it’s the band – it was Ricky, Scott, Jimmy DeGrasso and Robbie on the bass. And it’s like, ‘What dreamland have I entered into here?’ And then counting in and away you go. And you’re there, stood stage right and Scott Gorham’s on stage left. Yeah. Mad. Absolutely mad!
Well, it’s excellent because there’s such a history already with the band and they’re still current. So, what is currently up with you guys, Is there any plans as far as recording or touring?
Well, we’ve got a got a European tour coming up, which would be nice because we had one show about 18 months ago in the UK, and that was the last that we had done. So, we’re off to off to Europe in September and October. The band, the band is still very much alive and still very much going. Ricky obviously is very, very busy with The Almighty and with the solo stuff. For this tour we’ve got Marco back on bass.
Will it be a 5-piece?
No, it’s a 4-piece. Scott isn’t there anymore. We did a tour in 2023. We did half the set as a 4-piece, and then Scott would come out and we’d do the last half of the set. And that was great, because I think that’s all he really wanted to do. I think he’s happily retired from Black Star Riders now.
That’s understood.
Yeah, you can’t say he hasn’t paid his dues. He’s still very much working away; he’s got his artwork he’s doing. He’s still very active, which is great.
So, we’ll be going out as a 4-piece. What I think a lot of people don’t understand about Black Star Riders, because it’s always been a 2-guitar band from day one, but Rickey has also played guitar as well. But because he’s the frontman, he’s never really had the chance to be the lead guitarist. He’s a fantastic guitar player. He’s a really good guitarist, and can absolutely hold his own with the twin leads, and the riffing, and everything. Not to mention that he’s responsible for a lot of the riffs and the guitar parts that are in the songs anyway. I think he surprised a lot of people on that tour, and on subsequent gigs to see Rickey playing those lead parts and having such an active role as a guitarist in what has always been a 2-guitar band. He can do it, and he does it. It’s really great to play with him; it really sounds fab!
Have you guys talked about doing any writing or anything new?
I really hope that will be on the cards. That always very much been the plan. No real concrete plan at the moment, but I’m sure there will be, at some point. We’ve all got to get back in the same country, at the same time, before any of that can happen. All in good time.
Do you collect much? (showing my BSR LPs)
Yeah. To be honest, modern albums, I don’t have so many, but I love record fairs, record shops, and just being able to flick through and finding odd things you just fall in love with because of the sleeve. You just go ‘Oh I wonder what that’s like?’, which is getting harder to do because, obviously they are getting more expensive, whereas it was nice just to be able to spend less than a dollar, just flicking through and you could see something that you liked and try it out. And if you liked it, great – If you didn’t, you spent less than a dollar on it. So, yeah, I love it… But great, you’ve got the BSR, all on vinyl.
I’ve got the five of them. It’s funny because back in the ‘90s when vinyl went out of style, you could buy tons of it for two bucks a piece, and now that stuff is all suddenly worth 10, 20 bucks, 30 bucks each, right!?
Absolutely, yeah… And up sometimes, all of a sudden things can be very, very valuable.
The thing about it as well, and I feel that like the younger generation, like sort of kids in their teenage years now who have only they’ve grown up in a digital world, they are now the ones that are buying vinyl, cassettes, CDs, because actually they want to hold something. They want to have something that is theirs. You know, when I was a kid, when you were a kid, I’m sure you’d save up your pocket money or your allowance or whatever, and you would save up when you go down, you buy an album that you really loved and you’d be on the bus on the way home kind of looking at the cover, reading all the sleeve notes and everything. And that was yours. And it was a was a sacred text to us because, ‘this is mine’.
‘I’ve saved up for this, and I bought it and it belongs to me’, this physical thing. And so, you took it home and you listened to it over and over and over again because, you’d spent all that money on it. And so, you really knew it.
Whereas these kids today have grown up with everything with Spotify, with Apple Music and everything, just being there. So, it doesn’t have any value to us anymore in the way that it used to. And it does feel like they are coming around to that as well, which is wonderful, wonderful to see that.
Yeah, when I get stuff to download for review or whatever the case is, I really don’t have anything but the opportunity to listen to it. But most of the things I’ll buy if it’s something I really like that I’m reviewing or whatever, I’ll go look for it eventually.
Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, we we’re all guilty of it. We’re all guilty of streaming and whatever. And you know what I’ll do – if there’s a band that I really like and I want to own something of theirs, if I can, I’ll buy it at a gig, because then that is the sort of purest way of getting it from, showing your appreciation for it. If you can just pay them for it at a gig. That feels like the to me, that feels like the right thing to do. It might be a bit more expensive than getting it off Amazon or getting it delivered or whatever. But, that’s sort of not the point at that stage.
Are you a completist when it comes to collecting bands?
No, not at all. (Ha!) There are there is there are so many bands. If you if you get a really good ‘greatest hits’, you can learn a lot about so many bands, that with the best of intentions, you always mean to go back and revisit properly. But no, I mean, with certain with Lizzy, The Sweet, they’re probably the only the only two bands that I know I definitely have everything they’ve ever done. And if more stuff were to become unearthed, I would go and seek it out. But no, they’re probably the only two that I know I’ve got everything of. I do love that, I love being so into a band that you really have every corner covered. And you really feel like you understand them. But it’s also nice finding a band and finding an album that you haven’t heard before or there is a different side of them that you haven’t expected. And then when you come across that, that’s still a nice little happy accident, isn’t it!?
I’m almost afraid to discover new ‘70s bands now, because if I go back, I’m thinking I got 20 more albums to go find.
But the flip side of that is that if you discover a new band, and it becomes your favorite band, you haven’t got to wait for them to bring out the new album to go and listen to it. You can just go back and get them all in bulk. And you’ve got their entire discography at your fingertips. So brilliant.
Do you have any favorites from Black Star Riders catalog?
I really love pretty much all of the first album, because when I was 24, 25, I, I bought that and had it on CD player in my car. The Another State of Grace album as well. I think that was the first one with Christian on it. That’s got some fantastic songs.
“Tonight the Moonlight”, I’ve always loved. It was the first single. But “Bound For Glory”, when that came out, it was just such a such a big…it felt to me – as a massive Thin Lizzy fan, but as a young fan… Phil Lynott died three years before I was born so, I’ve seen Thin Lizzy, Ricky with Lizzy and I’ve seen the John Sykes fronted version of Lizzy. But, I’ve never heard new music from it. I’ve never been able to get excited about new music from Lizzy before. And hearing that first BSR album, and “Bound For Glory” got quite a lot of radio play over here, it was just felt so special. It felt like I was able to take part in enjoying this, you know, the legacy of Thin Lizzy. I was able to actually enjoy being part of that as a fan.
Like a new chapter!?
Yeah. And it being a new chapter that was there for me. Do you know what I mean? As a listener, I wasn’t just listening to my dad’s records, records that came out 15 years before I was born. This is new music, it’s current and is for me. And that just felt so exciting. And yeah, “Bound For Glory” is always a favorite to play.
Well, I’m looking forward to more. The last one was good. The one song that stands out for me sounds strange is the version of “Crazy Horses”.
Oh, It’s great, isn’t it!?
I just heard that song a few years before and I thought what an odd song for that band (The Osmonds). That was a great cover. The Dictators did a cover the same year. There’s a few others.
It’s an absolutely fantastic song. I mean, even the Osmond’s version rocks! It really rocks. It sounds great. It’s an energetic record. Big overdriven guitars all over it. And the mad sound effects all over it. That’s great. t’s such a such a fun song. We do that live. That’s been in the set ever since I joined. I love it. The room when it when it first starts is normally split. Half the room is like ‘Oh, cool Crazy Horses. That’s great. I love that song.’ And the other half of the room is like ‘Crazy Horses? The Osmond’s? I thought I was here to see a rock and roll band!?’ And then hopefully, they have been converted by the time we get through this. Because yeah, absolutely love it, love playing that. I would love if, as and when time allows for new material, I would love to be able to ‘officially’ be a part of the BSR journey.
I don’t think there’s a Blackstar Riders live album yet.
No. I need to get my elbows in a few ribs about that maybe.
Now, when you talked about album covers, kind of picking up albums. That’s kind of the way I got into Uriah Heep, I was just looking at those album covers, and one day I thought ‘I’m just gonna take this! And that was what got me started.
Which one; Which album was the first one for you?
Demons and Wizards.
Oh, great.
I think I picked up like a two or $3 version of it at flea market and went back a couple weeks later about a better version of it.
Fantastic. And that was it. You were hooked.
Yeah.If you know the history of the band, it’s confusing, because you go to that album, then you buy something from the late 70s, and it’s a different singer, different sound.
Yeah, they have three completely separate periods. There’s 70s Heep, 80s Heep, and then modern day Heep. It all sounds, you know learning some of the newer stuff that I was playing with them on the tour, I just did, listening to the newer stuff, and this this sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it sounds exactly how you would want Uriah Heep to sound in the modern day. It does. It’s got it’s got Phil’s magnificent Hammond playing, obviously Mick, Mick’s guitar work is brilliant, Davey and Russ. Bernie’s a fantastic singer. Yeah, what a band. What a fantastic band.
And still a bit progressive, right!?
Absolutely. Still progressive. And what’s great, you know a lot of bands that are still going end up kind of going down, or it feels like they’re going down like a heavier, almost more ‘metal-y’ route, whereas Heep have just remained a very melodic hard rock band, which is great. They’re still doing that thing. It still sounds like it exists in the modern world. It doesn’t sound old. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It sounds modern, but it just still sounds like them, it doesn’t sound like a betrayal of everything that’s come before.
And I think for them, the one thing about them now is that they’ve stayed current, putting out albums every few years, Deep Purple does the same. But there’s that old group of bands that just are content to put out the ‘greatest hits’ and be done with it.
Yeah. There’s a real feeling like they’re always pushing onwards, doesn’t it!?
So, I want to ask how that whole thing (tour) came about; I assume it’s through the management that you guys share(?)
Well, yeah. So, Uriah Heep’s manager, Adam Parsons, he’s also Black Star Riders manager. He’s a wonderful friend. Anyway, a few years ago, he was also managing Saxon, and he got me a gig filling in for Brian Tatler, who had replaced Paul Quinn. Brian Tatler had Diamond Head, and because Diamond Head had another gig that same day, but Saxon had a festival in Denmark. And so, I had to I had to fly in. I had plenty of time to learn the set. But he asked me if I could do that. So it was flying in, meet the band, no rehearsal and just go and do it, which was nail biting anyway. But it went really well. As long as you’re prepared enough and if you make sure that you know the songs inside out, you can do it. And that was a lot of fun. And Heep had the situation where they had the Scandinavian tour booked. This was in January, February this year. And a few days before the tour, Mick Box got very, very ill and was in hospital. He was in hospital and couldn’t stand up, let alone play guitar, let alone go to Scandinavia in January to play the guitar. So, I think this was maybe the Thursday night or the Friday night(?) I got a call from Adam, the manager, explaining this, saying ‘We’re in a real we’re in a real pickle here. Is there any chance you could do it? You fly out on Wednesday, first gigs on Thursday or fly out on Tuesday’. It was such a small amount of time. But I think, you know, the show must go on. And I’m so obviously… I was a mixture of completely honored and completely terrified to be asked. But I’ve got to say fair play to Adam and for the rest of the guys for still wanting to go ahead with that, because that’s a lot of trust that they’re putting on someone… I’ve played with Russ, the drummer before, but only a couple of songs at the Cozy Powell Memorial bash that we do every year. They didn’t they didn’t know me as a player. They didn’t know me as a person. I don’t know(!?) I feel that that is a lot of trust to put on someone. I’m very, very grateful that they did.
So, yes, a long story short – I had a few days to learn an hour and a half’s worth of the Heep back catalog and go out. I thing the first gig was the middle of the next week. I flew to Finland, met up with the guys. We didn’t have a rehearsal; we did have a sound check so we could run two or three songs. And I went through everything on the tour bus with Davey, the bass player. We just sat there with our guitars to kind of make sure I’d got the stops and starts and everything in the right places. But yeah, it was really flying by the seat of your pants.
Were you familiar with any of the catalog or much of the catalog at all or…?
To my to my shame, no. I knew as songs, but I’d never played them, but as songs I knew “Easy Livin” and “Gypsy”. But that really was the extent of it.
Heep had always been one of those bands that I’ve known that I liked them, and I’ve always enjoyed what I have heard of them, but for whatever reason, they were never a band that I had gone in and done a deep dive on. I really don’t know why, because it’s absolutely up my street – it’s heavy ‘70s, great guitar work, there’s the Hammond organ where I love anything with a Hammond organ on it. I’ve got no idea why their back catalogue hadn’t been on my radar like it should have been. So, “Gypsy” and “Easy Livin”, I knew. And that was it. And I don’t think I’ve played as much guitar as that – per day, probably since I was about 15. (LOL) I don’t think I’ve sat down with a guitar in my hand for that long.
So, they just gave you a set list and that that’s what you went with?
Yeah. Just ‘here’s the set list’. And I had a chat with Phil Lanzon, the keyboard player. I had a zoom call with him. It was the same set list that they’d done on the previous tour, when they toured Germany at the end of last year. He said, ‘I think there’s a full show that someone’s put on YouTube. Go and find that.’ Which was great for me, because not only does it kind of show what’s going on, but you’ve got all the guitar parts that Mick’s playing right there, and all the beginnings and all the endings, because they’re the things that can throw you off or can be different live to in the studio or whatever. So, it’s just like, ‘Right, here’s a definitive… This is how the set is. This is how it’s going to be.’ There you go, just learn it. I spent three days just glued to that screen. It sounds.
It was I suppose, more of like a ‘fight or flight’ thing when you get offered something like that. It’s just like, I know the end goal. There’s no margin for error, really. The end goal is on Wednesday, I’m going to be on stage with Uriah Heep for an hour and a half in front of a sold out gig in Finland. I have to know this set. I need to know every stop, every push, every solo. I just have to know it. And so, when you’ve got that as the end goal, it’s amazing what you can be capable of when you have to be.
I almost don’t want to ask but was it more terrifying knowing that Mick is the founding member and people look at him as, you know… ‘Well, he’s not there, so what are you guys doing.’ That type of thing…
Absolutely!
Because obviously there’s online commentary…
Yeah, yeah.
But if you want to see the band this is what you’re seeing, right!?
I know. But I mean, the fact that, I think I’m right in saying it’s the first time that Mick had not played a Heep gig, or they might have been.
I think there’s one in Germany in the early ‘70s where he got sick.
Yeah, but I think I think that was it. And obviously, Phil and Bernie have been in the band for 40 years. And Russ and Davey as well; everyone there has been in the band a long time. Mick, obviously founding member, and such an integral part. His guitar playing and his guitar sound is such an integral part of that band and how that band is. Weirdly, I think I think for me, because I was coming to it, when I when I started with BSR and because I was such a huge Lizzy fan, I was so aware of the weight of what these songs meant to me that that in itself was terrifying, because the notion of what you’re doing. Whereas with Heep, because they weren’t a band that had been on my radar in the same way, it was easier to kind of get on with it because I didn’t have that feeling of… I don’t know!? I suppose because I was coming to it fresh, I didn’t have time to get bogged down in worrying about that side of things. I was just like, ‘Right, I just have to learn the songs. I need to get up there and I need to do it. I need to do it as best as I can.’
When the announcement was made, I think I was as much scared about how it would be reacted to by the fans as I was about actually playing the songs as well. Because even though Heep, what Thin Lizzy represents to me, I know that the people that are going to see Heep on tour, that band means that to them. And you know that Mick is a figure in that band is as important as Scott is to me as in his role in Thin Lizzy. So that weighed on my mind quite a lot. And, you know, as usual, there’s a lot of people online before the gigs are even starting, going ‘This shouldn’t be going ahead. Mick’s a founding member. We should wait till he’s better.’ And the simple fact is that a band can’t afford to do that, really. As an absolute worst case scenario, if a tour like that has to be cancelled, then so be it. But it’s the sort of thing that could literally bankrupt a band. The amount of expense and logistics that are involved. I mean, when I got the call I think the truck with all the equipment was already on the way. It was already on it’s way, and already left the place in the UK where all the gear is held. It was already traveling to the gigs. And there’s three weeks worth of logistics and people who are relying on this tour happening, not just as fans, but like the bands, the crew, the support bands, the promoters. These people are relying on these gigs going ahead as their livelihood. You know, I totally get it. I totally get where people are coming from, where they say ‘Oh it should be postponed.’ And in an ideal world, maybe that would be something that would be nice if that could happen. But the reality, sadly, especially at the moment, the cost of touring being what it is, it simply can’t happen. Unless it’s completely unavoidable. But what amazed me was the reception, once we were there, was just fantastic, all across the board. I think people were so pleased that we’d shown up and the gig was still going ahead. And even though it wasn’t Mick, they’re still getting the songs, and they’re still getting the rest of the guys. And still, hopefully, getting a show that has the same energy, because Heep on stage have always been fantastic. When I’ve seen them over the years, even if I haven’t known the material as well, I’ve always enjoyed seeing them. So, if you can give a performance that is in keeping with what the fans are wanting or what the fans would expect. And I hope that we were still able to do that. Everyone seemed to come away having had a great time, which is such a relief.
I gathered from the clips I’ve seen that the fans were really receptive. Did you keep any souvenirs from the tour?
Souvenirs!? Not that I can tell you about. (Lol). I always keep a setlist that has come from the stage. I’ve the Saxon one, and I’ve got the Wayward Sons’ one from the Download Festival. I’ve got those framed, just as little artifacts. So, I always keep one of those. And there’s some lovely gifts that we got along the way, which is fantastic. Someone had sent me over the tour poster for the whole thing, Someone made some jewellery for the band and included me in that. Everyone was so lovely, and so receptive to it. I think it’s such a fine line when you’re dep’ing with something like that. I was trying to be very careful, because I didn’t want to copy Mick. I didn’t want to play his stuff note for note because that’s his. In the same way, Mick’s thing is all the stuff he does visually is fantastic to watch, but that is him, and it would’ve wrong for me to try and do any of that. So, you had to tread a line of ‘I need to be respectful to his guitar parts’, and there are some solos and bits that need to be exact, like the guitar solos in “July Morning”. Those solos are iconic. There’s room for you to put your own spin on it, but there are certain parts that do need to be exact. So, it’s finding that space where you’re being respectful of the original but not copying it. You’ve got to enter into it with the right spirit. I think as long as the spirit is right, people can enjoy that and hopefully see what you’re trying to do.
Was there anything that, as the tour went on, that you liked playing more or stuck with you more?
Yeah! There were loads of lovely guitar moments, “July Morning” being one, that awesome solo at the end that I was lucky enough to play every night. The other one, we had “The Magician’s Birthday” in the set. When I was first listening through the set, because I just went through it song by song when I was learning the songs…there’s no point in half learning everything, so I just need to learn each song one by one. And I got about two-thirds of the way through the set, and I’m ‘OK, we’re getting there.’ This was maybe Sunday evening, flights on Tuesday, OK “Magician’s Birthday” – what’s this? Ten Minutes long, ‘Oh, OK, let’s have a listen!’ And half of it is a guitar solo (Lol), this guitar solo that’s only accompanied by drums! That was the closest thing I came to picking up the phone and calling Adam, saying ‘I can’t do this!’ (Lol), or ‘Can we find another song?’ But, I stuck with it, obviously. And the first few gigs, I was enjoying myself on stage a lot, even from Day 1, I was enjoying it. But you see “The Magician’s Birthday” on the setlist coming closer and closer, and there’s this feeling of – not dread by any means, but worry, real worry seeing this coming up. But after a few gigs, once that sort of starts bedding in you go ‘OK, I can enjoy this now. Have fun with this.’ Because it’s basically just five or 6 minutes of just you in the middle of the stage, with a spotlight on you, with Russ playing the drums, just playing the guitar. And you’ve got 1500 people who’ve got no choice but to listen to you. (Lol) This captive audience, trapped. In many ways, it’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. (Lol)
Have you had a chance to go back and check out more of the (Heep) catalogue?
I have. I’ve been starting at the beginning. I did have a copy of Very Eavy, Very Umble, so I’ve been going through. I have to be honest, when I got off the tour I did need some time away from Heep, because it felt like it had been quite an intense awakening to a band. But now, Ok, I really want to get in to this, because it’s so great.’ So, that’s where I’m at, I’m starting at the beginning and working my way through.
Well, it’s a long way to go!
I know.
What else do you have on the go?
Well, I’m on tour this coming month with The Dead Collective, which is Ollie Brown, who is a fantastic guitar player, and Wayne Proctor. So, the 3 of us have this band. We’re out over the UK, and we’ve got some new music coming out, which is lots of fun, very different, a lot darker, maybe a bit heavier. I really love that. And then more Black Star Riders stuff coming up at the end of the year. Keeping nice and busy; I just love being out and playing. It’s wonderful.
Do you get out to a lot of shows yourself?
I do. Where I am in Huddersfield, we don’t have a large venue, but we’ve got a very good venue, maybe 400 capacity, but a lot of bands come through; a lot of bands you see warming up or doing intimate gigs there. So, I’m lucky. And I do have Leeds and Manchester either side of me, which are big cities. So yes, I am still able to get out to a lot. The tricky part can be if I’m out gigging that does take up a lot of your time that I could be out seeing gigs.
Back in the ’70s, bass player PETER WRIGHT played in a few bands from Wolverhampton. His early bands may not have taken off, but when Glenn Hughes left local favorites TRAPEZE to join DEEP PURPLE, a bass player was needed, and Peter auditioned for and joined TRAPEZE for nearly a decade, and played on the band’s next 3 studio albums. Now retired from music, Peter lives in Texas, but looks back fondly on his Trapeze days and recordings. Enjoy!
Did you have any recording bands before joining Trapeze?
OK, so here’s what happened. Like any good British kid, when the Beatles came out, we wanted to get a band together and one thing led to another and I turned professional. The first band I was in professional was called ASHLEY. And we we recorded, but we didn’t make albums;i t was all canned. And we had a road manager called John Kirby who worked with everybody on the face of the earth, and I told John about going out in the van. We had one van, and he had the van stolen from outside Wolverhampton Civic Hall. And the only thing not in the van was my 62 Fender Jazz Bass, which, I’ve still got to this day.
Anyway, so that was the end of Ashley. So then I was out of work and there was a guy called Johnny Neal, Johnny Neal and The Starliners, and they won Opportunity Knocks. You probably wouldn’t know what that is; It’s like a star search type thing. So John was the main guy and we were the Starliners, and that was great. I was really happy. We’d do like a week in Newcastle, a week in Scotland and Southport and that kind of thing. And I was always friends with the guys from Trapeze. I went up to pick up Terry, who was a sound engineer, and they were auditioning bass players. So Mel says “Are you still playing?” I go, “Yeah”. He says, “Well, bring your guitar up”. So I went up to JB’s in Dudley with my guitar and it was just Mel and Dave, and they were playing and I’d seen them auditioning other bass players. So I played and Tony Perry, who’s a dear friend of mine, he was the manager, Tony Perry, still is the main guy. And they went and had a meeting and I’m sitting there, waiting and Tony and them came out of the meeting and they said, “Pack your bags, you’re in!”
So that meant joining Trapeze, and coming to the States and making albums and everything. And it went great. But then unfortunately what happened was they got involved with Justin Hayward from the Moody Blues. They’d recorded, I think the first album John Lodge produced. Anyway, so everything’s going well. And then they were going to get involved with John Lodge and Justin doing Blue Jays. So originally Trapeze were going to play before them, then the Blue Jays would play. Well, they decided it was too much, so they had a meeting with Tony, me and Kendrick and that was the end of Trapeze for a while.
Then I came over to the States; I got married to an American girl and I’m living in San Antonio and I wasn’t working. She was based in San Antonio. She was a flight attendant and I got a call from Dave saying that Justin was going to be doing a tour and I needed a bass player. So I flew over and we started rehearsing at either Pinewood or Shepperton Studios and rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. It was great fun. And then that tour never came together. Meanwhile, we put Trapeze back together, just me, Mel and Dave, and that lasted a while and then that’s when Pete Goalby came to see us and then Pete joined. Pete was with us to the bitter end, and we came over to the States, and the last gig we did was in New York City and trying to get a record deal and no record deal so I came back down to Dallas and everybody went their own separate ways and that was the end.
I want to go back. When you joined Trapeze, was Rob Kendrick already there?
No, Rob came in after me. But I’d been with Rob Kendrick in another band. So there was the three of us and I thought it’d be good to have Mel, to have Rob in the band to make the guitar playing a little easier for Mel. But Mel didn’t really like, well he didn’t like Kendrick at all. Mel was a great guy, great guitarist but a little bit finicky. It was all Mel’s band. We had some good times but we were really just a backing band really.
Rob was there and neither of you were doing all the vocals at that point?
Mel was doing all the vocals. Rob didn’t do any vocals. I didn’t do any vocals. It was all Mel.
It’s interesting because in the vocals he has that same sort of style as Glenn.
He does. He used to lose his voice a lot. Mel and Dave, they knew each other from years and years ago in a band called Finders Keepers. They went way back. Mel was a legend and terrible what happened to him; him dying and then Dave Holland dying.
Do you recall Peter’s band Fable? Were they around you guys?
Yeah, Fable. It was Wolverhampton and the agency was called Astra and Pete was with Fable. I saw Fable many times. We all used to congregate. It was called Club Lafayette and Astra, the agency, their office was right above Club Lafayette.
I see on Facebook there’s groups to the Wolverhampton scene from back then. You recorded the first album, the green one. (I hold up Hot Wire) This has got to be one of my favorite album covers. The Sundae. I think that’s great. Mel was writing all the songs pretty much?
Mel and Tom. Mel wrote all the songs. Tom helped out a little bit. You can see all the credits on the album. That is a great album cover – Hot Wire. It actually got in the charts.
I know everybody talks about Glenn being Trapeze in the early days but for me this one and Hold On are the best Trapeze albums.What did you think of this album? Do you have any favorite songs off Hot Wire?
I liked all ofHot Wire. “Midnight Flyer”, of course. That was always a good one. Then we got some live stuff we did. All in all it was great. So lucky to do all that. And come to the States – I still remember to this day the first time we came over to the States, flying over New York and looking down and going “holy fucking shit”. And the first place we played at was Oklahoma City. with Leon Russell and the Beach Boys in a baseball stadium in ’74. And then we flew down to Dallas and the old Texas stadium, which is no longer there, and Crosby Sills and Nash were playing and we were introduced to them. And it went on from there. Kendo lives in San Antonio. He was doing a Trapeze cover band for a while. I’m not sure how that went. But he doesn’t talk to anybody. We don’t talk to him. I’m still good friends with Tony, and Tony Perry’s daughter Susie. She does a great job. She was doing the F1, the motor racing. Now she does the MotoGP. So Susie’s a big star. She’s great. And then Susie bought a house in Wolverhampton right by Tony the dad. Tony’s got to be like 80, 81…something like that now.
I’m amazed. I know Trapeze, and there’s a number of Canadian bands like Moxy, Triumph and a few others, they had such a huge following in Texas, but then we’re much lesser known outside of that.
That’s exactly right.
There’s a Canadian band named Moxy that came out in the mid 70s and they were huge down there. And they still get invited to play down there once in a while.
Well, if you look on Spotify for Trapeze Hot Wire, the viewing figures are stunning. Lots of viewing.
Anyway, it’s great talking to Pete. What a nice guy, Pete Goalby. Me and him together, we’d be in the back of the car laughing and I was saying to Pete the other day that when we had the radio back in the day and if there was a good song that we liked, Mel had instantly changed channels, and me and Goalby used to have a good laugh. We used to play golf together, me and Pete.
I was telling him only the other day “do you remember Myra?” And he said, Yeah. Myra was my ex-wife; she’s the flight attendant. And I said, “Do you remember Myra coming over?” We went to their flat, me and Myra. I don’t know if we’d been smoking pot, but Myra decided to trim, prune this little kind of ornamental tree that they’d got. And by the time Myra had finished, there was nothing left of the tree. And I said, that’s what Pete and Mel did. He says, “Well, it grew back and we tried to smoke whatever it was, but it didn’t work out”. But Myra was smoking pot and then she decided she was going to trim the bush in Pete’s flat and there was nothing left of it. But then it did grow back.
Yeah, he had some stories about golfing with Glenn and that.
Yeah, Glenn didn’t play. I think we had one tournament when Glenn played. But we had a soccer team, the Shelby’s 11, and we played the Birmingham lot, Roy Wood and all them. You know, it was interesting times. But now I’m a big soccer fan and I’m a big F1, Formula 1 fan. And that comes from Austin in October. And it’s nothing to do with the group. So a guy comes in, I work at a restaurant, I’ve been at Cafe Pacific, it’s a seafood restaurant. I’ve been there like 42 years. This guy comes in just before the F1 race in Austin. And I’m talking to him and he says,” I can get you tickets for the Formula 1″. I said, “Sure you can”.
Anyway, so this guy comes up and he’s a home builder, must be, a millionaire. He’s got a mansion in Dallas and a mansion in Austin. So, you know, he’s going to get me tickets. So I get a text from him “Be at my house in Austin, 10 o’clock on Sunday morning”, the race on the Sunday afternoon. I took Annie, that’s a girl who works with us, she’s gorgeous. So me and Annie went down to this guy’s house – there’s 34 people there, two party black party limos with a police escort to the track. I need to tell you. I mean, that was great. We didn’t pay for anything. We didn’t have seats, we had a box, and we sat there, watched the race, went back to his house and then drove back to Dallas. And I’ll tell you something about it, just another day, saw him and I said, “We did this, we did that… ” And the guy says, “Oh, well, we normally use a helicopter”. And I said to him, “You’re not getting me in a helicopter.” At least if we’re in a plane, we may glide, you know. Helicopters don’t glide. So no helicopters for me.
Anyway. I’ve still got my Fender Jazz, and that’s the only thing I’ve got.
Do you still play at all?
No. I pick it up occasionally. But, people say “come and play”. I don’t want to go play in a garage band. I’m quite content, I’m 75.
How old are you? I’m 75. 56. No, you’re just a kid.
I was born in 50. 75. Jesus… I’m happy to still be going. I saw Lady Gaga about a week ago. I’m sure that’s not your cup of tea. But she was sensational. Sensational. Amazing show!
I want to talk about, touch on some of these other albums. The second one was a little bit a little bit more almost rockier, a little more mainstream; a little less funk, I think.
Yeah.
But then you had Glenn on a few songs as well.
Yeah, Glenn, w I think he did sing on a couple. He may have played bass as well.
What do you recall of this album? And then they did a little bit of a reunion with Glenn for a bit?
Yeah, they did. And Tony had a lot of trouble with Glenn. It was difficult, very difficult, and right through the tour, they thought about calling me back in. But it was already promoted that it was Glenn Hughes, otherwise I would have gone back in, but Glenn was very, very difficult.
But Glenn’s great now; I don’t know if you’ve seen what he looks like recently, he’s very thin, and always doing stuff. He got straight, he got off the coke earlier, and as we all do, I mean, I’m totally sober, I don’t even, don’t even drink, but I’m drinking at the moment a non-alcoholic Corona. Cheers.
Was there anything on this album that you particularly liked, or anything that…
Let me have a look…I’ll go get my, I’ve got my album on the wall.
You guys did that cover of “Sunny Side of the Street”, that was an odd choice.
That wasn’t us, that was Mel. I like “Starbreaker”, “It’s Alright”, was that the one that to Glenn sang on(?) “Gimme Good Love”, I think that was, that might have been done live, and then we did “Monkey”, “I Need You”, Soul Stealer”, “Nothin’ for Nothing”….
There’s a few ballads on there too. Did this one get much promotion?
It did, but I don’t think Warner Brothers were too impressed with it. In fact, I think we had to remix it… And that “Monkey” thing, that was a funny one.
Photo- Carl Dunn
So, you guys must have had a break after the whole thing with Glenn, and then this thing came out in Germany. (I hold up the German Running LP)
Yeah, I’m not sure that was all about, but yeah.
It’s the same album as Hold On, only different running order. That came out a good, probably a good almost a year, maybe six months before the other one (?)
I think so. Yeah.
That’s a great album. You guys worked with Jimmy Miller, do you remember much about him?
Yeah (lol). He was a bit of a character. Jimmy Miller, he was cool. He came on a few gigs with us. And then that live one, “Dead Armadillo“, the one that’s in Texas. That was interesting too. When Goalby was with the band, we played at the Armadillo, and there was like some strings on the first thing, it was recorded somehow, and then the drums came in, me and Mel would jump on the drum riser. We jumped on the drum riser, and Mel kicked the drum riser, and fell into the drums! And he (Mel) was always, something was always coming down Mel’s nose, he was like, from coke or doing whatever. And he comes over to me and he says, “Good job me nose was numb”. Oh Mel, what a character.
Was the six songs, was that pretty much all you guys played on that tour, that show?
Yeah, we hadn’t really got many songs, and of course “Medusa”, and one of the others was like 10, 15 minutes, so yeah.
And when we played at the Cotton Bowl with the Stones, I think we only played like, maybe for 45 minutes, and I think we only played four or five songs. But we always did “Medusa”, that was a good song,
You had got in Steve Bray by that point.
Steve, yeah. Dave was gone, and Steve knew all the Trapeze stuff because he’d come around to gigs. So, Steve was a good drummer and a real nice guy.
And then having Goalby in the band, and one of Goalby’s buddies was a sound engineer. So, it worked out pretty good overall, I mean.,Trapeze, the three-piece, Glenn often says, and I was talking to Susie about it, Glenn says he wished he’d stayed with Trapeze, and Susie says “Glenn says a lot”. lol
I find that hard to believe, because I don’t know if he would have had the international success he would have had with Deep Purple, correct!?
That’s right. And of course they played the California Jam, with Ritchie Blackmore. There’s no doubt about it, Glenn is brilliant — voice-wise, playing-wise, everything.
I saw him in 2018 over in Buffalo, and his energy was just unbelievable. He played for an hour and a half, and he could easily play for another hour and a half, I think.
Well, he cancelled his gigs this year for resting, he wants to rest. Well, when he used to come down to Dallas, when he wasn’t playing, he’d come down here for a, you know, a refresher on the drugs. I used to have to go find them for him. And we had a couple of hookers the one night, and me and him finished up talking and the hookers fucked off. Typical.
What’s your take on these two things? (I hold up Trapeze The Lost Tapes LPs)
Oh, interesting. I listen to them, and there’s some subtle changes. It’s good to hear them. Not a great difference, but still good.
I get the impression that some of these tracks weren’t exactly Trapeze tracks, or weren’t intended to be. Maybe they were Phenomenon tracks or something!?
Yeah, I think you’re right. I haven’t listened to them for a while, but I don’t know where I got my copies from. If Tom sent them to me, but I’ve got copies of them and everything.
What do you listen to? Do you just listen to a bit of everything?
Yeah, I do. The old stuff. I go to see the old bands. Well, it’s great to see Robert Plant, you know,he’s coming through. When I was at school, we knew Rob Plant. He was a local, ‘couldn’t get a gig, fucking guy for years’. So Rob Plant, and then I went to a soccer game with him. He was from Stourbridge, and I was a kid, and on a Sunday, the pub didn’t open until like 12 o’clock. And they were rehearsing upstairs in this pub. It wasn’t open, and I used to cycle up there, I was (I don’t know), maybe 16, 17,18, and listen to them, they were called ‘Black Snake Moan’. That was before he made it big, I listened to Planty. And Roy Wood was around; The Move, that was a real cool band. And The Who, I was a big Who fan, of course. They played in Dallas, and I got into the elevator, going to the promoter, up to his room, and who should be in the elevator, but John Entwistle, my hero! And I said to him “Oh, John I’m a big fan”, (or whatever I said). And he used Rotosound Bass Strings, the same as me. Well, I used them, same as him. And I said, “John I can remember when Rotosound Bass String were like $10”, or whatever they were. He looks at me and says “I don’t know mate, I’ve never paid for any!” Lol
*(If anyone can clarify photographers, please message me, thanks)
A little while back I had the privelage to talk with former GRAND FUNK RAILROAD singer, guitarist, songwriter, and American rock legend Mark Farner. I had got onto Mark’s latest album Closer To My Home when I’d featured a ‘story behind the album cover’ with album cover artist John O’Brien, in which John mentioned doing the cover for Closer To My Home. I got the album the next day, and it is exactly as I would’ve expected – a good mix of different great songs. And it is highlighted by a new version of the classic “I’m Your Captain (Closer To Home)”, re-done almost 55 years after it’s initial release in June of 1970, when it soon became a Top 30 hit in Canada and the US . If you were a Grand Funk fan, you’d want to check this album out. Mark still has a lot to say, and the man can still play and sing. But more on that another time….Enjoy the read, and check out the links at the end.
How important is it for you as a veteran rocker to produce new material as opposed to just living off of touring the hits?
Well, it’s important, but I think more importantly, to know that that part of me – the writing ability that I have, which is a God-given ability, God invested that talent in me, Kevin. I want to give him a return on his investment. I want to give more than he gave me. And it’s all about, because God is love. In my eyes, I don’t care about all this religious horse crap that’s out there. The modern day church makes me sick, to tell you the truth. So I want to give love the investment that he made in me. I want to give him that increase. And the only way I’m going to do that is by keeping in touch with the audience through the songs that I write from my heart. And people know who I am because I am who my songs say I am, brother.
I see a lot of bands from that era that are still going, but they have nothing new for 20 years. I saw your former bandmates about 15 years ago, and they just tour the hits. And there’s a lot of bands that do that, and they don’t offer anything new. If I’m going to see an old band, I want to see something new as well.
I knew there was something I liked about you right off.
Can you tell me a bit about the new album? It’s not like the ’70s where everybody’s doing two or three albums a year, you’ve got a little more time in between. How did all the new songs develop into an album, and what kind of got the ball rolling?
The new songs, the current new single, I’ve got a video for it on YouTube, “Same Game”, Mark Farner “Same Game”, and you can see the video there.
I’m curious, when you started the album to where it ended up getting released, what was the time-frame and what it started with and who you started with?
I got started on it, I had songs that I had already written. I’ve got a plethora of songs that are either just little fragments of a song, they’re ideas that I put down as I get that idea. Sometimes I don’t get the whole song, sometimes I’ll go back 15 years, 20 years and grab something that moved me back then. Now today, I’m seeing it in a new light. I’m hearing it with new ears; so I’ll finish that song. I’m compelled to do it that way. It’s inspirational for me that way. A lot of the songs that are on Closer To My Home, which is my latest, it is my baby because it’s got songs on there that are about my babies. “Tiny Fingers” is about my first son. A lot of people that have heard that song can relate because they’re parents and they have gone through some things as the evolution through television, and through movies, through the entertainment world that affects the way we live, the way we perceive life even.
It’s that evolvement and people are waking up to, wow, it wasn’t their fault. Maybe it was my fault. I let them go play that thing for hours. I let that thing be the babysitter. They’re kicking their self in the ass. But you can’t do that because that is not fruitful. You have to look at the lesson, keep it in front of you, and don’t do it again. That’s all. You don’t do that again. You let the love that you have for that child shine through. That’s what they need right now. I don’t care how old they are. They’re still our babies. I don’t care if they get as big as the side of the barn – they’re still our babies. That love connection is there in “Tiny Fingers”.
In my kids, I’ve got five sons, four are living. My youngest son died in 2018. He broke his neck in 2010, and he lived eight years and then he died. He was quadriplegic. He was on life support. We learned a lot because he had some revelations, spiritual revelations that he shared with us, and especially because his mother was in there so many hours a day, every day, that she told me things that he got in conversation with her. Just revelations, man, for a young kid, for a young guy like that. That’s helping us form new songs. That’s helping me. Whatever we’re going through, if we don’t get a hold of some forgiveness, initially forgiving ourselves for what we thought we screwed up, we can’t hold that against ourselves. We can’t hold anything against anybody because then we’re not going to get set free.
If we truly want to do what we’re here to do, what we were put in these bone suits to do, then we got to set ourselves free and set others free. That’s of this debt consciousness. But you see the whole thing, the money, and that’s what “Same Game” is talking about, the ownership of mainstream. Mainstream is sickening! The news is all lies. It’s complete lies. It’s manufactured. It’s Hollywood, man. It’s a big theater scene, and they keep writing the new lines every day. You got new lines coming in there. But it’s the same powers and principalities that rule the darkness of this world. They issue the various currencies to over 200 countries. There’s only five countries that don’t have central bank influence in this world. I think because of the sanctions that are put on those countries, they’re still under the control.
They’ve got but the songs that I assembled for this album, I was assisted by Mark Slaughter, and you know who Mark Slaughter is.
I’m curious how you got connected with him because obviously he’s remembered or known as more of a heavy metal guy from the ’80s.
Him and I were doing a Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. David Fischoff has this rock and roll fantasy camp that people come to. They pay to stay with the artist for three days in a teaching session, in a mentoring session, where if I was a counselor, I would counsel these people. I would assemble, I would pick the songs that we’re going to do because there’s going to be a battle of the bands kind of thing at the end of it. It’s really a showcase at either a house of blues or something on that level, a theater where there is a stage and you can put a dozen guitar players up there because sometimes there’s 10 people in the band. But then we were in New York City and David Fischoff came to me and he said, Howard Stern wants you to come over and do your song. “I’m Your Captain” on his show today. And it was like a spur of the moment thing. I said, well, how does he want it? Does he want me to just sing it with an acoustic guitar? He says, no, man, take the fantasy band. There was Kip Winger on bass, Sandy Gennaro from Joan Jett’s band on drums, Teddy Zigzag from Guns N’ Roses on keyboard, Mark Slaughter on second guitar. There was Bruce Kulick, who did play with the Faux Funk for a number of years, but he no longer plays with them. Anyway, we were all there in that little studio where Howard is sitting and he says, ‘Okay, take it boys’. And so we played “I’m Your Captain”. And that’s the first time I had been playing music with Mark. I had known Mark for years, number of years. I loved his conversation. I loved his character, his nature. He’s part Native American as well. So, we hit it off really good. He’s tribal. So, we’re playing and when it comes to the harmony parts, he was hitting them on and he’s two feet away from me, Kevin; he’s singing it right in my face and I’m going, ‘Damn, this is pretty good’. This guy can sing. And Kip Winger over there, man, that boy can sing and plays the parts, and it was rocking. In the green room at that session where we did Howard Stern, I was playing a little something that we ended up putting on this album. Now I’m talking about, that was probably 10 years ago, that rock fantasy camp.
But, I was playing the chords to “Darlin”’ and Slaughter came up to me and he says, ‘What is that you’re playing?’ I said, Oh, it’s a song I’m writing. it’s called “Darlin’”. He says, ‘I want to work on that with you’. And so here, years later, we end up doing that song and it was just, it’s almost like, man, it was stretched out and it was supposed to be. And because of his encouraging words, and that’s just his nature – he wants to help people. He’s a giver and I’m a giver. So, we felt like even if no one ever actually physically purchased a copy of this, if they heard, then we’re giving them something that’s truth. We’re not giving them make-believe bubblegum bullshit. We are going to give them something that’s coming from our heart. And with his help, he helped me write a couple of songs. He’s got writing credit on a couple of songs in there. But his production skills and his, kind of coaching me to, ‘Hey, cuddle up to that; and can you breathe into, take a deep breath and make it yours, own this. And I followed his instructions and working with him was great. It was good for my future because everything I learn, of course, I carry forward with me. I’ve had a lot of good comments on my album. It’s not going to be embraced by mainstream, so it’s not going to be in anybody’s church. It’s going to be in people’s hearts, and that’s the better place.
I imagine you write from a different angle than you did 50 years ago. What do you normally draw from? Is it all personal experiences or any kind of news or outside influences?
I draw on what’s happening in our rock community. I always keep in mind that we have a community. Rockers have a community. And even outside of the ‘lamestream’, I call it, influence on it, they can’t break us. They’ve displaced us some, they’ve broken off parts of our body, but they cannot take our heart. And look at the people who attend rock concerts, man, avid fans, because we still believe. And love is driving us. It’s the need to be together. It’s peace and love. It’s without the beads, without the peace sign, without all of the hippie stuff, we’re still the hippie mindset. We still have that in our minds, and that’s what we want, leading our world, man. We want to be in a world where love shines forth. And this love for money, the money is created out thin air. There’s nothing to back the money. And I don’t care what country you’re in; the currencies are issued by the same banksters. And it’s the Federal Reserve, the European Central Banks, and the Bank of England for the majority, and then there’s the Superbank. But those people, they run the governments of the world, because money has control. It has taken control. And everything’s for this money, man.
I think that being free, the rockers that still hold the love for rock and roll and are still part of this community, it’s not about the money. It’s about the love, and it’s about our solid community that’s still held together by solid songs. So that’s what drives me to write the next song, is, man, I have a community that’s waiting to hear my next song, Brother Kevin. So I’m excited about still being alive.
When you go out and play, do you include a number of the new songs, or just a couple? I ask because there’s a lot of bands I go see, they have a new album out, and they play one song from it, or they don’t play anything. I like seeing bands, if they got a new album out, play a lot from it.
Yeah. Two or three. Because I’m a new band, but I got old fans. I’ve got fans that are from back in 69, I have to play that music along with my new music. And I found a comfortable spot with it, because we polled the audience, we asked people to send in the top 10 songs they want to see in a live set. So, out of 2700 people, we put together a good set list, picking the top 10 and then adding to that. And I think we got a good set.
People have, they’ve really embraced, we put “I Can Feel Him in the Morning” in the set, which is from the Phoenix album that we recorded in Nashville, when we broke away from Terry Knight. Our first album is the Phoenix album, and “I Can Feel Him in the Morning” was written by myself and the drummer, Don Brewer from Grand Funk. And I have it in my set. I wrote the music; he wrote the words. That’s what every composition where it was a Farner Brewer song, it was always that arrangement. I never once coached him on any words, or had him change any words or suggested even, I just let what he wanted to say be what it was. So, it’s receiving a lot of adoration. People never expected to hear that song in a live set. And I think where we’re at today in the world, people really, they want to be encouraged spiritually, and not the bullshit of the modern day church. That’s just lethargic; I mean, what’s going on, in my humble opinion. But they want the real stuff. And we give them the real stuff. It’s real love. We don’t expect anything in return. We just give, man. And it’s such a great feeling to have guys in my band that are all, we’re cussing Christians, Kevin. But we love God, we love Jesus Christ. And we play our music, even from the days when I was not in line with Christ I still wrote music because when I was nine years old, and my dad died, I prayed with Billy Graham on the television set that my dad bought five days before he died. And that television set, that black and white TV, when I walked out of the dining room where my mother and all the relatives were crying and moaning and mourning, and I walked into the living room, Billy Graham was on that television set because he was doing a revival in Flint, Michigan, at Atwood Stadium, downtown Flint. And that was being televised. So, when I walked in there, I hear Billy Graham say, ‘Are you hurting?’ Because I’m crying. I just came out of a room full of my relatives that are crying. I’m crying. I had to get the hell out of there. I mean, it was just tearing me up to watch my mother. And when I walked in and Billy Graham says, ‘Are you hurting?’ I look over. He says, ‘Do you need a touch from God?’ I’m going, can he see me? This is my first experience with a television set. We didn’t, I mean, we never had one. We always listened to a big radio, wooden radio.
And the TV was going on in our imaginations, all of, from Flash Gordon and Lone Ranger and, you know, all of this stuff that we listened to back in the radio shows. But now here’s a TV and this guy is saying, are you hurting? Do you need a touch from God? And I said, I just looked at him. I said, Yes. He said, ‘Come over here and put your hand on a TV’. And I walked over, I put my hand on that TV and I prayed with him and I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Verbally, I didn’t know what I was doing, mentally nine years old, but that was my commitment and my first taste outside of going to church with my great-grandmother who went to Free Methodist Church. And it was a church that functioned under a 501c3 tax exemption and they passed the plate and they took up a collection. I’m not into that. I am so against somebody passing a plate in front of me. It’s against what the Bible says about it. If somebody is compelling you to give, don’t give, period. If they’re compelling you, don’t give. You got to give from a cheerful heart because God loves a cheerful giver. And the only way that’s going to happen is when you do it for your own satisfaction to give somebody something, like I gave Don Brewer when he asked me if he could take 100% writing credit on “We’re an American Band”, the song. He asked after we were done recording at Criteria in Miami, Florida, we were recording. Rundgren wanted to record at sea level. He wanted to record our vocals at sea level. So, we took the tracks that we did in Michigan to Florida. He ran the tracks and we sang. And then when we did “American Band”, Brewer came to me and he says, ‘Farner, I’ve never had 100% right credit on any song. Do you mind if I take it on this song?’ I said, ‘No, go ahead’. It made me happy, to give him that song. And I won’t let any other scenario enter in. People have said to me over the years, ‘Man, you really screwed up’. But it doesn’t matter. The thing is, when I gave, it made me happy. And my happiness at that point came from God. And God is love. And that love that touches your heart when you do something for the right reason, when you give something out of the right heart, you don’t trace it. You don’t put a trail on it. You don’t follow them to see what they do with the gift you gave. You gave it. There is your satisfaction. Stay with that. So that’s what I have avoided all of the hateful stuff that people have said to me over the years. It gives me an opportunity to share, like I just did with you, how I gave it and how I am able to abstain from trying to retaliate against anything that has been done to me. I have to forgive with the same measure that I expect to be forgiven with.
It’s interesting because if I listen to the early Grand Funk stuff, there’s not, before you moved into specifically writing about that stuff when you went solo, there’s still a lot of spiritual messages and, things like that amongst the songs, like “I’m Your Captain”, for example, obviously, it’s not just about somebody sailing a ship. There’s more to it, right?
Right on, brother. Yes, sir.
So, how much connected were you with things aside from just the rock and roll lifestyle and…
Well, I was farming. I always wanted a farm, since I worked on my Uncle Jack’s farm in Marlette, Michigan. He was a dairy farmer, and every summer I’d go out and spend a few weeks on the farm with Uncle Jack and Marlene and Darlene, who were his twin daughters. Marlene was six, three, I think, and Darlene was six, one. They were strapping farm girls, and they could whip any man’s ass in the county. I’m telling you. But they made me feel very welcome to be there with them, and eating Aunt Verna’s homemade bread, and that homemade butter, home churned butter, and eating all this good food, and having the life… I’d drive the cattle down the road to the next pasture, to move them around. It was something that…It made me blossom, in my mind, as a young man. So the first thing I wanted to do when I started making money was to buy a farm. And I did! I bought 110 acres on one side of the road, and eventually 80 acres across the road from me, so I was hemmed in there pretty good. I had a place that I could call my own. And we farmed it. The guys that worked on the road with me, actually. The head roadie, John White, and we called him Ralph, I have no idea why we called him Ralph (lol). But Ralph, his dad was a dairy farmer, and Bobby Talbot, another worker from the road – another farmhand. And we loved being around each other, loved taking care of the animals. I had international grand champion horses; I had a few head of cattle. We were selling grain. And I would lease ground down there, where I was living, and sell grain. So, that was my lifestyle, and it really bled in to my songs, Kevin. Even on my solo stuff, when I did my Atlantic Records albums in 77, 78, there’s a song called “Easy Breezes” (sings) “Oh I recall a while back when I was younger …”, I’m talking about Uncle Jack’s farm. So, that helped influence all my music, being able to be relaxed enough. And I would be driving around the fields, like if I was running the mower, the engine is at either G-sharp or B-flat, or whatever, but it’s running at a tone, and I would start humming to that tone, start singing to that tone, harmonizing to that tone, and I would write songs going around in circles, on that tractor. So, I think that really helped me the most, being in a place where I could still think about everything I love, keep my mind on love, and even despite of my first divorce I went through I’ve kept my mind on love. And thankfully so, because I’ve seen so many people that have been married and divorced. And younger people that get married and they don’t even make a year – and they’re divorced. It’s like ‘are you kidding?’ What happened to love!? I’ve been married 48 years to my wife, so I know what love is, and it’s defined with one word – Forgiveness.
When we talk about the album covers and that, how much input did you guys have into that sort of stuff?
I didn’t have any input. All I did was okay them and say ‘Yeah that’ll look good’. Lynn Goldsmith did all of the 70s from beyond Terry Knight – from Phoenix on up to the last one, Born To Die. Yeah Glenn Goldsmith did all of them.
Now in that height of the early 70s What were some of the, other than obviously the Shea Stadium show, but some of the major shows you guys did and some of the bands you shared bills…
Yeah, as it worked out the band was headlining. I mean we headlined, so we had opening acts – like Jethro Tull was an opening act for us. Bloodrock was the opening act for us; Freddie King was an opening act for us. Only until we would play like a festival where there was a bunch of different acts would there be an opportunity to hang with somebody or to meet somebody. I think Janice and I, our relationship, we were friends we were not boyfriend-girlfriend friends, but we had a very tight relationship; we loved each other as friends. We hung out together as friends, and we shared the same mindset about the business. She was definitely what you’ see is what you get’. And what I loved about her – there was nothing ‘put on’ about he. We both felt the same about when they termed they came up with this thing called the ‘British Invasion’ ; we would laugh about it. She would say to me ‘Mark when you went and played Hyde Park when you when you guys played 65,000 people at Hyde Park. Did you sing in the King’s English?’ I said ‘No, I didn’t sing in the King’s English’. I said, ‘And none of those English bands sing in the King’s English’. They sing in the free people’s English, which is American English, you know all the rock and roll. I don’t care where – if they come from Australia, if they come from England or wherever they come from if they’re singing rock and roll they’re singing in American rock and roll English. It has to be American English in order to express because there’s no other people that are free, at least in our minds. Now we are realizing the captures took the place back over two days before Christmas in 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act. We gave ourself right back to the same powers. We declared ourself independent in 1776. But people want to be free; people need, we need to be free. We don’t want these people who are elevated high-minded people in their own They want to rule the world. In itself, just that thought is complete insanity, that would be defined as insanity. The Ruling class!? Well, how are they ruling? ‘Well, they’ve got more money than we do!’. So what! I didn’t vote for them. Are they smarter than you? Can they farm better than you? Can they raise better food? Do you know what’s good? Here we are living in the… I liken it to that movie where the ship goes down – The Titanic, and they’re playing cello and violins on the upper deck, but below the deck they’re playing music, they’re dancing. They’re having a good time; they’ve got the guitars, banjos, they’re dancing, they’re having a great time… That’s kinda how I view the world. Those people that are pulling this wool over everybody’s eyes, they are that phony upper-deck class! As phony as phony can possibly be. And then there’s the rest of us, the rockers in the lower deck music That’s our music that belongs to us So that’s our truth and the people that we love, that have been singing to us for years have been talking to us have been giving us good messages for years. I’, talking about the 60s and 70s Rock and Roll has stayed in there and It’s the desire of the will of the people to keep it alive because we don’t want love to die. If we gave ourselves to this notion of a one-world government then where’s the love in that? There will be no chance for love. So, we got a kick against it with all we’re worth um In that time.
In that early period when you guys were so big in America, Three Dog Night was big, Steppenwolf, a few other bands, and for a lot of you guys that success didn’t really transpire so much to the UK in that you had bands that were huge over here, but so much over there and then you had vice versa… know what I mean?
I think because of the ownership of the media in this country. It started it was wide open in ‘96 when Clinton deregulated the FCC, but they had their foot in the door long before 1996 They were taken over bit by bit by bit and that’s why there’s so much pedophilia in Hollywood. That’s the nature of those folks and why there’s so much, scuttlebutt on the release of the Epstein files and what all has been redacted in the files and all. It’s just the game. And the reason that the you know they are not released Is because there’s a lot of damning evidence on a lot of world leaders. So here we are today. I look back and we had 65,000 people, it was a free concert in the first place, but there was 65,000 people, enough people in 1971 Interested in Grand Funk Railroad to come and see us. And Humble Pie opened that show for us They opened a show for us at Shea Stadium. We brought them to the United States because when I told Terry Knight, who was my former manager, I said ‘Dude, these guys are rockers We need to have these guys. We need to bring them to the United States Open for us there. They’re really good’. He said ‘I’ll talk to their managers’. So, they ended up coming, to be our opening act. And look at what happened to Humble Pie – I mean, Frampton, that whole thing. If I went to Europe, I am absolutely sure people would come out of the woodwork to come see me. The thing is I’m with agencies that are mainstream and I think that influence that we’re talking about -that controls what we look at on the television; they control what we see in live music They control the music business. They don’t want me rising up in the music business because what I am saying, what I’m what I’m exposing in my songs. I believe that the rock community is alive and part of it is untouched by the Bullshit that these guys who are running the show, the Financial – the funny money show. Because you know, it seems like money makes people funny. They got enough money. That they go crazy with this want to rule everything, want to control us And we just want to be left alone so we can rock and we can encourage one another to live life joyfully and friendly. That’s how it was back in the 60s and 70s, that whole Hippie culture and the love. And that’s still alive in the music, in my music it is. Some of the newer people that have the younger bands, they don’t know what that is They know what they liked when they listen to the 70s music. I’ve talked to some younger bands, they go ‘Man you guys great. You were tearing it up!’ They don’t realize what’s happening, and I think when they do get a grip on it there’s some bands that are getting it. My son sent me some songs, and I don’t even know the name of the bands, but he sent me some songs and what they’re talking about with what’s going on in the world now. And I’m going ‘Alright man! Come on kids, pull up them straps, pull up them boots. Let’s wade through this shit and get on with life!’
I want to ask up when you guys added Craig Frost on keyboards What was kind of the catalytic for that as far as adding him and then kind of going further away from that kind of, more earthy sound of those first few albums with The three-piece?
I think the reason, and it was two against one. Don and Mel wanted to add a keyboard player, and I said ‘What is wrong with the 3-piece? We’re doing good out here; look at how many shows we’ve sold out!? It’s because, in my humble opinion Don Brewer wanted to write more songs and I only gave him just a few songs that I had written the music to And in every case where it was a co-write between Brewer and myself. I wrote the music, and he wrote the lyrics Well, he was wanting to get more songs, because the more songs on an album the more money you get as a writer That was his motivation. And I believe that’s why Inevitably, that’s why Craig was added. Even though I love Craig, even to this day we’re brothers man. I love the guy, he loves me. We’re seriously serious true friends. And when he came on, he was a great keyboard player. He started as a drummer He stood up and played the drums he I said, ‘Why do you stand up and play the drums? He said ‘Because I want people to see me; how they going to see me sitting back behind that kit!? I said, ‘That’s a good idea man, that’s a that’s a really good answer So that’s part of his, and every musician that’s a professional musician out there, it is their dream and their fulfillment of all their childhood dreams to stand up and be on a stage where people recognize them; be up in front of people where they are adored by people and they’re loved by people. There’s a lot of envy too, but I think you know when I was a football player I loved to hear my name called on the loudspeaker ‘That was Farner number 66 in on the tackle’. I’d be prancing across that field brother Kevin. And that’s part of what being on stage is about, it’s that attention and what that does for you as a person. I looked at the Beatles. I looked up to the Beatles, watch the Beatles as they climbed in popularity, and then I heard the music and I heard, you know, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club”. It was a change in the lyrics and the topics that they were singing about I said to myself at that time, before I was a professional musician I said ‘Boy, with these songs that I’m writing now I have to be careful with it. I don’t want to lead people astray. Because I’m looking at the Beatles. I’m seeing the influence the Beatles had on the world and although I love the Beatles music, some of the stuff that they got into and I think it was Lennon who said that they were ‘bigger than God’ or ‘more popular than God’. And I said ‘Woah, what kind of ego bullshit is that?’ That comes from the pits, that don’t come from the heart. Anyways, the people that opened for Grand Funk went on to have their own stardom, have their own fame, have their own albums and what have you. It was great to get to know those people, but that was the only ones that we really got to know… outside of Jimi Hendrix. I had a relationship with Jimi, we were friends. We talked, we didn’t talk music when we got together, we talked about country stuff, you know fishing, and just life. We were we were good friends He wanted me to sing on his next album. He told so. And the same with Zappa. Frank Zappa said ‘Man, I want you to sing on my next album’. I said ‘I’d be happy to sing with you Frank. You’re a good person and I would love to sing on your stuff’. He sent me a demo of a song – “Bamboozled By Love”, that he wanted me to sing.(haha). But as far as some of the other bands that we toured with It was kind of people were kind of to themselves. I remember we played in upstate New York, Capitol Theater up there. We were on just before The Kinks. I really enjoyed the song “You Really Got Me”. And I think there wasn’t any rocker alive that didn’t like that song man, that was a great song. It’s like Algo Nova “Fantasy”.
Oh, he’s great!
That song rocks! So anyways, we get offstage, I’m sweating like a pig, and The Kinks are going on next. So, as we are passing on the stairway from the dressing rooms, the lead singer from The Kinks – Ray Davies, he reached out grabbed a hold of my sweaty body, and I’m going ‘What the Hell are you doing man!?’ He grabbed a hold of me, and I don’t know what that was about, but that didn’t feel very good at all! I’m seating my balls off and this guy leaps over and on to me, and he’s wanting…
The energy?
Whatever! He’s wanting that on him. When we played the Fillmore East we got off the stage to the dressing room, and our manager Terry Knight is leading the way and he never led the way any place, he always was bringing up the ass-end; bringing up the tail end of things But this time he was leading. He comes to my dressing room and he pushes the door open for me to go in and I look in – and there’s Hendrix standing there. I go Oh my God!’. I was so starstruck Kevin. And the only thing I could come up with to say was ‘You’re a great guitar player man!’ (lol) But we became friends and he knew that I was real. I knew that he was real. He was doing things, you know with the drugs, I could not do any of that. I played Randall’s Island with him one time where he we played, we had already did our set, I’m in the dressing room, I’m getting changed out, getting into some dry clothes, and Rabbit came over to our dressing room. Rabbit was Jimi’s right-hand man, and he says ‘Hey Jimi wants to see y’all over in his dressing room’. So, ‘Alright man, as soon as I get some dry clothes on I’ll come over’. I got dressed and walked over there, Jimi gives me a hug. ‘How you doing, brother?’ ‘It’s great, man you know a good audience man, you’re gonna tear him a new one’. I look over and Rabbit has got a hundred dollar bill rolled up and he’s handing me this hundred dollar bill, and I’m like ‘What’s that for?’ And I look down and they got these white lines and I said ‘No’. I handed him the thing back. I said ‘I can’t do that man’. I Don’t do that. I said ‘You guys knock yourself out, but I can’t do that’. But Jimi looks at me, he says ‘Brother Mark you know, I wouldn’t give you anything that would hurt you And I’m like oh my God, here’s my guitar here, and I’m 22 years old, maybe 21 (in there). I said ‘You know something, I’ve never done it before, I’m not going to do a lot, just give me a little taste, a pinhead or something. So Rabbit takes his knife out – hits the button and sticks the switchblade, the tip of it, in to one of those lines, and he says ‘Plug one nostril, I’ll hold the other, and you sniff it.’ And that’s what I did. And that was the first and last time! It felt like that stuff went through the top of my head, dude! And at that particular gig, I had already put packing blankets up on the cab of the equipment truck; it was a box truck with all of our equipment in the back. It was facing the stage and I put the packing blankets up there so I could go up there and sit and watch Jimi play. And it was stage level; I was right even with the stage at that height But those guys whipped that stuff up because the stage manager hollered ‘Hey Jimi you’re on!’ And he said ‘Okay’., …And Jimi walked out, but by the time he got to the stage and I was up on the cab of that truck Jimi was reaching for the neck of his guitar and he was missing it by a foot! Well, I’m telling you he was so messed up. He could not find that. He was looking at it. And then this kid – No shirt, No shoes and socks, just a pair of bell-bottom Jeans that he’d walked the excess length off of they were all freed out everything, long blonde hair… He gets up on the stage walks up behind Jimi, he grabs Jimi’s hand and the axe, and he makes the union and Jimi looks around at this long hair kid, a skinny kid, man I don’t know how the Hell he got up there, but he did and he put it together. Jimi looked at him like ‘Wow. Thanks, man!’ And Jimi tried to play, and I’m going to tell you – I was so embarrassed for him. He was playing something, but the guitar was out of tune, he was in the wrong key, the band was playing one tune and Jimi was playing another. He couldn’t find his ass with both hands. I’m telling you he was so messed up! And what happened was he went over and he stomped on his echo box button and tried to cover up for the fact that he was messed up, and he’s going to put everything into the echo box and it started going (Mark makes a dying engine sound). And while he’s doing that, this stuff that I snorted is getting to my mind. I got real sick to my stomach, and I fell of the truck, I passed out. And when I came to I saw all these faces looking at me going ‘Mark, are you all right?. Can you get up?’ And I was so sick, and I puked right there. Get me to the hotel! They threw me in the car, and away I went to the hotel. Like I said that was the first and last time. And I found out that what that stuff was, was cocaine and heroin – mixed. I have never done anything like that since. I guess I needed that lesson. It was the peer pressure of my guitar hero putting it on me , ‘Brother Mark, you know I wouldn’t give you anything that will hurt you…’ Well shit…. Lol
Tough lesson!
Yeah. I’m here talking to you about it today, thank you Lord!
I picked up a book, actually I contributed a bit to it – An American Band, by Billy James, many years ago Have you put down your own memoirs that you might release one day?
I’ve got people right now that are courting me on doing my own book. And I’m talking to them, because I need to put another book out before I pass. Some of the stories that I have within me would make a believer out of people. Not just in in the Lord Jesus Christ or not in the everlasting love of God, but in in miracles, in people, you know, who wondered about UFOs and such. I’ve had personal experience, so I want to – someday, do that do that book Richard Surratt, do you know who that is from Coast To Coast(?)
No, I don’t.
It’s the paranormal. Richard is a Canadian host for Coast To Coast. He’s just put out a great book I got to talk to him about some of the paranormal and he really brought it out of me and he’s had people on his program, on Coast To Coast, that people stay up all night to listen to this guy. He’s got a lot of listeners in the United States. Anyway, hopefully I’m going to get that book done.
This is an interview from September of 2000 with Amreican guitarist Stef Burns. At the time Stef was promoting his first full length solo album Swamp Tea. That album came out in 1999 (late ’98 in Japan). Like many back then, this was done via email. I’ve added in some links and songs here as well. In retrospect, some of these questions may seem a bit dorky now. At the time I was excited getting to send interview questions to someone who’d been on an Alice album (being an AC fan). Stef has released a few more solo albums since Swamp Tea (not all instrumental).
AN INTERVIEW WITH FORMER Y & T and Alice Cooper guitarist for his solo album ‘Swamp Tea’.
“Guitarist Stef Burns is best known for his time in Alice Cooper’s band in the early ’90s, as well as being in the last incarnation of Y & T. Recently Stef’s been working with Huey Lewis, and has released his first solo CD “Swamp Tea”. Swamp Tea is an instrumental album. Here I did some Questions and Stef answered, and gathered more info on his career, his time with Alice, Y&T, and his solo project. ”
Who were your earliest influences? how did you get into guitar? SB: Jazz, blues, soul records of my parents. My dad played a little guitar and I picked it up around 7 years old. Then I became more influenced by the great guitarists like, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, B.B. King, etc. Allman Bros, then later by Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, Mike Stern, Scofield, Pat Metheny, sax players, singers, drummers all were very influential.
What were your favorite albums & bands growing up? favorite guitarists in early days? SB: Hendrix – Are You Experienced, Jeff Beck – Blow By Blow, Allman Bros. – Live at Fillmore East, Montrose, Deep Purple – Machine Head, Led Zeppelin – All of them, The Beatles – All.
What was your first professional gig? SB: Touring with the R&B group – “Omega” featuring members from the Elvin Bishop Group.
How did you get involved with Y & T? SB: Being a San Francisco Bay Area musician we kind of hear about each other. They asked me to join and I accepted. Was really a good hard rocking time.
How was the 1998 “Endangered Species” album received? What has the band done over the past decade? SB: That was the last album recorded by the band. I hardly had anything to do with it other than one song as I was busy working in Italy that year (’96). I like that album though because it has a raw trio kind of feel to it. Dave plays his ass off on that one as well as “Musically Incorrect” (’94). I was more involved with “Ten” (’90) and “Yesterday and Today, Live” (’91)
You mean you only played on 1 track on the album?? SB: Yes.
Did you write & record on ‘Ten’? where & when was Live recorded? [what labels are these on?] SB: Yes, I played a lot on “10”, 4 solos. It is on Geffen. “Yesterday and Today, Live” is on Metal Blade.
Seeing as Dave M. and Jimmy D. both played on your album, are there any plans for future Y & T gigs or recordings? What are the other Y & T guys currently up to? SB: No plans as of now, but I think some day we’ll get together and do something. Don’t know exactly what though. Dave works with his band and does other projects in his studio. Jimmy is in Megadeth. Phil has a bunch of great songs I hope he releases some day.
What other recordings and name bands were you involved with prior to working with Alice Cooper? SB: Well, there was Michael Bolton, Sheila E., Pablo Cruise, Berlin, Jesse Colin Young, (we’re going back to ’82 now). There was a band I was in, in ’88 called the VU. The stuff we did then will be released in Europe next year. It’s power pop rock, I guess you would call it, and sounds really good.
A lot of “pop” stuff! Who was in VU? anyone of notoriety ? SB: Ross Valory, Prairie Prince, Kevin Chalfant and Tim Gorman.
How did you get involved with Alice Cooper? what do you recall of the auditions, etc… ? SB: I was recommended to Alice by Joe Satriani, whom I know from the Bay Area, and I sent Alice a tape, got hired to do the “Hey Stoopid” album, then to tour. Then I recorded “The Last Temptation” which I felt more involved in creating sonically.
You were not in the songwriting credits on ‘Hey Stoopid’ or ‘The Last Temptation’; why not? was songwriting a ‘closed shop’ with Alice due to his working with outside ‘pro’ writers? SB: I don’t know. I really didn’t have anything prepared that was in the Alice Cooper style.
Hey Stoopid had a lot of big names on the album, including other guitarists. What do you recall of these sessions? SB: I was only present during the Motley stuff. Oh yeah, and Slash too. He was super cool, little bit drunk, but…
Why were there almost no big name guest stars on The Last Temptation? SB: I guess that was Alice’s choice to make more of a band sound.
When did you tour with Alice ? Any stories or recollections? SB: Toured a lot with Alice from 91 to 95. Again in the end of 98. It was always fun.
How close were you to Alice? How was he to work with? Are you still in contact? SB: Alice is a breeze to work with. Very easy on stage and rehearsal. Great poker games on the bus. Haven’t talked to him in a while though we sent messages to each other through mutual friends.
What are your personal favorites [songs] from the stuff you recorded with Alice Cooper? SB: The Last Temptation.
The song? anything else ? SB: No, the record. Some of my favorite songs are, “Stolen Prayer”, “Cleansed By Fire” and “You’re My Temptation”.
What have you been doing since The Last Temptation? SB: Vasco Rossi, tons of sessions, released “Swamp Tea”, Huey Lewis etc…
What’s your involvement with Huey Lewis? [Recordings, tours, etc…] [What’s Huey been doing for the past 15 years?] SB: Right now it’s just touring. The new album to be released first of 2001 was finished before I joined. Chris Hayes plays his ass off on this CD. Some of his best playing ever, I think. Huey has always been working.
Have you done any recording with Huey? How long you been in his band? [where have you toured? where’s his market these days, cause I ain’t seen anything of him until the other day when i saw him in the promo for the “Duets” movie]. SB: Have not done any recording yet. Will play on one live track that I think will be for Europe. I have been playing with The News since March. The band’s market is spread out. We just played for 12 000 people at Pine Knob in Detroit.
How did the solo project come about? [who runs Lakeside Records? ] SB: I did it myself with the help of my friends and collaborators. Always wanted to. John Seppala and I worked a lot together to finish it. He’s amazing.
‘Swamp Tea’ is less of the Alice Cooper riff-rock stuff, and more of a almost progressive / fusion sound. Is that the style of music you are more into? How did the sound / idea come about to not be a ‘metal’ album, but a more prog style? SB: We just came up with music that we liked. Sometimes very melodic or jazzy. I never wanted to do a metal album.
What can you tell me about a few of your favorites on Swamp Tea? Any stories behind any of the tracks? any favorites? SB: Some of my favorites are Walking the Penguin, Echo Lake, Summer of ’68. These have a bit more of a soulful melody style.
How was the response to Swamp Tea in Europe and Japan? What promo plans are in the works for North America – any gigs, tracks receiving any radio attention, major mag features, etc.. ? SB: I did an Italian tour and it went well. There were features in a few of the Italian guitar mags. I think I’ll go back to Italy first of the year. My Italian band is great. Next I think I’ll get working on my next CD.
What would you compare it to? Familiar with [fond of] Steve Morse’ work? SB: I don’t compare it at all, but some of the influences that I hear are Todd Rundgren, Led Zeppelin, Toto, Deep Purple, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Mike Stern. I am familiar with Steve Morse but I am not really influenced. John’s song – “Wayfunner”, has a ‘Dregsish’ line in the verse.
How has the reaction been so far? any plans to do a follow up? SB: Good and yes.
Any ideas for the next CD ? SB: Not sure yet really.
Aside from the Italian mags, any major features, chart placings [ie internet, foreign countries, etc…] SB: Haven’t got my first statement yet, so don’t really know what I sold.
What are you listening to these days? what guitarists out there do you admire these days? SB: I still listen to the old guys. Beck, Hendrix, more Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Pat Martino, Rage Against the Machine.
( KJ: thanks Stef!) SB: You’re welcome. This is the longest interview I have ever typed in my life!
Outsider Rock 