This is an interview I posted in early 2001. At that time I’d been sent British band TEN’s latest album ‘Babylon’. It was a story based or concept album, with some spoken words between songs to tie things together. I really liked the songs on Babylon, and could’ve done without the between songs speaking, as there is a lot of very good songs here. I also ended up with the previous album ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Far Beyond The World’, released later in 2001, which would be the last album to feature founding guitarist/writer Vinny Burns. Vinny had previously been with ULTRAVOX, DARE, and ASIA. He also played with Bob Catley (MAGNUM), Gary Hughes (solo), as well as his own solo album (‘The Journey’, 1999), and later returned to DARE in 2015. Dare’s latest album was 2022’s ‘Road To Eden’.

Anyway, back to this interview. In it I did via email, and covered much of Vinny’s career up to that point – Dare, Ten, Gary Hughes solo…. He left TEN later in 2001.

(01/01) UK band TEN’s latest release is the excellent “Babylon” disc. The band remains somewhat of a mystery in North America, but in parts of Europe and especially Japan – Ten are a big band!
TEN has a string of albums released overseas, and a growing fan-base that will [Hopefully!] eventually see them get some credit in North America someday soon. The band’s catalogue is available through Frontiers Music. Ten is fronted by singer/songwriter Gary Hughes, and here I had the opportunity to swap some questions and answers with guitarist Vinny Burns. Burns is co-founder of Ten, and also worked with Dare, Ultravox, and Asia.
[Thanks to Vinny for answering my Qs, and to Mark Ashton for arranging it.]

Can you give me some of your biggest influences growing up? and perhaps a ‘top 5 list of favorite guitar players that have been influential to you as well ?
VB: UFO, Nazareth, Thin Lizzy, Rush, ELP, Foreigner, Journey, Y+T etc… As far as guitarist’s go, my main influences are Michael Schenker, Kee Marcello, David Meniketti [Y&T], Steve Lukather.

What bands / music did you grow up on ? Can you give me a ‘Top 10’ list of all-time fave albums ?
VB: I have an older brother Russell. He is five years older than me so I got into rock music that little bit earlier because of hearing his records. He was really into Nazareth, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent and UFO. That was a big influence on me. He also played guitar so as you can guess I wanted to play as well. He showed me chords and helped me out. By the time I was getting better though he got married and moved out of the house so I was on my own from there on.
My top ten albums would be (in no particular order).
1) Pink Floyd ‘Wish you were here’
2) Nazareth ‘Rampant’
3) Lynyrd Skynyrd ‘Street Survivors’
4) UFO Obsession
5) Foreigner ‘Four’
6) Toto ‘Isolation’
7) Journey ‘Frontiers’
8) Neal Schon ‘ Late Nite’
9) Y&T ‘Black Tiger’
10) Thin Lizzy ‘ Black Rose’

Prior to TEN, you were with ‘DARE’. Could you give me the Dare story in a nutshell’ ? Highlights? Biggest hits?
VB: Dare was formed by Darren Wharton and myself in 1985. We spent a couple of years getting a record deal. Signed to A&M in 87. Did the first album in 88 with Mike Shipley and Larry Klein producing. It was recorded in the UK and US. The album was called ‘Out of the Silence’ and was very well received by press and public. A tour with Jimmy Page in the UK in 88 got us used to playing to bigger crowds than we were used to and in 89 we did a four month tour with Europe. We played to about 12,000 people a night and had a great time. After that a few UK headline tours followed and also a tour with Gary Moore. We did the second album in 90/91. Darren and myself got an apartment in Los Angeles and stayed there until the album was finished. It was produced by Keith Olsen and mixed/ engineered by Shay Baby. I still like the
album now. A lot of people thought the album was to heavy but it was a good album. It was also the album that we wanted to make at the time so I have to stand by it. We went to tour the album in the UK and Germany but I got a little fed up with the band. Me and Darren had a big fight in Berlin and I left the band. We were under a lot of pressure to sell a lot of albums and we were both still quite young. Darren was fronting a band and it was a lot of pressure to handle for someone who was used to just playing keyboards. We made him stop using the remote keyboard he used to use and become the frontman of the band. Looking back it must have been a really tough thing to do for him. I cannot imagine someone taking my guitar off me and then having to go on stage. Not surprisingly Darren started to drink before the gigs and
that lead to friction between us. No big deal really but when the press get hold of stories, they want to make more out of it. Dare was 99% of the time a great band to be in. I think if we had all been a bit older we may have held it together. There are no hard feelings anymore. We were very good friends for years before we started to fight. I saw him (Darren) just before Christmas and we had a lot to drink and it was a good laugh. Just like it used to be. I grew up in Dare and have nothing but fond memories of my time in Dare. There is nothing better than starting a band from Scratch and taking it that far. It was quite an achievement. I cannot remember chart positions or anything like that but make no mistake, Dare was a very successful band. We created a massive amount of press and interest. We had all the top producers wanting to work with us and all the top labels wanting to sign us up.

What other recording acts, big gigs have you been involved in ? [Did you have an association with Asia?]
VB: The biggest gig I ever did was 55,000 people at the Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami for Hurricane Relief in 92. It was with Asia and we opened the event. The next day we played on the back of a truck on Virginia Beach to about 250 people. Talk about one extreme to the other. I played guitar for Asia on the ‘Aqua’ world tour. We started in Japan in ’92 and took in Russia, Europe, Canada and two tours of the US bringing
proceedings into 93. It was a great time for me. I had been to the US a lot to record and do video’s with Dare but never played a gig there so to play to 55,000 people for the first gig was unbelievable. {ED: the following is from manager Mark Ashton : “He didnt record any albums with them but he did do a World Tour. I know that he did all over Europe, the U.S. and even Japan with them. It was when John Payne, Geoff Downes and Trevor Thornton were in the band, and Steve Howe toured as Special Guest, playing an acoustic set before they came on and then joining them on stage for most of ASIAs set”.}
After we finished the world tour nothing seemed to be happening. I sat around for a few months then my old manager rang to say that Ultravox needed a guitarist for a festival in Germany the next week. I was doing nothing so I went to London, rehearsed, got the new singer fired on the first day because he could not sing, auditioned Sam Blue for the gig and we (Sam and myself) stayed in the band for a couple of years.

When / How did TEN come about ? What can you tell me about the other guys?
VB: Ten came about from a phone call from Mark Ashton in 1985. Mark had started a new label called Now And Then Records in the UK. His first signing was a singer song writer called Gary Hughes. Gary was doing a solo album and wanted a session guitarist to play on it. I had known Gary since about 87/88. we both used to go to the same rock club in Manchester. It was called The Banshee. He had just signed to
Polygram and Dare had just signed to A&M. There were a lot of bands who went in the club but we were the only two people who had got a deal. I knew he had a great voice. we kept in touch. I tried getting something going with Gary when I left Dare but he was busy. We wanted to get something going after that but I was in Asia and then Ultravox. Finally it was Mark Ashton who got us working together. When we started work on what was supposed to be Gary’s solo stuff, we had such a good time that talk again turned to getting something together. We thought that it would be best to just start the band there and then and
that’s what we did. We spent a long time working on the songs in the studio and we knew they were good.
We went after Mike Stone to mix it. Back then it was just the two of us in the band. The first mix had programmed drums so we decided to remix the album and use real drums. That is when we brought Greg Morgan in (second Dare drummer). After that we asked Shelly (our old Dare bass player to join. We went to do a video for ‘After The Love Is Gone’ and need two more members and through various suggestions we brought John Halliwell (2nd Guitar) and Ged Ryland (keyboards). Thus Ten was formed.

Gary Hughes is writer / singer / producer. Is Ten ‘his’ band ? What can you tell me about Gary as far as his role in Ten, his reputation as a singer in the UK [comparisons, possible influences…] ?
VB: The amount of work put into this band by myself, Gary and the other guys is unbelievable. Yes, Gary writes the songs, but he does not tell me how to play guitar and I do not tell him how to sing. The songs
just evolve into what they are. Everyone’s comments are taken in as to how an album is taking shape from record company to studio engineer. As far as reputation as a singer goes. He is the best singer in this
band :-). That is a hard question to ask anyone on the ‘inside’ of a band. Gary is well rated and respected round the world as a singer. He was good enough for me to want to work with him for a long time. What else can I say. As far as influences go (you would be better asking Gary this one), I would say John Waite, David Coverdale etc are the biggest influences.

Prior to the latest album what have been some of the biggest highlights, chartings, and tours you guys have had ?
VB: We charted higher than Metallica in Japan on ‘Spellbound’. Higher than the Spice Girls on the first album:-). We have sold over 250,000 records in Japan alone with Ten. All of them Chart round about the top ten in The Japanese National and International charts on the first week of sales. Our tours out there have always been very successful. We are just trying to get Europe to the same stage.

Ten’s market is mainly in Europe and Japan !? Have you guys been to the USA at all, or plan to ever tour over here [North America], and perhaps break it here? Do you see a growth in the North American fan-base ?
VB: To be quite honest, until we get decent distribution out there in the US we have no plans of coming over. We have a lot of US fans if going off messages left on the Ten web-sites are anything to go by but it’s hard to tell what we are selling as a lot of them can’t find the records in the shops and are buying them on the net.

What happened to keyboardist Ged Rylands ? And how did you guys get Don Airey involved ? [Is he a permanent member?]
VB: Ged left. Don’t really know why and I don’t really care. I met Don at a gig in Manchester. He was playing with The Company Of Snakes. My friend Robert Hart was singing for them so I went down mainly
to see Robert. I had met Don at a festival we did with Dare in Northern Ireland years before. We were talking and he asked what I was up to. I mentioned Ten and he said that if ever we need any keyboards doing to get in touch with him. A week later Ged left so we got in touch with Don. He is a guest member and that suits both parties. Don can work on whatever he wants and we just give him enough notice for him to keep things free for when we tour.

Was the new story based idea of ‘Babylon’ mainly Gary’s ? How did the whole ‘concept’ thing come about?
VB: Yes it was Gary’s idea. You would be better asking him about that. The concept was designed not to get in the way of the songs on the album. By that, I mean that each song can also stand independently from the album. There is no big message being forced on the listener. You can just listen to it as an album if you don’t want to be involved with the concept.

You guys must draw some comparisons to the likes of Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Foreigner … [!?] Are these fair comparisons? What sort of ‘class’ of bands do you see yourselves in ? 😉
VB: We think of ourselves only as a British rock band. Nothing else. As far as ‘class’ is concerned, this band can hold it’s own against any band. We are a very powerful and proud band live. On our day we fear no one:-)

How has critical and fan reaction been to Babylon? What track[s] are getting air-play? What markets is it having biggest success in, so far ? Err, any plans to undertake promotion [tour] in North America ?
VB: Both have been superb. The album was our first chart entry in the German National charts, has been our biggest selling album in pretty much every country in Europe and the letters / e-mails we`ve had from the fans suggest that they like it a lot. At the moment there are no plans to visit the US. There has been
plenty of talk in the past about coming over to do promotion and a gig but nothing ever happened.

Can you give me a few lines about a few tracks from Babylon , such as The Stranger, Barricade, Love became The Law, Timeless, Valentine ..? What are your personal faves from Babylon ? As far as your own playing, what riffs or solos are you happiest [proudest] with ??
VB: I think that my favorite is ‘Love Became The Law’. I love the way that I split the solo into two and the build that happens when the second part comes in is great. I used a similar thing on the main solo in ‘The Name Of The Rose’.

What are the band’s current plans as far as touring and promoting Babylon? How much of it will feature into the band’s live set ? Any plans for the next album ?
VB: We are currently planning how we are going to structure the Babylon tour. We hope to do all of Babylon on any headline tours. We are about to start the next Ten album in the first quarter of this year.

[For someone like myself in North America who has never seen the band live] What can you tell me about Ten as a live act ?
VB: Ten is a very powerful act. I love the gigs when they happen. If this band had been around in the 80’s we would have cleaned up. That sounds really arrogant but I really believe that it is true. Right band, wrong decade.

What other projects are you and Gary involved in these days? Do you have any side projects / other recordings happening ?
VB: Yes, we are just putting finishing touches to the new Bob Catley album. After that I will be starting my next solo album. There is a Gary solo album and also the next Ten album.

What are you listening to these days? What’s your thoughts on the music scene over there ?
VB: I seldom get time to sit down and listen to music anymore. If I have spare time I try and do something with it. I have just discovered Tom Petty though and have been buying lots of his stuff. I play it all the time in the car. I love the songs, lyrics and the guitar playing (Mike Campbell). great stuff.

LINKS:

https://www.facebook.com/TenOfficial

https://www.facebook.com/darebandofficial