Canadian rockers LOCKART are set to release their debut album! The band consisting of Devon Kerr, Jason Junop, and Fabio Alasandrini, play a classic 80s style high energy AOR/Metal, but with the synths up front. If you like that 80s AOR sound, you’ll want to check out City Pulse, which comes out in various formats through High Roller Records. I spoke with frontman Devon Kerr a few weeks back, where we discussed the band and the new album, as well as talked music in general, record collecting, favorite bands, etc… Check it out. *Also check out the videos (included), and the links below…..
You guys had an EP out in 2022…
Yes.
What led up to getting a full album out in that time?
So up until that point, 2022, we only had those three songs written. I had no idea how the reception was going to be at the time. The songs were 10 years old, even in 2022 or ‘23.
We started writing those in like 2014. They came out and just kind of feeling it out. And people seem to really take to it, considering we don’t have any marketing. We don’t have any. We got nothing at that time. We just put songs out to the world and saw what happened.
And the support and the number of people that actually enjoyed was overly positive. So it made sense to hit back into the studio and start writing some new songs and making an album. And so that’s basically how it happened.
It was done by us, but because of the reception from the EP from fans.
There seems to be a lot of a bit of an uptake or whatever in 80s AOR and hard rock influenced and inspired bands. Some of them are a little more satirical in that. I don’t know how you got on to that direction and how deliberate and serious it is as opposed to, like, say, Steel Panther.
I’ve always loved this music.
Same with Jay, same with Fabio. It’s definitely not a joke. I mean, this music from the 70s all the way through into the 90s is just top quality music, in my opinion.
The songwriting that goes into bands from the 70s, like Journey and Boston into the 90s, like what Mark Free was doing at that time. It speaks to me. It always has.
So we wanted to do that for real. I know that there’s a resurgence of this type of music or maybe even just a continuation, in Europe. But it seems like, Canadian listeners might understand this and, it seems to be like out on the other continents that a lot of AOR music is like their Nickelback, you know, they’re just kind of generic rock music.
It’s they just fall on to it falls into AOR, where here we got that kind of like country, infused, you know – butt rock stuff. I’m talking about like, it’s kind of like whatever grunge turned into. So we’re trying to stay away from that ‘music by numbers’, generic AOR that’s all digital, nothing’s recorded with amps, none of the artwork’s done by artists – It’s just computers.
We want to stay away from that. But we also want to stay away from any sort of idea that we’re joking around. I know that we’re crazy looking and we do everything to an extent that, some people might think “Are these guys for real?” But we’re just trying to be authentic. We’re trying to do it exactly the way that it’s always been done. It’s just people started getting self-conscious maybe in the ‘90s about the way they looked in bands. We’re trying to get rid of that. Let’s be crazy again, right!? More is more.
I’ve had criticism from family members, they’re like – “What the hell are you doing?” And “Dial it back maybe a little bit!?” And I go, “No, no, no. Turn it up!”
That’s the whole point of this. Let’s go nuts.
The rock star image seemed to have taken a beating over the years. But there’s obviously like watching the video. I mean, you guys get it with the dress and that. There’s a band in Sweden, are you familiar with called Nestor?
Yeah. I listen to them a lot.
And there’s a band from Brazil called Creatures.
Yeah. They’re also on High Roller.
I wonder if we can talk a bit about some of the songs. Do you guys all write or is it mainly you?
I don’t want to sound…I don’t know the word. But yes, it’s primarily my writing. Ninety nine percent.
Jason did write the song “Together As None.” That’s his work. And I just “LockHart-ized” it with keyboards and big vocal choirs and all that. But this project kind of emerged because of I’m feeling sort of in a corner with my other band Axxion. Vocally, I wanted to do something that really showcased what I could do as a singer. So I just went off on my own for this stuff, and this is this is what came of it. I’m still loving playing an Axxion, I’m still doing that. I just wanted to showcase my other abilities as an artist and bring in guys like Fabio and Jay to who are pros. And to leave their signature on it as well. I don’t control any of Jason’s writing or playing. And Fabio’s drum work is entirely him.
I just gave him the music and he, in studio recorded all the drum parts for whatever was in his head. And then we went from there. I never sent him back into the studio to change anything. We used exactly what he heard.
What sort of what sort of things do you influences or inspires your writing lyrically, musically, whatever, like songs like “City Pulse” or “Can’t Shake It”?
They all come from different either experiences or “Can’t Shake It” is just a story about young love. I’m sure almost everyone’s got something similar when they’re in their teens and they’re infatuated with somebody and that experience of either just meeting up, and the second verse, you end up, you’re actually driving around town in the car together, going to the beach. It’s kind of like seeing things come together.
And then we’ve got songs like “City Pulse”, which is finally going to make sense. I can’t tell you how many interviews I’ve done with international interviewers, but you’ll probably remember City Pulse – the news program in Toronto. That’s what we named the album after.
But the song was written about Robert Pickton, the guy out in Vancouver that was the serial killer. I didn’t write about Pickton, it’s about – there was a detective, Kim Rossmo, at the time, who kept being like, “It’s Pickton” to the Vancouver Police Department. And they kept being like, “It’s not Pickton, leave him alone.” And he just kept killing and killing, and it drove this detective, Kim, crazy to the point where he had to leave the police department. And that’s what “City Pulse” is about – Detective Kim Rossmo, my perceived frustration that he must have felt like trying to catch this guy. And in turn, City Pulse, a news program and a true crime story, they kind of come together. I wrote the music for that before the lyrics, I had no idea and I was listening to a podcast about Canadian true crime, and I thought, “This is an interesting story…. And it’s Canadian.”
So, finally, I get to talk about City Pulse – the news program, and someone knows what I’m talking about!
I’ve spent a lot of time on those YouTube channels watching true crime and cold cases.
I actually reached out to Detective Kim Rossmo. I found him on Facebook. He’s just a guy, he’s not famous or anything. And I sent him the song. I said, “I wrote a song that was kind of inspired by a podcast. I’m not a police enthusiast by any means; I just thought it was an interesting story…and maybe you’d be interested in hearing this and letting me know like, do the lyrics speak to you at all?” And he said that it made sense. He actually ended up buying the single – digitally, and I sent him the record. So somewhere out there in the world, this guy, I got a chance to speak with the detective behind the Picton case, which was interesting.
Another song that caught my attention was “You Wouldn’t Know Love”. It kind of reminds me of Heart in places.
Well, that’s a cover song. That’s the one cover we have on the album. You have to read into the liner notes. We didn’t make it obvious because, this record is here; it’s on High Roller Records. It’s not like we’re trying to sell and push the record on people, but this record is being presented to a crowd of metal fans. All three of us are metal guys that are playing AOR – ‘80s pop rock style music. I’m really trying not to use that word because it discourages people from listening, but that’s what it is. But it’s a Michael Bolton song. He wrote it; he did record it. It’s also featured on Cher’s Heart Of Stone album. We wanted to get a song that we thought was kind of groovy and heavy in there, that was by someone like Michael Bolton or Cher, which metalheads would never give a chance to.
Not only that, but we got Nick from Municipal Waste and Vulture to play the guitar solo on it. We found the heaviest guitar player we knew; I asked him on his tour bus if he was interested in doing the solo on this particularly interesting song on the record. And he was all over it. So, that’s the story behind that one.
It’s interesting when you say like ‘metal’ because the songs are pretty synth keyboard led songs. And then you get the big solos. I don’t think there’s any big guitar riffs on the album as far as opening.
No, it’s like a ‘lead synth’ band, right!? The synth sits forward in the mix. The guitars are primarily rhythm guitars. I do dual guitar solos throughout the record there. And I mean, that’s something that you find in traditional heavy metal bands everywhere. There’s some guitar parts that I’m playing lightning fast, like the end of the solo in “Under Fire”, it’s some of the fastest playing that I was able to even pull off.
So, my solos are from metal, and the chord progressions that we use, a lot of them are classic metal chord progressions, but they’re flooded with analog and old FM synthesizers, and big vocal parts that take four singers to pull off.
It’s interesting when I think of like a keyboard led band that it has the more of the metal image and the guitar. The one band that comes to mind is Guffria with Greg Guffria.
Yeah, exactly. That’s a good comparison. We don’t sound like them, but I definitely appreciate what they did and how the keyboardist was actually at the forefront of that band.
In all the bands you’ve been in, aside from being a singer, are you usually on guitar or usually on keyboards?
I’m always just been a lead singer. Now, I play guitar as my first instrument; that’s what I learned how to play music on. But I almost exclusively write music on a piano and then bring guitars into it. I’m sure people hear that in Lockhart, because you listen to the beginning of “Just Can’t Wait”, and it’s a keyboard melody, and then the guitars come in and they’re just chugging along, supporting that keyboard riff. All the vocal parts are written on a keyboard or on a piano.
I’m not an amazing keyboardist, I’m not like Jens Johansson from Yngwie Malmsteen or anything like that, shredding the keyboards the way I do guitar, but I write on the keyboard and I create all the vocal parts. It’s definitely my most expressive instrument. I would say, though I’m a more proficient guitar player, playing keyboard is more like having two guitars in your hands because you’ve got 10 notes you can play.
I assume you guys are going to play live at some point!?
That’s the goal. We’re currently assembling a live band because at our core here we’re a rhythm section, a bass and a drum kit and a lead singer. So, we are currently working with a guitar player, Johnny Nesta, and we’re working with a keyboardist. There’s actually been a few guys who have reached out about getting involved with keyboards, which is good because those are hard to find. But really, everyone needs to be proficient singers. They all need to be able to be lead singers, essentially, in this band. That’s kind of the determining factor of who we’re going to end up going with. We’re going to need a five man band and three, at least, are going to have to be strong singers.
Is it harder in Ontario finding those live shows or are you looking at going elsewhere?
You’ve got to go to like Detroit or you got to go to Toronto, at least for me. I’m similar to you, I’m living in a city that’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. You’d think that London would have an independent (from the rest of the province) kind of music scene because there’s nothing around here. We’re not like attached to another city or anything like Oakville would be. But yeah, it seems that here it’s cover bands, tribute bands all the time. And it seems like anytime I want to see an original act, they’re always touring through Toronto or the Toronto bands that are able to hold enough people to justify a show with original music they have to play in a big city like that. So, me being right square between Toronto and Detroit, I just fluctuate between the two cities.
About the album cover. Who did that? And is there a little bit of a story behind it or anything?
It was a guy, I believe his name’s Julian Elias. (Sorry, Julian, if I screwed your name up,) but he was an artist I found, funny enough I was just looking for a screen saver on my phone, (something that was better than whatever comes with the phone) and I found this Vinnie Vincent Invasion fan artwork on Google. And I was like, man, whoever did that’s awesome. I clicked the image to save it, and it was actually an Instagram page. It took me to his artwork, and he’s an airbrush artist. So I reached out to him – “We’re recording an album. I’m looking for an artist, and I really like what you’re doing.” I sent him a few of his pieces that he’d already done, and said, “If you could do something like this, we’d be all over that.”
He worked with us for months, back and forth, putting different pictures of us together in the sky, finding the right set, finding where to put our logo and the city-scape and everything. And the most difficult part is he was from Argentina, so he spoke Spanish as his first language. And a lot of the things that I would say, I had to make sure I wasn’t using slang, or things that you and I would take for granted because he would take it literally. And then we’d get something that said ‘The City’, the album would be called ‘Night Pulse’. You know, the album is literally called ‘City Pulse’, if you’re supposed to draw a city. So, there was a few times where we would get kind of lost in translation. But yeah – awesome dude! We’re going to give him a shout out once the album is released, and people have actually seen the album cover, because the guy deserves some recognition.
Is the album coming out on vinyl as well?
Yeah, it comes out on black vinyl. And tt comes out on a splatter vinyl through High Roller Records and us. It comes out on a night sky sparkle version. So, it kind of looks like the night sky vinyl we’re currently sold out of that one already in the pre sale. And but that’s available through High Roller. And then it comes out on CD through High Roller and us directly. But we are the only ones who are selling the cassette tape.
The City Pulse cassette is available through our Bandcamp page.
Do you still buy a lot of vinyl?
I do. I buy records. I buy cassettes. I’ve got a whole hi-fi system set up inside. Well, yeah.
I’ve got a big collection, but I’m kind of a little more careful, cautious with what I buy nowadays, with the prices.
Well, now it’s a lot more expensive. Like, I started collecting records in 2008 or something like that. I could buy Malmsteen’s Odyssey for $1.75, and now I see the same record for $35. If I knew that I could invest in these records back then, I’d be a billionaire.
(I relay my story of picking up the entire Kansas catalogue at a flea market 30 years ago for $2 a piece).
What sort of stuff did you grow up on? As far as what do you listen to the most favorite albums and artists and stuff?
My favorite artist, my favorite band of all time is Survivor. Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan, I think they’re amazing songwriters. Jamison was an incredible singer…and Dave Bickler, I mean, the passion in his voice when he sings almost makes me emotional. But those guys from top to bottom, from their first record to their last is nothing but top quality stuff. So I’ve been listening to those guys for years and years to the point where I know everything inside and out. Kansas was a band I was really into growing up (that’s one you just mentioned). I got into Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and all exactly what you’d expect a young metal head to be into. And it kind of grew into like more of a Macauley-Schenker Group, where you’ve got the UFO guitar player, but playing in a hard rock/AOR style of band, where you still get that metal in there as well. It’s completely different than Survivor where it’s all AOR.
That’s kind of what I’ve grown up listening to. It started with your, like I said, Iron Maidens and Kansas and developed into stuff like Survivor within the last 15 years. And then I’ve just stayed there. So maybe it’s a slow change now than it used to be between the first 15 years of my life. But if someone can find me a band that can top Survivor, I’m waiting.
Have you heard the Cobra album Jimi Jameson did?
Yes, I have.
I’ve got that, and I’ve got the Target albums he did.
Oh, okay. I haven’t even heard those. I’ll have to check that out.
Any other newer Canadian bands that you listen to, or would recommend?
I would say, you should check out Cauldron, (I want to say check out Axxion, my other band); Manacle, from Toronto – they’re a new band. Amo, from Toronto – another metal band; Spell from out on the Westcoast. I haven’t heard of anything coming out of the Metalian side of things, but back when we were playing all the time, Metalian was a huge one. Right now there’s not as much going on as there used to be. Funny, when people ask me what my favorite Canadian guitar players are, I start by saying Bobby Orr, and then just start(lol) naming off random hockey players. But they can’t be Canadian, it’s got to be from some guy halfway across the world. Gordie Howe is my favorite keyboardist, I told someone once, because I couldn’t think of one. And they just go “Oh yeah…” But, for Canadian bands, I’m still waiting on some more AOR bands. But I would say, If you haven’t heard Cauldron – give them a listen. They’re one of my favorites. Goat Horn is the predecessor band to Cauldron, an amazing band; a little darker than Cauldron, doomy, more like growly vocals. Those are like our sister bands, Jay plays in Cauldron, and Ian – who did the guitar solo on “Can’t Shake It”, plays in Cauldron.
I’ve got the new Spell and new Crown Lands on order.
That new Spell video and single, “Lilac” is pretty sweet; I love it. The video is totally “Time Stand Still” – Rush, but the sound is very unique; kind of gothic, awesome keyboards…
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 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.
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.
DOKKEN’s 1999 album Erase The Slate was originally released on CD (only). Deko Entertainment is releasing the album on vinyl for the first time in the US, limited numbers and 2 variants. I liked this album back then, so it’s great that it’s finally get a vinyl issue. In early 2000 I did an email interview with bass player Jeff Pilson for Erase The Slate. I also included a few questions on Jeff’s work with Dio, MSG, and other projects and plans. You find out more info and pre-order Erase The Slate in vinyl at the link here – https://www.dekoentertainment.com/post/dokken-s-erase-the-slate-is-now-available-for-the-first-time-on-180g-vinyl-in-the-united-states-thro
Jeff Pilson is the bass player from DOKKEN. He has also worked with DIO, and is presently working on a number of new projects such as a movie and a solo album! In swapping notes with Jeff, he agreed to do an interview and here it is. If you’re not familiar with what Dokken has been up to these days check out the band’s latest excellent studio disc “Erase The Slate” (on CMC) — which saw a return to the old Dokken rocking sound and featured the debut of new guitarist Reb Beach [who used to play for Alice Cooper!]. Or watch for the forthcoming Live album. For more info on Jeff Pilson check out www.jeffpilson.com
How did you get involved in music professionally? JP: I started playing clubs at about 15 years old, and just continued on in bands through high school and college- then dropped out and had to make my living with it. A lot of starvation and good times!
Who were your earliest influences? fave bands and musicians growing up? JP: Beatles, Zeppelin, Yes, and ELPQ: you play a lot of different instruments [reference to new album]
Is bass your first ‘love’ and or your best talent? JP: Bass was my first, but now I really love to play everything. There aren’t a lot of preferences, but I really love to sing.
What bands [of note] were you involved with prior to Dokken? any recordings? anyone of notoriety that you played with then? JP: No real notoriety, but I did play with an amazing guitarist named Randy Hansen, we had a band – no real recordings – but what a live show! Did a record called “Rock Justice” in 1980, was a rock opera on EMI. Good songs, but not a very good record – oh well we all learn!
You joined the band after the first album, replacing the guy who was in Ratt [i believe]. How did you land the gig? JP: Through Mike Varney, of Shrapnel records. He’s a good friend and we played in bands together before that.
As I recall it was the success of “Alone Again” that opened a lot of doors for Dokken commercially in the ’80s, being one of the first great power ballads by a Hard Rock / Metal band. Would you agree? JP: Yes, that’s quite accurate, it did open a lot of doors. We went from selling a couple hundred thousand records to a gold act almost overnite. People take you more seriously after that.
Throughout the ’80s Dokken turned out a steady set of strong Hard Rock albums, with decent guitar riff-rock, melodies, and harmonies. What would you put down to the band’s success in being consistent for a whole decade before the split? JP: Good songs, a lot of internal talent, great business team behind us, and there was a strong core camaraderie between George, Mick and myself. I also had a strong working relationship with Don that I think helped bridge certain gaps.
How would you sum up the previous years [Dysfunctional , Shadowlife] prior to the change in guitar players and return to old Dokken rock direction? JP: Rather scattered and not very focused. We weren’t all going in one direction, and not the one Don and I had intended for sure. But there were a few valuable experimental moments that I think produced some good music.
“Erase The Slate” is a real return to solid guitar rock in the best Dokken ways, yet [IMO] with a bit less of the big production feel some of the 80s stuff. Would you agree? JP: That’s exactly what we set out to accomplish- very nicely put!
How was the transition from George to Reb? How has Reb Beach fitted in to Dokken musically and personally? JP: Welcome transition and a new spark of life for the band. Reb is a great team player as well as being so talented – so for us all to go pretty much in one direction is amazing and wonderful.
The band shares writing and production credits on Erase The Slate. What can you tell me about how closely the band worked ‘hands on’ on this album, and what the basic songwriting process would be?? JP: We worked very much like a band. A lot of the music came from jamming, maybe Reb had a riff, then I’d throw in a verse riff, we’d all then take it to the next part, etc. But with us it’s so hard to formulate, anyone is capable of coming up with anything. And when someone does bring in a whole song, it generally gets pretty chopped up, but in a good way. We just threw a lot of ideas back and forth til it felt right – how’s that for a description!?
Why the cover of the Three Dog Night classic “One”? [Who’s idea?] JP: Originally Reb’s idea for a jam during the live set, I thought it’d make a good cover for the record. It just seemed to fit Don perfectly and with all the harmonies and the rhythm we put underneath it, it just seemed right.
What are your faves from the album, and what is being pushed in the live set and to radio? [“Change The World” and “Who Believes” standout as having strong commercial appeal to me]. JP: I like “Maddest Hatter” and “Erase The Slate” best, also “In Your Honor”, but we released “Maddest…” and “Erase…” to radio. I wish there would have been more singles, and I think “Change…” would have been an outstanding choice.
“In Your Honor” stands out as a very different sounding song to the rest of the album [which is quite heavy], with the keys, acoustics, mellotron, harmonies…. What can you tell me about this song – lyrically, and how it came together musically? Inspiration? JP: It came from a song I had a few years ago for my progressive band. Don accidently heard it when an old dat tape ran til the end and he said, ‘what’s that?’. He started writing the first verse lyrics right away and we finished the song in about 20 minutes. It really talks about missed opportunities and mistakes in love. Don had just been in a relationship that he was afraid he had ruined, and may never live down.
How has the reaction been from your perspective to Erase The Slate from fans and press? JP: Excellent, best fan reaction in years. The traditional rock press has also been quite flattering.
How and when do you guys plan to follow it up? Any plans at present? JP: Live cd at the end of April, tour in the summer with Poison, try to finish up my solo cd in any time I can find, finish work on my movie, then start writing and recording a Dokken cd in the fall. So yes, there are lots of plans!
How did you land the gig with RJ Dio? JP: Ronnie and I have been friends since we toured together in ’84 – he’s also my neighbor! And Vinny Appice is one of my favorite people on the planet! They just came over one day and asked if I knew a bass player, I said “yea, ME!’.
How was Ronnie to work with? JP: Absolutely the best, professionally and personally! Or as he would say in an imitation of me, “GREAT!”.
What did you think of the albums you were on? JP: I thought we made some amazing music, and took several chances. It didn’t sound alot like traditional Dio, but that’s what we wanted to do and I thought we did a great job. It probably should have been called something other than Dio to get a more pure reaction, but that was what we needed on a business level to get through some doors. Kind of too bad cuz we were a great modern band, with trad elements.
How much did/could you contribute to the writing and ideas on those albums? JP: We were extremely collaborative, and the sky was the limit with everyone. It felt very much like a band, but a well-oiled machine, something I wasn’t much used to!
Best memories of the Dio band and/or any stories? JP: Just the intensity of the live gigs, and singing harmonies with Ronnie, what a powerful sound and what an honor!
What was your association with MSG? [Recordings, tours, etc..?] JP: I played on the ’91 MSG album, then did an acoustic tour with them [playing acoustic guitar alongside Michael Schenker- what a trip!!]. Great fun – Robin is such a great singer and guy!
How was Schenker to work with? [Who else was in the band?] JP: Great, he’s very precise and it was such an education to have him work with me on the acoustic guitar stuff, it was like being payed to have guitar lessons with Michael Schenker! But then in working out the electric stuff he was very open. It was just James Kottack [drummer – Scorpions], Michael and I working out the music, and Robin would belt it out. They were very band-like in their approach to making the record. And it was a good band at that!
What was your association with Craig Goldy? [see # 23] JP: Craig and I had a project together for much of ’94 called the ’13th Floor’. It was very heavy and progressive music and something I’d love to release one day. We had to give that up when Dokken signed with Sony at the end of ’94. I still talk to Craig, and I know he’s really excited about the new Dio record.
What else have you been involved in recording-wise in more recent years? JP: Oh God, a million tribute records, this ‘Metal God’ movie thing [I got to be musical director for much of it], and now I’m working on my solo cd. Someday I’ll release all the best parts of all the projects I did in the nineties, but I have a lot of new music to do til then.
What would you like to do in the future? any plans for a solo album or work with anyone in particular? [are you currently working on anything outside of Dokken?] JP: I think I just answered that one by getting a little carried away on the last answer! But yes, I’d like to get my solo cd out around the time of the movie, and in the future put out my pet project “A Better Mousetrap” – which is very pop. I need more time in the day! But yes I’d like to put ‘Mousetrap’ out when I can, even if it’s through my website [here’s a plug- www.jeffpilson.com !!!]
What do you think of the return of many ’80s HR/Metal bands in recent years? Do you think the music biz has changed for better or worse since the ’80s when bands like Dokken, Ratt, Motley Crue … were huge on MTV, radio, etc… ? JP: I think it’s worse in that record companies aren’t near as supportive of young bands as they once were. No hit and you’re done – that’s not good for music. There never would have been a Dokken if that were the attitude in the ’80’s. We took three albums to break! I think HR bands are at a bit of a nostalgia state at the moment, but I think young bands need a model for quality melodic rock, and I’m sure eventually there will be a call for that. That’s where us “old” guys fit in. The new school is very rap-oriented, which is to be expected, but there will be a need for melodic hard rock soon.
Can you give me a few of the following > favorite bass players, singers, songwriters, guitarists, etc.. [new and old] ?? JP: Chris Squire, John Paul Jones, Paul McCartney // Coverdale, Chris Cornell, RJ Dio // Lennon, McCartney, Sting, Paul Simon, Tommy Henriksen // Zakk Wylde, Reb Beach, Beck.
Q: Favorite ‘classic’ albums [70s / 80s….] and newer faves? JP: Fragile, Close to the Edge, Bridge of Sighs, and anything by Radiohead.
I see you use Ampeg equipment, have you met Ken Hensley [Uriah Heep] through this? 🙂 JP: Ken is great. I was actually in the first batch of “new” Ampeg endorsees in 1986, and Ken and I have been friends ever since. What a great guy!
Hobbies, interests outside of recording and touring? JP: Writing! And I love museums, art, yoga and all metaphysics.
JOHN CORABI has a brand new solo album coming out, titled ‘New Day‘, on Frontiers. New Day is produced by Marti Frederiksen (credits include Brother Kane, Aerosmith, Foreigner, Def Leppard, Dead Daisies….). This album is Corabi’s first full album of new rock material, and is the best new album I’ve heard so far this year, with the title track, and tunes like “Your Own Worst Enemy”, “When I Was Young”, and a cool version of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People”. In our converxation John talks in detail about the new album, the songs, the artwork, as well an update on The Dead Daisies, and a look back at Union. It was a pleasure talking to the guy; one of the coolest rockers out there. Check out ‘New Day‘, it is highly recommended listening for any rock fan. *Please also check out the links below.
I want to talk about your new album. I love it. I didn’t dawn on me that this is actually your first solo album of new material because you’ve been around for so long that there’s been other releases under your name.
Well, it’s kind of a misconception a little bit because I did do an acoustic record a few years back. And probably 60, 65% of that record was new material that I’d never released before, but I just did like an acoustic thing. There wasn’t even drums on it, it was more just percussion.
(I hold up the Live in Nashville CD).
That one was in 2014. I was doing the Motley record live in it’s entirety. And I loved being in Motley and it was a great record, but I sang this stuff like 30 years ago! So I don’t want to do this anymore, and so I recorded one show in Nashville for prosperity, put it out on a record. So, I mean, technically this is my third solo record, but this is my first one with all new material, full band, drums, keyboards, the whole bit. So, it is what it is. It’s all good.
I loved it. I think I got about eight songs through and I went on Amazon and ordered it. It’s a very upbeat album, uplifting. And I don’t think, for those people that have heard your name and the association with Motley Crue or whoever else would be misjudged or misguided to think that it’s going to be a metal album, right? It’s not, obviously it’s a very diverse, wide open album.
Yeah. in all honesty when I signed the record deal with Frontiers, I told them right up front, I said, if you’re looking for Motley Crue Part Two, it’s not going to happen. I’m not interested. And I told them what I wanted. And one of the things that I don’t want to say irritates me, but irritates me to a degree about the music business now, is that once, once you’re like, once you’re, and I say, ‘an established artist’, but once you’ve done a few things, you’re kind of locked into that box, it’s like people don’t really want you to step outside of that box.
And all the bands that I grew up listening to, you, the great bands like the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, Queen was huge. Those bands weren’t afraid to experiment from track to track. I mean, if you look at the Stones considered the greatest rock and roll band in the history of music, they weren’t afraid to do songs like “Dead Flowers”, or “Waiting On A Friend” or “Wild Horses”, which technically now could be considered country songs. Even Led Zeppelin did “Hot Dog” on their last record, which is basically nothing more than an old country rockabilly song.
So what I wanted to get back to was just that time or that era where bands had the freedom to just be as creative as they wanted to be. There was no categories, no boxes, and just do what you want, man; if it’s a cool tune – have at it! If you’ve heard the record, you know, there’s a song on my record called “Good To Be Back Here Again”. And I’ve had a few people, not many, but if you go, “Oh obviously Nashville is rubbing off on you. ..You’re kind of doing a little bit of country stuff”. And I’m like, Nashville is nothing to do with it. I literally just sat down, I was playing the guitar. I came up with the first line of the song and I thought it was cool, so I just stopped. I wrote the rest of the song and then I brought it into Marty the next day and he thought it was awesome. But again, if you listen to “Dead Flowers” or “Waiting On A Friend” by the Rolling Stones, kind of the same thing. So again, I just wanted to do something that was category free, and just creative without being full of myself.
The album is very, like when you say creative, it’s very creative in that there’s so much going on. The opening track was the first track I heard. That’s a great song, very uplifting, very, it rocks, but it’s obviously it’s not a metal song. It’s not really just a simple rock song. it’s a good feel good song. So where did that sort of stuff come from lyrically?
Marti and I, when we were mapping everything out; we usually map the song out and then have like a loose or rough idea of what the song is going to be called. And we came up with the title “New Day”. And honestly, one of the things about being human is you can have the shittiest day ever, but the blessing that we all have is that we can go to sleep at night and reset and then get up the next day with a new attitude, new, fresh – “It’s a new day”. Just keep moving forward. And personally, I’m not a big fan of people that sit and whine and complain about how life’s unfair. I’m just like – well, if you want to change it, do something about it!
So it was just basically putting a lot of those cliched things down in lyrics and yeah, it’s positive, but it’s just like, man you’re kind of writing your own story. So if you work hard and you just keep not taking no for an answer and just keep plugging away, something positive is going to happen for you. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. And there’s, there’s a few songs on here that you you’ve had around for a little while, obviously,
Yeah, “Cosi’ Bella” and “Your Own Worst Enemy”.
I love that song. That’s another one that kind of jumped out at me. It’s got a bit of a bit of funk to it,
It’s probably the heaviest song on the record, but it was, um, again, it’s just about, you know, I have some friends and stuff that have had issues in the past, whether it was drinking or drugs or whatever. And it’s just like, (again) you’re sitting here complaining about things, but you’re not doing anything about it. You’re your own worst enemy. So, I just put pen to paper and it just kind of happened. …But those two songs, I initially wanted to do this record. and then during COVID and all that stuff, I started to talk to Marti, and Marti was like “people are doing things different now, they’re putting a song out, let it sit while you’re working on the record. And then you put another single out and you do this like three, four times, and then you release the record”. And at the time I wasn’t even going to do a record label, I was just going to self-print the records and sell them at my shows. But I wound up getting the call to come back to the Dead Daisies, which I did and got in that span of,…well, I came back in ’23. So in three years, we’ve done three records there. And then I got offered (last year) to do this thing with Frontiers. I was like, “Okay, cool!” I need to make sure I tell my manager, I need to make sure that everything’s coordinated perfectly with the Daisies so that I don’t interfere with them – they don’t interfere with me. And then as it turned out, the Daisies said, “Hey, we’re going to take a year off.” Well, so I was “All right, this is perfect!”
At that point, we had those three songs and Marti and I just got in and started writing. There’s still a bunch of other songs that Marti and I worked on that we haven’t even looked at yet; that we started working on and we never got around the finishing. So, I’m already starting to think about record number two.
There’s a lot of different things like “Faith, Hope and Love”. Maybe it’s the backing vocals but it’s got a bit of a gospel feel at times. You got a bit of Southern rock, and blues and everything. What can tell me a bit about what you listened to or what kind of influences, when you go to do stuff.
Honestly, again, I, I hate the category thing. To me, there’s two categories of music – There’s good music and bad music. It’s really weird because I love everything. I mean, it’s not unusual for me to get on my motorcycle and listen to Zeppelin or Sabbath, or some of the heavier stuff. And then you might see me the next day and I might be listening to the greatest hits of Glenn Campbell or Bob Seger. So, when I sit down and I write, I just kind of allow things to just happen organically. I’ll show it to Marti. And then even when I’m showing it to Marti, I kind of have an idea of what I want it to sound like, but as we’re in the studio, it’s gone through this metamorphosis and it just winds up becoming what it is. I just personally, there’s so much good music out there.
And when I was doing this record, I told Marti “No categories”. And I just really want to be musical. I want to incorporate as much different influences as I can on this record.
And, without blowing smoke up my own arse, I think we kind of accomplished that.
I think it’s a very widely appealing album. I think anybody that knows you will like it. And I think a lot of people don’t know you’re going to love it, just because there’s so much in there.
From your mouth to God’s ears, buddy.
Do you write usually with a title first or… (?)
No, not really. It usually comes with like a riff or a chord progression and I’ll start working on it. Then I’ll bring it to Marti, and then we kind of map it out. And between Marti or myself, one of us will just be scatting a melody and one of us will come up with what eventually becomes the title. I came up with the title for “1969”. Marti was just scatting something over a chord progression I had. And then he was like “when I was young”, so I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of cool’; write it down. Then we map the kind of idea out and then I’ll come home with that title. I wrote down…”when I was young”, and then I start working on the lyrics, I immersed myself in the title. How could I, how could I tie this in and make it work? So usually it’s the music first getting mapped out, and then again, between Marti and I, one of us will just be scatting just a melody idea. And then somehow the title winds up coming out. Even back with the Dead Daisies, like I was struggling for lyrics on an idea we had, and it was just something David Lowy said. We passed each other in the hallways. I was in one room, he was in another, and I just said to him, “Hey dude, how the guitar tracks going?”, and he goes, “long way to go. No time to get there”. And I immediately went back into the room and I started working on lyrics to a song, which eventually became “Long Way To Go”. So it’s usually the music first.
I find it interesting because there’s some very memorable titles here. Like you said, “1969” was the first one I thought of, and “When I Was Young”, and “New Day”, they’re all very memorable titles as opposed to 12 songs with love in the title.Who else played on this album with you?
On the record, it was mainly me on guitar, Marti on bass and his son, Evan on drums. And then whoever was better at a keyboard part or…we just kind of layered things on top. I was very fortunate to have Charlie Starr from Blackberry Smoke, he played all the lead guitars on the song, “Faith, Hope, and Love”. And then Charlie actually sent me a little phone recording while we were recording, we were doing the actual record and he sent me an idea, which eventually became “That Memory”. So Charlie’s on the record; he’s got his fingerprints on the record. But also Richard Fortus has just called me out of the clear blue. Richard and I had played together on the first Dead Daisies record that I did. He just said, “Hey dude, I saw you’re doing a solo record. If you need any help with the guitars, I’m here for you”. So I sent him a couple tracks thinking he’d pick maybe one song, and he wound up doing all three and he sent them back and it worked. Then I had Paul Taylor, from Winger play some keyboards for me on the record. And it was just, honestly, this is probably the most organic effortless record that I’ve ever done in my life. This is weird. Everything just kind of fell into place.
I’m curious to see what you do next, because obviously following this up would be interesting.
I’m curious as well. I have no idea where I’m going with this.
Obviously it’s been a long time that, like I said, in the beginning, a long time for you, you been around for so long that you finally have a full album, a rock album that’s under your name and that, do you have any plans for playing it live ?
Well, we did three and a half weeks in Europe and the UK and it went over great. I’m going back in April to do maybe five more shows. I’m ending with, Frontiers Records does a music festival every year in Milan, Italy, so I’m going to do that. And then I’m coming back over. Let me see… I play the 3rd there, the 4th I’m on an airplane, and the 5th I start with Tom Kiefer in New Jersey, Tom Kiefer and BuckCherry. We’re doing a bunch of dates together. So, I’m going to have a busy summer it looks like
How much )of the new stuff) do you actually put into the set?
Maybe somewhere between a quarter and half, because we’re doing some Scream stuff. Now it depends because there’s three different versions of this set that I need to put together because I’m doing some headline shows on my own. And then when it’s just me and Tom, I think I’m playing about 40 to 45 minutes. And then when BuckCherry’s on the bill, I’m only doing like 35 minutes. So, depending on where you see me, the set’s going to be a little shorter, longer, whatever. But, when I do a full set, when I do like a 90 minute set there’s a little bit of Scream, some Union, some Motley, some Dead Daisies. And then I focus on about four or five tracks from the new record.
You did do one cover on this album, “Everyday. People”, the Sly And The Family Stone song.
Yes. Love that!
A very interesting choice.
My wife thought so too. She goes, “I have no idea how you’re going to pull this off”. And she couldn’t figure out, she’s like, “I don’t get how you’re going to do this”. But, Marti and I came up with a version and we recorded it and I brought it home and played it forward. She was like, “Holy shit, this is awesome!” So I’m really pleased with it.
You strike me as a guy that. while growing up, you would have had a very diverse record collection.
Absolutely. I still do. Obviously now our records are on our phones and in the cloud, but I’ve got everything from Sabbath to, (like I said earlier) Glenn Campbell, Frank Sinatra… I got some Tony Bennett,. So I run the gamut of music. I just love music and a good song is a good song, a bad song is a bad song. That’s the only categories you need to know about.
The other thing I want to ask you about is the album artwork. I like asking those guys that actually do the album artwork and get their stories. That’s a very interesting, very colorful cover and kind of jumps out.
If you do artwork, you’ll understand this, but I feel like this is a very ’60s, ’70s type record. Originally, I just wanted to find like something like a strong word, or something poetic that I could call the album. Finally I was just sitting here; I’ve got this little area in my back patio and I was sitting here having a whiskey and I’m listening to the record, and the more I listened to the song “New Day”, I liked the message. So I called my manager and I said, “I think I want to call the record ‘New Day'”, and he goes “Awesome!” It’s got a kind of a positive meaning and there’s a line” in the song that says “It’s a new day, just let the sun shine down on you. So I decided on the title and then I went on Google and I just wanted, like, I was looking for, I don’t know if you remember or not, but when I was a kid, I’m older than you, but I just remember seeing like those Hait-Ashbury Concert posters that they used to put on telephone poles. They were really colorful, like bright orange, or the old velvet paintings that they used to do back in the sixties and seventies. So I wanted something colorful, and I wanted to include like a sun image because of the lyrics. So I typed up sun image and the first thing that came up was the sun tarot card. And I’m like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool” Showed it to my wife, “Yeah, that’s kind of cool. It’ll look cool on a t-shirt”. So what I did is I looked up the meaning and the meaning was about rebirth, growth, positivity, just all these things. Okay, I like the meaning. I sent it to a friend of mine and I asked him to manipulate it. So everybody that knows me, knows my lot of people nicknamed me ‘Crabby’, so there’s a couple hidden crabs in the artwork and we squared it off and just made it more for like a CD or vinyl record. But then the other thing that was weird is there’s a Roman numeral on the card and it’s the number 19. I looked it up and the sun card is the 19th card in a deck of tarot cards. And I was like, “Well, that’s kind of weird because this is my 19th record”. So I just kind of manipulated a tarot card. I just loved the meaning of it. It was colorful and we made like some black t-shirts for when we were in Europe and that’s just on the front and it just looks awesome. So it’s colorful. It was very ’60s retro looking and it’s got a great meaning.
I want to ask a bit about the Dead Daisies and update, because obviously I saw that announcement yesterday with Glenn Hughes doing a show. When you left the band, was it on your own, like you had things to do? I look at the Dead Daisies, I’ve got those albums and I think, That’s kind of where you belong; that’s kind of like your home. So I was kind of glad to see when you rejoined. So what is the status right now with you guys?
Well, to be honest with you, like I was told last year that they were taking a year off. So to be quite honest with you, I was just as surprised when I saw the ads for the show as well. So I have no idea what, why they’re doing a show with Glenn. Couldn’t tell you.
I have no idea. I just been kind of focused on my solo career. Like, and, and it, and it, like I said, as far as I was told, they were taking a year off, and then we were going to get back on at things. They had already posted some dates for like March of 2027. So if you’re asking why they’re doing this show, I have no idea. That would be a question for them. I didn’t know about it yesterday. I got up and my phone just started blowing up my, the guys that handle my social media and friends are like, did you leave the Daisies again? And I’m like, “not that I know of”, I couldn’t tell you. So this was a kind of a left field curve ball from everybody.
So it appears to be a one-off show… I was curious. But when you actually left the band, how much of that was merely on your own…
It was my doing, you know, at the end of the day. When I first joined the band in 2015, Marco called me to ask me if I’d be interested in singing with this band that he was working with. And honestly, I was out doing those live ’94 shows. My son was playing drums with me, and we were doing ok, it was fine. So when Marco called and said “hey, do you want to come check this band put?”, I was “No, I’m good.” And he was “well, hear me out, and come and check this thing out.” So, I flew out to LA, and I had a meeting with David Lowy, Richard Fortis, and the manager. Initially it was “we’re going to tour half the year, and then you’ve got the other half of the year to do what you want. Your thing will help our thing, and our thing will help your thing.” And I’m, “yeah, Ok, I could probably do both.” So we went to Cuba, did those shows, and then we did the first record I did with them, which was called Revolucion, and mind you, when I got asked to do The Dead Daisies I didn’t even know who they were. My guitar tech told me “Oh yeah, it’s this band I saw last year. They opened for Kiss or whatever.” So, I just assumed that they’d use me in June and July, in the summer, and then I could go tour with my band in the winter, but when Revolucion came out…I don’t want to say it blew up, but it kind of blew up and started getting gigs. And for the next 3-4 years it became Do a record, go tour for 6,7, 8 months, then come back – do a record, tour for 6, 7, 8 months…. So, I’ve got my son in one ear “Oh great dad, I moved out to Nashville to be in your band, and now I never see you!” And I had a new wife; I’d just gotten married in August of 2014, and in February of 2015 I was in the Daisies. It was like I had to call her and let her know I was coming in so she wouldn’t shoot when I walked in the door.
So I just said to the guys “Look, I really appreciate the offer. I want to take a break; I want to hang out with my family, just kind of do my own thing at my own pace.” And they were like “Ok, cool”. And I was good with them. Even when they were with Glenn, there was a few times Glenn was sick, and with rehearsals I flew up to New York, and I sang whatever set they were doing with Glenn, and helped them run their paces. And then they went on tour with Glenn. So everything was good; I talked to everybody throughout the whole thing, and then Glenn decided to go back and do Black Country Communion or his Deep Purple shows, and David Lowy called and said “Hey, are you rested, are you ready to come back? Because if you’d want to come back, I’d love to have you back.” So I went back. I did the ‘Best of‘ tour with them, and then we did the blues record, and Light Em Up. I was just told we were having a year off this year. I was like “Ok, Awesome! I just got offered my solo deal. I can put out my record and go tour on it. And it won’t interfere with anything the Daisies are doing…. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! (Lol)
I interviewed you years ago, around the time the 2nd Union album came out. I’m curious if you still keep in touch with Bruce (Kulick)?
It’s like we don’t really get to see each other that often because he’s out doing his thing, guitar clinics, and conventions, and I’m doing the Daisies or whatever I’m doing at the time. We still communicate; I mean I’ll text him on his birthday and vice versa. It’s weird, I’m going to do a Kiss convention in April, in Indianapolis, and I know Brent’s going to be there, and Chuck Garric, Eric Singer, a few friends, Paul Stanley…and I was hoping Bruce was going to be there, but I’ve been told Bruce has other comittments. Everybody’s Good in Union. It wasn’t like we fought and broke up. If you followed Union, you know what I’m talking about – we couldn’t get any support from radio, MTV, nobody. So Bruce got offered a better gig with Grand Funk Railroad , and I got offered a better (paying) gig with Ratt. And it just kind of fizzled. But we’re all still good. Like i said, on occasion I’ll talk to Bruce; Jamie still reaches out, he’s been on tour with Roger Daltrey, and Brent’s been out with his band Toque, and Slash & The Conspirators. We’re all still pals; it’s all good.
I saw you guys (Union) just after the second album, you played some bar in Buffalo or Niagara Falls, NY…
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I will never forget it. It was a small bar, and it was hotter than balls in that place!
Yeah, I think we went out the side door because it was so hot.
Yeah, it was f**king ridiculously hot in that bar. I totally remember that place.
I don’t want to ask about Motley Crue, I’m sure you’re sick of talking about that…
(Thank You)
I do want to ask if there’s any prospect of you doing anything with Mick (Mars) ?
I haven’t talked to Mick because he’s going through a bunch of bullshit with lawsuits and stuff. But Mick and I were texting a month or so ago. I would love to sit down and write with Mick – something. i had an idea of what I thught Mick should do , and he didn’t necessarily agree… I was trying to get Mick to go in more of. almost like Mountain, just a heavy guitar tone, almost like a blues base to it. But Mick wants to do a certain thing, and that’s fine. I’d love to help him out. I love the guy to death. He is truly one of the nicest people in music, period! So, anything he needs from me, I’d be more than happy to help him with.
IAN HARRIS has had a lengthy career as a musician, as a songwriter, and as an album cover artist! In this interview, Ian details his career early on as a musician in a band with Alan Parsons, as well as his lengthy association and some of the album covers he did for WISHBONE ASH. And along the way some interesting stories of those he came in contact with through his art or through his music.
Can you tell me a bit about THE EARTH? What was the time frame of this band, and can you tell me about a few of the other players, whom had some interesting rock connections, as well as big opportunites, opening slots, etc…?
The Earth evolved from my previous band in the mid 1960’s – Conviction – formed in 1964 with 3 mates from school in North West London. We were Mods, loved Blues & Soul music and thought it would be a great idea to play cover versions of our favourite music to fellow Mods. We would check out bands playing at our local clubs and go ‘Up West’ to The Marquee, Flamingo etc. in Soho. The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, Graham Bond Organization with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce, Zoot Money, Chris Farlowe, even seeing Howling Wolf, Sonnyboy Williamson and many more play live. At that time the band members were Ian Harris vocals, Barry Mitchell Bass guitar, Phil Brockton Drums and Alan Owen Guitar. We were semi pro and played local gigs.
As our music progressed, we needed a more proficient lead guitar player and in 1967 we put an ad in Melody Maker for a lead guitarist, very few answered but along came a guy who knocked us out – Alan Parsons – who at that time was working in the EMI factory in Hayes. His audition piece was Jeff’s Boogie by Jeff Beck; we couldn’t believe our luck!
With Alan Parsons in the band our set list expanded beyond our expectations playing cover versions of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Cream and Blues songs. We began getting more gigs, changing our name along the way to The Earth. In 1968 I answered an Ad in Melody Maker for a band to run Ronnie Scott’s Old Place in Soho, we got the gig, played Friday and Saturday nights from 10pm to 4am and changed the name of the club to The Coffin. This was the autumn of 1968 the time of the Blues Boom in the U.K. we became well known and the club was packed out; we even had jam sessions in the small hours attracting jazz and blues musicians. An A&R scout from Mercury Records spotted us one night and offered us a deal to write and record an album, with one proviso, he wanted to expand the band and add an Organ player, we agreed apart from Alan Owen who sadly left the band. So now with new member Roy Quilley on Hammond Organ, we booked a rehearsal studio and wrote 8 or 9 songs in a week.
I had been writing lyrics for a few years and had an exercise book of ideas, the band wrote the bones of the songs, and I sang the top line melodies. It was quite amazing how well Roy fitted in; we had only just met but the guys were all great musicians and gelled immediately. In December 1968 we recorded the album in Studio 2 Regent Sounds Studios. The whole album took only one day, it was a Sunday, I can visualise it now, the band playing the songs live in the studio and me overdubbing my vocals nearly losing my voice in the process, a truly great experience. We were all very pleased with the result and Alan Parsons helped mix it (by this time he was George Martins 2nd engineer at Abbey Road Studios working with The Beatles). I still have the songwriting publishing contracts, one shilling in old money up front!
Did the band name ever come into conflict or overlap with the band ‘Earth’ that went on to become Black Sabbath?
This is where Ozzy Osbourne comes into the picture…just after the recording the band split up, we disagreed about musical policy with Roy, Barry and Phil joined another band and went pro and Alan Parsons was too busy at Abbey Road, so I was left with the only shellac copy of the album. I had a good job as a commercial artist at the time. I do think that Ozzy and co had seen us at the Coffin Club, liked the name and called themselves Earth. They later went on to record ‘Paranoid ‘and the Black Sabbath L.P. at Regent Sounds studios by coincidence and I wonder if they heard the tapes of our album, as one track I wrote ‘Angel of Death’ (I too was a fan of Aleister Crowley) could have given them ideas, I will never know!
Barry Mitchell went on to become the Bass player in Queen for a year. He left just before they had their first hit because they weren’t doing enough gigs. He could never talk about it, now very ill and living in a nursing home. Phil Brockton became a structural engineer, never played the drums again and died at the age of 47. I am still in touch with Alan Parsons who lives in Santa Monica.
During this time, I did many speculative designs for album sleeves for my favourite bands, I was a great fan of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and one night I saw that he was playing the Marquee Club in Soho. I Had designed some sleeves for his next LP to show the band so went to the club and sneaked in through the stage door while the band were bringing their gear in. The manager of the club asked me who I was and I said I had Artwork for Arthur Brown and he let into the dressing room! Arthur arrived, I showed him my designs, and he asked me to see him the next day at Track Records offices in Old Compton Street, he introduced me to Kit Lambert and they liked my Art. I did some more rough ideas for Track Records including the next Jimi Hendrix album, but nothing came of it sadly. Arthur Brown left the label, and the Jimi Hendrix album Electric Lady Land had the notorious nude cover!
The music business back them was very loose, everyone was hustling and winging it but it was an exciting time to be alive! I also pitched an idea for a new Beatles album sleeve. My design featured a Lunar landscape with the Beatles heads carved into a rock formation (like Mount Rushmore) , this was before the first Moon landing! I did get a thanks but no thanks letter from them (now lost) and that LP became The White Album.
How did The Earth (limited) edition LP come about via Record Collector? When were these recordings from? And why/how did they come out in 2015?
In 2015 I noticed an Ad in Record Collector Magazine seeking anyone who had an unreleased album from the 60’s / 70’s for their limited edition ‘Rare Vinyl’ series, that would be me then! I called Ian Shirley, the writer and expert on rare vinyl, told him about The Earth LP and took my precious shellac album to him and he loved it, the clincher being Alan Parsons, it was Alan’s first ever recording, Ian loved it and described it as Underground Blues/Rock – Proto Prog Rock! During our conversation I told Ian I wanted to do the artwork for the sleeve as I had by this time designed quite a few L.P sleeves. I came up with the name Elemental as the four original members of the band Astrological signs were the four elements Earth Wind Fire & Water. The design just appeared once my creative juices got flowing, the lyrics being the inspiration – UFO’s – Magic – the elements – and I begged Ian to get my black pen &ink artwork printed onto Silver reflective card, ala Wheels of Fire by Cream, it cost a fortune apparently but looked amazing. The limited edition of 500 sold out within weeks and had great reviews and I re connected with Alan Parsons after many years. Alan complimented me on the cover and invited me to Abbey Road studios where he was doing a gig talking about the recording of Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd ‘s masterpiece on which he was the engineer. During his talk mentioned the fact that his first band was The Earth and the LP had just been released after 50 years gathering dust, he made me take a bow!
You also had a period as Terry Tonik in the late 70s, which is a fascinating story. Were you surprised the initial single didn’t lead to a bigger deal? You obviously have fond memories of that period.
After the demise of The Earth, I settled in to married life working as an Art editor and illustrator for Hi Fi Sound and Practical Hi Fi magazine although I continued to write and record my own songs and send cassette demo tapes to record companies, I have a pile of rejection letters! 1971, I was introduced to Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash by an old school friend of his who I knew, we hit it off right away having similar working-class backgrounds and music taste. During the 1970’s I met up with Andy backstage at many Wishbone Ash gigs and we became good friends.
In 1979 I wrote and recorded a demo of a song I had written called ‘Just A Little Mod’ about my experiences as a Mod in the 1960’s, the ‘Mod Revival’ was in full swing and I had something to say about being an original Mod! I gave the tape to Andy Powell who played it to his manager John Sherry who was planning on forming a new record company and wanted my song as the first release. (The name Posh Records derived from the first 2letters of both their surnames PO SH). We used a small recording studio I knew called Gooseberry Studios in Gerrard Street Soho which was legendary as a rehearsal room in the 60’s, Led Zeppelin had their first rehearsal there in 1968 (around the time I was playing opposite at the Coffin!). The studio was also used by The Sex Pistols and Gary Newman who recorded Are Friends Electric and Cars there.
I wrote another new song – Smashed & Blocked – for the B side, Andy produced it, played lead guitar and got an amazing drummer and bass player in for the recording session. I now needed a stage name, after a long boozy lunch next day we came up with Terry Tonik, my brothers name was Terry and Tonik was the name of the Tonik mohair suits I wore in the 60’s. I had a photo session dressed in my mohair suit and became Terry Tonik.
I designed the logo for Posh records and the 7” vinyl single sleeve, I also wrote a one-off fanzine called Talkin’ ‘bout My Generation which was all about my favourite bands in the 1960’s which we sold separately. Safe to say the charts were untroubled by the release of Just A Little Mod so Andy decided to have another crack and I recorded 3 more songs – a cover version of the 60’s protest song Eve of Destruction and 2 more of mine, Lost In A World of My Own & Wishing Your Life Away, recorded at De Lane Lea studios in Wembley with my old friend Terry Murray on guitar and the drummer from Big Country. In 1994 Record Collector mag published an article about Mod Revival and included my single as one of the rarest 7”vinyls worth £25 (now changing hands @ £70)! They didn’t have a clue who Terry Tonik was, even saying they thought it might have been Ian Dury! …. I wrote to them and they published my letter. Since then Just A Little Mod along with the other Terry Tonik tracks has been released on C.D. by Detour Records ‘A Tonik For The Nation’ available on Spotify etc., also last year Mod writer Eddie Pillar included Just A Little Mod on his Mod Revival C.D. Box set, gratifying!
Had you been around much for the Wishbone Ash album Number The Brave, with John Wetton? Any recall on John with the band?
In 1980 I did more design work for Wishbone Ash and pitched some designs for what was to become the ‘Number The Brave’ Album all of which were rejected! I found out that the design company they used – Cream – copied a WW1 poster exactly and were paid thousands for it! I was introduced to John Wetton at one of their rehearsals in London, there was a lot of tension around the band at that time, bit of a transition period after Martin Turner left, John Wetton was only bought in for the recording of that album as far as I remember, he didn’t want to tour as I recall. I do know they paid a lot of money for the design of Number the Brave and many years later I found out that the design company they used – Cream – copied a WW1 poster exactly!
Were you around for the making of the album? (Any co-writes?) As it was an interesting period with Trevor Bolder on bass (ex Bowie, Uriah Heep) and producer Ashley Howe. Any stories?
I persevered offering ideas and finally got a commission for the new WA album sleeve. I met Andy at ‘The Sol’ studios in Cookham Berkshire (owned by Jimmy Page) during the Twin Barrels Burning recording sessions and showed him some rough sketches. The band decided on an image of twin exhausts on an American Hot Rod style car and arranged a photo session of the band posing with a Hot Rod car and with further research in magazines etc I managed to capture. I painted the designs (front and back covers) with gouache on art board. The whole thing took about 2 weeks including the lettering and artwork for the actual record label. They also used the artwork for the vinyl single ‘Engine Overheat’ and a cassette release. The band were delighted with the result and I got paid £800. I was pleased with that in 1982! The album was released on AVM Records Ltd, John Sherry’s new label and peaked at No.22 on the charts in the U.K. their last showing on the charts I believe.
I do remember going to Surrey Sound when they were recording the track “My Guitar” where I was introduced to Trevor Bolder who was very reserved, nice guy. I was a bit in awe as I was a huge Bowie fan! Stuart Copeland was around then; The Police recorded at Surrey Sound and Stuart was a good friend of Andy. I wasn’t involved with any songwriting on that album and the remix and new cover was probably because of a licensing deal later on?
You did a couple of other Wishbone Ash covers, such as Strange Affair and The Power of Eternity. Both kinda old comic book / sci-fi (?) Love the Strange Affair cover, kinda like an old Dick Tracy comic. Can you tell me a wee bit about these 2, such as where ideas came from, suggestions, techniques, antidotes….?
‘Strange Affair’ was recorded at Andy Powell’s house in Buckinghamshire. He had a barn in the garden and built a modest studio there. It was all a bit weird in that place, he was trying to sell the house and move to America where his wife and kids had already moved to. Ted Turner was back in the band and Martin was the recording engineer but things were difficult. They got a deal with IRS Records (Miles Copeland’s label) and Andy got me to design the sleeve, he gave me a free hand on this one and I only liaised with the record label people. Martin Turner tried to get me to use one of his ideas, it was very hippy dippy with angels wings and not my style at all. I didn’t know what to say as Martin was a friend too so it was a bit awkward, I just did something more in keeping with the title. I love comic book art and had a ‘Strange Tales’ comic from which I adapted the lettering. I came up with a kind of Spy image, two guys in a film noir style. I thought Miles Copeland would like it ( his father was in the CIA )! Again I painted it with Gouache on art board, the record company loved the design and said it was one of the best they had seen.
The ‘Power of Eternity’ name came about when Andy was speaking to his brother Len about having the power of attorney of his affairs, Len apparently said power of eternity by mistake! I had by coincidence written a song called The Power with new guitarist Muddy Manninen who had just joined the band after his friend Ben Granfeldt left WA ( both from Finland ). The green man idea was an image I had already painted, I have been writing songs and making paintings about the environment since 1989, showed Andy the painting and he liked the idea. I added the title to the painting in a simple tattoo style of lettering and it worked out well. That album was recorded in Finland, Muddy is a great guitarist and was a perfect fit bringing a bit of heft to the sound. The Power is the opening track on the album, Muddy and I wrote many songs for Wishbone over the next few years and continue our collaboration on his and my solo projects to this day.
The other cover you did of interest, was the Indian Summer release for Record Collector. This was quite a package, along with the cover, which was obviously inspired by the original LP cover, but also all the photos, and things inside. Do you recall how you created this one? Did you get any help or feedback from bandmembers?
The Indian Summer cover came about after The Earth was released. Ian Shirley liked my work and I designed covers for 3 more releases in the Rare Vinyl series – Flare – Small Town Scenery and Indian Summer. The only clue Ian gave me about Indian Summer were the words Cactus and Fox……. That’s all he said. I had never heard of the band, knew nothing about them and he didn’t play the original album to me, all I had was the original band logo, so I had to come up with something original for a triple gate fold sleeve. I decided on a desert theme and painted slightly surreal images in neon fluorescent acrylic paint; I later found out that the original album was released by Neon Records! I played with the images of foxes and cactus and particularly like the cactus as record deck, made me smile along with the fox urinating against the cactus! I never met the band and got no feedback or input, Ian got all the ephemera and photos together, a big project.
What else have you been up to in recent years? Any new art, music, or songwriting projects?
I never stopped writing songs and in 1988 began worrying about the environment, my daughter had just been born and I wondered what kind of world I was bringing her into. I knew a couple of musicians in Brighton where I was living and we got together and wrote some songs with an environmental theme which we recorded at Martin Turners home studio. I named the band Global FX but the world wasn’t ready for us! We did get an interview on Radio 1’s News Beat at Broadcasting House and an article in the Brighton Evening Argus as “the words first environmental band” – no one cared. Not to be out done I teamed up with a musician and computer geek and we recorded some house music with an environmental theme which I released in 2017 on Spotify along with a video.I was a huge Beatle fan in my youth and actually shook hands with all four at the first Beatles convention in December 1963 at Wimbledon Palais. In 1992 I wrote a tribute song for John Lennon called The Dakota which was recorded in Connecticut with Andy Powell on guitar which you can hear on Spotify. In 2005 I was invited was invited by the BBC to add to the 25th Anniversary tribute of John’s slaying on Radio 4. They played my song The Dakota.
I have written more songs with Muddy including one for his original band in Finland Gringos Locos who made a brief comeback with an album called Second Coming. Gringos Locos toured here in 1988 and supported Status Quo at Wembley Arena, made a few albums but same old story…..! Muddy has released 2 solo albums for which I wrote a song on each and got to sing on one track. He is living in the U.K. and still gigging.
I have worked in the creative arts since leaving school at 15 in 1963. I started out as a Commercial Artist in London, followed by a period in publishing as an art editor on magazines and then in the1970’s becoming a freelance artist, painting murals for quite a few musicians including in 1979 a mural for George Harrison at his mansion Friar Park Henley on Thames where I met George and told him we last met in 1963 at the fan club convention, he thought that was great! A lovely man.
In the 80’s I dabbled in the fashion world and had a successful company designing and manufacturing high end knitwear which caught the eye of the likes of Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Howard Jones and many more musicians here and in America.
In 1995 I gave it all up and got a place at Chelsea School of Art which was a wonderful experience and changed my perspective on art. I have been painting ever since and will continue until I drop.
Hey folks, this is an interview I did with Peter Goalby on the occasion of his new archival album Don’t Think This Is Over. Kevin Julie has graciously accepted it for publication. It was a delightful, wide-ranging chat, but yes, if there’s any one thing I’d like you to gather from it, it’s that based on these songs, Peter should have been a big league songwriter to the stars, not to mention a famed vocalist past his well-graded run of three albums for Uriah Heep—enjoy!Martin Popoff
I guess to start with, why don’t you explain to me just a little bit, where these new tracks were recorded, like what sort of time period and what they were indicated for, I suppose. I mean, did you think you were going to end up in another major act kind of thing or were they going to be a solo album?
It’s exactly the same story as withEasy With The Heartaches andI Will Come Runnin’. After I left Heep, I tried various things to get back up there with the music scene. What happened was with the new album, which is obviously an old album, the songs are about 30 years old, just over 30 years old. And I signed a publishing contract and a recording deal with Rak Records in the UK; that’s Mickey Most. He was known for all the pop stuff, you know, Suzy Quatro, Mud, Hot Chocolate, all that kind of malarkey. Anyway, I signed with Mickey and we did we did two singles – both failed. But whilst I was under contract, I was on the publishing side of things, I was writing songs; that’s what I’ve always done, I’ve always written songs. And there was a falling out. He let me out of my contract. There was supposed to be an album. In fact, he did go over to America to sort me a record deal. And the story I got back from the people in the offices at the publishing company was he was offered a deal for me, an album deal, but they couldn’t or he wouldn’t agree with the terms. In other words, he wanted a lot more percentage than they were willing to give. And so, he walked away. Martin, that’s the story I got. So, the whole thing fell apart and that was the end of it. And I hand on heart, I totally, because I moved on, I was looking at other things as well. And those songs just got forgotten. And the reason that they reappeared is because the people that are looking after me now went to Rak Records and they said, would they consider releasing the songs? In other words, reverting the songs back to me, the copyrights, because they haven’t kept their side of the bargain. The publishing side of the contract was they would endeavor to try and get covers on my songs, from other artists, which they never did. So no, it was it’s called ‘non exploitation’. It’s in the contract that’s in my favor. In other words, if you don’t roll your sleeves up and do the job, the songs will revert back to the artists. So, it was absolute joy when Daniel Earnshaw told me these songs now belong back to Peter Goalby. I couldn’t even hum you a melody of one of them. I hadn’t got a clue. I mean, I’ve written a lot of songs anyway. I got an email and which said there’s a DAT been found in the offices at because RAK was sold and that whilst they were clearing everything out, there was a DAT and it hadn’t got a name on it. But somebody recognized some of the titles to be my songs. And in all honesty, I didn’t get very excited because I’ve heard all these stories and been there so many times before. But…I played the first song and I was absolutely delighted, I thought, my God, this is good. And then I played the second song and I thought. This is really good. After the third song, I thought, I don’t believe this. And I looked up to the sky and I said, thank you, God. I got my songs back, and not only did I get my songs back – they’re really good! I believe them to be very good songs. And for the time, if you look back and think of the late 80s when I wrote them and recorded them, and they still stand up today. We’ve done a lot of overdubbing. We put some good guitar work on there. And there it is – “Don’t Think This Is Over”. I’m absolutely thrilled with it, Martin.
Yeah, they are very solid songs. And you would think these could be absolute smash hits. How would you describe this kind of music if you were going to put on your rock critic hat? How would you describe these songs?
To be totally truthful, because it was what you got to remember, if you go wind the back, Easy With The Heartaches and I Will Come Running – All those songs would have been written anyway, whether I was in Uriah Heep or not in Uriah Heep. And most of those songs would have ended up, as I believe most of the songs or some of the songs, on the new album would have been treated differently because Mickey and the guys would have recorded them a lot heavier. A lot heavier. I mean, if you look back when we did, for instance, Bryan Adams “Lonely Nights”, it’s a pop song. But if you if you get the right players playing the song, it takes on a new meaning. I totally believe that I automatically write commercial songs. I can’t get away from the fact that I started off in a cover band singing everything from “My Way” to all the pop songs of the day when I was 17, 18 years old. And so I naturally write with introductions, with verses, with chorus, with middle eight, what I call a proper song. And part of the magic, and a lot of the magic that we had with Uriah Heep was. I would take a song, for instance “Too Scared To Run”, and I wrote “Too Scared To Run” two years before I joined Uriah Heep, but when I joined Uriah Heep and I did my audition, and I don’t know whether you know the story (?) – I’d already auditioned the year before, and it didn’t work out. Anyway, the second time around, when we were in rehearsals, I said, why don’t we try a song from scratch? In other words, I can sing “Gypsy”, I can sing “Easy Livin’”; I can sing pretty much all the stuff that they’ve done, we did it. So, we all started at the same place. And they automatically played “Too Scared To Run” in a lot heavier vein. And so I believe, the stuff on this album that’s coming out now, as we speak, it’s AOR. That’s what I think it is.
Were any of these (on the new album) worked up with the band? Were any of these put through the paces with the band, towards the tail end, say Equator, were any of these ever put through the paces by the band?
No. All of these songs were written after I left Uriah Heep. There’s nothing… I wrote “Blood Red Roses” for Mickey after I left. He phoned me up and he said, “We’re doing a new album. Have you got anything that would suit?” And to be totally truthful, I hadn’t at the time. But within about three or four days, I consciously sat down and I thought if I was still in the band, what would I like to put forward as a song? So, I wrote “Blood Red Roses”. But everything on this – my third solo album now, and every song that is on these three albums were written after I left Uriah Heep.
Did you have any interaction with Ozzy on losing or gaining Bob Daisley?
No, not at all. I didn’t know Bob previously, so there wasn’t really a relationship outside of the band, if you know what I mean. But Bob’s great. Absolutely fantastic. I love him dearly. And him and Lee were just fantastic. But going full circle, that’s what the point I was trying to make about 10 minutes ago. It’s because people like Bob and Lee and also John Sinclair and Mick, they think in a heavier vein than I write. And I think the magic that we had was because of what I do is a bit poppy in construction wise – and what they do is heavy. And the two meet, and then you end up with a song like “Too Scared To Run”. I could play you the original version of “Too Scared To Run”, and it’s nowhere near as punchy and as heavy. It’s exactly the same; It’s exactly the same words. It’s the same melody. It’s the same guitar riff. But it’s the way that these rock players, the professional, what I call ‘rock players’; it’s the way they interpret the song. I think that’s what the winning formula was. Definitely.
If Bob, Lee, Mickey and John had worked on the songs on this new album, they would have been a lot heavier. I mean, this album is a bit heavier than my last two in that there’s not so many keyboards on this album. Mickey loves the new album. In fact, I sent Mickey “Sound Of A Nation”, one of the tracks, because I could picture him doing it. not in the exactly the way that I’ve done it, but again, a far heavier version, like a rock anthem.
I knew Ozzy quite well. I’ll tell you a story about Ozzy because at the time we were doing Head First and Bob was splitting between us and Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz. And he was in the band, then he was out of the band. And the one day we were in the studio with Ashley Howe and I’d just done the vocal on “The Other Side Of Midnight”, from Head First. In walks Ozzy absolutely out of his tree, drunk with Bob. Bob was practically holding him up. And I’ve met Ozzy before and. They sat down and Ozzy had got a bottle of whiskey in his hand he’d walked in with. Well, I say a bottle of whiskey, about a half a bottle of whiskey, because half had gone. They sat down and I’d finished the vocal, and Ashley was playing it back and fiddling with something. I don’t can’t remember what he was doing, but he played” The Other Side Of Midnight”, and at the end Ashley pretended that it was a guide vocal. And Ozzy said, Fucking Hell! That’s a fucking guide vocal? I can picture him saying it right now. It wasn’t, it was the actual master vocal, and it was a fabulous vocal. And he took a swig of the whiskey. And, you know, like in the cowboy films and they take a swig and they screw the face up and say, “Oh God”(?) And he said, I hate this. I said, What!? He said, I hate drinking this stuff. I said, Well, why do you drink it? Then he said, I love what it does to me.
Was Ashley part of the heaviness because Abominog is recorded pretty harshly, right? It’s really exciting and visceral and distorted. What did he do to make that album sound as heavy as it did?
I think each member of the band would discuss the sound – like Bob, Ashley would say, I’m going to get you a good bass sound. So, Ashley would get the bass sound for Bob and said, Bob, what do you think? And Bob would say, yeah or nay. And in fact, another very quick story on Head First on “The Other Side Of Midnight”, you’ll notice the bass is quite actually too loud that was because Bob was in the studio when Ashley mixed the song. And when he was doing when he was doing the final mix, Bob leapt up from the seat and just pushed the fader up on the bass. He said, turn the bass up. It was a team effort, Martin. I mean, Abominog and Head First were both team efforts. There was just a great atmosphere. There I say there was no leader, Mickey Box is a born leader, but he doesn’t know it and he doesn’t show it – If that makes any sense to you. He doesn’t rule with a rod of iron, but he just suggests, well, what if we and let’s try it like this or whatever. But as I was saying, had the Heep lineup played this album, the songs would still be the same songs, but the solos would be heavier. The bass line would be. I mean, it’s a drum machine on a few of the tracks that wouldn’t be there, obviously. You’d have Lee thundering through. And if we were at a rehearsal, Bob and Lee would lay the scaffolding down and it would be a far heavier scaffolding than what’s on my album.
Peter on stage, 1981, photo Lynn Everett
It could be a nice story that two or three of these show up on the next Heep album and it gives everybody something to talk about.
Yeah. I mean, the reaction to the album…I’m bound to say this anyway, but hand on heart again, I’m absolutely gobsmacked. People really do get it! John Sinclair iiplayed on “I Don’t Want to Fight”, In fact, John rearranged “I Don’t Want to Fight” for me. It captures the time. “Heart What Heart”, it sounds ridiculous, but I wanted to write a song… My favorite singer in the whole world is Dusty Springfield. Somebody told me that Ian Gillan (?), (another singer?), Dusty Springfield is their favorite singer as well. I can’t remember who it was…It was somebody out of a big band.
Ian might’ve said that…
And I was absolutely thrilled to think, well, it’s not just me.
How about did to what extent did Bob Daisley write any of the lyrics through those Heep albums?
Bob played a big part of the writing of the lyrics of the album. I wrote that it was Bob and I. OK. No one else. We wouldn’t let anybody else touch. The thing is, at the end of the day, Martin, I’ve got to sing those words. And Bob and I would sit down together in a quiet room and we’d work, work on the song together. As I say, it’s me that has to stand there and sell the words. So, it was me and Bob.
Any interesting stories of how you picked any of these cover versions on the album, the Russ Ballard song or…
Totally down to Ashley. Ashley had got a nest of songs, even before I joined the band. Ashley was such a massive part of Abominog. It was almost as though it was his baby. He obviously had plans even before I joined. Whoever had gone into the singing seat, I think it would have still ended up exactly the same. The band were under a lot of pressure. I don’t know whether I should tell you this, but obviously you want to hear it….when I’ve told it anyway. Mickey was given a whole bunch of money for Abominog. I mean, at that point, it was just the next album.
He had to put the band together. He had to sort the whole thing out. And a lot of the record advance had been already been spent when I joined. And so, we were in a bit of a dire straits situation, which nearly spent all the money. And we hadn’t even started the album. We were under a lot of pressure.
What were you paying for, like paying flat sums to the new members or..?
Yeah, and the rehearsals and the gear and all that. And to be fair, there are probably a lot of bad stories about Gerry Bron. But to be fair, as Mickey always pointed out, Gerry Bron always put his money where his mouth was. They never wanted for anything. So anyway, there was a lot of money being spent, and they hadn’t even got a full band together. He got Lee and Bob and then he got John. When they asked me to join, I was going to America with Trapeze at the time. And I said I was flattered, and I would jump at the job. But the problem was I’ve got to go to America for six weeks. I thought they’ll find a singer easily, but I went to America for six weeks, and before I went, I said, if you hadn’t found anybody, I would come down and rehearse and see if we could make it work. When I came back from America, I’d been back a couple of weeks and Ashley phoned me, and he said, “Do you want this fucking job or not?” That’s exactly what he said to me. Yeah. And I said, “sorry, but I thought you’d buy now you would have found a singer”. And he said No. Do you know they auditioned 84 singers!? It’s a fact. I’m not lying. Ask Mickey. They auditioned 84 singers! But, all of this time was going by, and Mickey was spending more and more money trying to hold the thing together. So, when we finally got a line up, when I actually joined the band, we were under so much pressure to do an album for Gerry Bron to recoup some of his money. Had had we been given the time to write more songs there would have been less covers. But to be truthful, Ashley and Gerry Bron had a vision, had a picture of making the band more commercial. So, we were on a bit of a loser because everything that we wrote. Gerry would say No. too heavy. And Ashley would be saying, “I’ve got this song …this would be perfect”. So I think between Gerry and Ashley, they steered us in the direction of a lot more commerciality. They wanted us to go to America and sell the band in America. Gerry and Ashley were a massive influence on not only picking the songs, but the whole direction of it all.
To what extent was anybody in the band aware or inspired of this great New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement around you and how you guys could fit inside of that?
Consciously, no, because we were automatically part of it. I remember when I first started rehearsing with the band, I used to stand there, Martin, and I’d think, wow, let’s just listen to this. It was just fantastic. And the band naturally played in the direction of what was becoming very fashionable. Again, I keep mentioning Ashley’s name; Ashley was such a big part of it all, but obviously the actual playing was down to the players. And I think we were all influenced consciously or subconsciously just by standing next to a jukebox in the pub, and you’re listening to Bon Jovi coming on and all the all these different bands. We used to do a lot of festivals and with Lemmy and Motorhead and all those guys. So, I think it just rubs off. I don’t think it was a conscious effort at all.
Looking back, I don’t think we purposely said we want to try and sound like this. Ashley might have thought that, and Ashley might have pushed it a little bit, to the way that he and Gerry wanted things to turn out. But we just played what we played. I was very proud of what they did to my songs, because there was “Too Scared To Run” and “Chasing Shadows” were my songs. It’s just the way that they played them.
Absolutely. What else would be a favorite of a Heep original on here and why?
“Think It Over”. I love that song. I didn’t know that already bloody recorded it. No one told me. I didn’t know, but they’d recorded it a year before with John Sloman. I thought it was just Ashley bringing in another cover. I love “Prisoner”. What I do get an absolute fantastic buzz from is when I, if I go on onto YouTube and put on one of those songs on and see the comments that people have put underneath. And they get it. And it really touches me that people get what we were doing.
It’s interesting. I like what you said about Ashley. I mean, the covers fit perfectly. And then if they’re steering you a little bit to, you’re less all-out heavy metal originals, that now melds with the covers and then there’s a couple pretty heavy songs on there still. So, you’ve got this nice range where it’s and we know the UK, and Kerrang, they love their AOR music, their American influence music. And then obviously there’s going to be a big hair-metal explosion soon. So, this is like a perfect proto-setup for that big hair metal explosion kind of…
As I say, direction-wise, we were just playing the way that we played. If we were pushed at all, it was Ashley that was pushing. He had a picture; he had a vision for this album. He wanted to take the band out of the 70s and put the band into the 80s.
Did you guys talk about the album cover?
Oh no, I Hate it. Absolutely.
What did everybody say about it, and how did the dialog go to come up with that?
I think we were all too polite to say, it’s yuck. I think what happened was because of Bob and Lee, and because of Bob and Lee’s background with Ozzy, the people that were doing the artwork for the album probably…I wonder, in all honesty, whether they actually listened to any of the songs, because I don’t think they did. Because if I was an artist, doing an album sleeve, I’d listen to the songs, and I wouldn’t come up with that picture. Would you?
Exactly. And how about the title? Where does the title come from?
Bob Daisley, I think it started off with ‘Abomination’, and it was taken from there. Maybe what went wrong was Bob did the title, and then the people looked at each other over the table and said, What picture can we put with this!? But to be fair, we were all too polite. Nobody would stand up and say, “Well, I don’t like it”. They’d say What do you think? Well, it’s okay. We were more interested in the music. I certainly had no say at all in the sleeve. And I think pretty much everybody in the band were in the same situation. I think it was just presented and we thought, well, yeah, we’ll go with that, not knowing that in a lot of areas, it probably did us a lot of damage, because a lot of people would look at that sleeve and think and run a mile. They’d run away and say, no, no, no; they would have this vision of some death metal band, which “Prisoner” and “The Way That It Is” certainly aren’t (haha). To be fair, it sort of worked against us, but it also worked for us, because here we are today, 40 years later, or whatever it is, and we’re still talking about the sleeve,
I think it gave you guys an extra little link to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. You’re part of this trend that’s, going strong for three or four years?
Yeah.
What is that story of your interaction with Rainbow?
Well, I’ve never told the story, and really for two reasons. One, because I was embarrassed. I’ll tell you the story briefly, and at the end of it all, I felt that I’d failed, and it wasn’t something that I really wanted to talk about Martin because it hurt. I was with Trapeze, and I was sat in my apartment, (or my flat) at home, and the phone rang, and the voice on the other end said, Is that Pete? And I said, Yes. He said, Pete, this is Richie Blackmore. And I said, Fuck off. Who is it? And I tell you I thought it was; do you know John Thomas of Budgie?
Yeah…
I thought, because we all knew each other, and we’re all from the Midlands. I said, Fuck off, John. He said it’s Ritchie Blackmore. I was given your name, and he told me who, somebody given him my name and my phone number. And then I thought, Oh shit, it is Rittchie Blackmore.’ He said, the reason I’m calling you, I’ve heard a lot about you. A lot of people are talking about you with the stuff that you’ve been doing with Trapeze. He said, Would you be interested in joining my band, Rainbow? And I nearly fell off the chair! And I said, Yeah, I would. Things weren’t going very well with Trapeze, which is another story, (but we haven’t got time for that). We had a five minute chat, and he said, Have you got anything you can play to me? And I said, What now? And he said, Yeah. I said, Over the phone?, and he said, Yeah. I said, We’ve just finished the Trapeze album called Hold On. And I said, I’ll play one of the tracks off that album. On the Hold On album there’s a fantastic song. (I didn’t write it Mel Galley wrote it) it’s called “Don’t Break My Heart Again”. And the song comes in two sections, there’s like a slow, bluesy section, and then it goes into the proper rock version of the song. I said, I’ll play this song, I put the album on, and I put the phone to the speaker, and the song is six minutes long, and I thought, by the time it’s finished, he’s probably gone. At the end of the song, he was still there. And he said, Would you like to come to New York? And I said, Yeah. When?, he said Tomorrow? I went to New York. ..I’ll have to speed it up, because we’ll be here five hours, because I was actually in the band for two months, I never told anyone…Well, they never told anyone. Anyway, I went to Connecticut and rehearsed with the band… And the bottom line was, I got the job. I was told to go home, and Bruce Payne, who’s the manager, would call me, which he did. I was on the payroll. To me, that means I’m in the band. I went to Roger Glover’s house. We did a demo of “Since You’ve Been Gone”. I can’t remember the time frame, but I think it’s over a couple of months. And then we went to Geneva to start recording Down To Earth. Okay? We arrived there and spent a few days doing nothing. And to cut a long story short, one night, about 11 o’clock, somebody came to say, Ritchie wants to rehearse now. And so I thought, Well, what are we going to rehearse? I didn’t even know what we were going to rehearse anyway. Anyway, that was the way he worked. He spent three or four days in the bedroom coming up with ideas, and then he’d bring it to the rehearsal. I found it all very bizarre in that we went down into the rehearsal room, and they all just started playing and expecting me to start singing. And I thought What(?) I’d never worked like that before Martin. I would learn a song or sit down with an acoustic guitar and go through a song and say yeah, yeah, yeah, and learn it that way. Apparently, I didn’t know at the time, but I’ve learned that since they just expected me to make something up on the spot. And I can remember Don Airey looking at me and laughing and mouthing as though he was singing, and he was saying to me, just sing anything. He was trying to help me. Martin. And I thought, How bizarre!? So, I started coming out with something from The Exorcist (haha). I mean, no melody, and no idea how the song is supposed to go. Not even time to sit down and think, it was just start singing, just do something – which I did, and I felt absolutely stupid doing it. We did that for, I can’t remember how long(?) And it could have been an hour, it could have been two hours, I don’t know… Anyway, the next morning there was a terrible atmosphere. And Roger Glover came to me and said, Ritchie’s not happy. and I said, Well, I’m not happy either. I said, I don’t know what he wants…I can’t work like this. I haven’t got a clue what you want me to do. And at that point, Roger said, You’re fired!
That is ridiculous. Like, just a little bit of warning, a little bit ‘Okay, this is how we’re going to do this’. It would have solved everything, right? You’re just blindsided..stupid. (PG -Yeah) I can understand what they’re doing, they’re looking for a vocal melody or whatever, and you’re just supposed to scat over it or whatever…
What he didn’t realize was, I can write songs. The way that I put things together is I put a framework up and I get an idea. I totally get if Ritchie plays a riff, but you don’t need the whole band blowing the roof off for me to try and think of a melody. You sit in a bedroom. I can do all that all my life. I’ve written a few songs.
And what hour was this? What time was this?
Oh, 11-12, o’clock at night.
And you’re in Geneva. Is this like Mountain Studios or…?
No. It’s a chateau, with a drawbridge, moat, castle – the whole shooting match. We’ve got Jethro Tull’s mobile studio outside. We’re there to make an album. And not one of us knew what the fuck we were doing.
What a story! That’s ridiculous.
So, the day before I was fired, to pass the time away. I used to have a go on Don Airey’s Hammond organ. I can’t play, but I can put things together, and I’d work it out. I’d got an idea for a song, funnily enough… Anyway, when Roger said to me, You’re fired. I said, Why can’t Ritchie fire me? And do you know what he said? what he said was Before you go. can I give you a message(?) Ritchie said, “Do you know that riff you were playing on the Hammond organ? Could you show Don before you go?”
Unbelievable! So crazy. That’s just so rock and roll, right!? It’s like you’ve got these employees, just give them a little bit of guidance…Just give them a little bit of encouragement of how this is going to go, right!? You may hear from me at 11 o’clock tonight, or whatever, anything, right!?
Yeah. I mean, I haven’t gone into the other all the details. I’m just telling you a part of it. I’m not telling tales, I’m telling the truth. And part of the reason why I’ve told the story now is because somebody asked me. Nobody has ever asked me, what happened. So, I don’t mention it. “Oh Peter’s embarrassed. We don’t want to upset Peter”… And I had to come home and tell my wife, I’d been fired, and it broke my heart. I honestly don’t believe I was treated very fairly. I can sing for fuck’s sake, I’m a singer. I didn’t go for the job with Rainbow, Rainbow came to me.
And you’re a writer, and you’re a writer!
Yeah, but I’d never worked like that. I know that the likes of Aerosmith, Steve does that kind of thing, they write in that fashion. Somebody will come up with a riff,
But their nightmare story is they have to do that because Steven will do the lyrics at the very last minute, and they’re just trying to get the lyrics out of him. So that’s really problem there. That’s one of the reasons they keep fighting and breaking up all the time, and albums never happen, is because they can’t get the lyrics out of Steven.
So, to me, it was, it was like me landing on another planet…with the best intention.
I don’t want to keep you forever…
Do you want me to sing you a song!? (LOL)
What was the environment making Head First? And what is your feeling of that album versus Abominog?
I love both albums. The biggest mistake we made or in the four five years that I was with the band is changing producer. I don’t get that to this day. I just don’t get why we didn’t use Ashley. It was madness.
You mean on Equator!?
Abominog and Head First were like brother and sister. Just stop and think for one second, the way Ashley recorded, and the way those two albums sounded. Now, picture the songs on Equator, but recorded in the same way, they would have been fantastic. I wrote Equator. I wrote practically every song on there. I get if you don’t like the songs, I have to take the blame. But I’m not taking any blame, because if you go on YouTube, there’s some live stuff, there’s some live versions of some of those songs from the album, and Martin they’re good. They’re plenty good. But it was the whole way the record was recorded. The sound of the album is foul. I can’t even listen to it. And that was one of the main reasons why I left the band. I was so upset and disgusted with the whole… I mean to be fair to Tony Platt, Tony to this day, hand on heart, swears that’s not his mix. He believes that they lost the final mix to the album, and somebody did a very quick mix of the album. Now, I don’t know. I’m embarrassed by the album, not by the songs. I do believe that most of the songs would have been absolutely bang in line with what we’ve already done on the first two albums, had we had the same producer. And as I say, it’s just such a disappointment that Equator, it just sounds bad.
The sessions were fine. You got along with Tony through the recording?
I got on great, absolutely great. But at the end of the day, firstly, it sounds like it’s in mono. I don’t get that. Why would you do an album in mono? And Tony said he wanted to sound the band to sound authentic, like they would live. That’s complete bollocks. Why would you not want to make an album in stereo!? And, why would you absolutely drench everything in reverb? We’re not Def Leppard, Def Leppard is Def Leppard, Uriah Heep. Is Uriah Heep, I don’t want to beat Tony Platt up. I really don’t, but I just don’t get why that the album sounded so bad. But as I say, as far as the songs are concerned, I have to take pretty much most of the blame, because I wrote them (haha). Okay, I’ve got pretty much all the songs written. John Sinclair and I went and hired a cottage, and just John and I put the songs together and moved keys around, and did all this, that and the other. And then we took pretty much the whole album to rehearsals. Everybody in the band was, well happy with the material. Nobody said, Well, we don’t like this, or we don’t want to record that, or why don’t we record one of my songs!? Or we’re recording too many Goalby songs. Everything was fine. It’s all on paper, it all worked, but by the time we came out of the studio, it didn’t sound anything like what we thought it was going to sound like. But it was too late, as I say. Apart from the fact that we were working too much, too many gigs, that was one of the reasons why I thought I can’t do this. There’s got to be something better, and to be totally truthful, when I left, I honestly thought that I would walk into another gig, and the phone never rang. And it took me about 12 months to realize the phone never rang because the story was put out that my voice had gone my voice never fucking went anywhere. I lost my voice in Australia. I got laryngitis. When you nothing comes out, just air. I got that, and the doctors made me have four days off. And in the four days off, I wasn’t allowed to speak. And in those four days I thought, I’m not going to do this anymore. So, when I left the band, firstly, they didn’t believe me. I can remember Lee, Lee said, Oh, come on, we’re going to Russia soon. I said, I’m not fucking going to Russia. I’m not going and they thought I was just going through a bit of, you know, at the time, we didn’t know what it was, but I did have mental health problems. I have to put my hand in the air, because after I left the band, I did have a bit of a breakdown. But I think that was partly, because my whole world had fallen apart. But I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing in the way that we were doing it… So anyway, I’m going backwards.
So, did you tour Equator a fair bit?
We did some dates in America. We did a few dates in England, and live the material went down great. That wasn’t the problem.
Where did that title come from? Or where did Head First come from?
I think Head First came from Bob. Equator,i t may have come from John(?) I can’t remember, to tell you the truth.
I like it. It’s a cool title..
Some people don’t like it.
The album cover’s all right, too.
Again, we got a lot of snip, because the album sleeve was shit. I don’t think it was shit. It depends what you’re looking for.
Head First is a little more high-fidelity than Abominog, and you went to the Manor for that, right!? Any good stories about working at the manor versus the Roundhouse?
Well, the Manor was a far, far better environment. The problem with the Roundhouse was because Gerry Bron was the manager, and because Gerry Bron was the record company, and because Gerry Bron owned the studio, every time Ashley did a mix of a song. Gerry would say, No, mix it again, because every hour that we spent in the studio, guess who was getting the money? Gerry Bron! So, what started off that might have cost 60,000 pounds, because he got Ashley to remix the album about four or five times (lol), it cost’ about 150000 pounds! So, we were well pleased to get out of the Roundhouse. Again, to be fair that was down to Ashley. Ashley refused to work at the Roundhouse because he knew what the problem that we’ve got, Gerry Bron would have a so far in debt that would never make any royalties. But the Manor was a far, far better situation. I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
That’s right. If he’s getting paid for everything, no matter what advance he gives you, he’s going to recoup. It’s like he’s just paying himself, right?
Yeah! And then after Abominog was a big success and sold. I mean, you might know better than I. I haven’t even got a clue how many albums we sold. We were never told. I know it was a lot. And you know what Martin!? never got a penny.
Wow! If I was to guess, just estimate, off the top of my head, I bet this went over 250,000 in the States. I bet you could add another three to 400,000 in Europe, you know, mainland Europe and UK.
That’s the exact number – 700,000; that’s the exact number that I’ve got on my gold disc on my wall. But I guess that. I didn’t get the gold to pay for it. I paid for it myself.
I think that number sounds sensible.
Yeah. It could have been more. It could have been more.
Yeah…Japan, maybe 50…
And we never received a penny. He put Bronze into liquidation. Because…not just us, he had Motorhead, Manfred Mann, he had quite a few acts on there, and he used the record company money to start his Airline, and that went through the floor. And so, nobody got paid. So, from Abominog and Head First, none of us got any money.
Who did you tour with for these records?
In Europe it was always the same team. We’d go and do festivals nearly every weekend, nearly every weekend we’d be in one European country or another. There’d be Ian Gillan was solo at that point. Gillan would be on the bill Motorhead. Gary Moore, anybody that was successful at the time. And then in America, Judas Priest, I mean, the Mickey and the boys are still touring with Judas Priest to this day. Joe and the boys, Def Leppard, that was great. That was a fantastic time for us when we toured with Def Leppard. Just wonderful, wonderful people. When we were doing the stadiums in America with Def Leppard, and when we’d have our soundcheck in the afternoon, they would be playing football in the auditorium, and Joe used to walk up to the stage and say, Play The Wizard, Pete! They were big fans of Heep, the early Heep stuff like “Gypsy” and “Easy Livin’”, and all that. We got on great. We used to do the radio interviews in the afternoon, and Joe and I, or Phil and I would travel in a taxi together; we were just like family. It was just fantastic. We did the Texas Jam… Funny enough, we did, I did, I think it was 81 or 82, with Trapeze, and a year later I did it with Uriah Heep. And so there were all sorts of bands on there. One story that I like telling in Europe, we were always headlining. And the one festival that we did, it was from all day Saturday and Saturday evening, and all-day Sunday. And we’d played somewhere on the Saturday night, we drove through the night to the town where the festival was, and we got into the hotel about seven in the morning. At about 10 o’clock in the morning, I was woken up by this guitar-riff. And you remember “Radar, Love”, by Golden Earring(!?) You know the guitar at the beginning? I was fast asleep in the hotel, and it felt like the walls were shaking. The festival had started. They were first on it was about half past 10 in the morning, and I was lying in the hotel bed thinking, fucking hell! And you know what I thought, Martin, I’ve made it! I’m listening to Golden Earring live, and I’m not on until half past 10 tonight. And I just felt so proud.
It’s just always stuck in my mind. But as I say, I loved being in the band, but I hated all the rest of the stuff that went with it. To tell you the truth, I hated traveling.
Was that laryngitis, you say Australia, were you in the middle of a tour?
Yeah. We’d done Australia the year before, and we’d done really, really well. We did loads of television shows out there, and we did something like 30 live shows, yeah. And then a year later, our manager said, We’re sending you to Australia. And I said, I don’t want to go, because I saw the dates. I saw the dates. There were 42, shows in 36 days. 42 shows in 36 days. (Wow). I complained and complained and complained, and I actually said to the manager, Harry Maloney. If you send me to Australia, I’m going to quit. I’d already had enough, because this is Equator, remember all the shit going on with Equator. Anyway, they sent me to Australia. We were about to two-thirds of the way through the tour and Lee Kerslake took me fishing, sea fishing one afternoon, and whether it was the sea-air, I don’t know what it was, but I came from fishing into the gig, to the soundcheck, and I started singing, Martin, and nothing came out. I’d got no control over it whatsoever. And I thought, I’m in trouble.
How do they not know that you can’t put a lead singer through that?
Well, it’s the old story, you know, maximum three on – one off. Maximum! My world record is 16 back to back. I stood in the Hamburg Hilton with Gary Moore, and he came up behind me and kneed me in the back of my leg on it, you know, like when you’re kids, we call it dead-legging. And Gary Moore dead-legged me and I turned around, ready to kill somebody. And he said, Hello, Pete. And it was Gary Moore, and he said, How are you? And I started talking. He said, Fucking Hell, man. How’s your voice? I said, I’m struggling, Gary. I said, In fact, tonight… he said, Are you’re playing tonight!? They were all there for a TV show. There was loads of bands. And he said, Are you not doing this TV show!? I said, No, we’re actually playing live tonight. And he said, Are you going to be okay? And I said, I’m going to have to be. I said, This will be 16. He says, 16 shows back-to-back? And I said, Yeah. He said, I tell you something, Peter. He says, You ought to fucking sack your manager!? And I said, Well, funnily enough, Gary, meet Harry! (Harry was stood next to me) That’s a true story. It was a circus. Martin. It was partly our own doing, because we were really popular, and we could play anywhere in the world. You could go to any country in the world and say, you Uriah Heep. Oh, right! People know. They’re aware of the band. And that was the problem, you know!? And as I say, 16 shows back-to-back. We once did 23 countries in 30 days! That’s a lot. And people say, Why did you leave, Peter? And then I’ve got to live with the fact that because I’d left, the story was made-up that my voice was fucked. If my voice was so fucked, how come I’ve done three albums since!?
Canada’s CONEY HATCH has a brand new 2LP (2 disc) anniversary edition of their classic debut album. The second LP in the set contains the band’s 1982 show at the famous Cleveland Agora, which, along with the added artwork, liner notes, and remastered sound, make this a great package for any 80s hard-rock fans. Dave Ketchum is a founding member of the band, and was a huge part of that debut album, driving classics like “Monkey Bars”, Devil’s Deck”, and the hit “Hey Operator”. The band is performing an acoustic show Friday, November 14 at the Redwood Theater, in Toronto. In this interview Dave talks about the band’s early days, working with Kim Mitchell, thoughts on the other ‘Hatch albums, what he did after he left the band and is up to these days, as well as the band’s upcoming show, and some of his influences and favorite drummers! This was a lot of fun. thanks Dave.
First, I want to talk about this release here (hold up new Coney Hatch anniversary LP), before we go back and talk about the album and the early days. This collects everything from that era that’s known to be out there, with the outtakes and the Cleveland show.
Right. It was Anthem Records idea to do an anniversary edition. It’s got lots of cool stuff in it. You know, they remastered the first album to today’s standards. And then someone found a copy of a show we did at the Agora in Cleveland, Ohio in 82. The cool thing about the Agora was that, because I don’t know whether you know this, but we did the show at noon. And the reason for that is it’s all mic’d up and everything else, and it went out on a radio station to over a million people. So it was kind of cool, because Rush was playing in town that night. So we did the show at noon, and then well, I don’t know about everybody else, I went back to bed for a couple hours. Then we went out and saw the Rush show in Cleveland that night, and went backstage. That’s the first time I got to meet the guys in Rush. It was pretty cool. And we joked that they played to 20-25,000 people at the arena, but we played to a million!
A lot went into the packaging, obviously. I’ve got the CD and the vinyl here. So, the colored vinyl, the gatefold and the inserts and that was all pretty cool. Did you guys have much say in all that, like, where you guys all kind of chipped in on that, or what?
Well, the pictures are mostly from Andy and Carl. They’re obviously all pictures I’ve seen before. Andy works very closely with Anthem, so he kind of had a lot to do with pushing the product through, having it made, and all that. I’ve known about it from the beginning, but I don’t think I personally did a whole lot for it, just kind of check-marked off things when ideas came up and stuff like that.
Did you save much over the years? Like from those days, did you save any like flyers or tapes or stuff like that?
I had a bunch of stuff from way back and it got lost in a house and it got filled with water in the basement, and I lost almost everything from the early days. So, it’s funny because through the years, Andy sent me some stuff, and fans have sent me things. A few years ago, I got a package in the mail and it had a bunch of the little singles. (walks over to collection to grab things) They sent me copies of the first few albums and then sent me a bunch of these little 45s, from the old days.
(*At this point Dave shows me some Coney Hatch promo singles from his collection)
I have a really cool Max Webster one. I don’t know how that got in my, in my collection (laughs).Well, actually, I do know how that got in my collection. Back in the early 80s, when we were with Anthem Records originally, when we were signed to them, and I lived in Toronto, at the time, I’d go down to Anthem Records; they had this closet in their downstairs, and they’d have copies of everything that they produced, all their bands. They’d keep them in there as extras for giveaways or whatever. And I’d go down there. So I have most of the Max Webster collection; I have a pretty good selection of the Rush catalog, and of course, some of the Coney stuff. But yeah.
I’ve got a couple of 12-inch singles. (I show Dave a few 12 inch singles and LPs, including a few he signed backstage at LuLu’s in 1994, and my Japanese edition of the first LP)
I want to go back to the earliest days of the band, you and Andy formed the band in 79 !?
Yep.
I have seen some gig listings that go all the way back to then. So, wondering what kind of shows were you guys started out playing, what you recall of those days as far as what you played, and the other guys in the band?
I had been playing in a band with a guy named Mark VanRemortel, guitar player-singer, that band broke up. And he had told me, “Oh, I got a guy I went to school with named Andy Curran. So, we got together and then they had another friend of theirs, whose name escapes me at the moment; and he also played guitar. We got together in… I want to say September of 79, and rehearsed a bit, and did some 8 x 10s – shots of the band, because that’s how you used to get gigs. Back in that day, you’d send out 8 x 10s. And then just before the first gig, the original guitar player, he decided that he didn’t want to go on the road; so he quit. I had played back in 75, with a band. Now I was still in high school then, but I played in this band, And the guitar player from that band, a guy named Eddie Godlewski; he was lead guitarist in that band. It was called ‘Back Alley’, I think.
Anyway, so I gave him a call and he came along, and technically, he would probably be the very first guitar player for Coney Hatch, for maybe the first, )I don’t know..) six months or something like that. And then he, he decided he was going to go. So we put an ad in the paper, in the Toronto Star, because again, they used to have a category for musicians and stuff like that back in those days. And that’s when we got Steve Shelski, who, of course, is on all the albums. We carried on like that for almost a year. Then Paul VanRemortel was going to go back to college or school or something, and that’s when we put another ad in, and that’s when we got Carl Dixon.
What sort of stuff did you play in those earliest days? And what of the original songs from the first album were the kind of the earliest ones that you remember?
Well, we were young, and we weren’t sure what direction the band was really going to go in. We played a lot of like ACDC, Bon Scott, ACDC stuff. But then we’d go and play like The Police. We used to do this great song called “Drugs In My Pocket” (The Monks). And we’d play some Cars. So I mean, we were all over the road, when it came to what we were doing musically.
But as things started to kind of carry on….and I should say that back in those days, you played six nights a week. We had a manager, and he would get us gigs. We played every week. I think in 1980, we probably played 50 weeks of that year. And every week in a different place. Well, we’d repeat places, but it was mostly in northern Quebec and northern Ontario and not this far north, but Timmins, Sudbury, that kind of stuff. And yeah, we played six nights a week. So, you’d start to play on Monday, Monday to Saturday. Sometimes you had to do a matinee on Saturday. So, something, at noon kind of thing. And, then Sunday was your travel date to your next destination.
The cool part about that was, again, you played every day, and you played every day with a band, and in front of people, and you could get real feedback for what was working and what wasn’t working. And it was, obviously, a great way to learn our craft; it was a great way to learn your instrument. You just played so much. And it was great! In the 80s we were in our early 20s. We had an amazing time.
Really early ‘Hatch stuff… I want to say that “Monkey Bars” was a very early song. And, I think “Devil’s Deck”, I think those were the two very first songs that we did. And then we added things in afterwards, The funny part is, there were some songs that started off differently, very differently, and then eventually became what they were. There was one of the songs that we did that was called “I’m Lazy”. And I believe that became, “I’ll Do The Talking”, maybe. Anyway, we were starting to play these songs a few years before we actually recorded them, and things changed as they went along. I think “Stand Up” started off faster than it ended up being. When we actually got into the studio with Kim Mitchell, he did a lot of stuff with that; changing tempo and stuff like that.
There’s obviously some outtakes from that album. Do you remember a song called “Car Stares”?
Yes.
I’ve seen that listed before. I’m sure I’ve seen it on a bootleg or something. But I don’t recall hearing it.
It was from our era where we were still hadn’t decided whether we were going to be like a rock band or, or, because it’s almost punky in sound. It’s really fast. That was an Andy song. He was the guy, mostly that was just in love with kind of the tail end of new wave – kind of punky stuff; and so some of his writing was like that at first. And, they’re songs that we either just never did, or songs that got rearranged later on and stuff like that.
I always found, especially on the first album, that dynamic of having the two singers and they’re being from two different influences, like two very different.
Yeah, absolutely. Carl’s more like, mainstream, I guess, maybe would be the…whereas Andy’s got a very different voice; I think, a little bit less mainstream and a little bit more unique. And he went for kind of the rockier, more melodic stuff, if that makes sense.
On that first album, you guys all had credits on that. What were a couple of the songs that you had the most hand in?
Well, again, I’d say the two that I get credit for is “We Got The Night”, and then “Stand Up”, I believe those are the two that I have credit on. Again, it had a lot to do with Kim, to be honest. He’d sit with me and we’d go through a few things. The drum intro to “We Got The Night” was something that I’d been messing around with, and Kim really liked it, and wanted to add it to the beginning of the song, basically. Originally, the song didn’t have that drum intro. And like I said, Kim really liked it, he was like,” No, no, this is great! Let’s put this at the beginning”. And with “Stand Up”, again, tempo-wise, feel-wise, that’s kind of what I brought to those songs.
And the other songs that I really liked that were around… There was “Dreamland” and “Where I Draw The Line”, which was the one that got dropped for “Hey Operator”.
Yeah, it’s funny, “Hey Operator” came in right at the tail end. When you record an album, you put the bed-tracks, down for 15 songs, if you know, to have nine released, or whatever it is!? So, there’s always stuff in the can, so to speak, that can be used, or don’t ever get used or whatever. And, some of the fourth album that we did was stuff that hung around. That was done in 2013, but some of those things were ideas from the 80s.
I got to be honest, I really like “Dreamland”. I thought it was a great song, and I thought it fit in really well with the album. Of course, it was not on the original release, it’s on the anniversary release. But again, a lot of those decisions were between not just the band, but the band and Kim and the band, Kim and the record label. So, you’re looking at that time, and I guess they fit. And obviously, adding “Hey Operator” was a good idea. I just thought it was kind of a shame that that we didn’t somehow add in “Dreamland”.
And we just, only a couple of years ago, actually, we did a show where we played the first album from beginning to end, and that included “Dreamland” and “Where I Draw The Line” We have not played “Sin After Sin” since the since the early 80s. And we’re going to do something kind of similar to that on November 14th in Toronto, at the Redwood Theatre.
We’re once again, going to get to play some of these songs that were never released for the first 40 years of our career. And, then now have been again. So, I think that’s kind of cool.
You guys went on to the second album, you had Max Norman brought in, and it kind of changed things a lot. Obviously, the first album had that flow of energy and the bit of rawness and all, that kind of went from song to song. And the second album seemed to be a little more of an attempt at more radio mainstream, with the production?
Yeah. You know, by that time, the record label was making a lot of decisions for us. Max Norman had had had a name in the business. The band wanted Kim to do to do the second album, and the record label talked us out of it. And, they wanted to use Max, Max had a history with doing the Ozzy Osbourne stuff. So Max was brought in. You know, if I’m being honest, it wasn’t as much fun for me. I loved working with Kim. Kim understood the band, Kim was almost the fifth member of the band. At least that’s how it felt. Whereas Max was much more of a engineer than he was a producer. Kim got into the songs with us better, Max just kind of barked out orders (haha). And don’t get me wrong, I listen to the second album now, and it’s definitely different than the first one. I agree with you on that. I’ve grown to like it more, like now than I did then. I think it’s got some pretty quirky things on there, and some very interesting things that we did. But yeah, it definitely was a very different experience than making the first album.
The second album, I always found it odd; there’s nine songs, and with the five on the first side…it took me a long time to get into the second side as much until I saw you guys last year when you did the whole album. It kind of made a little more sense for me, especially the last track, that everything kind of went together a little better, I think, hearing the whole album in its entirety live.
And that’s what I’m talking about. It took me a really long time to kind of get into the feel of it as well, to kind of really enjoy it. It’s funny when back in those days, because when you recorded everything live, like live on to track to make an album, it’s not like now with click tracks and all this other stuff. I can listen to those albums now and really enjoy them. At the time all I could hear were the really, really minor mistakes and it used to drive me crazy. But yeah, when we rehearsed it, was it last year…to do the second album, and play it live from beginning to end, it was really refreshing. It was like, “Oh, okay”. And playing it all together, just like you said, playing it all together – it made it a lot more sense. I got a new appreciation for the second album that I never really had before. And actually, I really quite enjoy it now.
Do you have any favorites from that album as far as playing live?
I love the last song, “Music Of The Night”. The feel of it…
It has a very late-night radio…something you want to hear after hours.
It’s funny because “Music Of The Night” started off as just a jam. We were just horsing around, and we got into this really cool groove. All the music was done, and then Carl came up with the lyrics for it later. It wasn’t one of those songs that either Carl or Andy just brought in half done; it was literally made from scratch. That was fun.
You weren’t around for Friction, and I don’t need to go into what happened…
My wife and I had children. So, for a brief time there I didn’t want to do the travelling. And I could see that our American record label had started to lose some interest in the band. So, I just thought ‘maybe I’ll get off this ride now’ , and let them carry on. That’s the biggest reason for it. And of course, Barry Connors came in and did the third album. I think they toured for about 6 months after that (I’m kind of throwing out numbers), and then the band broke up. And once we put it back together again a few years later, I was ready to start playing again and have fun with the boys. So really, I was really only absent from the band for less than a year, total.
You guys recently played the Friction album in it’s entirety, overseas. Did any of those songs have a beginning with you? Were you around for any of the ideas of what became songs on the album?
None. Again, once we decided to put the band back together in the later 80s… It was supposed to be a ‘one off’ show at Rock N Roll Heaven. A friend of the band’s had died of meningitis, and he was English, and the family didn’t have the money to get him home. So we were going to do this one show to make up the funds to have the body sent back to his family in England. The response from the show was amazing, and that’s when we thought ‘OK, maybe we can do this a bit more’. And the late 80s into the very early 90s we played lots! Lots of festivals in the area and playing weekends in the local bars and stuff like that.
And that’s eventually that turned into doing the fourth album, in 2013. We had an Italian record label (Frontiers) contact us and convince us to do another Coney Hatch album.
What did you think of Four? Were you happy with that?
Oh, I think it’s the best Coney Hatch album there is! It’s my favorite. That was done by us. Andy takes the producing credit on that album, but that was an album that was literally the four of us. And obviously, many years after the original albums, and time to grow as people, and grow instrumentally. I wish the fourth album had gotten more distribution…because it’s my favorite Coney Hatch album.
For me it’s the closest to the first one; it has that energy and raw edge to it…
Exactly. I couldn’t agree with you more. It is a modern version of the first album. I can only imagine, if it had been the second album, I think Coney Hatch would’ve been a much bigger band. There’s some really good radio friendly songs on there, and there’s some great groove stuff that the four of us get into. Great album! Again, absolutely my favorite album!
So, are you retired now?
Well, I am retired from my day job. I have a degree in child and youth work. And for 22 years, I worked at a secure custody young offenders’ facility in Thunder Bay. So basically, kids under the age of 19. But, you know, everything from murderers to gang kids to whatever. I retired from that in 2021, I believe. So, I think it’s been about four years that I retired from that job. And then, of course, immediately went out and joined a bunch of local bands around the Thunder Bay area, to keep myself amused. So, between Coney and three bands up here. I play in a 50s band, with an 81-year-old saxophone player. It’s just an amazing band; it’s so much fun. They’re very well known up here in northern Ontario. And then I play in sometimes three piece, sometimes four-piece rock band that does 70s, 80s, 90s, rock, and with about a 70% Canadian content – including a Coney Hatch song, we do “Monkey Bars”. And then my wife is also a musician, a phenomenal singer. And she has a country band that I was sequestered into probably about five, six years ago. She’s an amazing singer, and she plays guitar, and then she plays bass as well. She is the basically the full-time bass player in this country band. Yeah, fun stuff. It keeps me amused.
You sound busy!
Yeah, busy enough – rehearsals and shows, and trying to keep down the repertoires for four different bands. Yeah, it’s a bit of a thing, but…I am retired, so, yeah, it’s fun. And then throw in, I don’t know, the two and a half to three weeks of summer here in Northern Ontario (I’m, of course joking), but I also like to get out and play golf a couple times a week. So yeah, it keeps me busy.
Well, the corrections thing, is that something you got into after when you left Coney?
No, that was something after I had moved up here to the north. We actually left Toronto, my wife and myself and our two kids. We left Toronto in 91 and came up here because my wife Bonnie is from Thunder Bay, and had a lot of family up here; whereas, at that time, my parents were living in Tennessee, so I only had a brother there. And he took over the house that we were all living in, and we came up here to be around a whole whack of family. It was great for the kids, because, you know, lots of lots of camping….If you’ve ever been to Northern Ontario, as someone who’s been around a lot of this planet, for the four months, especially, of good weather, I will put Northern Ontario up against just about any place on the planet as far as being just beautiful. It just has so much going for it, hundreds, if maybe thousands of inland, beautiful lakes, and just great camping and fishing. And of course, for those who partake, I do not, but there’s great hunting up here.
Yeah, it’s a beautiful place to live. It was great for the kids to grow up, up here. It’s, especially, going back 30 years, it was a very safe place to live. Not that it’s not now. But It was a great move for our family.
And, just from then on, I just log in a lot of air miles, flying back and forth whenever I need to. It’s a quick…. between an hour and a half – two hour flight. And, I have family down there in Toronto. My brother is there, and his whole family, who also look after our mom, they live in the East End. My oldest son was in Vancouver for many years, and then he came back, …maybe almost two years ago, and is working in Toronto. So as an example, when I come down to do the Coney Hatch show, I’ll stay with my oldest boy, and him and I have a great time.
In the years after Coney Hatch, did you do anything like as far as recording, session work, or do you have any offers to do joining bands or anything?
I did. But I was so kind of, I guess, for lack of a better term, I was just burnt out, by the end of 84. I got some kind of interesting offers and stuff; but you know, we had just had our first son…. And, just didn’t want to travel anymore for a while. I had done it for a bunch of years. I just wanted to give that a rest. And I believe it or not, I drove a cab in Toronto for a while; it didn’t go all that well, but I did it for a little bit and then and then just got into… I worked for Ford, in their glass division for a while, and then ended up getting a truck license. And then I drove a crane truck for about the remainder of my time in Toronto before we came up to Thunder Bay. And, then I got into logging up here for a while. Now, still doing Coney Hatch stuff, once we resumed near the end of the 80s. I think 87 is when I think we started back. So, I was still in Toronto for that. And then when I moved up, I just kind of carried on where we were. We became weekend warriors’ kind of kind of thing. I mean, there was a time period there when my second son was born in 88, there was a time period there where Coney was working almost every weekend, at least three out of the four weekends, and, honestly, I didn’t need a job, so I stayed home and played Mr. Mom and looked after our youngest when he was a baby and, and my wife continued working. And then, and then like I said, when we came up to came up to Thunder Bay, I did some log hauling for a while and ended up getting hurt doing that. And then that’s when I went to college. And that’s how I got my child and youth work diploma.
Did you see the band? Like, after Carl left the band, they had a couple other singers in for a bit for a year.
Never saw any of the other parts of Coney except when it was Andy, Steve and Carl, and then they used Barry Connors from Toronto. I saw that; I think one show, just wanted to come out and say Hi to the guys. And again, I was still in Toronto, and saw them once, it was kind of short lived before it started to go into all these other variations of Coney Hatch.
And, of course, both Carl and Andy at different points, going off to do solo stuff. So yeah, no, never saw any of the other versions. And then, like I said, it completely stopped. I don’t know exactly when because I wasn’t involved and then started back up in 87. And, and I’ve been involved ever since.
(A discussion about the amount of shows the band did when it restarted in 87 ensues, with me not be able to read CD covers and Dave trying to recall the 5-city tour for the Best Of release. Dave estimates the band did about 100+ shows from 87 to 91.I show Dave the front page of the local Niagara entertainment rag with Coney Hatch on the front from 1992).
I was at the show in Toronto, where you did the first album. And I was at the show last year, where you guys did all of Outa Hand. I seem to recall you guys went into the studio while you were in town. (I think somebody posted that).
We went in and did the basically the bed tracks. We did two more songs. And they are, to my understanding, close to being done. We just kind of put them in the can and put them away for a little bit just till we kind of needed them. And I know that the boys started.
They did some studio work, the three of them, they didn’t need me because my part’s done. I want to say early fall. So just recently, they’ve gone in and did a lot of the stuff. I’m not sure if the vocals are done yet on them. But anyway, they’re really close. So two more songs. And we haven’t decided yet what to do with them. The last time we had a couple of extra songs, “It’s About a Girl” and an Andy song, “Heaven’s On The Other Side”, and they were put on with the live album. So, again, we have two more songs. Andy’s song is called “R…..”,. and Carl’s is still untitled because as of the last time that we spoke about it, anyway, it was I don’t know if he had settled on lyrics yet… But we haven’t decided yet what to do with those two, whether we’re going to do another eight, nine, 10 songs and actually put out a new album. We have been in discussions to do that, or whether we will put it out with something else. Hard to say. I do know, I believe we are going to record this show, the Unplugged one. And so I guess the two songs could go out with that. Just so you know, just so we keep the fans happy and give them stuff that they want to hear and want to listen to and …just keep putting out some new stuff every once in a while, that so that it makes sense to continue to come out and see us. (haha)
Will the Unplugged show will be like just the specific album or will be a crossover of everything?
It is in line with the anniversary edition of the first album. So, it’s going to be the full first album, and I believe two of the tracks that were like “Dreamland” and “Where I Draw The Line”. I don’t think we’re going to do the third one because it was never actually completely done. So, I believe that’s what we’re going to be doing is mainly doing the first album.
And again, we’re doing it Unplugged. I was starting off where I was just going to use bongos and now I’m going to use a real drum kit. But I doubt I’ll be using like real drumsticks. I’ll use variations. There’s a drumstick that you can get that have a bunch of bamboo rods in it. It makes it a lot quieter. So that’s plan A for me. But we’ll see where it ends up going. But the guys…I believe Carl is going completely on an acoustic. Andy is going to play acoustic bass, but I think he’s also going to play a couple of songs on an electric bass. And Sean is, from the last time we talked, is going to play kind of a halfway in between, if you will, an acoustic and an electric guitar, which will, still make it, I think, again, in this drummer’s opinion, a little easier for him to do solos and stuff like that. But still, it kind of sounds like an acoustic. That’s my understanding of the instrument he’s looking to play.
Do you keep in touch with Steve at all?
I don’t; but I don’t live in Toronto anymore. You know what I mean? So, I don’t really get an opportunity to see Steve. I know Andy and Steve were always really good friends. And I do believe they kind of keep in touch to a point. Last time I saw him would have been whatever the last show was. What did what did Tony’s East and West, what did they turn into whatever they’re called now(?) We played those two after we recorded the fourth album. So probably around 2014 would have been probably the last time that I saw Steve.
I saw you guys in 2014 in the Falls and I think Sean was playing then.
OK. So maybe it was 2013 because, again, that was the release date of Four. Maybe that was the shows that we did. That’s also very likely.
What did you grow up on as far as favorite bands, drummers and albums?
Well, I would say for me, Zeppelin – find me a drummer that doesn’t say John Bonham, right!? Ian Paice, Deep Purple, they were big for me. As a matter of fact, my earlier style, I would say mirrored Ian Paice a lot more than it did John Bonham. And then for me, bands that I loved, Aerosmith, again before they got sober (haha). I liked all that stuff. I saw them, I think, two or three times. And matter of fact, my youngest son – his second name is Tyler. And it’s purposely after Steve Tyler. And then again, just from learning to play, we were playing so much AC/DC, that there are times when we are putting our own stuff together, and Andy will literally say to me “Start off doing a Rudd!”, which is Phil Rudd, the early drummer for AC/DC. And that is just a pure and heavy 2 and 4, between the snare and the kick. And there’s others… I remember going to see Missing Persons, Andy and I, in the late 80s. We went to see Missing Persons in Buffalo, at this bar that Coney would play every once in a while, one of our favorite places to play. Missing Persons, which was Terry Bozzio’s band, and he was originally Frank Zappa’s drummer, and his wife at the time was the singer, and then some side guys (I apologize to them, I don’t know who they are). I remember standing there in this bar, watching Terry Bozzio play drums, and I leaned over to Andy and said “I don’t think Terry Bozzio and I play the same instrument!” He was doing stuff that completely, so far out of my league. A different style of music of course, but he was doing stuff that made my jaw drop. And of course, being on the same label as Rush, there was a couple of different times that we got to go see Rush. And I had gone and seen Rush as a fan back in the early days. I’d seen Rush a bunch of times. And again, what drummer isn’t going to say that Neil Peart wasn’t one of the best of all time, right!? My dad played drums, so when I took up the sport…the sport of drumming , I think was in grade 5.. Anyway, he took me to see Buddy Rich once, and then I went to see him another time. And this was a guy doing stuff with a pretty small kit but just doing stuff that was unworldly. It was just amazing to watch. I would love to say Buddy Rich was an influence, but he was more of a hero than an influence. I just couldn’t do what he did. But as far as what I wanted to be as a drummer, yeah there’s some Bonham in there, and Ian Paice, and throw in a sprinkle of Phil Rudd, I think you’d come close to what I ended up with.
Did you ever go and see some of the early Canadian bands such as April Wine with Jerry Mercer, or Lighthouse with Skip Prokop?
You know what, Lighthouse played my High School! It would’ve been 74, 75, somewhere in there. I was a kid, and I remember it was really cool, great band. And I got to see Max Webster that way too; again – played my high school. Kim and I had a great laugh over that. You probably know that Carl got to play in April Wine for a couple of years. And actually, my oldest son roadied for them for a summer, while he was in high school. Him and Jerry became best of buddies because both my boys play drums, and my oldest one, he’s an incredible drummer, they both are! But seeing Jerry, the guy was like a machine. He was a phenomenal drummer, and some of the stuff he did, some of the off-time stuff that April Wine would do … They were one of those bands that should’ve been SO much bigger than they are. As much as they are in Canada – they’re legendary, but as far as the world goes, I am always shocked that April Wine was not a bigger band than they were. And Jerry was a big part of that. He was just a powerhouse. And again, even in his later years… I think in ’06 Coney Hatch got to play the Sweden Rock Festival, and April Wine was there, and I got to talk to Myles, and he absolutely remembered my son. And the connection between many Canadian bands, I mean we’ve done many shows with Goddo, we did a bunch of shows with The Headpins, we’ve done shows with Lee Aaron. Yeah, the Canadian market, when you kind of get to that level, it’s all kind of one big happy family. It’s always so fun to do festivals in Canada because it’s like Homecoming, you get to see all these guys and girls that you’ve known for years; all these bands that have done well in Canada, and beyond, of course.
One of the first shows I saw was April Wine in ’84, and Jerry’s solos were a highlight of their shows.
Yeah, absolutely. And he did them right up until… and I went and saw them, I think this is when my son got hired, and Carl was playing in the band at the time. I think it was Jerry’s 65th (?) birthday, and his solo was as good as it was 30 years earlier! The guy was doing drum solos right up until the day he retired from April Wine.
He was something to see, with the whistle going and everything…
Like I said, the man was a machine. I don’t consider him underrated – he IS underrated. I think he should be talked about in the same way that Neil Peart is spoken about; I really believe that. He did great stuff and is a cool guy.
(We end things with me showing Dave a few more things from my collection ;-))
Canadian singer and songwriter RICK HUGHES has a new solo album out (October 24) called Redemption. Rick is also the singer for Canadian heavy metal band SWORD. Sword released 2 albums in the 80s on Canadian label Aquarius, and went on to tour supporting Alice Cooper and others (I must’ve seen them in Toronto on the Raise Your Fist and Yell tour in Toronto). Since then Rick went on to front SAINTS & SINNERS, and release a few solo albums. Now Rick is back with an excellent new solo album, with great songs, including a few covers, and some very special guests. Redemption can be ordered at: https://www.dekoentertainment.com/inthesquare/rick-hughes
Below, Rick and I talked about his new album, plus Sword, as well as his influences, and favorite artists. …..
With the first single, “The Real Me”, you had a lot of guests on it and that, so I’m wondering from where you’re based, how you got all those guys involved? What the connection is with Brad Gillis and Tommy Aldridge and that?
That’s a connection that comes from my Saints & Sinners days. With Saints & Sinners, I was working with the keyboardist from San Francisco, Jesse Bradman, a good friend of mine. When we started to get the project for my new album, that was like two years ago, we went about asking for songs. We asked Jesse if he had some songs to propose for my new album. And he says, “Yeah, I got a couple of songs that I wrote with Brad Gillis”. So, we said, Oh, we want to hear that song. Upon hearing the songs, I fell in love with the songs. I says, can I please have them? They say, Yeah, of course! That’s how we got Brad Gillis, because he accepted to let me record the song. And then we became friends. So, when it was time to record “The Real Me”, we said, well, we have Brad for his songs, because he plays on his songs, of course. And lucky for us. So, we said, “Can you do another one?” And we asked him to play on “The Real Me”. And that’s when the idea came about to reunite him with Rudy (Sarzo) and Tommy Aldridge.
That’s interesting, because when I saw that, obviously, like, I was a big Speak Of The Devil fan when that album came out with that Ozzy lineup.
So Was I !
I’m curious how you got to where you are now with this new album Redemption, because I’ve recently picked up a couple of the Sword albums. So obviously, it’s a very different sound. You got a lot more variety on the on your new album that. Can you talk a bit about how you are where you’re at now, as opposed to just doing the Sword stuff or kind of more of the metal stuff?
That’s a very good question. And the answer is quite logical, is that when I’m a metal singer, or I chose to record metal, I do it with Sword If it’s a solo project, like here in Quebec, I’ve been doing 50 to 100 shows a year for the last 20 years. And the shows that I do are for seven years old to 77 years old people, you know. I’m the kind of guy that when I wake up in the morning, if I listen to music, I listen to The Band, Elton John, metal stuff. Later on in the afternoon, if I have to go around and do other stuff, listen to blues, hard rock… When I ride my Harley, sometimes I listen to heavy metal. But I’m a fan of music. My biggest influence is Robert Plant. So, if you take Robert Plant’s career, I’m not trying to mimic or duplicate, but when your mentor does stuff, you kind of go that way without even noticing it. When you think about Robert Plant, since Zeppelin and today, it’s totally different. He’s never redone the same album. It’s always been different. So that’s what I try to do with my solo career, I do what people already know me for. I’m a singer and I love rock music. So, rock music’s got plenty of genre – it’s got heavy metal, it’s got hard rock, it’s got blues rock, it’s got heavy blues, it’s got pop rock, it’s got rock, it’s got country rock. So that’s the sound you hear on my album, just what I just described.
Now you do have a few covers on the album, in particular, “The Real Me”. I love the Who albums. I’m kind of curious why you picked that one of all the Who stuff.
Because of the playing. When my manager and I decided on this song, we said, “Okay, let’s redo The Real Me, and let’s find the perfect musicians to render the song. So, it was magical because that was way before Brad was even in the conversation. So once Brad got in on the song, then we went for Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo, with the result that we hear on the recording.
There’s a few other covers, you do the Michel Pagliaro song. I imagine he’s a big influence on you. We don’t see him much outside of Quebec, I assume, but the albums are pretty easily to find here. But I wonder if you can talk a bit about that track that you chose.
Again, a very good question and I’ll answer it by answering two questions because probably you’ve got another question around the corner. Michel Pagliaro, we affectionately call him ‘Pag’, is one of my main influences. As a kid, when I first saw him on TV, that’s when I fell in love with the guy, with the attitude, the music, the sound. Pag is like the rock and roll attitude, man; this guy is amazing. And when it was time to choose the songs, I said to the producer, John Webster, and my manager, I told them, “We need at least a couple of French songs on the album”. And they obviously asked me, “Why is it so important?” I said, “Because I’m a loyal guy. I’ve been playing here in Quebec for 10 years. I’ve been doing 50 to 100 shows a year, there’s some French material in the show. There’s obviously a lot of English material because I’m more at ease singing Americana kind of stuff, or even British stuff. But still, there’s a section in my show that that’s Francophone for my Francophone fans. So, I said to my producer, I said, “Listen, John, you’re the best producer in the world in my book. I’m about to do one of my most important albums. There’s got to be a couple of songs in French”. I’m a loyal guy. I don’t want to leave my French speaking fans out of this album that is so important. And the way I closed the deal I said to him, I said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s French or English at the end of the day, because just think about Rammstein, they’re German, they sing in German, everybody loves it. You wouldn’t change German to English because of the way it sounds. So same goes with my French song on the album. I’m sure that the English-speaking fan will find something interesting in the French song or they’ll catch a glimpse of the words. And yeah, I’m confident they’ll like it as much as they’ll like the English song.
It’s interesting because I think Michel Pagliaro did the same thing where he had some French and some English songs on various albums and that. Correct?
True. Yes. A lot of artists here in Quebec do that, they mix both, because as you can hear, I’m a French speaking guy. Rick Hughes is my real name. It’s not a stage name. My father was from Irish descent. So, it is my real name. But I’ve grown in a French environment. My girlfriend is French, my dogs, my kids, everybody around my neighbors. I speak French 24 7. So that’s it. But like I said earlier, I love the sound of singing a song in English.
The other cover, I wouldn’t say it’s cover. Actually, it’s your song, the Aldo Nova track “Someday”. I listened to that. I thought I know that because I got that here (held up Blood On The Bricks CD). Obviously, that song is good 30 plus years old. You’ve done a lot of work with Aldo as well, that song and some other stuff as well.
This is such an important song for me. And I’ll tell you why. I wrote the song while I was working with Aldo on Saints & Sinners album. Aldo was producing the Saints & Sinners album while Jon Bon Jovi was producing his album, Blood on the Bricks for Aldo. So, while he was producing Saints & Sinners, he had written some amazing songs for the album. And so one night I came to him and I showed him “Someday” and he says, “Wow!” I said, “Cool, you like it? So, it’s going to be on the album?” He says, “No… let me ask Jon because we’re looking for a ballad right now. We’re missing a ballad. And if you would allow me to use your ballad on my album, I’d be very grateful.” I says, “…if Jon likes it, then it’s yours! I got plenty of good songs on Saints and Sinners. And again, you wrote some excellent songs for me. So, it would be just a show of gratitude to leave you the song.” So, the next day he called me and says, “Jon loves it. We’re going to use it for my album”. A couple of months after that, they gave me a call, they were in studio and they were rearranging the song, changing some lyrics, adding some parts here and there. So that’s how Aldo and Jon are credited on the song. But I am the main songwriter of the song. So, I wanted to redo it. But I waited to make sure that it was okay with Aldo.
Well, it’s a great inclusion. It was a hit and it’s something obviously people will be familiar with.
And what I meant by this song is very important is that, like you said, that’s 30-something years ago that Aldo recorded that song. At that time, I was a young, struggling artist from Quebec. I had two kids that were just born. My wife, at that time and I wanted to buy a house, but we needed the down payment for a house. And we were, you know, scratching and putting some money aside and getting ready to buy a house. It would have taken us a long time. And by leaving that song to Aldo, the first royalty check that I got was the down payment for the first house I bought. So, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.
Well that works out then…The other person you have on here I see a lot lately, he’s on the new Alice Cooper album as well, is Robbie Krieger (on “Dans La Peau“) . How did you wind up with him on the album?
The album was recorded at Little Mountain Studio in Vancouver where Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, name it, they all recorded there. Now it’s called Iposonic Sound, but it’s the same. Nothing has changed. Frames on the wall, everything’s the same. So, everything was recorded there. It’s a live album. We got the rhythm section to record all the songs there. So, it’s a live album. But when it was time to record my duet with Amy Keys, a fabulous female singer. Man, I’m a big fan of hers. She was available but only in Los Angeles. So, they gave me a call.
They said, “Okay, Amy wants to do the duet with you, but it’s going to have to be in L.A. I said, “okay, so let’s do it in L.A”….”Okay, well there’s a studio in L.A. It’s Robbie Krieger’s studio, and it’s near where she lives. They got the equipment”, I said, “Wait, wait, wait! … you had me at Robbie Krieger”. I’m a big, big, big Doors fan. We went to Robbie Krieger’s studio to record Amy Keys. And while she was there recording the song, I came up with the idea. I told my manager, I said, “Why don’t we ask Robbie to play on that song?” It’s a kind of bluesy country-ish kind of song. And he goes, “that’s a long shot”. I said, yeah, but if we don’t try it, we’ll never know. So, we tried and he said yes. And that to me is like, it’s not even a dream come true because I never even dreamt that Robbie Krieger would play on one of my albums. I’m very, very grateful to him.
Well, yeah, it’s an interesting inclusion. He seems to do a few guest appearances; he’s on the new Alice Cooper album and he’s on an album by Blue Coop, which is the BOC guys and that. And the other guy you’ve mentioned on this album, I’m not familiar with him, is Johnny Hallyday.
Oh, Johnny Hallyday! I’m a fan of this guy. He’s like the French (from France), Elvis Presley. He died in 2017. And he was filling stadiums back in France, like 80,000 people.
He was a big, big, star, big, big influence on me as a kid, because my mom was a big fan of Elvis and of him. My mom was an artist, you know!? The Johnny Hallyday song is not known. It was kept quiet. It was released and they took it out. But before they took it out, I had a copy of it that I had put on a CD that time when we could burn CDs. So, I was listening to the song all the time and I kept it private, I didn’t want anybody to steal that idea because I thought it was such a good song. It’s like a hard rock, heavy blues kind of song. And the subject matter is so, so, SO, up to date.
How did you get a hold of it? It was an outtake from an album?
Well, you know, when I mentioned Amy Keys; Amy Keys was one of his backup singers for many years. So, he would do duets with her. The guy that wrote the song, the duet with Amy Keys, wrote the song for Amy Keys and Johnny Halliday, but Johnny died. He never could even listen to the song or let alone record it. So, it fell into my lap. That’s when I said, “Yeah, I’m a big Johnny fan. That was meant for Johnny, I want that song!” That’s how the connection was made.
You mentioned this album being a very important album. I get the impression in like reading some of the notes that it’s quite, some of the songs are quite personal for you. So, I wonder if you can talk a bit about the importance of everything as an album and some of the songs as being personal to you.
Just the title, you know, I was looking for a word that was the same word in French than in English, so not to deny my French root. And a couple of words came to mind, and then I came up with, Redemption, came into my head. Because I’ve been around the block a couple of times.
I’ve toured with Motorhead in the UK. I’ve been here, there, everywhere. I say that very humbly. I had my shares of let down and get up again and fight more – that’s the story of my life. And my philosophy about that is that we’re in a constant state of redemption if we strive to get better every day as a human being. So, if you look up redemption, not in a biblical sense, but in the literal sense, it’s about focusing on yourself, not on others or what happens around the world. It’s just focusing on you and how you can make your world better. And the best way to do that is to forgive yourself all the time for everything that you do. If you’ve done something wrong, or that was not quite right, just forgive yourself and just readjust. That to me is redemption. I thought the title was perfect because of my age, where I’m at in my life right now, the importance of that album, and all the subject matters on the album. They’re not that serious; they’re not pointing fingers at anybody. I wanted to create an album where if somebody digs it, well, while he listens to it, he forgets about the world, he forgets about anything, he just thinks about himself and how he feels upon listening to the album. That’s why there’s so much difference between one song to the other, so people can travel in their mind, and not always stay on the same train.
What else do you have planned for promoting this? Will you be doing any shows outside of Quebec? Anything planned as far as a band goes or anything?
That’s the main reason why I did the album, is to get more shows going. I really, I truly come alive on stage. That’s my second favorite place in the world. My first favorite place in the world is here at home with my wife and my people. My second favorite place is on stage.
As soon as I put one foot on the stage, “Whoa!”, something happens. And it’s been like that since the beginning; and it’s still like that. So, yeah, the reason for this album is to get us more shows, you know, abroad, not only in Quebec. I would love to go play in Niagara. I’ve been there before.
Growing up where you did, obviously, there’s a lot of Montreal, Quebec has kind of its own scene. There’s a lot of stuff that we don’t see much out of over here. But there’s a lot of great bands from Quebec, like Frank Marino, Pagliaro, Offenbach.
April Wine! They were based out of Quebec.
I’m a big April Wine fan.
What kind of stuff you grew up on and what some of your favorites as far as the Canadian scene went.
When we’re young, we get influenced by the music our parents listen to, as long as they listen to something cool. My parents were really cool. My father was a guitar player, singer, leader in a rock band, and my mom would sing in the band with him, a bit Johnny Cash- June Carter kind of stuff. They had this amazing vinyl collection when I was a kid. They had Zeppelin, Janis, French stuff, lots of Elvis. So, it was very rock and roll. So, my early influences were Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, some French stuff like Offenbach, Pagliaro. But yeah, it starts at home, or with your friends. In my case, it started at home. We’re a musical family. Everybody does music in my family. My sister sings on the album with me. My brother plays drums in Sword.
Did you keep a big record collection growing up?
Yes, I still have my vinyl collection, and I still have some old record players, like we used to have when we were kids, with the cabinets there. I got two, and I play my records on that. I got one in this room and I got one in my ‘man cave’.
The SWORD albums, which I recently picked up, the Unidisc reissues. You guys were on Aquarius, and I think Aquarius closed up at some point in the early 90s. Did you guys have any say in these reissues?
No, it’s Unidisc that handles that, but we had a good relationship with Unidisc. George, the owner of Unidisc, is a great guy. He’s taken good care of Sword’s albums. As you can see, the reissues are beautiful. The way he redid the sleeves and everything. It’s really good. Are you aware that we recorded a third album!?
Yeah, I was looking at that, and I see there was a limited amount of vinyl for that. I was just looking at trying to find a copy.
It’s just called Sword III.
Yeah, and then there was the live album as well?
Yeah, the live album was (done) before, but Sword III was released in 2023, a couple of years ago. We love that album too. It sounds great. By the way, I’m rehearsing with Sword tonight. I’ve been rehearsing for the past five weeks because we’ve got some shows coming. We’re friends since we were 15 years old. We’ve always been together.
You guys must have had some success. You had a lot of names on the albums. You had Gary Moffet, you had Jack Richardson producing the one album and that. So, what are some of the highlights of those first two albums, that period there?
Well, it was the best of times. My brother and I started to make music like we were 13. I was 13, he was 14. I played the guitar and he was banging on stuff. And then he got drums, I got an electric guitar. Then we met the two Mikes – Mike Plant and Mike Larock. We were living in the same town. So, we were 16, 17 years old. We did the bar circuits for years and years. And we built up a fan base. In 1986 we signed with Aquarius. We released Metallized, and the next thing you know, we’re opening for Metallica! And then we got a call from the UK to go open for Motorhead. We got back, we did the second album, and then we went on tour with Alice Cooper.
That was a dream come true because my brother and I, when we were in our teens, we were the guys that would go in line at the A&M record store and wait till the door opened to buy the new Alice Cooper album, Welcome to My Nightmare and all that stuff. We were big fans of Alice Cooper. So, we got to open for him like 10, 15 years after being big fans, and get to meet him! We were so in awe. And you mentioned Jack Richardson, who worked on some Alice Cooper albums; and that (again) was another dream come true.
The other guy who recorded one of your albums was Gary Moffet, an amazing guitar player.
Yes. And amazing songwriter.
Have you seen the new version of April Wine at all?
Yes, I saw that. And the singer is a good friend of mine – Marc Parent. I played with him a couple of times. We had a show together. He’s good, he’s got a good voice, and he’s a good Good guitar player!
What else do you have on the go?
That’s it. I’m very happy with the team I have on this album. I’m really looking forward for the world to hear it because I know that with Sword and with Saints & Sinners I’ve got some fans here and around the world. So, they’ll discover a new sound, which is who I am today, what I listen to, what turns me on, what gives me the shivers, what makes me think. It’s like a good movie – if you sit down and watch a good movie, for a couple of hours you get inspired because of the message, well, the same goes for music. That’s what it does to me. If I put on a good album, I won’t stop in the middle I’ll listen from beginning to end because I know it will take me somewhere else in my head and my thoughts. You travel without leaving home! Just sitting down. Like when we were kids, and we got Pink Floyd The Wall, how that changed our lives. I remember as a kid listening to The Wall and crying on some songs because I thought ‘wow, this is so beautiful!’ And it changed my life, a little bit. And then I heard another album that changed my life a little bit. Music does that to you.
A good songwriter will not only work on the music, but also on the lyrics to make sure that what he says reflects what he thinks, and what he thinks is right. And again, a good songwriter will do that. There’s songs that I’ve heard 20-50 times and they still do the same thing to me. They make me want to be a better person. Music does that to you. People take it for granted, but music is like food for thought; it’s food for your soul.
Is there any plans for another Sword album?
Yeah, probably. I’m doing some rehearsals with Sword because we got some shows coming up, but I’m really focused on my solo project. I just can’t wait for the album to get out, and to start to tour for that album. When I’m done with that, the timing is right, then it’s going to be Sword.
You mentioned a few of your influences. What are a few of your favorite albums of all time; albums that have stuck with you, that you can put on anytime?
Of all-time, I’d say Led Zeppelin I,II, III, and IV. Every Black Sabbath with Ozzy, with Dio, and Born Again with Ian Gillan… Those are my favorites – Dio, Ozzy, Robert Plant, some Judas Priest. Those are my favorite singers, biggest influences.
Outsider Rock 