Eighth Day Magazine Issue Thirty-nine

EIGHTH DAY BAD MANNERS AT CHRISTMAS!

Rick Wakeman / Dodgy / We Are Scientists / The Dears / Tom Stade / Andy Bennett / John Illsley / The Junta

ISSUE THIRTY-NINE. DECEMBER. £5.50

PANTS TO THE POPE!

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EDITORIAL

Top: Alice Jones-Rodgers Editor-in-Chief Scott Rodgers Photographer and Reindeer Handler Bottom, from left to right: Dave Hammond Staff Writer Martin Hutchinson Staff Writer Paul Foden Staff Writer Peter Dennis Staff Writer

EIGHTH DAY Issue Thirty-nine December 2021

Mark Christopher Lee Staff Writer Eoghan Lyng Staff Writer Dan Webster Wasted World German Shepherd Records “Different Noises for Your Ears” Frenchy Rants

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“A wee slice of rock ‘n’ roll history!”

CONTENTS

4. Dodgy Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

24. John Illsley Interview by Eoghan Lyng 38. The Dears Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

57 / 73 / 85 / 101. Wasted World A special festive instalment of Dan Webster’s legendary comic strip.

58. Rick Wakeman Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

62. German Shepherd Records Presents: The Junta Interview by Bob Osborne.

72. Bad Manners Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

86. We Are Scientists Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

102. Tom Stade Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

116. Andy Bennett Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

126. Frenchy’s Rants This Month: Coming Home.

129. Creepy Neighbour Dave Hammond reviews ‘Debut Album’.

130. Blow-Up Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Melting Pot’.

134. The Pogues Eoghan Lyng explores the band’s 1987 album ‘If I Should Fall From Grace with God’.

138. Washing Machine Dave Hammond reports on the live event’s 10th Anniversary Bash at The Hunter Club in Bury St Edmunds.

146. Ghostbusters: Afterlife Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

Join us in 2022 with our Twelve and Six Month Subscriptions, available from our website.

Merry Christmas!

Dodgy *Staying Out for the Season!

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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“When we’ve got each other’s back ... nothing will stop us!”

As with all great guitar-based bands in the mid-’90s, it was inevitable that Dodgy, with their seemingly effortless ability to write a perfect hook-filled, big chorused Pop song and their natural charisma, would somehow strike a melodious chord with a nation in the grips of Britpop-mania.

However, whereas Oasis bickered their way through those few years of Union Jack waving insanity and record companies snapped up any band who might hang neatly on the fishtails of their parkas, vocalist, bassist and chief songwriter Nigel Clark; guitarist Andy Miller and drummer Mathew Priest’s key strength was always in the bond between them and the fact that they were much more interested in the music they made than any publicity that they might be afforded.

Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that, by the time Britpop swaggered into the equation as the antidote to the US Grunge scene, Dodgy had already built up a loyal following on their own terms, having been in existence since 1990, or the fact that their optimistic, harmony-

drenched sound owed much more to the US West Coast music and Northern Soul scene of the ‘60s than Merseybeat or Ray Davies-aping observation. Take for example, their biggest hit, ‘Good Enough’ (UK#4), which was based around a drum loop sampled from a Lee Dorsey track, or its astoundingly sonically adventurous parent album, 1996’s ‘Free Peace Sweet’ and we were presented with a band who truly were proud to be an anomaly.

When we call Clark for a chat about the band’s history and their plans for the future, he speaks with a palpable sadness about Dodgy’s premature end back in 1998, but a massive amount of pride and elation about having been reunited with his bandmates since 2008. These days, he, Miller and Priest might live a sizable distance from one another, but that bond between them seems stronger than ever. So much so that there are even tentative plans to record a third album since their reformation and sixth (not including 2001’s Clark-less ‘Real Estate’) overall. “I’m always busy!”, Clark

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Nigel

tells us. “I’m in my studio. I wrote a lot of songs during lockdown and wondering which songs are worthwhile taking forward to the next level of actually demoing, you know. So, I’m doing that and hang on, I can tell how many I’m through ... I mean, there’s bloody hundreds!

But, yeah, I’ve got about a third of the way through and this has taken two days! [Laughs].”

The prospect of a new Dodgy album is an exciting thought, but whether or not any of those songs will be included, we will have to wait and see. However, the most joy that I derived from the following interview was just to find a man who, despite the many ups and downs he and his friends have travailed over the years, now seems happier than ever to be part of the band that, in the end, even being associated with a scene that brought us so many great bands, but also damaged so many, simply could not be destroyed. This is a tale about following your dreams, reaching the very top of your game,

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Andy

how what comes up must come down, starting all over again and, to coin a phrase, “making the most of” what is available to you in an ever-changing music industry, but most of all it is one about how undying friendship can conquer all.

Firstly, hello Nigel and thank you for agreeing to our interview, it is lovely to speak to you. It certainly sounds like you kept yourself busy during lockdown anyway!

Well, see, that was the thing, I was just in my studio. We couldn’t do anything, could we? Except for like lockdown gigs and stuff like that. You know what? I kind of liked it! [Laughs] ... and I’m not sure if it’s gone back to normal yet. The world definitely changed since we got locked down and you changed the way you live and I think that ... you know, I definitely have. I mean, I’ve really struggled this year doing the driving. We had a lot of gigs to do and just getting really tired after forty minutes of driving, when I’ve got to do six hours! [Laughs].

Math and latest addition Stuart Thoy

Going right back at the beginning, we believe that Dodgy were formed from the ashes of a previous band called Purple, is that right?

It is! I mean, Purple never really did anything though. I think we did a few gigs. We did one gig, or a couple of gigs in Birmingham, maybe, but we were formed in London really. First of all, when we first moved down to London in, God knows, 1989, we sort of came up with the name Purple, but obviously, it had no relevance to anything, it was just a colour. And I’m not the biggest fan of purple, if I’m honest, as a colour! [Laughs]. I think it’s one of those colours! It’s a funny colour! But, anyway, we didn’t last very long and I think, you know ... yeah, we did a couple of gigs. I remember doing one in Birmingham and a couple in sort of like little venues in London. We were a three-piece, so Purple was before Andy [Miller, guitarist] joined. So, it was me, a guy called Fred [Collier] on bass ... I played guitar and Mathew [Priest] on drums and I suppose we were like a late-’80s

Dodgy in 1993. L/R: Math, Nigel and Andy

version of The Jam [laughs].

So, from that, how did Dodgy come into being and how did you eventually come to sign to A&M Records for the release of your debut album, 1993’s ‘The Dodgy Album’?

Well, so, when Purple was going, we lived right in the city of London, we lived right in the centre, we lived in Battersea, and you know, we were down there and it was like an extended holiday when we first moved to London. We had a nice sort of apartment, but we couldn’t afford it and to afford it, we’d all have to go and get jobs and I didn’t want to get a job, because I’d moved down there and my job was, I wanted to be a songwriter and play music. And so, we moved out and we moved to somewhere cheaper out by Heathrow Airport where the house had a garage and I built a studio in the garage so we could rehearse.

And we still were with Fred, and then Fred decided to leave and we had a few different members and then we put an advert in the paper and Andy Miller

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turned up. I mean, we literally saw about fifty guitarists! And these were the days when it was all though the Melody Maker or the paper called Loot. Do you remember Loot? Andy wouldn’t read the music press, so he found us through Loot and so, you know, it was a free advert. So yeah, it was quite funny and Andy was always like a really tidy guitarist in the sense that he loved Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. I was more of a sort of a Joe Strummer, sort of like Punky sort of guitarist, three chords, whereas as Andy was very finesse and, you know, lead solos and it was like ‘Oh, this is great!’

And so it was really good and that’s how Dodgy were formed really! And how we got signed to A&M was, we were really struggling to find gigs ... not struggling to find gigs, but struggling to find gigs that people would be at and there was a whole thing in the early-’90s, and the late’80s actually, when you had to pay thirty pounds to put a gig on by a band, so we’d have to pay thirty quid and all the promoters would be making that money and give us two-hundred tickets,

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but we were from Birmingham, we didn’t know anyone! So, in the end, we decided that we needed to find our own venue, so we did and we used that and we called it The Dodgy Club. So, that’s where we started really, where we’d DJ and we did our own little gig at ten o’clock and then it all closed off at eleven and everyone went home!

And we did it every couple of weeks for a year. It was our own little vibe and then, you know, record companies would come. They’d phone up and go, ‘We’d like to get on the guestlist for The Dodgy Club’ and I’d go ‘Sorry mate, no guestlist!’ We didn’t play the game either, so we were very much like ‘This is our thing, we’re not playing the game!’ And I think that really paid off, really, because, you know, it’s power!

And it’s yours! ‘Power’ is a horrible word actually, but I liked the fact that this was ours and we wanted to protect it and yes, of course we wanted a record deal, of course we did, but you can’t be too hungry for it, you’ve got to be a little bit cool, haven’t you? Do you know what I mean?

Moving forward, 1994 saw you release the album that would provide you with your chart breakthrough, ‘Homegrown’ (UK#28), which featured the singles ‘Melodies Haunt You’ (1994, UK#53, as part of ‘The Melod-EP’); ‘Staying Out for the Summer’ (1994, UK#38 / remixed and re-released in 1995, UK#19); ‘So Let Me Go Far’ (1995, UK#30) and ‘Making the Most Of’ (1995, UK#22).

By this point in the band’s career, would you say that chart success was something that Dodgy were striving for even more than previously and how did it feel to see each successive single released from ‘Homegrown’ peak higher than the last?

Yeah, I think from the word go, really ... I think when you get a record deal, you sign up to the expectation of like, that being ... It’s like if you were a rockclimber, you’d want to reach the peak of Everest, but you start off small.

And I think our first single release, which was ‘Summer Fayre’ [1991], we’d always go ‘Oh, this could go bloody high!’ But, anyway, it was

about 180, or something like that! But, weirdly, all of our singles, right up until ‘Good Enough’ [1997, UK#4, ‘Free Peace Sweet’] went higher than the last one. And I think that by the time ‘Good Enough’ came out ... I mean, that is a different story, but the record company, you’re in the studio, you’re spending money, or the record company are spending your money on their behalf or whatever it is, to record it and the pressure is ‘Well, have we got a single here?’ Do you know what I mean? ‘Have we got a single here?

Have we got a radio hit here?’ And, you know, everybody was saying that to me and being the sort of principle songwriter, or ideas person especially, coming up with all the ideas in the studio, I was sort of like, ‘Well, is that a hit?!’ And I still do it now! You know, I mean, when I write a song, I still think ‘is this going to sound good in a club, or on the radio?’ Normally the radio, I think about, you know, but there’s nothing wrong with that. If you think of anything, like any sport, anything, you always want to be the fastest and the first in anything. But I

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must admit, I’m not interested in being the first anymore, I would rather hang back and do something that’s going to last a little bit longer.

It sounds like there was a lot of pressure that came with being the principle songwriter during that era?

Yeah, it was an enormous amount of pressure, if I’m honest and I think I was really good at handling it, because I’d spent such a long time, or at the time, I thought I’d spent a long time, sort of perfecting something, but I worked with some really great people and I was really fortunate. You know, a record company is a whole team of marketeers, press agents, TV people and they’re all working on your behalf with that product when the album comes out, and yeah, I think the pressure that got to me was that I WAS the product and I WAS the sort of ... and I think that that became ... I suppose, in some ways, [laughs] I wanted to go back to my independent existence, do you know what I mean?

And I was lucky enough to be a part of

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that whole thing in the ‘90s, which, as we look back, was the last real time of any real major music industry. I mean, because it was twenty-five years ago and I have no idea what the music industry is like now! Do you know what I mean? Do they sign deals? Do they make albums? Everything’s on Spotify! How do you make money in that?! I don’t think you do! And the thing is, there’s always somebody taking your money and sort of advising you wrongly and I think that what happened to me was, the first time around in the ‘90s, you feel like you’re carried away on a wave and then all of a sudden, you realise ‘Where am I? And how did I get here? And who said I could be here?!’ Do you know what I mean? I think there was a bit of a step back and I sort of glimpsed reality.

And, you know, I was sort of aware that ... at that time, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and that was in ‘95, so I understood ... well, we both did ... that we had to keep working, but, you know, I wanted to take a little bit more of a ... not a backseat, but I wanted to take a bit more control over what we

The ‘Homegrown’ years, 1995

over a year, rather than squishing it all in, and I think certain people in the sort of business side of it didn’t like that [laughs], so I was, not ousted, but I was made to feel not very welcome really.

Because that was the industry at the time. Children weren’t very welcome in the music industry at the time!

You really did have it all going on, didn’t you?!

Yeah, and I think you can sort of appreciate, you know, how like it is a business and, you know now, business doesn’t give a shit about the environment, it doesn’t give a shit about children and women, it doesn’t give a shit about ... this is business in general. It only cares about money!

And as a musician, I’m not really that money-motivated if I’m honest, you know. And I’m not! I mean, what would I do with it?! All I want to do is write songs! I’d just write songs in a nicer place! Do you know what I mean? I don’t have many wants really, as in, you know, I have no desire to have a Lamborghini, I don’t like cars!

I used to work in the motor trade, I don’t like cars!

I know what you mean, because we’re the same. We’re not bothered about material possessions, we just like doing what we do!

Yeah, it’s been hijacked somewhere, hasn’t it, I suppose, somewhere along the line? And it’s a real shame, but you’ve got to keep your integrity and you’ve got to keep doing what you do and that’s what I feel I’ve got to do, you know. I’ve been doing this for over thirty-years and I love what I do and it had been hard and I find one of the most difficult things I do is, when I did eventually leave the band in the ‘90s [1998] is going back to being, you know ... I’m doing that because I’m doing the brackets thing with my fingers ... being a ‘normal person’ again. Do you know what I mean? But I was a dad and I had to go and get a job and stuff like that, so I worked for a little while, gave up music. I didn’t give up my music, I gave up the whole music industry and all that, to save

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myself in some ways, I suppose.

Well, it’s what you had to do at the time, isn’t it?

Yeah, exactly!

‘Homegrown’ and its follow-up album, 1996’s ‘Free Peace Sweet’ (UK#7), which featured the singles ‘In a Room’ (1996, UK#12); ‘Good Enough’ (1996, UK#4); ‘If You’re Thinking of Me’ (1996, UK#11) and ‘Found You’ (1997, UK#19) were both released during the heyday of Britpop. Having formed in 1990, you would have obviously seen the rise of that movement, but was Britpop something Dodgy were keen to be associated with and how did you see the band’s place within that scene?

Hhhmmm! Yeah, I mean, at the time, I really remember we weren’t for it at all.

I felt that in the early-’90s, when you say 1990/1991, we did our own thing and we felt very independent and, you know, it wasn’t like there was a bunch of bands who all had the same ideals

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and stuff like that. They possibly did.

But it was very competitive, if I’m honest, at the time and my problem was that I’m not a flag fan, I don’t like flag-waving and I felt that the whole tag of ‘Brit’ was really terrible, because we were touring France and Netherlands and Germany and it’s like, you don’t want people to think that! It was just very backward and I thought that, you know, we’d come too far.

And I felt that, basically, the whole thing got dumbed down really in the mid-’90s, and I thought that was a real shame, because ... and again, here you go, business got involved and it was ALL about money and the quality of everything went down a little bit and the expression, everything formulated around it; it’s got to be guitars and it’s got to be this and that. So, I found it very ... just not very exciting and it was a shame to be linked with it and you’re never going to fight it. You know, people always say it, you know, there’s so many people who are doing the Britpop thing now and it’s a nostalgia thing. I don’t know, you can’t deny people. The one thing you can’t do and

I’ve learned, is when people are young, there were a lot of people around in the mid-’90s and, I mean, the fans of Dodgy and bands like that would have been all fourteen or fifteen, you know, and it’s their first bands that they were into and you can’t ever ... even though they’ve changed like twenty-five years later ... you can’t take that away from them. You know, it’s who they are.

Even if they don’t like the music ... I mean, I used to like Dead Kennedys and Crass. You know, I’m bit older and they’re real hardcore Punk bands.

Now, I still love them ... I don’t listen to them so much anymore, but if I played them to someone, they might go ‘That’s bloody terrible!’ [Laughs], but I love it, because it’s mine and it was when I was fourteen, fifteen.

Yeah, because I was fourteen in 1995, so I was one of those people then, and there were some amazing bands at the start of that whole Britpop thing.

But I think, even at that time, like you were saying, it all went a bit silly, didn’t it?

Yeah, it did. And it was that whole thing of that whole Oasis / Blur thing on the BBC News [August 1995] and it was just like ‘for Britpop’ and I was just like ... you know, I think it’s just how things are and, you know, it was like three years that seemed to last forever at the time, but now I look back and go ‘three years is nothing!’ You know, ‘94 to ‘97 is nothing, you know!

I know what you mean, because just as a music fan and somebody who was working at HMV for most of that (1996-1999), it did seem to drag on for a long time and it was only three years.

Yeah, exactly! I mean, I used to work in a record shop when I was a kid, when I was at school, so that was my whole input into it, you know, into music, I suppose. Having a comprehensive education that wasn’t great, but just wanting to do something, I found myself in a record shop at fourteen, and it was an Indie shop, and seeing all the records come in and when you have a job that feels like

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Christmas every day [laughs] ... I loved it, I absolutely loved it! I wasn’t even allowed to be employed, I was too young, but I used to go, I used to love it, I used to bunk off school and do it because I loved it so much! [Laughs].

You know, you’d do anything and the thing is, I was really fortunate and I think that I’ve had my life, I’ve lived my life, and I must admit that ... I had a house and a mortgage when I was nineteen and then I realised that wasn’t the life I wanted, so I left my job and I moved from Birmingham to London to follow my dreams and it was really hard, but the thing is, it’s really real to me. I was once a really crap guitarist who couldn’t put three chords together and now I feel that, you know, I’m not a bad guitarist, I’m quite a good guitarist. Do you know what I mean?

And a good singer! I knew I had some sort of voice when I was younger, but I feel as though I’ve got to know my voice in those thirty years and I’ve got to know my voice as an instrument, you know.

Isn’t it funny how we both started

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out working in record shops?

Because I was very similar. I started at HMV on my school work experience and just got kept on afterwards until I went to university and I absolutely loved it!

Oh wow, no way! Oh, well cool!

That’s really well cool! I know, I loved it, it was my favourite job! When it got closed down I was devastated!

Talking of ‘Free Peace Sweet’, which incidentally celebrated its twentyfifth anniversary this June, that was the album that saw Dodgy reaching the top ten in both the album and the singles chart, with second single ‘Good Enough’ peaking at number 4.

What are some of your favourite memories from the ‘Free Peace Sweet’ era?

Oh wow! Well, one of the first favourite memories was just, I managed to get the guy ... we recorded the album at Wessex [Sound] Studios in London and I could walk to it from my house. I lived in North London and so I could

The ‘Free Peace Sweet’ era, 1996

be with my son and my wife and I could go to work, as it seemed [laughs], you know, and be like ‘I’m going to the studios, see you later, had my breakfast!’ And it was just such a creative process and I’d be at home in the evening. Because before that, we were on tour, so, really, the songwriting, I’d done bits and bobs, but I was literally writing songs in the evening and then going back in the studio the next day and going ‘I’ve got this one’ and I was finishing things. A little bit similar to what I said at the start of the interview, that I’m doing now, just going through songs. But, yeah, it was the thought of going into a studio with brilliant, professional people, producers, engineers and the band and building the songs and that being your day job. I mean, that did beat the record shop job! It did! I was in my element! And I remember when the record company said ‘You’ve got to stop now’ [laughs], I was about fifteen or sixteen songs in, it was like turning into a double album! I loved it! I was so creative ... we all were, we were so creative and we were just enjoying it

and I think that was brilliant and then we also knew that, you know, ‘In a Room’ was going to be the first single and the record company were really behind it. I kind of knew that ... I remember when I played the guys my first demo ... and it’s a terrible demo, I’ve got it still! ... of ‘Good Enough’ and I played it to them and said, like, ‘What do you think of this?’ And they were like, ‘Hhhhmmmm, well, it’s not really Dodgy, is it?’ But we were really into Soul music, really. Mathew especially, he’d got us all into more Soul music, because Mathew’s dad Peter was like a real record fan. You know, Sly and the Family Stone and just so much Soul music. Sam and Dave, everything, Northern Soul, especially. So, I’d taken a drum loop from a Lee Dorsey record that I’d just found and thought ‘oh, this is cool’.

First ever time I’d sampled anything.

I’d got a sampler at home, never even used it, and it all came about as an accident. I’d done other songs with drum machines with Dodgy, but this one was a Funky beat and Mathew liked that and we just went ‘Let’s work

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it out!’ And, you know, it became a little bit of a diversion to Dodgy. And weirdly, it became the biggest hit and an AMAZING hit and I’m really proud of it. I mean, it’s not for everybody and some people go ‘Oh no!’, but I have my own reasons why that song is important to me and I still love it! A feel good song!

One of the things that has always struck me with Dodgy is, with songs such as the aforementioned ‘Staying Out for the Summer’ and ‘Good Enough’, that you know how to write a good, strong Pop song with memorable hook and a great chorus.

As a songwriter, are these the elements that you are looking to incorporate from the outset and in your opinion, what makes a great song?

Yeah, in my opinion, what makes a good song is first of all, it’s got to have a message, or an integrity, in the lyric, but for me, as a songwriter, I think it’s really to do with melody. If you imagine, you start off and you go, ‘I’ve

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got this really good melody’ and then you get some words for it. Nowadays, I do it in sort of twenty/twenty-five second chunks and I got ‘that’s a really brilliant verse, but now, how am I going to get a chorus?’ And you’ve got to sort of work out how to get from this bit to this next bit. And that is a real challenge. And then you’ve got, ‘well, do I go into the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle-eight format or do you do something else?’ And, I mean, I’m sort of stuck in my ways a little bit and, you know, [laughs I do like the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle-eight, double chorus format! I do! I think there’s a real challenge in getting a song to do all those things in two-minutes fifty-eight. I think it’s an amazing challenge and I think, songwriting at that level, to get it all to fit in in that time, is absolutely an artform.

I seem to remember that there was due to be a US release of ‘Free Peace Suite’ in early 1997, but those plans were eventually shelved. As a band, was not making it over in the US

something that you found disappointing?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I’d sort of done a little bit of travelling there in 1988 with a couple of friends and like, my dream was that I wanted to go to America, really. That was my dream, you know, get in the van and do the small gigs like we’d done in England and build it, but unfortunately, we just never had ... and, you know, the problem was, so many bands had tried and failed and I was certain that we would succeed, because we had harmonies, we had like the love of the West Coast, The Byrds and so on ... I think we had, like you say, songs that had big choruses and good verses and I thought we were just primed for it and to find out that we weren’t going to get released there was, in some ways, that was it, my bubble had burst really and I was just devastated. And I don’t think we really recovered from that. I think that we had a case ... because when you sign a record deal, you sign a worldwide deal and, you know, we had a case for restraint of trade, because

they owned it, but they didn’t get it put out there, so we never got the support.

And I think that then, they were showing the signs that they weren’t necessarily on our side. It just didn’t make sense and, you know, when things don’t make sense, you come to your own conclusions really and I think that it was definitely a hard one to take and I could see that our relationship with both the management and the record company was going to be coming to an end.

So that was really the beginning of the end for Dodgy the first time around, I guess?

Well, it had already happened on ‘Homegrown’, that we hadn’t got released in America on that one, and yet we had done extensive touring in Europe and then with ‘Free Peace Sweet’, which was a platinum-selling album, you’d think at least we’d get a release. There was, I mean, some options we had, but they were all very dodgy. Walter Yetnikoff, who was Michael Jackson’s manager, who

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was Michael Jackson’s manager, who recently passed away actually [this August], he invited us over. He came over to Europe and said ‘I want to release this album’ and we were like, ‘’Well, it’s owned by Polygram’, or whoever it was at the time and he went ‘I don’t care, I’ll do it illegally’ and we were like, ‘Ooooh, this is a bit scary!’ [laughs]. But, you know, we would have been used as an argument between Walter and the head of Polygram, [laughs] which is not a great way to get released! So no, it was a real shame and I always felt that we had probably a better chance than a lot of other bands, because we did have that sound.

I agree with you, because I think that out of that stack of ‘90s bands, I always thought that Dodgy were the ones who were going to make it over in the US. Yeah, and we have a lot of fans in America, it’s crazy! Even though we never got released, which is mad, we still got one of our songs on the Super Bowl advert! [Laughs]. I think it’s one

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of those funny things where we get loads of messages from people in America going, ‘When are you going to come over here?’ and we’ve been doing this for thirty-years! [Laughs]. It is really crazy, isn’t it? But that’s how it all works. I mean, I’d love to go ... or I would have done, because I think the America I knew when I went and travelled there in 1988 is a very different place now and I must admit, I’d be a bit more worried these day because I don’t think it’s the place it used to be.

Following Dodgy’s original break-up in 1998, was it 2007 that you reformed?

I’m not sure, I can’t remember! I would say 2008, because I think we tried to get back together in 2007 and it didn’t happen and then 2008 we did, and we did a few gigs then. Yeah, I can’t remember really! But, we’ve been together longer this second time around than the first time around! Yeah, 1990 to 1998 the first time and then a ten year gap and then 2008 to the current

Dodgy in 2012

day. And the thing is, it’s a really special thing. We’ve been through highs and lows as a band and we’ve been through fall-outs and fall-ins and everything, but at the moment, we’re really tight together, you know, and it’s a really nice feeling, actually. But, obviously, we haven’t got a record deal and there’s no talk about whether we’re going to do another album again, because let’s face it, I mean, we’re in an industry where product and all those things aren’t valuable. It’s really terrible at the moment, you know, to think that if we put an album out, is anyone going to buy it, or does anyone buy albums anymore?!

So, would you say that is the biggest difference this time around, compared to the first time?

[Laughs] Erm, yeah, there’s a lot of differences. We were young and we had less commitments and we used to get in the tour bus and, you know, it’s not like that anymore. We all drive in our own cars or vans to the gigs and stuff like that, normally. I must admit,

I enjoy it more now. I think there was a lot of pressure, going back to the pressure of the ‘90s, a lot of pressure, and I feel that twenty-odd years later, I feel more of the musician that I had have been then, you know, but I feel more comfortable in my own skin, comfortable with my own voice, comfortable with my own talents and the band’s talents and I’m more appreciative of the people around me now. I think, you know, at the time, it was very difficult and I think that, yeah, I don’t imagine I was the nicest person to be around all the time in the ‘90s, because of the pressure. But nowadays, I don’t have that pressure and I want everyone to feel great and I want the audiences to feel great, that’s the most important thing, especially after what everyone’s been through in the last two years, you know. So, when I do go out and do a gig, I want to be the best I can, you know.

The release of ‘Stand Upright in Cool Place’ was heralded by a tour on which, rather than following the growing trend of bands reforming

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to play their classic hits, you played the new album in its entirety. We have seen you live both during your initial run and since you reformed, so I was wondering, how comfortable are you with the nostalgia aspect that I suppose must inevitably be there when you play live these days?

Yeah, like I said earlier, you can’t take that away from people. I mean, I’ve done gigs where I’ve not played ‘Good Enough’ and they don’t like it!

[Laughs]. You have to give people what they want, you have to remember that, but also, you know, there’s a great David Bowie quote, which was ‘Don’t play to the gallery’, which means ‘do what you want’. When we did ‘Stand Upright in a Cool Place’, we recorded it in a studio that I had in a barn in a house in Malvern, a farmhouse, and it was like a really cool place and I recorded it and I just said to the guys, ‘Look, at this moment in time, no one wants another fucking Dodgy album, it’s just us’. And, you know, I’d written a lot of songs and gone ‘It’s just us that wants this’ and, you know, ‘This could

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be our last album’. We put a lot of effort in, a lot of time. I mean, I did put a lot of time into the both albums, you know, and to be fair, it’s exhaustive and, you know, especially when we’re doing it on a budget, but you want to put out the best quality music you can.

And the songs, we still play one of the songs in the set all the time from either of the albums, because all of albums, we take a lot of pride in making sure that what we put out is 100%. Every single song you can listen to by Dodgy and, you know, they know we know what we’re doing. We don’t put out fillers, we never have done. We may be ‘dodgy’ by name, but not nature!

That’s a good quote that, isn’t it? I’d never thought of that one before!

Obviously, Dodgy are still drawing huge audiences these days, but have there been any gigs that you would consider to be particular highlights from both the first time around and since you reformed and why?

You see, a lot of people ask that question, but, I mean, I always had

difficulties playing Glastonbury, you know, because of the pressure. You know, I don’t mind playing in front of big audiences. In fact, I really like it, you know, of course I do. You think ‘God, if you can get these people into this and get them clapping’, just that unity, people together, but Glastonbury was always really difficult, although I loved the event, I loved being a punter, I just found it very difficult personally, because you don’t get a soundcheck, you don’t get to look at your levels on stage and I mean all the boring technical stuff, you don’t get that chance, so someone just kicks you on the stage from backstage and you’re like ‘Oh, hello!’ [Laughs]. You know what I mean? And you’re like ‘I can’t hear my guitar! I can’t hear the drums!

I don’t know what the fuck’s going on!’, sort of thing. So, I mean, all gigs to me are the same really. I mean, I like bigger gigs these days, because you haven’t got intense volume. Like, pub gigs with the band are very difficult, or club gigs. Some club gigs are great, but if it gets really loud these days, my ears start ringing, which is

really bad! Yeah, I think most musicians get it after about thirty years, so you’ve got to be a bit more careful.

But, going back to the question, I’ve played so many gigs and I must admit that we did get a name for being a festival band, because our music is so ... it’s not like it’s steeped in like distortion, or you’ve got to be into like Heavy Metal, Death Rock, or whatever. We’re a traditionalist cultural band, you know. We like bands like The Who, the Small Faces, The Beatles, The Clash, the Sex Pistols, you know, and onwards, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. We like that music, that was always our thing! And I think we were really proud of our culture, that was the thing, and when people started going ‘Britpop’, I was like going, ‘Hold on a second! What about all the bands from like there and Canada and, you know, Germany’. So, yeah, it’s a hard question to answer.

We noticed that you have some incredible looking gigs coming up in the near future too. For example, you have just been added to the

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line-up for Fi.Fest in Berkshire on 9th July 2022, alongside Reef, The Hoosiers and many others. Are there any gigs that you are particularly looking forward to in the near future and have you perhaps made any plans for new music to coincide with next year’s dates?

I don’t know. You know what, I haven’t even looked at it! Well, I have looked at the calendar, we’re doing the calendar now. Yeah, do you know what? I think nowadays, because all the band live in different parts of the country, we don’t get as much chance ... I mean, we were together at SHINE [Festival] recently, which was really lovely ... we don’t get as much chance to be together and obviously, over the last eighteen months, we haven’t, because of lockdown. But, you know, I do think that when we get together, a magic happens, there’s a chemistry.

There is and it’s bigger than all of us and I’m very privileged to be part of that and I mean that sincerely, I feel very privileged to be part of it. I may not have really realised that and recognised that back in the ‘90s, but these days, I really see it and I feel very honoured to be with these guys, and they’re lovely guys. So, yeah, that is always the plus side and when we’ve got each other’s back like that, nothing will stop us!

That is really lovely. It is really nice to hear that, because I suppose back in the day, as you were saying, there

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was all that pressure there.

There was just a lot of bullshit and yeah, at some points, it was horrible and you know, it felt like you were on your own. It felt like everyone was on their own and, you know, it was not a nice situation and that’s to do with business, the cut-throat world of business. Because business works that it’s always someone’s fault, there’s always someone to blame, and I hate that culture.

So, in a way, it actually sounds like you are having more fun this time around, which is lovely to hear.

Yeah, the only way we could top it is if we could actually find some way of doing another recording, you know, and getting back in the studio in the future.

I would really like that. Now, I’ve done an album recently and I’ve been doing work with people who are socially excluded and experiencing homelessness. So, before the lockdown, we’d written loads of songs and then during the lockdown progressed, we had all these gaps and we’d go back in the studio with them and we got funding to do it and so we’ve done another album and we did a lot of it via the internet. We’d just send songs and then someone would send me a song and go ‘You’ve got to do bass on this’, ‘You’ve got to do the singing on it’ and I’d do that and send it back and I think that may be a way of Dodgy doing stuff. We’d go into a

studio for two weeks, or a week, record all the drums and then Andy goes home and does his guitar and I’ll stay here and do my acoustic and my vocals and put some other ideas down ... maybe we do it like that and then mix it all together. I don’t know, there’s got to be a way of doing it where it’s cost effective, because I couldn’t afford to do [it the regular way]. We have no budget for doing that anymore, you know.

I think everyone is in the same boat these days, aren’t they? But I think that is a really good way of doing it and I hope that you do.

I think so! I did mention it to the guys the other week, that I’d done this album with people who are experiencing homelessness. And I was absolutely amazed that we got someone to mix it and we did it remotely. We weren’t in a room going, ‘Can you get the drums a

bit louder?’ and stuff like that, you know, and tapping him on the shoulder!

Everyone had space to do it in their own time and do you know what? As a musician, listen, you get used to making mistakes! [Laughs]. I do a bassline, or something like that, and it sounds great, but it takes twenty times to get it! Still! But to get to greatness, you have to fail a lot! [Laughs].

Thank you for a wonderful interview, it has been really lovely to speak to you. We wish you all the best for the future.

‘The A&M Albums’ vinyl boxset and the vinyl reissue of the 1998 compilation ‘Ace A’s and Killer B’s’ are available now on Demon Records. www.dodgyology.com www.facebook.com/ dodgyuk

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John Illsley My Life in Dire Straits Interview by Eoghan Lyng.

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“... we did it on our own terms ... that’s a pretty amazing thing to do.”

Dire Straits’ ‘Brothers in Arms’ (1985) stands alongside Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of The Moon’ (1973), Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’ (1994) and Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ (2006) as one of the tentpole British Rock album from the last fifty years.

Replete with swagger, polish and sharp guitar arpeggios, the album still resonates with newer and younger generations. It helped cement Dire Straits’ status as one of the most popular bands of the eighties, culminating in a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album.

But, as bassist John Illsley says, it wasn’t an overnight success, as the band had already unveiled four popular records. Illsley should know, considering that he played on everything from the rollicking 1978 eponymous debut to the more sombre soundscapes that make up 1991’s ‘On Every Street’. Standing beside songwriting guitarist Mark Knopfler, Illsley played with every configuration of the English band, making him the perfect person to write about the group’s stratospheric rise. Fitting for a man who has just written a book, Illsley is both

naturally verbose, and wonderfully droll, closing out the Zoom call with the witty zinger , “I hope we touch base again soon.” Considering his choice of instrument, the pun rings excitedly, and he even indulges us with a snapshot of Christmas in the Illsley abode. His book, ‘My Life in Dire Straits’, is on sale now, and should make for a wonderful present to all the many Dire Straits fans across the United Kingdom.

First things first, how did you meet David and Mark Knopfler?

I needed a flat mate as the rent was too high at £9.50 a week. David arrived carrying a guitar - a good sign, a few weeks later Mark appeared. I came home early one morning to find him asleep on the concrete floor with a guitar across his body. I made some tea, he woke up and we talked. I warmed to him straight away, we chatted about music and it seemed we shared similar tastes. Then we went to the local cafe for breakfast. The start of a very long and enjoyable friendship.

The first Dire Straits album from

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1978 is my favourite, precisely because it’s so raw.

Yeah, it’s a lot of people’s favourite.

That’s where you start off, and you end up somewhere else, basically. If we made every album the same as the first album, that would have been, for us, quite limiting, and probably people would be saying, ‘Oh my God, can’t they do something different?’

It’s a good thing you did. You went from something Bluesy , à la ‘Lady Writer’ (‘Communiqué’, 1979),to something so probing like ‘Telegraph Road’ (‘Love Over Gold’, 1982), and in a very short period of time.

Yes, it really depended on what sort of songs we were dealing with. Mark was writing, pretty much from 1976, constantly, so one didn’t know what was going to come next. So, when something like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ [‘Making Movies’, 1980] turns up on your doorstep, I mean somebody might say to you, ‘What do you think of ‘Making Movies’ as opposed to the

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the first Dire Straits album?’ I understand the rawness and everything like that, but when you’re faced with songs of that quality, that’s what made ‘Making Movies’ a really important album for an awful lot of people.

Was 1980’s ‘Making Movies’ perceived as a concept album from the get go?

No, not really. It got called ‘Making Movies’ because actually the song ‘Expresso Love’, which was on the record, was actually called ‘Making Movies’, and when we first started working on it, the lyrics were completely different from ‘Expresso Love’. It was about making movies on location, in the heat of the Saudi, and it was about being a film director, or a film producer, or something like that. In a sense, ‘Making Movies’ is an analogy about somebody writing or being a writer, which of course was Mark reflecting on himself, just as ‘Private Investigations’ [‘Love Over Gold’] was a reflection of himself, because that’s about writing as well.

They’re both quite introspective songs as such.

When do you think Mark Knopfler started developing confidence in himself as a lyricist? 1976?

That’s a question you’d have to ask him, really. I was just dealing with what he was producing in the way that I felt was the right way to deal with it, as everybody else in the band was. I mean, the thing is, writing a song is one thing, but putting it into a usable concept takes a few people. You don’t do it all on your own. So, the importance of having a band is very relative for most writers, I think. They need other people to reflect on what they’re doing at the time. That’s the way I see it, but people might see it differently. I think everybody works in a similar way when they’re writing, and the band is making music. But there’s going to be variations on a theme there’s going to be some things that are going to be very obviously fixed before you sit down and work on a tune. Other songs, we would spend a lot of time on;

for instance, you mentioned ‘Telegraph Road’. That song was put together during soundchecks on ‘Making Movies’ , because it was a very big concept. We didn’t know how long it was going to be, it could have been five or ten minutes long. [But] as it turned out, it was over fourteen minutes long!

It kind of needed to be, that took a long time for the band to get to work.

Mark’s lyrics were always there, that was always a given, and some ideas of the tune, but you take ‘Telegraph Road’ and that was literally built up by the band as a unit. Every song works differently, every song is approached differently, and that’s why each album was different. ‘Love Over Gold’ is very different to ‘Making Movies’. ‘Brothers in Arms’ ... Well, that is what it is, you know!

When I listen to ‘Lady Writer’ and ‘Sultans of Swing’ [‘Dire Straits’], it sounds like you’re playing lead bass.

Was that intentional?

Are you saying that was me playing lead bass on those songs?

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Yes, it sounds like lead bass. But I’m not a bassist!

Em, not really. I’m just playing the notes that I thought would work [chuckles]. I didn’t have any intention of doing a John Entwistle, or anything like that. Or Chris Squire. My style is very simple. ‘Lady Writer’ and ‘Sultans’ have a very similar feel to them, so I think that’s what you’re getting at. They feel very similar. In a sense, most of those songs at that time were stories. That’s what they were.

‘Sultans’ is the story of a Jazz band Mark and David saw in the back streets of Greenwich one Saturday, or Friday, night. Mark got the idea, and made a song out of it.

Muff Winwood openly admitted that he felt David Knopfler could have contributed songs for the albums.

Did you ever consider contributing songs to Dire Straits?

Well, that’s very interesting that Muff would say that, because [although] David was writing, he wasn’t writing

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the quality of songs Mark was writing.

I was not writing ... I don’t think I was writing at all ... I didn’t really start writing songs until after the ‘Making Movies’ album tour finished. We had a bit of a break when I did my first album. No, my view of writing is ... If you want to be really democratic, and let everyone have three songs on the album, that’s fine, but as far as I’m concerned, you put the best songs on the album, and not put them on because you want to please someone. David was writing a bit, but they weren’t of the same quality of songs that Mark was writing. So, they wouldn’t find themselves onto the record.

That reminds me of a story I heard, where John Lennon suggested that a Beatles album have four of his songs, four Harrison songs, and four McCartney numbers. Paul McCartney refused, thinking that George’s songs weren’t up to scratch!

Well, there you go! [Cackles].

Would you like to talk about your formative influences as a bass player?

Influences from other people? I think that as a musician, you listen to a lot of different types of music, and I was always listening to different types of bass players. But, ultimately, you find your own way of playing. My way of playing is about me first. For instance, you listen to a lot of the early Fleetwood Mac albums with John McVie playing, they were basically Blues albums. And then there’s the other Fleetwood Mac with Lindsey Buckingham. John McVie is a bass player who plays with respect to the song, and he doesn’t try to fill the space too much. He’s the kind of bass player that I like. I also like a guy called Guy Pratt, who plays with David Gilmour and Roger Waters from time to time.

He’s a very good bass player. But there’s great bass players all over the place, and what we do as musicians is, we listen to each other. We all take a bit off each other. I’m sure people have taken a bit of what I do off the Straits

songs. I mean, it sounds simple, but one thing you’ve got to remember about the Dire Straits music is that it’s about feel.

It’s about how you make the song feel, and that’s the most important thing.

When I see these tribute bands, and I think you’ve actually interviewed a few [sic], Dire Straits tribute bands, I listen to them, and I don’t get the feel from the music. I don’t really feel it. I’ve played with them on occasion, and it’s like, ‘Oh, my god!’ It just doesn’t work.

But everybody has a go, but these tribute bands that go around making a living out of copying these successful bands ... It’s fine, but it doesn’t have the feel the original band has. I mean, they’re all trying to make a living off the back of somebody else!

I know Roger Taylor of Queen said that it drives him mad to watch singers putting on the moustache and yellow jacket in order to be Freddie.

He’s absolutely right! You go and see a Dire Straits tribute band, and they’ve got a fucking headband on! A headband on, as if that makes them more like

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Dire Straits; childish, really. It’s all very well playing other people’s songs, but when you think you are doing what they did, it’s kind of ... I find it a bit sad, go and write your own songs! Get your own band together. I don’t know how many Dire Straits tribute bands there are in Spain, but there’s quite a lot. There’s certainly two or three in Italy. There’s six or seven in Germany, for Christ’s sake! I call it ‘lack of imagination’.

The one I found strange is the Rory Gallagher Tribute Band. How do you pay tribute to him?

[Chortles] I’d like to know what he plays like. I’m sure he’s a good player.

Did you know Rory at all?

We did a gig in Belgium, I think, in [hums pensively] 1984? We did a gig with him at a festival, I think it was.

He was amazing, but he’d pressed the self-destruct button. He was going down fighting. He was one of those rare people who produced guitar playing of

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an extraordinary quality. Why would you try and copy that? You’re never going to be able to do it.

Jimmy Page considered Gallagher an equal. He didn’t say that about many people!

No, but of course, everybody bowed down to Jimi Hendrix. Eric Clapton used to go and see him, Jimmy Page used to go and see him: “How is this guy doing this with the guitar?” They weren’t doing it, Jimi was completely unique. Very few people play blues like Eric Clapton, either.

Would Noel Redding (Hendrix’s bassist) have been an influence of yours?

Oh, yeah, definitely! Playing a three piece for a bass player, that’s a number, that’s quite hard work! I’ve done it a few times. Also, Jack Bruce. I like his playing, he was more of a ‘lead guitar’ bass player to me. Driving it along, incredibly musical. I think he studied at Royal College, or something. The rest

of us just pick it up as we go along.

One of the greatest rhythm sections in rock: Bruce and Baker!

Yeah, both mad as hatters!

On the subject of drummers, did you have a say in who played drums?

Well, really, it was more of a question of who was around. Pick Withers, I have to say, taught me a lot about rhythm sections, and how to get that thing together. I owe a great deal of gratitude towards Pick. But then, I loved playing with Terry Williams, and when we got Terry on, we made a little EP at this point called ‘Twisting By the Pool’ [‘ExtendedancEPlay’, 1983]. The band was getting much more muscular in the live shows, and I think Pick was getting tired of touring. I understood that. Terry Williams was, I thought, ‘exactly what we need right now.’ And Terry did a fabulous job. Then, it was just a question of who was available, really. We all loved Terry’s playing, but Omar Hakim was essential for the

tracks on ‘Brothers in Arms’, because Terry was having a little bit of trouble with the feel of that music. Terry is one of the best live drummers I’ve ever played with, but sometimes when you’re making a record, you need someone who has got a bit more armoury; more sensitivity, if you like.

You can really hear that on Omar’s drumming on ‘Brothers in Arms’. And I knew Jeff Porcaro’s drumming, who came to play with us on ‘On Every Street’, and that was a real pleasure playing with Jeff. People are suggested, so we think about it,and talk about it, and we get them in to see if it works.

It’s reasonably democratic, shall we say!

Yeah. You mentioned ‘Brothers in Arms’, which features another bass player on vocals: Sting. Did you feel trepidation about playing bass in front of him?

No, not at all! [Chuckles]. I do love Sting’s playing. We knew him a little bit before he came, because we used to do festivals together. He just happened

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to be in Montserrat, by coincidence, when we were making the record. He was there on holiday, so he came up to the studio, and we played him the track.

Mark asked him if he wanted to sing on it, and he said ‘Sure’. Simple as that.

And walked away with a co-writing credit!

Haha! That’s another story that I’m not going to go into now …

‘Brothers in Arms’ is a very fine album, and proved a monumental success. Was that difficult to carry?

It was what it was. For reasons best known to themselves, it just seemed to sum up where the band was at that particular time. You’ve got to remember that the band already had four quite successful albums before ‘Brothers in Arms’. We’d done a lot of touring, all over the world, several times. So, the band had a pretty big name, and of course, the CD comes out, MTV comes out, and all these things get put together in this ‘package’ of

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activity that’s going on. Suddenly, you’ve got a couple of songs on there, like ‘Money for Nothing’, which is a massive, massive hit for the band.

Nearly as big as ‘Sultans’ in a way, as far as that’s concerned ... But when you’re trying to understand something like that, why something is more successful than others, well, it’s like lots of good songs ... And the album sounds great. It was the first digitally recorded album, of any size. So, the sound is remarkable, and we played well on it. Great players on it.

It has a convoy of great riffs, but also holds a more pastoral side to it. It has many textures to it, and there’s great theatre on many of the tracks.

Yeah, it’s an album ... Did you say ‘great textures’?

Yes. I think that’s why it did as well as it did. It took a long time to record it, I have to say. It took a long time to get the songs organised. But we were very

careful: We got most of it in good shape before we went to Montserrat.

We didn’t want to be sitting in Montserrat still finding different parts-we wanted to go out there, play it and record it. Then we took it back to New York, back to the Power Station, which we’d used twice before, so we knew what it sounded like. It was a great studio: we knew we were going to get a great sound. But there was one track where we got Tony Levin to play on ‘Why Worry?’ I’d fallen over in Central Park and broke my wrist, so I was out of action. Tony Levin did a fabulous job.

He’s wonderfully accomplished - he still works with Peter Gabriel.

He uses that strange thing called a ‘stick’. Even though I looked at it, and tried to play it, I never really understood it. It just had this extraordinary sound. I promised myself I’d buy one, and work it out, but I’ll never get around to it.

Dire Straits helped make Live Aid

become the success it was, precisely because you were one of the first bands to sign up.

There was a series of events there. Bob Geldof was having difficulty getting people to agree to do it. It was a very big project, and people were busy, or weren’t sure who was going to play.

So, Bob said, ‘I need a big name, and you’re the biggest name at the moment, so you’ve got to headline Live Aid!’ As I say in the book, we couldn’t do it because we’d already sold out ten or eleven shows at the arena next door.

Rather than disappoint all those fans who had already bought their tickets, we said we’d play in the afternoon, so we played in the afternoon. But as soon as the Straits had agreed to do it, I think Bob then managed to get other people to agree to come on. And it was an amazing day - hats off to Bob! I don’t think anyone else could have.

(Poor Geldof Impression) “If you pull out, you’ll be disappointing the world!”

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[Chuckles politely] I think he used some fairly fruity language to get people involved!

He told Pete Townshend, “Do the fookin show!”

It was slow to start off with, but it got quite intense. It was a wonderful day, and I don’t think anyone will forget it. I mean, there were tricky moments: some microphones didn’t work. But, as an event, I thought it was the most extraordinary event that’s ever taken place.

U2 were outstanding, so were Queen ...

Queen were fabulous, the whole thing was great. Great performances there.

Back to the book and hat was it like committing your perspective to print?

I did it for two reasons. I did it for myself, because I’ve reached a particular point in life where I want to

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reflect on what that was that I was involved in for all those years. And, I think it’s a story worth telling, it’s kind of an interesting story to tell. It’s interesting to tell people what it’s like going from something very, very simple - literally starting off in a council flat in South London - with literally no money and hardly any equipment, [before] ending up in this kind of global space. We played to seven million people on the last tour!

So, that’s quite an interesting journey.

I felt I needed to put it down, because I don’t think anyone else is going to be able to do it. I was there the whole time, and I talked to Mark about it before putting pen to paper, and told him, ‘I’ve been offered a publishing deal to write the story of the band from my point of view.’ He said [feigns nonchalant voice], ‘Go for it’.

I see.

When I’d written it, I sent it to him, the whole script. I said, ‘Can you read this, and if there’s anything there you don’t like, let me know.’ He said, ‘Oh my

God, do I have to read the whole thing?!’ I said, ‘Yeah!’ He very gallantly read the whole thing, and said, ‘That’s really good.’

That’s very nice of him!

I asked him if he would write the foreword. Being with Mark since 1976, I wasn’t going to write it without his blessing. I’m not trying to score any points. I’d like to try and explain to people out there how these things work, and how these things move from one place to another place. I actually enjoy it - really hard work, but I enjoyed it!

To paraphrase Knopfler’s foreword, he says it helped that you weren’t teenagers. He felt it was better that you were a bit older. Would you agree?

Absolutely, absolutely! That’s a critical element. I think that if we were very young, I don’t think I’d be talking to you now; I’d be kicking up the daisies.

I think it would have been too difficult to deal with, that kind of success that

came quickly. It was pretty nerve wracking for a bit, before we settled down into it. And as Mark says in the foreword, he and I enjoyed the success.

We did enjoy it, and there’s no two ways about it. Neither of us have any time for the fame element of things, we did it on our terms. And that’s a pretty amazing thing to do!

Cogent point. People wonder why George Harrison was so disenfranchised with success, but he was only nineteen when ‘Love Me Do’ was released in 1962. That’s too young!

Exactly! I know a couple of people who started young. I know Roger [Taylor] from Queen, and they started off very early. They had a lot to deal with. And Mike Rutherford from Genesis, he’s a mate. They’ve both read the book, and they understood what it was like. They saw , because it happened to them.

Rutherford wrote a very good book of his own: ‘The Living Years’ (2014).

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Yes, about his dad, wasn’t it? The reason why we write these things is a sort of cathartic thing - you get it out of the system. To be frank, and I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but Lockdown came at a very good moment. There was an awful lot of time on our hands!

I got to write two books: One on U2, the other about George Harrison.

Well done you! So, you’re a writer, basically above anything else?

I guess so - I’m not too comfortable with the term “journalist”. I like “writer”.

In a sense, there’s a little bit of a journalist in every writer, and there’s a little bit of a writer in every journalist.

Mark Knopfler was a journalist for a little while, correct?

He was a journalist for The Yorkshire Post, but when I met him, he was teaching English at a college in Essex.

He’s also been fascinated by words,

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which probably makes him do what he does, and he does it very well.

I also find it interesting that the two composers who wrote the two most indelibly Irish sounding records of the eighties were Mike Scott with ‘Fisherman’s Blues’ (The Waterboys, 1988) and Mark Knopfler with ‘Cal’ (1984).

I love the soundtrack to ‘Cal’, I think it’s just fantastic. I did a bit of playing on it: bits and bobs. In those days, you had to play along to the film to get the time right. That was a great film.

I have two more questions. Firstly, are you working on a solo album?

I am indeed, and thank you for asking!

I wrote one during lockdown, and recorded it, and it’s coming out in January. It’s called ‘Eight’. The reason why it’s called ‘Eight’ is because it’s my eighth solo album! We’re going to put a tune out next week, or maybe the week after, so it’s all looming on. Book and album, all happening.

Secondly, as this is the Christmas issue, do you have any Christmas plans in store?

[Chortles uproariously]. We keep Christmas incredibly simple here.

We’ve been away twice at Christmas time, and really loved it ... But I like getting my family all together round here. Otherwise, doing very little for a couple of days. I have managed to convince my wife that she shouldn’t buy so many presents for everybody.

None of us need anything anymore, and I have stuff I really don’t know what to

do with. I really don’t need anything, apart from good will!

And some book sales!

And some book sales! It’s going rather well, actually. So, that’s nice!

‘My Life in Dire Straits’, published by Penguin Books, is available now. johnillsley.com www.facebook.com/ johnillsley

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The Dears ESPecially for You! Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers Photography by Richard Lam.

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“... that record and that time nearly killed me.”

At any given moment over the course of the last twenty-six years, Murray Lightburn, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with Canadian Indie Rockers The Dears, has had an uncanny knack of being able to articulate the world’s struggles through words and music. It is never intentional either, more the result of a remarkable intuition as to the way things are heading that has led to his band soundtracking such pivotal moments in recent history as the war and impending economic crash riddled aftermath of 9/11 with their breakout 2003 magnum opus ‘No Cities Left’ and more recently, the pandemic with their eighth album, last year’s sublime ‘Lovers Rock’.

According to online sources, The Dears has featured no less than twenty-three members over the years, with Lightburn and his wife, keyboardist and co-vocalist Natalia Yanchak (who joined the band in 1998) being the only two members remaining from the line-up that began to win high praise in the UK for their ambitious, melodramatic, sometimes harrowing and often life-affirming music during the 2000s with albums such as the aforementioned ‘No Cities Left’ and

its equally grandiose follow-up, 2006’s ‘Gang of Losers’.

Having recorded ‘Lovers Rock’ at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango and at home prior to the world being plunged into darkness, despair and uncertainty, releasing it at a time when most of us were wondering whether there would ever be an end to the terror inflicted by the virus, The Dears are only now getting the chance to perform its ten tracks (including recent singles ‘The Worst in Us’, ‘I Know What You’re Thinking and It’s Awful’ and ‘Heart of an Animal’) in a live setting. By the time this issue is released, they will be over here in Europe playing dates in the Netherlands, France, Belgium and the UK, before returning to Quebec for a full band show with a string quartet at the Théâtre Gilles-Vigneault in Saint-Jérôme on 18th December.

Before they left Canada, we caught up with Lightburn at home via Zoom, where he enlightened us as to how The Dears have become the best band to know in a crisis.

Firstly, hello Murray and thank you for agreeing to our interview. Could we start by asking how The Dears

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came together and could you introduce us to your current line-up, because you have had a few over the years, haven’t you?

Well, how much time have you got?!

[Laughs]. Yeah, you know, I think we’re up there with like Guided By Voices and The Cure and that sort of thing. I was surprised to see one day when I went to The Dears Wikipedia and saw like the timeline of members and it’s quite a few! I mean, it’s weird to include like, you know, people that never really played on records or who were just part of the touring party and stuff like that, but what can you do?

Like, when it really comes down to it, we’ve only really had three drummers in twenty-five years. We’ve had quite a few guitar players, but not on record.

On record, we’ve only had maybe three guitar players and a few bass players.

So, for a twenty-five year old band, that’s not bad! Like, the kind of project that The Dears is, it’s greater than even myself, even though I’ve been like the primary caretaker all this time. I still see myself outside of it, you know,

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especially after all this time. It doesn’t even feel like my band anymore, I feel like I play in a Dears cover band!

Because, you know, I’m serving the audience, really. You know, I know how that might sound, a little pretentious or whatever, but that’s just really how I view it and, frankly, when I’m not working on The Dears, it’s the furthest things from my mind. Like, right now, I’m doing a couple of other projects and ... life. I know that some Dears stuff is on the horizon, but I am not thinking about it at all. I have to compartmentalise. I have two kids and, you know, now, it’s just another thing that I do in my life, you know. When we started [in 1995], it was everything, you know. You know, when you’re young and you’re in your twenties, your band is everything. You know, it’s us against the world and when people leave the band, it’s like ‘No, I can’t believe this is happening!’ And, you know, now, it’s not like that at all!

[Laughs].

In May last year, you released your most recent and eighth studio album,

‘Lovers Rock’. Obviously, promotion for the album and playing the ten tracks which make up the album will have been interrupted somewhat by the pandemic, but you are now back on the road. How did you find the experience of releasing an album in the midst of all that turmoil?

Well, when is there not global turmoil, really?! You know, I mean, I think people like to live life as though everything is hunky-dory, but it never has been. There’s always been something looming. We’re living in a constant state of, you know, impending doom, I would say, always. There’s always an impending doom and so, I think it’s how we manage it that really matters. And, I think, largely, [laughs] in some ways, doing what we do has kind of prepared us. You know, both my kids, they spent a lot of time in their early lives on the road and had to learn to adapt to a new environment every day and new circumstances every day.

And for us, going on for two decades, it’s the same thing, just dealing with

things as they come. You know, everything from cancelled flights to, you know, trying to get your visa sorted out at the last minute, to somebody getting sick, or injury, or whatever.

You know, adapting, constantly, and having to improvise. And even on stage, you know, when you’re performing. The life of a touring musician largely prepares you. You know, this is a little more apocalyptic, but still, I would say a touring musician is more prepared for the apocalypse that most people would think, you know! [Laughs]. If they just use the mindset of the things that they learn from being on tour when the apocalypse hits, you know! I think also, you have to be physically prepared, which is something I started to do. I started to really look at ... I’m getting older now, you know, I just turned fifty this year, so in the last couple of years, I’ve taken my health habits more seriously and started to work out and like, you know, started running and jumping and lifting heavy things and such ... to prepare! [Laughs].

I’m kidding, but you know what I

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mean? I just think being mentally and physically in shape is important and throughout this whole thing, I never really let it get me down, because, also, the people around me are depending on my strength. So, I think if people look at it that way, everybody stays stronger if you stay strong for the people around you. And I think it’s important to project strength. That doesn’t mean, you know, not acknowledging when things are hard, but I don’t subscribe to projecting that too much, because it really kind of encourages ... I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but I just think, like, it’s a more positive thing to encourage people to be strong and to live that example, especially a guy like me, who’s like a D-list Indie Rock ‘star’, or whatever you want to call it.

You know, being a public person and having people who respect what we do and listen to our music, we’ve always worked hard to project positivity and strength and, you know, just let it roll down our backs and move on ... A little bit of a ‘keep calm, carry on’ attitude [laughs], I would say!

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Were you surprised to find that the lyrical content of ‘Lovers Rock’, despite having been written prior to the pandemic, really seemed to reflect the mood of those early days of these strange times?

Like I said, I mean, something that has always been a thing with The Dears is like, not this clairvoyance, but like being in tune with ... I mean, we’re keen observers of the world, you know, and I think being a touring musician has also ... I remember when we were touring the world around ‘No Cities Left’ [2003] and we were going to a lot of places I’d never been to in my life, that I never dreamed I would go to. You know, the first time we played in Manchester, I couldn’t even believe that it was real life to have our own audience there that knew what we were doing and growing up and looking at some of my favourite records and reading about this place, you know, as if it was a place that I would never go to in my life. Just like, because I grew up in a suburb in Quebec, you know, with not a lot of money and not a lot of

prospects, really not knowing where my life was heading. You know, I had a guitar and a cassette player in my room, where I would learn how to play guitar and stuff like that and write songs. And so, when we started to tour, I developed an appreciation of like really absorbing what I was seeing and absorbing, you know, the different environments and just like gobbling up that information, you know, like a sponge and internalising it. But also, something that even Natalia has said about me that’s almost like a curse is that, you know, I have this weird ability to read what’s really happening and I’ll sometimes say it and then she’ll say, ‘You were right, that’s what was going on’. You know, like an intuitiveness.

It’s like a sixth sense and some people have it and some people don’t. You know, it’s a very fine line between being intuitive and paranoia, or whatever, or like delusional, but it’s like, for me, it’s way more calculative than that. There’s a certain thing that I observe and that I can’t really quite put my finger on, and so it gets into the songs, you know, just like the pulse of

it. And frankly, that’s possibly one of the things that when people really, really have a strong dislike for The Dears, it’s rooted in that, because a lot of the time, the stuff that we’re singing about really cuts too close to the bone, you know, for some people and they’re not ready to deal with that part of their lives. And I’ve seen it in reviews and I’ve seen it in just things that people might say and I’m just like, ‘That person might be a little bit troubled by what we’re saying’. And that’s fine. I think the thing that The Dears do is ... it is for everyone, I’d like to think that it is for everyone, but not any time.

The timing has to be right to consume ... It’s just like, you know when you’re like ‘Oh, do you feel like watching a horror movie right now?’; ‘No, I’d rather watch a comedy’. You know what I mean? And that’s basically it, you know.

Could you tell us a bit about the writing and recording process of ‘Lovers Rock’ and what was making you tick as a songwriter at that particular time?

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Basically, overall ... wow, it was quite a while ago! I mean, I was touring my second solo record [‘Hear Me Out’, 2019] and it was a pretty brutal schedule that year and I basically crashed at the end of it. Because I’d been touring all year and then in the summer, you know, I had some time off and we worked on the record and then did some more touring and then came home and then finished the record. And so, it was just like a year of touring and recording and touring and recording.

And I was touring alone, so I was doing all the driving and all the managing myself and just getting from this place to ... It was a great experience, but also it was also ... At one point, Natalia joined me for a week in the UK and we had the best time, oh my God! Just driving and I love those like English countrysides, oh my God, they’re gorgeous! And I’d never seen the country like that before, because I’d always seen it from the back of a splitter, or the bus, or whatever, so you never really see any of it. So, you know, driving through these towns, it was just like a wonderful experience.

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And then Natalia, she came at the beginning of the tour and then she went home, and I was depressed for the rest of the tour! [Laughs]. So, the whole year was just like that experience of being alone and working really hard, like working my ass off, and then coming home and working my ass off, and then being on the road and working my ass off, and just working my ass off all year. And then I came home and we built a studio in the back of our house and so, it was cool. This was the first record that we actually did a bulk of it in our own studio. We did a huge chunk of it ... my friend Howard [Bilerman] basically let me use the Hotel2Tango [Montreal]. He was like, ‘There’s nobody in there. Here’s the keys, do your thing’, so we went in and we recorded a bunch of stuff and, you know, we had some assistance there.

Like, there was this guy Shae [Brossard] that works at the studio, so he came in and he engineered And, you know, the guys in the band now, which goes back to your first question, they’re like the most serious musicians we’ve ever had in the band, you know,

like the best musicians we’ve ever had!

Like top shelf musicians. These guys do not f-around and it’s so refreshing to work with musicians at that level and then, you know, we brought in the string players that we have, that I’ve been working with for years. Actually, we recorded strings in our dining room!

We ran a fifty-foot cable from the studio in the garage out the back into the dining room and we recorded the string quartet in the dining room. That was all throughout the summer, we did all that recording throughout the summer when I was home for a bit, did some more touring and came back and then I mixed it by myself in our studio out back. And that was the first time mixing a record, a full recorded ... actually, no, that was the second record I mixed in there. I mixed a record for my friend Hawksley Workman [‘Median Age Wasteland’, 2019] ...

Canadian artist who’s a wonderful, wonderful artist ... I produced one of his records a couple of years ago and I mixed that in our garage. That was the first record I mixed in my studio. And I bought a console from one of the guys

from Godspeed [You! Black Emperor].

He was moving out of Montreal and I bought his mixing console from his studio, The Pines [Griffintown, Montreal] and was absolutely terrified of moving it into this tiny studio. It’s like this enormous thing, like the thing is, I don’t know, like seven-feet wide or something and [laughs] my studio’s not very big. The width of the studio is ten-feet and so getting this gigantic console in there was terrifying! It weighs like 300Ib, so I got like these huge piano movers moving this console. I had to call like a couple of companies that have moved consoles around. So, they moved that in there and it took me a while to get set up, but finally, you know, got to work and I love working in my studio now. It’s just a really powerful thing for a band to have their own means of production.

And the best thing about it is, for me, having the experience that I’ve had over the years, I still value my time, so I don’t spend like a ... you know, it’s not like a Kevin Shields [My Bloody Valentine] thing where I’m spending, you know, a decade making a record,

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or like Spiritualized, or whatever. You know, I’m not doing that because I have to get to the next thing. The Dears, in my world, have to get cleared off my plate, so I can do the next thing.

I can’t have it on my desk. I always say that when I’m working; I say, ‘I’ve got to get this off my desk’, literally get it off my desk to do the next thing. So, we finished the record before Christmas of that year and, you know, then, from exhaustion, I just collapsed after that and I was on my back for a week. And I actually thought, ‘Oh, is this like ...?’, because when COVID happened, I was like, ‘I wonder if I actually had COVID at that time?’ Because I could get out of bed for like a week, I was like so destroyed. So, I wondered if that’s what it was before it was actually a thing over here, but who knows, maybe it was just ... who knows what it was, but I was on my back, couldn’t get up, and then I was okay! [Laughs]. I think it was just fatigue and exhaustion. I really was working a lot. Yeah, so that record and that time nearly killed me.

So yeah, there’s your pull-quote!

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The Dears’ music having something to say about the world around us is certainly no new thing. Your second album, 2003’s ‘No Cities Left’, for example, was written and released in the aftermath of 9/11, when the world was suffering from the effects of war and economic crisis. Do you consciously strive to write about the issues affecting the world during the making of any given record or does it seep into your writing subconsciously?

The only thing I consciously do when I’m writing is articulating. I’m trying to get better at that. I think back then, I don’t think I was a very good writer, actually! [Laughs]. I think I was an okay writer, but I think I’ve gotten a lot better as a writer since then. I look back on some of those songs and I think, ‘Fuck, I could have said that way better now’, you know. And that’s just the growth of a writer in general and that’s just how it is. I’m sure that lots of writers looking at their early books and be like, ‘Oh, that’s horrific!’, you know [laughs]. But I don’t consciously

you know, it’s not like I’m writing an episode of ‘Law & Order’ [NBC, 1990-], where I read a news story and I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going to write a song about that news story’. Every once in a while though, there’s stuff that happens that, you know, that kind of nags at me that will come out in songs. I think there was this parallel thing going on with the state of the world around 9/11 and after 9/11 where everybody was kind of freaked out, but what it really forced me to think about and what I think came out in the songs is like what is important in the face of that? Who is important to me in the face of that? So, I was almost writing expressing things to that person, but also doing some like self-examination.

There’s always a lot of self-analysis going on with Dears songs and I think that’s, again, going back to what makes people uncomfortable, is like people don’t want to self-analyse sometimes, you know. And I think, for me, the key to growth is to be able to analyse yourself and criticise yourself without beating yourself up and really like, breaking it down what you could do

better. It’s almost like when they look at the football tapes and it’s like, ‘Oh no, you see what you’re doing wrong there? You’ve got to lift that leg higher’, or whatever, and it’s the same thing. I think if people exercised that more and weren’t so afraid of themselves in that way, we’d live in a better world, you know, frankly. If everybody was striving to improve themselves and their relationships with people, we’d live in a fucking spectacular world! And so, I don’t know, I’ve known people and they’ve been in my life on a very limited level and as soon as I realise ‘oh, that person is really just in it for themselves and they really don’t get it’, I limit my contact with that person. It’s unfortunate, but I just can’t have those type of people in my life. The only people I want close to me are people who really are in that space, you know.

I don’t even know if I answered your question! Like everything, including my writing, I speak in interviews in a sort of abstract way. I never really answer your question! Abstract, a little bit! [Laughs].

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‘No Cities Left’, the follow-up to your 2000 debut album ‘End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story’, was of course the album that launched you onto the international scene. With The Dears having been together for eight years prior to the release of that album, how did it feel to gain this wider recognition and what are some of your favourite memories from that era of the band?

Well, I mean, here’s the thing [laughs].

The thing is, you know, the band started in ‘95 and we were just a band.

I don’t even know what our ambition was, we were just making songs, making recordings and then, when Natalia joined in ‘98, that’s when the big shift in purpose happened with The Dears. She was like, ‘We gotta do this, we gotta do this, we gotta do this’ and I was like, ‘Okay, let’s do those things’ and we did those things and our first record [‘End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story’] came out in Canada. And, you know, back then, the internet wasn’t a prevalent thing, so it was very hard to reach out beyond even your local

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community, never mind nationally, never mind internationally. Without like the muscle of a major label record company, it was very hard and after we put out that first record and we sold a bunch of records in Canada, we started to get the attention of major record labels in Canada. The problem with that was that, in that time, major record labels in Canada did not have the clout to push a band internationally, but they asked everything of you. So, once you committed to them, it was almost like a kiss of death if you signed to a Canadian major label, because they would give you money, but if you didn’t really like rise nationally to a certain level, that was it for you and you could never get out and you were stuck in a contract and that was it. And that was one of the things that we knew would happen and were advised ... One of the things that we did invest in [laughs] was good lawyers back in those days! They advised us to trademark our name, they advised us to, you know ... all the way back to 2002, we had lawyers and if I would give any advice to any young bands, it is before

you get anything, find a good lawyer, a good entertainment lawyer, to guide you through a bunch of bullshit, because that kept us fairly preserved from a lot of pitfalls that young bands fall into in the music business. Because they’re counting on you to not know how to read a contract and that was one of the first things we learnt how to do, how to read a contract, and to know what’s in it. And so, it’s like, even if you were agreeing to a shitty contract, you knew what you were agreeing to.

You knew it was like ‘well, this could happen, let’s hope it doesn’t’ and you kind of weigh up the good versus the bad and think ‘well, they’re going to put the record out, they’re going to invest money and all that stuff’. So, that was one of the first things we learned, was how to weigh those things.

And so, for a long time, all we did was sign territorial deals with smaller labels and that’s what really ... you know, our manager at the time who came on, Nadine [Gelineau], who God bless her, she passed away a few years ago, and we were very close and she guided us through that period of like, you know,

‘You should do a deal with this label in Australia, you should do a deal with this label in England, you should do a deal in the States, you should do a deal in Canada, do a deal in Japan’. We had like five or six different labels all around the world and it allowed us to go to all these places and build an international audience. But, keep in mind, for me, personally, I never, ever had goals of being like a big Rock star or Pop star. One of the things I did really love about those early days was going into those 300/400 cap rooms and feeling that energy so close and it was like ‘This is it! This is what I want! This is cool! This is perfect!’, you know. And then anytime when we did tours with like Keane [2007] and any time we played those like ten-thousand seaters, you know, or when we played Glastonbury [2005], there’s such an insane disconnect. That being said, I will say, when we went to Glastonbury, Natalia was pregnant at the time, and so she stayed back at a hotel, like not far away, but still far away enough that I had to take a long taxi ride to get to the site, and I

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remember marching through the mud in my wellies and Coldplay was playing and I was in that sea of, I don’t know, 150,000 people with everybody singing, you know, ‘Yellow’ [‘Parachutes’, 2000]. And I was like ‘wow, this is actually pretty powerful!’, and I was not a Coldplay fan at all! So, I remember that, and I remember also watching Ian Brown from The Stone Roses. It was a bit of a smaller audience when he was playing ... still a big audience, but it was not on, whatever, the main stage or whatever it was, but he was playing ‘She Bangs the Drums’ [‘The Stone Roses’, 1989] and his band ... it wasn’t The Stone Roses, because it was just his solo thing, but he played a couple of Stone Roses songs ... and when the guitar solo came up, the whole crowd was singing the guitar solo! I had NEVER seen that before in my freakin’ life! It was a life-changing moment, musically, for me! When I saw like 50,000 people going ‘Da, Da, Da, Da, Da, Da ...’, I was like ‘What the hell am I seeing?!’

I’d never seen that before and I was just like ‘That is a really powerful guitar

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line, a very powerful melody and it really enforced like the power to me in songwriting and like reaching out to people, the power of melody. No words, just MELODY, it’s so freakin’ powerful, and I just started thinking about all the powerful melodies that I knew of, going back to growing up in church, all those hymns that you just know and just like thinking of super-powerful melodies and it changed me forever! But, here’s where it separates for me and what that moment highlighted. It highlighted the sort of very organic nature of that moment. You know, like here’s this powerful melody and you could totally separate it from wanting to be a Rock star, from the music business. It was such an organic moment, like these people standing in the mud singing a guitar solo from a song and it wasn’t even the band playing, it was the frontman with his solo project. It was such an organic moment that, you know, it kind of enforced what I think is important when it comes to doing what we do. You create a melody, you create a song and you just let the Gods

do the rest, you know? You don’t have to position yourself, or angle yourself, or dress a certain way, or look a certain way, or say certain things, or whatever, or be at the right place at the right time, or whatever, none of that fucking matters, you know, it’s really just write the good melody that people are going to sing to and just let the Gods do the fucking rest, man! Do you know what I mean? That’s what I learnt from that moment and going out after that, like continuing to tour after that, that stayed with me and it stays with me today, just like that communication with people, whether its fifty people or fifty-thousand people, maintaining that very strong line of communication and I think that’s really it, I think, you know.

Talking of performing live, by the time that this issue goes to print, you will be here in Europe playing dates in the Netherlands, France, Belgium and the UK, whilst 18th December sees you taking to the stage at the Théâtre Gilles-Vigneault in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec for a full band

show with a string quartet. Which dates on the upcoming tour are you most looking forward to playing?

Well, I don’t look forward to any particular dates, and I don’t dread any particular date either. For me, it goes back to what I was just saying, you know, being able to be with our people and commune with them. And like I was saying before, we have new stuff, we’re going to play new stuff, etc, but like, at the same time, we recognise that there are people out there that have been following the band for years and years and as much as we play all the stuff often and every day and we play it in front of the different audience and, you know, I’ve played ‘Lost in the Plot’ [‘No Cities Left’] probably ten-thousand times now in my life, I have to realise that some of these people, they only experience it every couple of years, so it’s special to them and I respect that a lot and so it’s new every day when we’re on the road, you know? And so, because I know it’s new for them ... not new, but it feels fresh for them. You know, they’ve

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probably seen it maybe ten times in their life. It doesn’t matter ... I guess what I’m trying to say is that I treat it all as special, as a special occasion.

Even though, for us, on the surface, you could say ‘It’s not that special, you’ve played that song ten-thousand times and you’re doing the songs every day’, I recognise that that’s not what’s happening on the other side of the glass, you know, so that’s what guides me, and the band really, you know. I think, also, the touring thing can be like gruelling and grinding and we respect that what guides what we do is ‘What are the songs that people want to hear?’

And it’s like, yeah, we’re going to play ‘Hate Then Love’ [‘Gang of Losers’, 2006], ‘Lost in the Plot’, we’re going to play all these songs from throughout the history of the band. A friend of mine, who used to play with the band a long time ago, he always had this joke about punishment-reward sets, you know, where it’s like you punish the audience with the new stuff, stuff that you want to play, instrumental songs, whatever it is and then you reward them with something that you know

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they want to hear. I remember telling that story to the guy from Tokyo Police Club and he retorted with, ‘What about a set that’s just reward, reward, reward ...?’ It made me laugh ... because I think he’s much younger than I am ... and I thought about it though and it was just like, you hope for a set that is reward, reward, reward, reward, you know, and I think we’re at that stage now in the history of the band where it’s like that. We even talk about doing medleys! [Laughs]. We’ve been threatening to do medleys for years, because there’s so many songs that we think we could squeeze in there and we don’t want to totally tire out the audience, but we’ve talked about doing medleys where we can squeeze in a bunch of golden nuggets! [Laughs].

That’s how you know that you’ve been going for a while, when you start doing medleys!

Yeah, and I want to say something about that too. I mean, we have been around for twenty-five years, we should be dead! You know, we should be

done! And a lot of people probably wish that we went away, but here’s the thing that’s funny about that ... There’s no reason right now to stop. There’s not a compelling reason to stop, you know, and we’re mostly doing these shows on our own terms. We’re not doing it beyond our means, you know, we do it when we can and we’re not forcing it on ourselves and we’re not forcing it on anyone. It’s like, offers come in all the time to play and we go out and we play. And it goes back to what I was saying at the very beginning, we’re not dependent on a line-up either. What we’re dependent on is the body of work and the body of work exists, so you just need to fill the slots with man-power, or womanpower, or whoever-power, to do the work and play the body of work and that’s really what it boils down to. I mean, it’s like we’re in syndication now [laughs] on TV! The Dears celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2015 with the release of ‘Times Infinity Volume One’, which was followed by ‘Volume Two’

in 2017, but despite the release of ‘Lovers Rock’, we suspect that your twenty-fifth anniversary last year was overshadowed by the pandemic and various lockdowns. However, did that time when you weren’t able to be out on the road and with everything that was going on give you any inspiration to write songs for future releases and to think about where you would like to take The Dears’ music next?

You know, I’m in two minds with it, because we’re always experimenting with where we’re going to go, but, at the same time, we’re also just refining even more the identity of the band. It’s such a strong identity at this point.

We’re eight albums in and, you know, it’s a sound that’s almost to the point of like, you put it on and you know what it is before you even hear a single voice singing. So, I guess like what normally happens when we start something new is that there’s that bag of tools that we have, the bag of tricks that we’ve been using for years ... this instrument, that thing, that thing, whatever ... and it just

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sits there in the middle of the room, closed, and it’s just sitting there and everybody will just like explore the space, explore wherever the new songs are at and in their infancy, they can go anywhere, you know, and wherever it tugs, we just follow it and then the identity of the record reveals itself over time. And then, when we’re starting to wrap it up, that’s when we start to open that bag of tricks, you know, just to put the ornaments on the tree. You know, it’s like, ‘You need a bit of that there and a bit of this there’ and ‘That thing would work perfect in this song’ and it’s like ‘Bing!’ and that’s that and then it goes out the door. And that’s also part of having a quote-on-quote ‘brand’ and I would say that we’re like an experimental brand [laughs].

Finally, with a back catalogue of eight studio albums (‘End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story’; ‘No Cities Left’; ‘Gang of Losers’; ‘Missiles’, 2008; ‘Degeneration Street’, 2011; ‘Times Infinity Volume One’, 2015 and ‘Times Infinity Volume Two’, 2017 and ‘Lovers

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Rock’) and two EPs (‘Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique’, 2001 and ‘Protest’, 2002) with The Dears, as well as two solo albums (‘Murray A. Lightburn’s MASS:LIGHT’, 2013 and ‘Hear Me Out’, 2019) to draw from, are there are any songs that you would consider to be favourites to perform these days?

Well, here’s something that’s funny, when you trying to give a new song road-legs, I hate that part! You know, when you have to like get it into the repertoire. You know, we picked a few songs from the new record and it’s just like ‘Oh, man, I hate playing this song!’, you know, but at the same time, it’s just because you’re still learning how to play it and once you have that moment where it turns over, then it’s in. You know, but you have to play it like for several shows before it makes it, and then you can decide whether it’s going to stay. That’s the thing, does it stay in the line-up, or is it just going to wind up on the bench? So, there’s the new stuff and then there’s songs like ‘Hate Then Love’ that really depends

on the state of my voice that day, because it’s the most demanding song to sing in the set. I remember when we were recording it, it was the hardest one to get down. I must have done like fifteen different takes before I found one that worked. Not on the same day too, it took like a week of trying. It was the last song on ‘Gang of Losers’ that I finally got the vocal down for. It took me about a week of trying all week until finally, okay, there it is. And even now when I hear it, it’s like ‘I could have done it better’ [laughs].

That’s a tough one, but I enjoy singing it when my voice is in top shape. And, for me, it’s always like a technical thing. It’s like, is this song easy or hard to sing? Is it easy or hard to play and sing? And nowadays,we’re a five-piece, but we’re strongly considering going back to being a six-piece because what’s happened now is that I’ve become the utility man whilst singing and I hate it! Well, I don’t hate it ... no, I do hate it, because I have to fuss with a lot of gear and I hate it. I play keyboards, I play guitar, I’m shaking a maraca, I’m shaking a

tambourine, I’m singing, I’m singing back-up sometimes when Natalia’s singing and it’s such a massive job. So, I look forward to the songs where it’s like ‘Oh, I don’t have to do much in this one, thank God! I can just chill out and play’. So, really, a lot of it really is about the technical side of it, you know, just like how much do I have to do in this song and how much do I have to think? I mean, it’s fine, and I think just because we haven’t been playing a lot lately, it becomes a little more daunting and makes me nervous, but I think after four or five shows, it becomes normal.

[Puts on English accent] ‘What is normal? What is normal?’ That’s from ‘Quadrophenia’! [1979] [Laughs].

Anyway, in terms of like songs that I enjoy playing from our repertoire, I mean, I enjoy all of them equally, but I’ll say this and this is going to sound kind of terrible, but I really enjoy when it’s like ‘Okay, this is the last song in the set! [Laughs] I get to punch out the clock now!’ These shows are physically demanding for me, because I sing at the very top of my lungs almost every night, so I’m exhausted at the end

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and so I really love when it’s the last few songs of the set and, you know, the sweat is like pouring out of me and I’ve had a good work out and the audience has had a good time and we’re about to say ‘goodnight’ and like, you know, we’re punching out and that’s that, I guess! I enjoy those moments of the sets and a lot of the time, the songs we’re ending with is songs like ‘Lost in the Plot’, or ‘22 [Death of All the Romance]’ [‘No Cities Left’], or ‘Gang of Losers’ [‘Gang of Losers’], or stuff like that, some old favourites. So, I still enjoy playing those old favourites, you know. It’s surprising that I still enjoy playing any of these songs really!

[Laughs].

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Thank you for a wonderful interview, it has been really lovely to talk to you. Good luck with your upcoming tour and for the future.

And thank YOU for spending the time.

Wonderful!

‘Lovers Rock’ is out now on Dangerbird Records. thedears.org www.facebook.com/ TheDears

Rick Wakeman Rick’s Not So Grumpy These Days!

Interview by Martin Hutchinson.

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“It seems to have been forever. I think I was still at school when I last toured!”

Rick Wakeman has announced that he will finally be able to undertake the follow-up to his 2019’s ‘Grumpy Old Christmas’ sell-out tour in November / December 2021.

Postponed from December 2020 due to lockdown, it is appropriately called ‘The Not Quite As Grumpy As Last Xmas Tour’ and will see Rick performing in some of the cities he didn’t manage to visit in 2019.

Audiences can expect two hours of glorious music spanning not only his own solo compositions and work he recorded with Yes, but also classics from David Bowie and The Beatles and festive songs, all interspersed with hilarious anecdotes from his lengthy career. However, in a departure from his last tour, as well as playing a grand piano, Rick will also be bringing along a couple of electronic keyboards to add variety and texture to his set.

Both as a member of Yes and as a solo artist, Rick Wakeman is known across the world for his virtuosity, creative flair and wicked sense of humour. A true rock legend, with over fifty-million albums sold in five decades, his music his music continues to reach new

generations of fans.

Catching up with Rick at his Norfolk home, he tells me his plans for the tour and how he coped with lockdown.

“I’ve tried for the last two years to be positive, but it’s not easy for someone like me”, he begins. “I look at targets, like having music ready for a tour; when that’s taken away I find it hard to keep motivated. I’ve actually had seven tours cancelled due to the pandemic and even my recent US tour has had to be cut into two halves. It’s all been very frustrating as you can’t get those years back when you get older. If I was thirty-something, I could say, ‘Oh, I’ll do that in a couple of years’, but now I’m in my seventies, it’s more difficult. I’ve also been working on a new album and we’re about halfway through doing that.”

Speaking about this October / November’s US tour, Rick says, “It was brilliant. I can’t tell you how great it was to walk out in front of an audience again.” There were still restrictions in place though, as he explains: “Yes, it was very well organized and there were very strict

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rules. We only stayed in four hotels the whole time we were there, this meant that contact with others was lessened but there was a lot more travelling. All the audiences had to wear a mask and there was no backstage access for anyone. In that respect it was strange looking at a sea of masks, but all the audiences were great.”

To say that Rick is looking forward to touring Britain is a bit of an understatement, as he tells me: “It seems to have been forever. I think I was still at school when I last toured!

[Laughs]. There’s a bit of variation this time by using the electronic keyboards to add a little extra. We trialled it in America and it went well.” And he has missed performing live: “You bet! Playing has been my life. I’ve practiced everyday at home, but it’s not the same.”

Rick hasn’t yet decided on a set list for the UK shows, as he explains: “I’ve started work on it but it’s a delicate balance between the Christmas songs

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and others. There will definitely be some songs from the ‘Christmas Portraits’ album [2019]. The flow of the show is really important. It’s like a football manager with a team sheet.

There are some songs that I have to play and I don’t mind that and also there may be pieces I’ve not done for a long time. One thing I’m thinking of trying is a Christmas version of my ‘Nursery Rhyme Concerto’.” In ‘The Nursery Rhyme Concerto’, Rick plays well known nursery rhymes in the style of classical composers and he hopes to do some Christmas carols in the same way.

Rick is well-known as a raconteur and some of his stories will form part of the evening. “That’s right”, he says.

“We’re probably looking at 75%/25% in favour of music and as usual, some of them will be true and some a little watered down.” But what we won’t be hearing is anything from Rick’s latest album, 2020’s ‘The Red Planet’: “No, I can’t really do anything from ‘Red Planet’ as the tracks don’t work with me on my

own. But I’ve been incredibly pleased with it. I’d have been close to distraught if it hadn’t worked. It was a deliberate attempt to go back to the ‘sound’ of the ‘70s and update it. It was a real concentrated effort, as I gave the other musicians a free rein, as I knew they’d do what I was looking for. A lot of credit has to go to Erik Jordan, who engineered and co-produced it. He pushes me. He’s an ‘I’ dotter and ‘t’ crosser which I’m not. When he does his thing, I make the tea.”

As for the future, 2022 looks like being a busy year, as Rick tells me: “Well, I’ve got a Prog Rock tour with the English Rock Ensemble, I’m hoping to finish my third ‘Confessions of a Grumpy Old Rock Star’ book, the second half of the US tour and there’s a new album to complete.”

Summing up the new tour, Rick says, “At last, I can finally tour the UK again! I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed it. I’m also looking forward to ringing the changes with the addition of keyboards, which is a bit of a departure from my traditional ‘piano shows’, but will give me the opportunity to vary the setlist. And hopefully, I can put smiles on all our faces with stories of some of the ludicrous things that have happened in my career. After the last eighteen months, I think we all deserve a laugh!”

For all Rick’s upcoming live dates, please visit the links below. www.rwcc.com www.facebook.com/ RickWakemanMusic

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German Shepherd Records Presents:

The Junta A Renaissance Man: Monty’s Musical World Interview by Bob Osborne.

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John “Monty” Montague is a busy man. Aside from having a weekly radio show on Salford City Radio, he currently has his own solo project called The Junta, as well as being a member of the band Positronik and currently plays keyboards for new Manchester supergroup, the San Pedro Collective. Perhaps proving he is not superman, he recently parted company with the band KIT B, where he played bass, due to time constraints. This article concentrates on his solo project, but touches on his other work.

Why did you decide on the name The Junta?

With eighteen releases since 2014, The Junta is a prolific project. The focus is on Dance-based Electronica, but over those releases there has been variety in the music produced and also in the inclusion of several guests, quite a few from the German Shepherd kennel, taking the music beyond its Electronic roots into new areas, including Indie, which is Monty’s other favourite genre.

I’m using a MacBook Pro with Logic Pro X audio editing software, which is what I use to write Junta tunes, with a Behringer keyboard. I have started running them through a Peavey mixer, so I can expand on the live set. I have used my bass guitar in the past, but I have recently started using a Kaossilator Pad, and the Roland VT-3 Vocoder, which are two electronic devices I can use as additional instruments in a live setting. The trouble is, once you get a couple of these devices, you want more. It’s opened the floodgates and I want to add a few more gadgets to the live rig.

Never mind … it’s nearly my birthday!

Live, The Junta’s show combines music and audiovisual effects, with Monty performing on keyboards, bass guitar and electronic devices to a backdrop of videos which enhance the listening experience.

With a slight lull in his activities, I took the opportunity to discuss with Monty what he has been up to and what plans he has for the future.

Back in 2013, I’d watched the film ‘The Iron Lady’ [2011] out of curiosity, because I like Meryl Streep. The movie brought back memories of the Falklands War in 1982. The TV coverage, John Nott on TV most nights, the sinking of the Belgrano,and Galtieri and the Junta. So the name was derived from that.

What gear are you currently using for your live shows?

What are the main musical influences for The Junta’s sound?

Although my favourite band is New Order, The Junta is more influenced by early Human League, Orchestral

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Manoeuvres in the Dark, Pet Shop Boys, Kraftwerk, and notably Jean-Michel Jarre. I wrote the track ‘Orca’ on my first album ‘Art of Glass’ [2014] as a homage to Jarre, and also named the closing reprise after him too.

I nearly got to interview him at the bluedot Festival at Jodrell Bank in Macclesfield for my radio show on 94.4FM Salford City Radio. I got the guest pass and everything and I had to hang around at teatime near the reception in case I was to get the phone call if he was running a bit late … but alas, it never happened, never mind … it was still one of my all time favourite gigs! I’m also influenced by ‘90s Techno, with artists like Orbital, Leftfield, Soulwax, and LFO. What music are you currently listening to?

I’m listening to the new Public Service Broadcasting album ‘Bright Magic’ [2021], which is amazing, a bit of a departure to their sample-laden back catalogue. Also the new Manic Street Preachers album ‘The Ultra Vivid

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Lament’ [2021]; and a promo copy of my mate Jed [Stephens]’ new album ‘Hi Tech Low Life’ [2021], which is brilliant, very Techno, but also very cinematic too. Plus I love the Working Men’s Club debut album [‘Working Men’s Club’, 2020] too. I got to see them recently at The White Hotel in Manchester, following their triumphant support set for New Order at Heaton Park just a few hours earlier.

When are you planning to release new material?

I have a couple of unfinished tracks which I intended to put vocals on. I’m never confident with lyric writing, apart from being happy with the track ‘All Roads’ from the ‘Network’ [2018] album. I look at my lyrics sometimes like a Rorschach Test, at first look they seem OK at first, then you look at it again, they look terrible! I want to expand on what I’ve got and write at least an EP, and I’ve done a song for the annual charity album on German Shepherd Records which will be out at Christmas. I’ve been tied up with

San Pedro Collective

rehearsals for my current Junta mini-tour, and also being involved with San Pedro Collective and trying not to annoy my family with my various musical ventures!

Audiovisuals are a key part of your live show. Why did you decide to do this?

I was definitely inspired by The Human League and Philip Adrian Wright’s slideshows. I was always conscious too about doing this as a solo set and wanted something visual going on behind me. Howard Jones used to use a mime artist, but I definitely wanted to go down the route of back projections. I started off doing solo live shows as The Junta back in 2014, did my first gig at Wangies Pub in Eccles where I used to DJ, and I started just doing slideshows.

It wasn’t till I did my first proper promo video for the track ‘Ergonomic’ [‘Ergo’ EP, 2017] with producer Renee Byrne, which we filmed under the viaduct at the start of the Mancunian Way in Manchester city centre. I watched her in action editing down the

video, of which I was in awe. Since then, I’ve had a dabble doing promo videos of my own to accompany my releases but also as a backdrop to my live sets too. Jed has a stunning light show for his live act but I feel more comfortable making videos. I had a go at trying to assemble a light show, having a dabble with DMX controllers recently and it was a headache!

There are a lot of Film and TV references in your music. Is this a key inspiration?

Definitely! My biggest loves are music and cinema … particularly Sci-fi. Both loves from an early age. The whole Agents of SHIELD homage on the ‘Hydra’ EP [2015] stemmed from the opening track, for which I cut up marching sounds into an almost Afro-beat. I decided to expand it into a full EP. And also ‘Orca’ [‘Art of Glass’], while I was jamming it out, I originally had a sample of Robert Shaw as Quint singing ‘Farewell and Adieu’ from ‘Jaws’ [1975]. I played that in my earlier sets.

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Pearl Divers

Tell us about the project where your music was used in Albert Square / Manchester Town Hall?

I got an email back in 2014, it was a bit out of the blue regarding a series of events called ‘Big Digital Project’, which used local visual artists / photographers and combined their works with music. It was done in various locations in Greater Manchester. I can’t remember if I’d expressed an interest, or someone had heard my stuff but ended up sending the organiser my debut album. A track off the album, ‘Half Moon Street’, was used to accompany a projection on the front of Ordsall Hall in Salford. I was glowing with pride already when I was told the following week that the Project would climax on a Saturday night with the whole of my album being played while images projected on the annex of the Town Hall and the building opposite on Lloyd Street. Albert Square was really busy that night too, so I was like the cat who got the cream ...

How did you get started in music?

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Pearl Divers at the Night and Day Café

I was a bit of a late starter really. I’d always dreamed of doing what I’m doing as The Junta when I was in College in ‘81, but the keyboards at the time seemed a little out of my price range. It was only in the mid-’90s when I bought my first lead guitar ... learned about seven chords on it ... and just couldn’t get into it. Then I bought my first bass guitar from a mate of mine.

I loved it instantly, jammed along to Cocteau Twins and New Order. I’ve still got that guitar and I’ve tried to pass it on to my son who’s twelve, but he’s more interested in Tik-Tok. It was only when I started going to jam nights at the old Town Hall Tavern in Eccles, which were predominantly Classic / Heavy Rock, which I got the taste of performing live. I grew to love Iron Maiden after doing those jams, but I seriously wanted to do something more Indie. I got chatting to someone called Jez on Join My Band, who wanted to put a band together. It was called Klunk … after the little guy off Wacky Races.

There was me, Jez, and the legendary Mike Leigh, the drummer from The Fall in 1979/80 and on the legendary

Positronik

KIT B

‘Dragnet’ [1979] and ‘Totales Turns’ [1980] albums and the ‘Fiery Jack’ [1980] single. Mike had just come out of a long musical hiatus and had bought himself a Roland electric drum kit.

Klunk didn’t really work out, fortunately Mike got chatting to Carl Lingard, an Eccles songwriter / instrumentalist, and we formed the band Pearl Divers. I loved that band, we also had Tony Da Ghost on keys, joined later by Jeff Black on guitar and other machines. Aside from Carl’s vocals we had Ben Spilla who brought rap to the mix, and also Danielle Carter and her amazing voice. After a debut gig back in 2009 at Night and Day in Manchester we did around thirty gigs before Mike went off to join The Blimp and Jeff, Danielle and myself decided to form Positronik.

songs I’ve written, fancy carrying on and doing the gig?’. This all happened in 2011, we had eight weeks to rehearse a completely new set. Fortunately, it went down really well. It was a closer step to doing something more Electronic too. Danielle left after a couple of years and Nathalie Haley is now the singer with the band.

How did Positronik come about?

Pearl Divers had a gig lined up at Islington Mill in Salford as part of a Salford City Radio fundraiser, but the split happened. Jeff said to me and Danielle, ‘Look, I’ve got a load of

And you were in the band KIT B? Yeah, not long after Pearl Divers finished, I got a call from Danny Cusick, who was fronting the band The Hidden Gem. Pearl Divers played a few gigs with them and we became good friends. They’d just split up, and Danny suggested recording some tunes. It went well and we ended up performing as KIT B ... Knowledge Is The Bomb.

We worked with Craig Bodell, who was also in The Hidden Gem, in his house in Longsight in Manchester. Craig was crucial to our first recordings as KIT B, with the production, he’s an excellent multi-instrumentalist and went on to form another band with Danny called Crab Dance GIs. For KIT B, we were

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With Aidan Cross

Joined by Mike Powell [Night Operations / Exchange] on keys, and Tony Ashworth [Tunnelvision] on drums. We did our debut gig at Wangies! I knew Mike from following New Order, and interviewing him and Jed when they were together in the band Exchange. KIT B have had several great releases on German Shepherd Records.

And The Junta emerged?

While this was going on, I’d just bought myself a laptop, and Jeff gave me some Korg music software. That was it! This is what I’ve always wanted to do. I bought a USB keyboard and a digital 8-track. And wrote the tune ‘Eat My Dust’ and another instrumental called ‘The Junta’. If I recall, I sent them to you at German Shepherd saying, ‘What do you think of these?

It’s a mate of mine ...!”

How do you find the time to be involved in several bands?

I don’t remember that part!

So are you still in KIT B and Positronik?

I love doing The Junta as a project, not that I hate being in a band! It’s just I’ve

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got full autonomy ... the songs, the set, where I’m performing,. It’s exactly what I dreamt of while I was at college.

Although, I don’t think I could have ever envisioned being in any band beyond fifty years of age! I’ve been working in parallel with both bands and The Junta ... well, till the pandemic.

KIT B had a gig lined up at The Dublin Castle the week the lockdowns started.

Sadly it was cancelled, a pity I’ve always wanted to play Camden Town.

Well, you need a patient wife! To be honest, the gigs and rehearsals didn’t really clash. When one band was writing, I was performing live with the other. Positronik and KIT B ... Two completely different bands, Soul / Synthpop and Indie. It was like my Ying and Yang!

For the time being, Positronik have

With Loop-aznevour

been absorbed into San Pedro Collective, a group featuring Rikki Turner [Paris Angels / The Hurt] and Simon Wolstencroft [The Fall / Ian Brown’s band]. I’d been in touch about five years ago with Rikki when I featured the very long-awaited second Paris Angels album [‘Eclipse’, 2015] on my radio show. Not long after, Rikki rang me and said ‘Look, I’m doing a project’, which was a duo at the time, and would I want to record a bassline something along the lines of a Mr. [Peter] Hook) on a couple of tunes. So, I met him and his musical partner at the time at a producer’s flat off Salford Precinct. One of the tunes was I think called ‘Garland Major’, which unfortunately didn’t see the light of day. Then, a few months ago, I got a message off Rikki saying, ‘Join us on keys until December, and support us when we support Peter Hook in October’. I said ‘You had me at ‘Hook!’’. Jeff and Nathalie are also in the band. Jeff, Rikki and myself have just written a tune for the new San Pedro EP, a song called ‘Darkest Days’.

I wrote the initial music, which

sounded like New Order meets Elbow.

Jeff rearranged it and now it sounds like John Barry. Rikki has written a smashing lyric for it. We are also sitting on a load of new material for a new Positronik album which we will get to once our San Pedro commitments have finished. KIT B are looking to get back to gigging , and I was really, really looking forward to playing with them again. But I’ve just had to step down as bassist. It was a decision I didn’t take lightly. My time is limited and I didn’t want to be the one holding back the other three. I am gutted about leaving them, I’d been in the band for ten years! I do wish them all the best, and I look forward to seeing them in the future.

You have quite a few guests on your releases. Tell us about working with Moet, Aidan and Loop?

As much as I loved doing the first three releases which were all solo, I had toyed with the idea of guest vocalists.

It was when Ian ‘Moet’ Moss [Four Candles / Cosmic Panthers / 2 Lost

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Souls] messaged me about doing a tune together that things really started to happen. When I was writing the second album, ‘Network’ [2018], it was a theme about coming together globally ... well pre-Brexit, so it was fitting to collaborate with others. I messaged Loop-aznavour about the possibility of doing a tune together. He sent me an early version of a now popular Adventures of Salvador live favourite, ‘Welcome to My Village’ [‘Welcome to Our Village’, 2019]. Loop sent me his vocal, and I recorded the music. I also messaged Aidan Cross [Weimar / The Baccilus]. I sent him the tune first and he added his wonderful vocal for the track ‘Ghost in the Machine’. I was really pleased with the results and I got to perform live with all three of them at the album launch at The Peer Hat in Manchester. I had intended to collaborate further for the third album last year, ‘J3’, but when the pandemic hit, I just kept myself busy writing it myself. Plus, I spent the pandemic doing promo videos for the majority of ‘J3’ and also the tracks ‘Je Suis’ and ‘Eat My Dust’. And I’ve done some remixes for Inferior Complex, Glasnost, Jed and Lizard Brain. I have chatted to Aidan a few times about doing an album together! I’d love that!

Plus Rikki has spoken doing something more Dark Electronic, so I may be working with him on that.

So, you’re not winding down then?

God forbid! I brought out my first

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album just before my fiftieth. I’m only just getting started! I did a gig recently with Man Machine, a Kraftwerk tribute band, and they said, ‘You really look like you’re enjoying yourself!’ I love it! I need this to occupy me, otherwise what am I going to go on and on about on Facebook?

The Junta Discography: ‘Eat My Dust’ (2014) ‘Art of Glass’ (2014, with an expanded version released in 2015) ‘Hydra’ (2015) ‘Agent Coulson Remixes’ (2015) ‘I’m Deranged’ (2017) ‘Wild Is the Wind’ (2017) ‘The Mouse That Turned’ with Ralph Florian Wumme (2017) ‘Ergo’ EP (2017) ‘Ergonomic Remixes’ (2017) ‘Welcome to My Village’ with Loop-aznavour (2018) ‘All Roads’ (2018) ‘Network’ (2018) ‘Je Suis’ (2019) ‘Live at AATMA’ (2020) ‘Tech Noir’ (2020) ‘Tech Noir - The Remixes’ (2020) ‘Live at the Crescent 2014’ (2020) ‘J3’ (2020) All available from the link below, except for ‘Eat My Dust’, ‘I’m Deranged’ and ‘Wild Is the Wind’, which are available from I-Tunes, Amazon, etc. thejuntauk.bandcamp.com/music

PANTS TO THE POPE!

BAD MANNERS AT CHRISTMAS! Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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“It’s such a pleasure to be Buster Bloodvessel. I feel a very honoured man sometimes.”

‘Lip Up Fatty!’, because in terms of instantly recognisable figures on the late-’70s and early-’80s music scene, not many were as big (quite literally) as Buster Bloodvessel!

Formed in 1975, pre-dating all of the other big name Ska Revival bands (including The Specials, Madness, The Selecter and The Beat), his band, Bad Manners, went on to became simply massive. They achieved three UK top 40 albums (‘Ska’n’B’, #34, 1980; ‘Loonee Tunes’, #36, 1980) and ‘Gosh... It’s Bad Manners’, #18, 1981) and nine UK top 40 singles (including three top ten hits with 1980’s ‘Special Brew’ (#3), 1981’s ‘Can Can’ (#3) and 1982’s ‘My Girl Lollipop’ (#9)) and became a regular fixture on primetime TV. Each performance on programmes such as ITV’s ‘Tiswas’ or the BBC’s ‘Top of the Pops’ brought with it another memorable Buster jape (cartwheeling onto the ‘Top of the Pops’ stage in the traditional frilly French dress to dance along to ‘Can

Can’ being just one ... ooh la la!) and no doubt resulted in small children across the length and breadth of Britain being taken to A&E after emulating the bald-headed, larger than life frontman’s trademark tongue thrust.

As well as being one of the most talked about bands in the school playground, Bad Manners were no strangers to controversy either. In fact, they were eventually banned from ‘Top of the Pops’ after Buster painted his head red and, due to the stage lighting, appeared to horrified onlookers as though he had been decapitated. However, this event seems rather tame compared to an appearance on Italian TV shortly afterwards, when in a bid not to be outdone by the Walrus of Love, Barry White, he caused widespread pandemonium by showing his bare arse to the Pope!

As Christmas comes around again and the current supreme pontiff is no doubt in the Vatican putting the final

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touches to his annual Urbi et Orbi message, Buster will be out on the road addressing the nation with his usual fun and frolics on the 2021 Bad Manners Christmas Tour. But, before he set off on this twelve-date jaunt around the UK with support from Max Splodge of Oi! and Punk Pathetique legends Splodgenessabounds, there was just time for the man, the legend that some may even like to call ‘Your Holiness’, to spread some festive joy to you, the readers of Eighth Day Magazine!

Firstly, hello Buster and thank you for agreeing to our interview, it is lovely to speak to you. So, let’s start at the present day, because you are about to head out on the road for a twelve-date Christmas tour, with support from Max Splodge of Oi! and Punk Pathetique legends Splodgenessabounds, starting at the Gorilla in Manchester on 3rd December and finishing at Rock City in Nottingham on 23rd December.

We are guessing that the pandemic

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and its various lockdowns was really the first chance you had for a break in a long time, but, as somebody who so obviously loves being up on the stage, how was that experience for you and how does it feel to be getting back out on the road?

I’m looking forward to the tour! We haven’t done one for such a long time that it really makes sense to get out there and do one at this moment. We’re all very keen, because last year’s was cancelled and this year, we feel that it’s important that we get out and do it. Only another two weeks before we start it! I’m very excited! It’s exciting for everyone at the moment! I mean, last year was such a disaster for me. I couldn’t believe it! I felt like suicidal at times! But, I mean, for artists, it was so frustrating, especially for me not being able to do the Christmas tour, something we’d been doing since 1975.

Unbelievable that we weren’t allowed to do it and, of course, there’s no money and there’s the struggle that you’ve got to continue to do the things that you normally do. And of course

there was no warning that this thing was going to come up and bite us on the bum, but it did. And that’s why this tour is going to be very special. It’s certainly something I’ve got excited about since the summer tour, which was different because we were playing lots of massive places outside and to a different sort of crowd, but this one is much more intimate and we’ll be doing an even more crazier show! And really, I feed off of the audience, so if the crowd are having a good time, it makes me have a REALLY good time! I can go very high with all that stuff, so I can’t wait to give the audience something!

It is going to be great, and you always look like you are enjoying so much!

Well, I do enjoy it so much, yes. It’s such a pleasure to be Buster Bloodvessel. I feel a very honoured man sometimes.

So, what is touring with Bad Manners like these days in

comparison to how it was in the band’s early days, when between 1980 and 1983, you spent a grand total of 111 weeks on the UK singles chart with hits such as ‘Lip Up Fatty’ (UK#15, 1980) and ‘Special Brew’ (UK#3, 1980) and also achieved chart success with your first three albums for Magnet Records (‘Ska’n’B’, UK#34, 1980; ‘Loonee Tunes’, UK#36, 1980) and ‘Gosh... It’s Bad Manners’, UK#18, 1981)?

Well, I mean, the 2 Tone era was very popular. I mean, everybody In Britain turned 2 Tone for a good couple of years [laughs]. And so that will always be a brilliant memory, the early days of Bad Manners and all the touring that we did. But it’s still special now. I mean, I’ve just come back from Mexico and they are so mad for Ska music! It seems like it is just the same as when we first started, over there!

They really do love the music ... again!

And there’s so many Ska bands over there and for them, it’s just continued the whole way, whereas here, the music’s come and gone and it’s a

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shame, but I know the popularity of all the 2 Tone bands is still strong. And it’s a style of music that you can’t kill!

This music will be around for a long time! [Laughs].

With Bad Manners having formed in 1976, we make this your forty-fifth anniversary year, but how did the band first come together and how did you come to sign to the Magnet label in 1980 for the release of your first four albums (see above, plus ‘Forging Ahead’, UK#78, 1982)?

Well, it was actually 1975 when we first got together. The first live show was ‘76. I always have to correct people. I don’t mind, it’s not that much of a difference, it’s still a long time ago! [Laughs]. Most people were just being born then, a lot of people weren’t! [Laughs]. Well, we got together at school. It was just a good idea of mine. I thought ‘I would rather do that than join the Scouts, or play in a football team and that our friendship wouldn’t break up. And so, we didn’t break up, we actually stuck together

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and formed a band. It was my silly idea, but it seems to have worked over the years! [Laughs]. And at the time, it was a choice. Magnet Records, which was a smaller record label that would give us a bit more push, we felt, or we could have gone on EMI, where we could have got lost, because there were a lot of bands that went on that one.

And we could have gone to 2 Tone [Records], but we thought that because people were accusing us of jumping on the bandwagon at the time ... but we weren’t, because we in fact started it [the band] probably [laughs] before the other bands had even thought about it!

So, we sort of said, ‘Well, we won’t go on there, because everyone will just say ‘You jumped on the bandwagon!’’, which we didn’t! So, we just didn’t decide to go there. Although we loved Jerry Dammers and we loved the 2 Tone movement. We certainly did all the tours, the 2 Tone tours and we certainly did, you know, the ‘Dance Craze’ [1981] album.

You preceded all of the other big names of that Ska Revival, such as

as The Specials, Madness, The Selecter and The Beat, didn’t you?

there’s that young blood there that’s just making it all start again, yeah.

Absolutely! When the whole of London Town was Punk, I was a Skinhead and I was going to Ska and Reggae clubs and meeting Ska people first. And it was all because of the Punk scene as well that I heard about The Specials, but they were a lot after us, like five years after us! I mean, we grew up in the Punk era, so it was us versus Punks then! How times change, we were completely outnumbered!

[Laughs]. But, you know, it grows and it goes and it comes and it goes, yeah!

[Laughs]. I just think it was the most exciting time to have been born and to be able to be in a band. It was a great era for music!

You made some incredibly memorable TV appearances during your early years. Most people will, in particular remember the ‘Top of the Pops’ performance for ‘Can Can’ (1983, UK#3, ‘Gosh... It’s Bad Manners’) where you donned a dress for the occasion and cartwheeled onto the stage, but you actually got banned from the show for painting your head red, didn’t you? What are your memories of this particular appearance?

Maybe something similar might happen one of these days, who knows!

Maybe! A bit of younger life would be good to see! Yeah, I’d like to see it. I don’t see it enough! And that’s where I see it, in places like Mexico. There is,

Yes, it wasn’t just me that got the sack, it was the make-up lady too! Yeah, because I went in and asked her, just before we were going on stage, could she do me up like a Swan Vesta? And she said ‘Yeah, no problem!’, started putting it all on and when I went out, they went ‘No Buster, you can’t have your head red!’ I said, ‘Why not?’ And they said, ‘This makes your head disappear almost with our cameras, because they’re set up with this certain

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something that makes the red look like ...’ So, if you ever actually see a copy of us doing the song, I can’t remember which one it was now, my head comes and goes! And so they said, ‘Well, one too many jokes Buster!’ And I went, ‘Well, I’m really sorry, I didn’t know that! The makeup lady didn’t know that!’ So we both got sacked really!

[Laughs].

Unfortunately, we aren’t entirely sure which song Bad Manners were performing on ‘Top of the Pops’ that night, and it would seem that Buster can’t remember either, so if anybody knows, answers on a postcard!

I’m just going to think of it. Which one was it? I think it was ... wow, sorry, you’ve really got me there, haven’t you?! I think it was ‘Just a Feeling’ (1981, UK#13, ‘Loonee Tunes’). I’m pretty certain it was ... no, because we went on after that! No, sorry it couldn’t have been! You’ve really got me, yeah!

[Laughs] I will have to ask a Bad Manners historian kind of guy, which I do know! [Laughs] Sorry, I can’t

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answer that question! I tell you, not many people catch me on a lot, but you’ve really got me there! [Laughs].

I think it was only shown the once and it never got shown again! We couldn’t say sorry enough, but they’d had enough of our silly jokes, I suppose!

[Laughs]. And they loved us on ‘Top of the Pops’, you know! Yeah, they were very keen that we got to ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu’ [Bad Manners’ debut single, 1980, UK#28, ‘Ska ‘n’ B’], it got up to a certain point and it had to go up the next week for us to get a position on ‘Top of the Pops’ and it didn’t, it stayed in the same place! [Laughs]. That was our first song, ‘Ne-Ne Na-Na Na-Na Nu-Nu’, so they put it out, but they let us go on and it stayed in the same place, and they didn’t want to do that, they always wanted to put someone on who was going up. So, we got our first chance and from then, they loved us!

Because it was such a silly song, but they just thought ‘this is good stuff, this makes good television!’ and they liked it! And we did make some great television at that time, but I don’t know,

don’t they? Things like, Saturday morning, there was always ‘Tiswas’ [ITV, 1974-1982]. I mean, such a good era to be brought up in and for bands to be able to perform on it and they played some amazing bands on that TV show!

There was of course, perhaps an even more famous incident, when you dropped your pants on Italian TV and managed to outrage The Pope.

What are your memories of that incident and its aftermath?

Okay, well, a bit silly, but we were going on TV and as I walked out, I really realised that it was all very middle age, middle class old women, and you know why, because on after us was Barry White! So, I thought ‘Well, you know, because I’ve always been very competitive, I’m not letting Barry White fucking steal this show! Even though they’re all middle age women, I don’t care!’ So, I jumped up and started performing like an idiot, like I normally do, and then I wasn’t getting any response at all and I’m thinking ‘Oh, I can see them all loving up Barry

White!’ So that’s it, I turned round and showed them my arse, done them a mooney and I could hear the nervousness of the people who were in the crowd, they just got really nervous about the whole ... looking at my arse!

And I looked across at the record company and they were really upset and I thought ‘oh no, I’ve really blown it here!’ [Laughs] And I came off stage and they went ... and they started to tell me off, one of them started to tell me off, and the other one just went, ‘You really don’t know what you’ve done, do you?’ And I went, ‘What?

What’s everyone so worried about? It’s only my bum!’ And they went, ‘Well, the Pope was watching!’ So, it just had one of those effects that we became an instant success in Italy! [Laughs].

Yeah, and then of course, they said, ‘Well, we don’t really want you to be in this country at all, to be honest’. And at the same time, they caught a load of stolen antiques on our mini-bus, so [laughs] we were banged to rights and kicked out of the country!

Oh my God, you were actually

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kicked out of the country as well?

That is an even better story than I thought it was going to be!

[Laughs] It’s a good story! But, listen, one day, I’ll write the book! [Laughs] One day I’ll write the book, but I think I need about six months imprisonment to be able to do that!

You very nearly got it there!

I know, nearly got it there! I could have quite easily have got it there!

[Laughs].

Sorry, I’m just going to compose myself to move onto the next question!

No problem! [Laughs].

So, you have been signed to a variety of record labels over the years, including the aforementioned Magnet, Portrait for 1985’s ‘Mental Notes’ album, Blue Beat / Combat for 1989’s ‘Return of the Ugly’, Pork Pie for 1992’s ‘Fat Sound’ and Moon Ska

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for 1997’s ‘Heavy Petting’, but 2003 saw you set up your own label, Bad Records, for the release of ‘Stupidity’. What would you consider to be the advantages and disadvantages of self-releasing in comparison to being signed to a label?

Well, I really think that if you can afford to do it yourself, do it yourself, but I think now I’ve experienced doing it myself on a few occasions and it not being as successful as when we were with a signed record label, even though a signed record label rips you off in some ways, it gives you more success, because they know how to run the business better than you do. But, with that, if you had lots of money and you could invest and keep investing in a music that’s your own, I think it’s a great thing to do. We just haven’t had that luck, so it’s cost us everytime we’ve gambled, whereas when we’re gambling with other people, it seems to be better for us. And, I would take it that not many record labels would like to put us out, or if they would, they’re

not as good as us ourselves putting it out.

As this interview will be featured in our Christmas issue and you are heading out on a Christmas tour, what does Christmas mean to you and how will you be spending it this year?

Okay, I’m spending it with my daughters in Hackney, that’s where I come from and that’s where they live now. I won’t get to see them at all throughout the whole of December and the whole of January, so we get one day together, which will be Christmas Day and it will be very special to me, because it’s not only my daughters, but one of my grandaughters. She looks exactly like me! If I sent you a picture, you’d cry! [Laughs].

In our Christmas issue, we also have a bit of a holiday theme going on (in the sense of people going on holiday), so we wanted to ask you about your two-year excursion into hotel ownership with the opening of Fatty

Towers in Margate in 1996. The larger customer was well catered for, with extra-large beds and baths, an annual Belly of the Year contest and a restaurant famous for its Lard Arse Pudding. Is this a time of your life that you look back to with fondness and how did you find the experience of being in the tourism trade at Christmas?

Oh wow, I mean, I really enjoyed it at Christmas! We had this great place that had great halls at the back of it. We did it up with Christmas decorations and we went and got the holly and the ivy and because we were in Kent, in Margate, we could go out and just get it from the local forest, and it was brilliant! We brought back loads of green stuff, loads of red berries and then we added like new stuff. And like, we had a proper bug Christmas tree and, yeah, for all things like that, it was wonderful! Our colours were actually the colours of Christmas. It was the greens and the reds on the walls already and it made it look quite royal and then we added this sort of rough look to it

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and it became very nice at Christmas.

It was a very successful time at Christmas in Fatty Towers!

I have heard about Fatty Towers so many times over the years and it just sounds like it was an amazing place!

Yeah, well, for one year, we got the most coverage that any hotel could even dream about! So, you know, I mean, we were very successful on that one, but eventually, we were closed down by the council, who came in and caught us on New Year’s Eve with people that shouldn’t have been in the bar, in the bar, because it was before seven o’clock. They went in there at five o’clock and started to have a drink and this snotty ... sorry to insult, although I would have loved to have done it to his face [laughs] ... but this snotty little fuckwit really upset a complete barrel of what was really good because of two hours difference in drinking regulations. And so, I just felt that if they couldn’t sway that to one side and not react to making it a big problem, it would have been alright,

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but they did, they made it a real massive problem. They acted like the council and came in and started saying ‘Right, well, that’s it, we’re shutting you down for six months!’ No, it wasn’t six months, it was three months, I’m exaggerating! But it was enough to make me go, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m going! See you later!’ Yeah, it was a shame.

Going back to Bad Manners, it has been eighteen years since the release of your last album, ‘Stupidity’. Do you perhaps have any plans for new music in the near future?

I guarantee you this, next year we are coming up with some songs! Yeah, we want them to be really silly! We don’t want them to be sensible, we want them to be very silly! [Laughs]. Yeah, that’s the plan!

As a musician and performer, what is the best piece of advice you have ever received and what advice would you give to anybody just starting out in the music industry today?

Okay, it might sound a bit cynical, but Dr. Feelgood, they once [laughs] said to me, ‘No, we’ll never do soundchecks.

Soundchecks get in the way of drinking time!’ So, I always took that on-board as the good bit of advice. So I don’t do soundchecks, I haven’t done them for years, but the rest of the band do.

But you know, they should, they need to get their instruments in place! It’s very simple to put the singer on top!

[Laughs]. And I know people do fuck it up. I’ve had many of those occasions! But I don’t mind, I’m a professional! I can give them five minutes of complete nonsense if they want!

Do you have any most memorable live appearances from over the years?

Phwoooaaaar, now that is a difficult, difficult question! Honestly, so mnay good shows! You know, if you picked any era, any year, the two-hundred shows or so that we did in those years ... oh, so many good shows! I mean, do we have bad shows? Yes, we do, and

the band take it very seriously and so do I, when it comes to performance, but very rare do we have a bad show. Even when we’re not on form, even when I’m feeling like I’m about to die, still, we perform ... and the reason, once the adrenalin starts running, you can’t stop yourself! It’s a natural thing to perform in front of a crowd ... well, for me, it is ... a natural thing when a crowd’s performing and having such a good time, I have to have a good time! And, of course, we feed off of each other and me feeding off the crowd is as important as the crowd feeding off of me.

That is brilliant, because even after all these years, you sound like you are still enjoying it so much!

I do, yeah! And I’ve missed it SO much this last year that I don’t think anyone could imagine! There were times when, you know, you just turned to drink, or just turned to anything, didn’t you? It was very frustrating for me, very frustrating, so I’m really looking forward to everything now!

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You will see a lively person, I’m sure!

Finally, although I could talk to you all day, do you have a particular favourite song to play live and why?

[Laughs] Well, my favourite song, I suppose, is ‘Just a Feelin’’, but what I see going down so well these days is a cover that we do called ‘You’re Just Too Good to Be True’ [originally released as a single under the name ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Frankie Valli in 1967 and popularised in the UK by Andy Williams in the following year]. Everyone does that song, but when you do it in the Bad Manners way [laughs], it really gets people going! So, I really enjoy

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playing that and it’s hard for me to believe, because, you know, there’s so many great Bad Manners songs, but I’ve been doing them for so long, and then this song comes along that’s obvious to Bad Manners, we do it in our way and it’s just ... it kicks!

Thank you so much for a wonderful interview, it has been really lovely talking to you. We wish you all the best with the Bad Manners Christmas Tour and for the future.

No problem and please come and say ‘Hi’ next time we’re up there! www.facebook.com/ badmannersofficial

We Are Scientists

Out of the Lab and On Vacation!

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers Photography by Danny Lee Allen (except where stated).

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“We’re just like excited on a day to day basis at this point!”

“We’re just getting ready to go on tour, for the most part. Just practicing desperately!”, We Are Scientists’ silver-haired vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Keith Murray excitedly tells us as we hook up via Zoom, his massive smile instantly lighting up the conversation. “I think our flight out is on the 22nd [November] and our tour starts on the 24th. Not long to go at all!”

It is no wonder that Murray is excited to be returning to his jetsetting lifestyle, because by the time that this issue goes to print, he and bandmate, bassist and backing vocalist Chris Cain, as well as drummer since 2013, Keith Carne, will be performing in the UK and Europe for the first time since they played their biggest headlining show in a decade at London’s Roundhouse in 2019 in celebration of what they called, with characteristic wit, the “fiftieth anniversary” of their 2005 Gold-certified, Virgin Recordsreleased debut album proper, ‘With Love and Squalor’.

On 8th October this year, We Are Scientists released their seventh album, ‘Huffy’ on 100% Records.

The first album produced by the band themselves, it is a release that a full twenty-four years since Murray and Cain first met at Pomona University in Claremont, California, finds the band seemingly more brimming with ideas than ever before, as well as even more elaborate ways in which to present them visually. Whilst, this July, they tapped into the sheer unadulterated joy of our first summer of freedom in what frankly felt like ages with the third single to be lifted from ‘Huffy’, ‘Contact High’ and its video shot in the Miami sunshine with Murray and Cain playing the parts of jetski couriers, ‘Huffy’ and its accompanying tour are here to bring some much needed warmth to the winter months.

With bags packed (possibly for quite a while judging by the infectious levels of jubilation that he exuded throughout) and ready to head out of the door, there was just time to ask

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Murray some last minute pre-flight questions in this career and continent-spanning interview.

Firstly, hello Keith and thank you for agreeing to our interview, it is lovely to speak to you. Let’s start at the present day, because We Are Scientists’ seventh album, ‘Huffy’, was released on 8th October via 100% Records. This is the first album that you have self-produced, so was that a decision informed by the pandemic and its various lockdowns and how did you find this experience?

It actually wasn’t informed by lockdown. We had started recording the recording the record a couple of weeks before lockdown [laughs] actually occurred and it ended up being ... for all the incredible negatives of, you know, COVID quarantines, a silver lining for us was that it [laughs] gave us more time to figure out what we were doing as producers. Yeah, I think the idea behind self-producing was that we’d been getting more and more

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involved in sort of the demoing process of our albums. As each album comes along, our demos have been more and more ornate and I think we started seeing in our production of the demos like the sort of character that we think of as being a very We Are Scientists recording voice, so I think we just wanted to see what it would be like if we brought that extra voice into the recordings. But, yeah, like I said, we were thankful for the extra time [laughs] that we got, because everything got shut down and the release of the album got pushed back, because we couldn’t tour on it, so yeah!

So, it worked out well in the end anyway!

I think so! [Laughs].

Could you tell us a bit about the writing process of the ten tracks that make up ‘Huffy’ and what was making you tick as a songwriter at that particular time?

I mean, the process, just our approach

to songwriting, has sort of changed over time. We used to essentially only write the songs that would be on our records. You know, like on our first record [‘With Love and Squalor’, 2005], the twelve songs were the twelve songs that we had, that we hadn’t recorded before. After the EP before ‘With Love and Squalor’ [‘Safety, Fun and Learning (In That Order)’, 2002], those were the twelve songs we wrote, those were the twelve songs we had. We actually had to record the B-sides for that album after that album. We were like, ‘Okay, we need more songs for B-sides, we better record some!’ And, you know, when you’re making records professionally, that becomes a less fun process! The reason those twelve songs were the songs we had was that we would write new songs for the live shows, essentially. You know, when we were playing a club down the block from our house, we would be like ‘Oh, it would be fun to have a new song for this show!’ But when you have the deadline of an album and now that making albums is now like your career,

it’s not fun to only have, you know, twelve songs to potentially to be on the record. So, you know, it started effecting the way we thought about writing. It didn’t effect the way we wrote, but it started making us feel very stressed out everytime. Like, when we would write a song, we would be like, ‘Well, is this song good enough to be a single on the next record? Because that’s what we need!’ So, maybe three albums back, we just sort of started writing like loads and loads and loads of songs, just like way more songs than we would ever need or could ever use and like, we stopped caring if we would ever use them and we stopped caring even if they were like very good and it just sort of made writing songs much more fun again. It took away the pressure on each individual song, because there was no way we were going to use each individual song. And then, you know, the pressure would come at the end of the process and we would be like, ‘Well, are there twelve good songs [laughs] in this batch of a hundred songs, or whatever?’ But, it at least, on a song by song basis, it made

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it made writing the songs much more pleasurable again, because the pressure wasn’t on each individual song. So, to bring that answer back to what our thought process was, it becomes less specific, because the songs are part of a much huger body of work and it got whittled down to become ‘Huffy’. I think what’s interesting is that there were many songs that we liked as much as the songs on ‘Huffy’, but the songs on ‘Huffy’ were the ones that worked best together, I think. So, yeah, making an album became a process of like figuring out what songs informed one another most interestingly, I think.

songs from these recording sessions aren’t on ‘Huffy’, so it would make me sad if some of these songs don’t see the light of day. Maybe they’ll just get put out as an EP or something if they don’t fit the vibe of the next record. But yeah, definitely some of my favourite songs still have not been released.

So, those songs that you have left off ‘Huffy’, do you think that they will be left where they are or do you think that you will carry those over to another record?

How would you consider ‘Huffy’ to compare to your previous records and have you been pleased with the reaction to it so far?

Some of them, I think, will definitely be used for something else. You know, if we write a whole bunch of other songs and those songs still don’t fit with those songs, then I guess they won’t. But, yeah, some of our favourite

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Wow, it will be interesting to hear them!

Yeah, they are definitely very different from ‘Huffy’. I don’t know, maybe they’re not even as different as I think they are.

I think, sort of like I said about whether or not those songs we didn’t put on ‘Huffy’ are as different as I think they are, it’s always really hard for me to contextualise our music against our other music. I mean, it feels like a particularly strong batch of songs to me

Photograph by Flore Diamant

and I think the energy of ‘Huffy’ is pretty different from our last [album, ‘Megaplex’, 2018], or our last four or five records, actually. It feels very specifically like an album to be played live and I think that is the essence of what I think is different from some of the songs that didn’t get put on. We are very interested in making albums that feel like studio recordings and then worrying about the live versions later on and I sort of always thought that was a failing of our first record [‘With Love and Squalor’]. For me, it feels very much like a live record that we like banged out. I think that’s what’s cool about it and something that people responded to is that there’s a lot of energy to it and I think we are a very good and energetic live band. But, we started thinking that maybe we should think of our albums as a different artform than our live show and that they shouldn’t just be a recording of our live show. But, that said, I think ‘Huffy’ is maybe the best version of those two ideas together. I think it really captures the live aspect of us as a band, but also doesn’t sound like what

we sound like as a live band.

‘Huffy’ was preceded by five singles spread across the last year and a half (‘I Cut My Own Hair’; ‘Fault Lines’; ‘Contact High’; ‘You’ve Lost Your Shit’ and ‘Sentimental Education’).

This is really the first time you have dripped out singles from an album in this way, but we have noticed that quite a few artists are doing things in a similar way these days, whereas years ago, you generally had one or two singles released before an album as a taster. Was this choice informed by listeners’ streaming and downloading habits or was it more to do with the current world climate and not being able to release the album when you originally wanted to?

I think what really started it was, we had the song ‘I Cut My Own Hair’ and, you know, in lockdown, everybody started cutting their own hair and we got really worried that if we waited too long ... You know, the song is supposed to be about how cutting your

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own hair is a very weird thing and demonstrates, not really like a lack of vanity, but a lack of interest in other peoples’ judgements of how you behave and that sort of got taken away.

That meaning doesn’t really exist, you know, post-COVID. So, we kind of thought that as long as the original meaning of the song was being stripped away from it, we might as well put it out while it had a new relevant meaning. So, that was why we put ‘I Cut My Own Hair’ out then and then, while we were finishing ‘I Cut My Own Hair’, I don’t know why, but we also finished ‘Fault Lines’ at the same time and got them both mixed together by our mixer, Claudius [Mittendorfer] and when we realised that the album was going to be pushed back because we weren’t going to be able to tour it for at least another year, we just sort of thought it would be a shame for us to go quiet for eighteen months or whatever. So, I think that was the main reason we dribbled ‘Fault Lines’ out at that point. We were like, ‘Well, we have it and it’s a cool fun song, there’s no real point in sitting on it and just

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sort of disappearing from releasing music’. And then the other three we released were just sort of the normal way [laughs] we would have released singles before an album. But, yeah, I think just the circumstances played into it. But, yeah, it does seem like that is the way many people release music these days. We stopped being concerned about whether that was an unreasonable way to release music, because that does seem to be standard practice these days.

We have noticed that you have really gone to town on the presentation of ‘Huffy’ too, with the vinyl and CD including sticker sheets and many different coloured cassettes and vinyls. It is quite refreshing to see bands such as yourselves putting effort into the way an album is presented in these days of downloading and streaming. When you are making an album, is the way that the finished product will be presented something you are thinking about alongside recording the music and how important is the

way it looks as well as sounds to you as a band?

I mean, I would definitely say it’s not as important to us [laughs], but I think we do ... sort of our band philosophy has always sort of been that as long as we have the opportunity to do things like make physical albums that can have weird stuff inside of them, or make music videos that are crazy, then we will do. I mean, everytime I see a band put out, especially an expensive video that really has none of their personality in it ... I mean, you can tell when a director has made a music video for an artist. It’s like, ‘What?!

There’s no way the band said ‘What I want is this line of dancers behind me!’

That never made sense to me. And it’s not like that I think every band needs to be music video directors or anything, but it’s just weird to me to clearly have so little interest in that artform. Like, if you’re as interested in music as you have to be to make it your career, it’s weird to me then to be that disinterested in all the other forms of art that go with it. You know, like, we

even think of our Facebook ads as opportunities to write weird ad copy!

It always blows my mind when a band has a Facebook ad and it’s like ‘We wrote this new song and we hope you enjoy it, thank you’. It’s like, ‘What the ...?! What are you doing?! It takes ten minutes for you to say like, ‘Well, this is a weird thing that thousands of you are going to read. Should I make something interesting out of that? So, I think that’s how we think about everything we put out into the world and it becomes harder to do the longer [laughs] we’re a band. Like, the more we exhaust weird stuff! Like, everytime we put an album out, we’re like, ‘Well, we can’t do this again, what’s a different, unique thing we can do?’ Yeah, I think that’s just the philosophy that pervades everything we put out. Like, what’s the point of putting this out if we don’t do something interesting with it?

Yeah, definitely! It is nice to see a band who actually do that, because there are so many bands out there where the album might be amazing,

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but if everything else is boring, it makes it look like they don’t really care.

Yeah! I mean, I understand that the other stuff is boring, because it IS boring! We’re never excited when someone’s like ‘Oh, we need copy for this Facebook ad’. We’re never like ‘YEEEEEAAAAAAH!’, but you can either treat it like it’s a boring chore or you can say ‘Well, if I’m going to do it, I should do something interesting, so how do we make this interesting?’ I don’t know. You know, I guess I also understand if the main thing you want to do is just write lyrics, then writing a Facebook ad is not what you signed up for!’ [Laughs]. But, you also should be thinking about the fact that’s the way people are interfacing with your band.

So, I don’t know, it almost like undermines your music if the thing that’s facing your audience is so boring and has so little character. You’re selling yourself as a band with no voice, I think, [laughs] which is a weird choice to make!

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You were saying about videos then and we absolutely loved the video for the third single from ‘Huffy’, ‘Contact High’, released on 1st July this year. But we have noticed that you aren’t generally a fan of making videos. Is that true?

[Laughs] I mean, yeah, I think we like everything about videos except for like the day you’re shooting a video.

Filmmaking is such a ... and it sort of goes along with like making a record. I love everything about making a record, except for the moment you’re actually in a studio making a record. Just like that level of technical meticulousness is so boring to me! You know, like setting up a microphone and then like listening to that sound and then changing the microphone and listening to that sound and then moving that microphone two inches. It’s just really boring to me and making a video is very similar to that.

It’s like sitting around thinking about lenses, you know, thinking about light diffraction. So yeah, it’s pretty boring!

I’ll tell you what makes making a video fun, being on a jetski! That’s fun!

Could you tell us a bit about the experience of making that video for ‘Contact High’?

and I think he ended up staying like eight or nine days, which was very cool!

Yeah, I mean, the video, as with all videos, the video definitely looks more fun than it really was. The day we spent on the jetskis was nothing but fun, that was a fun day, but, you know, that video took probably like four or five days of shooting to get all of the parts. And there are a lot of locations on it and a lot of different forms of transportation, so it was a lot of like driving around Miami, trying to get from one spot to the next, to the next, to the next, so it was very stressful and just like really long days and very tiring. But, I was living in Miami at the time, so it was a lot of fun to have Chris [Cain] come down from New York and have him down in Miami. I think he was only supposed to be in Miami for maybe four days and on like the second day, we were like ‘Man, you need to push your flight back [laughs], because there’s like no way we’ll be finishing this in four days!’ So, it was extra awesome to have him down there

Going back to the beginning, when We Are Scientists formed back in 2000, there was quite a thriving New York Indie scene with other bands such as The Strokes and Interpol beginning to take off. How did We Are Scientists come together and how do you feel that you fitted into that New York scene at the time?

I mean, we technically formed in 2000, that’s when we started playing together in our basement. We originally started literally just because Chris and I and our other best friend, Scott [Lamb], all graduated from university [Pomona University in Claremont, California] and just moved in to a house in the San Francisco Bay area together and, you know, all got jobs and we were in that sort of like post-university malaise where we were like ‘Oh, man! Life is not just like fun anymore! We’re not just like hanging out in dorm rooms, doing whatever we want and like our

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We Are Scientists in 2005

biggest problem is having to write a term paper every six weeks, or whatever!’ So, we legitimately just formed a band because I had all of my musical equipment in the basement and the three of us all lived together, so we were like, ‘Well, should we all play music in the basement together?’ It was essentially like a goofy joke art project between the three of us. And then Chris and I moved to New York just because we, I don’t know, thought it would be fun to live in New York.

And, you know, neither of us had jobs we particularly liked in the Bay area, so we moved to New York and, yeah, I don’t know if we really felt like we were part of that first wave of the New York scene from like 2001. We moved there in 2001, sort of when The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol and The Rapture were all blowing up and it definitely like kicked our ass! It definitely made us realise that we needed to be much, much, much better band! I think we feel like a product of that scene more than anything else, because we got there and saw what all the bands were doing and just they

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were very good, tight live bands, but also that they were sort of like taking chances and kind of being weird and I think, before that, the thing we were most interested in was writing very like good Pop songs, kind of straightforward Pop songs. And I think moving to New York made us want to write very weird Pop songs, which I think was a good approach for us. I think it just made us add a lot more of our character to it.

There have been various explanations of where the name ‘We Are Scientists’ came from, but what is the official version?

The official true version is that when we all graduated from university and we had moved to San Francisco, we had a rental van that was moving all our stuff up there and we brought it back to the rental company and the guy who was checking the van, just to make sure we hadn’t destroyed it, took a look at us and we were all pretty similar looking guys, you know, all pretty skinny dudes wearing glasses, like all

about the same height, and he asked if we were brothers and we said ‘No, we’re not brothers’. And so his second guess was like, if we’re not brothers, we must all be scientists. We were like, ‘No, we’re also not scientists, but okay, we’ll go with that, I guess!’ [Laughs].

Following the 2002 release ‘Safety, Fun and Learning (In That Order)’ on your own label, Devious Semantics, most people in the UK, including myself, discovered you with the release of the debut album proper, ‘With Love and Squalor’, in 2005 on Virgin Records. Was a major label deal something you were looking for from the outset and how did you come to spend those few years on Virgin (and later EMI following the 2007 Virgin / EMI merger) for ‘With Love and Squalor’ and second album, 2008’s ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’?

It definitely wasn’t like a specific goal of ours. We definitely never said ‘Oh, we need to be on a major label’, but we were also never one of those bands that

like thought being on a major label was a sell-out move. I would say that most of our favourite bands were not on major labels, but you know, then bands like The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and even like more mainstream stuff like The Killers and stuff were all major label bands. And, you know, like growing up, Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, even like weird bands like White Zombie and stuff that I was into, were all on major labels, so I definitely didn’t have a prejudice against it. And then, there were very specific positive aspects to being on a major label and there were very, very specific negatives to being on a major label. People like to pretend that being on a major label involves a lot of meddling into your art and we definitely never experienced that. We definitely feel that a very positive thing about being on a major label was that they had lots and lots of money and they didn’t really care about all their money, so they let us do ... and we didn’t get lots and lots and lots of money, but we got more money than we would have had. They gave us

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money to do very stupid things that we wanted to do. Like, if you look at the stuff that we did while we were on EMI, it’s weird! Like, our videos are weird and on our second record [‘Brain Thrust Mastery’], we did like a whole promotional campaign that was us doing a self-help course and they paid for like two weeks of shooting that stuff. That was something that we would never have got to do and it didn’t make them any money, they were just like ‘We have all this money for promotion, what do you want to do with it?’ And we said, ‘We want to shoot this weird thing where we pretend that we’re self-help gurus’ and they were like, ‘Okay!’ And we were like, ‘What?! Okay!’ And they set it all up, they did all of the boring, like, production work and stuff, so in many ways, that’s very cool and I love that.

But the negative about it is that we had very good personal relationships with very specific people we worked with, but there were hundreds of people, including the people in charge, that we had no relationship with at all. And so that was weird. You know, in some

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ways, you like kind of feel a little bit ... unless you’re Coldplay or whatever, you’re kind of just a cog in EMI’s machine. And so, if the little people that you have great relationships with leave, which with a major label, they all do, all of the time ... the turnover at major labels is HUGE! And it’s weird because they just leave one major label and get a job at a different major label doing the same thing, but just now you don’t work with them anymore. That to me was a big negative, because you kind of feel like your relationships are very precarious. So, the thing I like much more about working with smaller labels is that it’s a very intimate relationship with the people who are in charge of the label, so we like that a lot.

Having released ‘With Love and Squalor’ and ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ on major labels, what did you learn from that experience that you have carried over into releasing through independent labels for ‘Barbara’ (2010); ‘TV en Français’ (2014); ‘Helter Skelter’ (2016); ‘Megaplex’ (2018) and ‘Huffy’ (‘Barbara’ was

released on PIAS Records, whilst the last four albums have been released on 100% Records)?

I mean, to go back to the conversation about like bands who aren’t very hands on in everything, I think that was a good habit. I think that habit got formed by being on a major label, because the budget for everything was big enough that we thought it would be crazy for us not to take advantage of it.

To us, it seemed like it would be a crime not to take that opportunity. We were like, ‘Well, we’re never going to be in this position again to shoot commercials!’ And I know that no other band on EMI was writing their commercials that would go on like MTV! We were like, ‘Screw you, we are definitely writing that commercial!’ [for ‘With Love and Squalor’]. I think that was like the first thing that ever got presented to us and we were like, ‘Wait!’ They were like, ‘So, I think it’ll be the album cover and then maybe like a bit of the ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ video and it’ll be this voiceover. Is that okay?’ And we were

like ‘NOOOOO! No way, that is NOT okay! Here’s the video we want to shoot!’ And the video is us in a boardroom like not understanding how the music industry works. And it’s a stupid commercial! It’s probably a bad commercial, right? But I think it communicates our character as a band more than like, you know, ‘With Love and Squalor, the new album by We Are Scientists!’ [Laughs]. Like, who cares?

Who gives a shit? So I think that is what that era like imbued in us, sort of like an interest in all of those different aspects of it. It’s weird that being on a major label made us more DIY [laughs] than I think we would have been if we hadn’t been. I think because the opportunity was there, we like stepped up to it.

Obviously, it is a while since you have been over here, but you start a thirteen-date tour of the UK on 24th November at the Leadmill in Sheffield. We, in the UK, have really taken We Are Scientists to our hearts over the years, but do you have any favourite memories from being over

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here on previous tours?

the upcoming UK tour?

Pppfff, I mean, we have so many that there aren’t really specific ones. There are just like a billion good ones, like that NME tour [ShockWaves NME Awards Tour 2006] that we did with Mystery Jets and Arctic Monkeys was just like an amazing three or four weeks, or whatever it was. A few years ago, we hosted, do you remember the magazine The Fly? It was like The Barfly’s promotional magazine. We hosted their award ceremony [2014] and that was like another sort of weird thing. We were like ‘We don’t know what we’re doing, we’re just going to make it as weird as possible!’ [Laughs] And it was a very weird award ceremony that year! That was a big fun one. We shot like a little short TV series for MTV2 called ‘Steve Wants His Money’ in 2009, that was a fun one. I don’t know, we have lots!

I mean, it’s been so long since we’ve been on tour that kind of all of them!

Usually I’m like most excited for, you know, the London show, because that will be where probably most of our friends will be. Usually, our shows in Leeds and Manchester will be a lot of fun and like Scotland is always a lot of fun. But this time, kind of like all of them! The first show is in Sheffield and I’m like ‘Man, I can’t wait to be back in Sheffield!’ So, I don’t know, we’re just like excited on a day to day basis at this point!

Finally, are there any dates that you are particularly looking forward to playing and people and places you are looking forward to seeing to on

wearescientists.com

Thank you for a wonderful interview. We wish you continued success with ‘Huffy’ and all the best for the upcoming tour and for the future.

‘Huffy’ is out now on 100% Records.

www.facebook.com/ wearescientists

Tom Stade The Eighth Womble?

Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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“Nothing says I love you like Wireless Beats Headphones!”

Every great Christmas party should have a comedian and this year, it is our honour to welcome to the stage a man who has been out on comedy’s frontline making people laugh for over thirty years, the legendary Tom Stade!

Having first made a name for himself with his irrepressible sense of mischief, Rock ‘n’ Roll swagger and knack for fitting more hilarious anecdotes into one show than many comedians manage during a whole tour on the comedy circuit of his native Canada, Stade has been making British audiences laugh since 2001, when he moved from Vancouver to Edinburgh, home of the world famous Festival. Since then, as well as touring the country virtually non-stop, just some of the exhaustive list of TV shows he has appeared on include BBC One’s ‘Live at the Apollo’, ‘The John Bishop Show’, ‘Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow’; ‘Lee Mack’s All Star Cast’ and ‘Mock the Week’; Channel 4’s ‘Comedy Gala’ and ‘Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights’ (which he also co-wrote); Dave’s

‘One Night Stand’; Comedy Central’s ‘The Comedy Star’ and ITV2’s ‘Comedy Cuts’.

Two years ago, following a near sell out appearance at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival, Stade hit the road with his new show, entitled ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’.

Unfortunately, not many people did get to see anything because, along with those from every other performer, his tour was put on the back burner whilst the world dealt with the seismic effects of pandemic.

One might have imagined that lockdown would have been a shock to the system of this devout party animal, but instead, his coping strategy was just as unique as his on stage antics. Appalled by the amount of litter that he saw whilst walking his dog in the local park, he went on a clean up mission, collecting a full bag every day for thirty days and only taking to social media to report on his progress.

With the ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ tour now back in full swing in a very different world to the one in

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which it started two years ago, I rang the newly appointed eighth Womble whilst (fittingly for an issue with a distinct holiday theme) he was taking a few days off for a well-earned holiday in Weston-super-Mare with his wife Trudy.

the place up, he renovated this whole thing and it’s a nice little relaxing place. You kind of need it after you’ve been touring! You need to take a while to stop thinking about comedy to actually look at life for what it is! [Laughs].”

“I’m always good, Alice!”, he replies when I ask how he is doing. “You can’t take these things too seriously, Alice! It’s been working for me so far! I’m just going to grab my coffee and sit out on the balcony while I’m talking to you, with my cigarettes and enjoy the lovely scenery”, he says. “We’re in Weston-super-Mare, so I’ve got a nice little beach view, so this feels right to me! We had time off during the tour, so me and my lovely lady, we like to go to places that we’ve never been before. We just sort of rent a room or whatever there and get the feeling of what the town’s like. So, we’re here until Friday. So far it’s a really nice town, it’s really beautiful actually, you know. I think it’s fabulous. Plus, the guy we rented the place off, he did

So, scene set and hot beverages ready, we began an interview that would prove to include nearly as many punchlines as his stand up shows.

Firstly, hello Tom and thank you for agreeing to our interview, it is lovely to speak to you. Let’s start at the here and now, because from 19th November, you will be back out on the road for another eight dates of the ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ tour. This latest tour was put on hold because of the pandemic, but we believe that you spent that time on a clean up mission in your local park.

Could you tell us a bit about this?

My pleasure, Alice, my pleasure! Well, it’s kind of funny. I was just trying to

find things to do and where we live, there’s like a McDonald’s and all that.

There were all the McDonald’s wrappers and candy bar wrappers. I would take my dog just for a walk and then I figured, I’ve got all these plastic bags. You know how you have all the plastic bags under your kitchen cupboard there? There was just so many of them, so everyday, I took the dog for a walk and I would take one of them and just start filling it up, you know. Just as I was walking along, I would just pick up little things and then when we were done with the walk, I would end up just throwing it in the garbage and that just sort of stuck, because it was a making me feel really good, [laughs] like I was doing something for the world, my own little piece. But, it was just a little something that started that I kind of kept going. So, everytime I took my dog Lewie for a walk, I would grab a plastic bag and when I was walking in a field somewhere, if I saw any garbage, I would just pick it up and yeah, [laughs] that’s what I did! You know, you can’t go to pubs, you can’t

go to work, you might as well pick up the garbage! [Laughs].

That’s amazing, we should all do that!

Well, I remember when we were kids, when we were in Canada and we had ‘garbathons’, where before the garbathon, I would go and knock on peoples’ houses and ask them to pledge how many bags of garbage I could get [laughs], so it sort of brought back that feeling, except without the money!

[Laughs].

Did you have the Wombles over in Canada? Because they were into collecting litter. If not, you should look them up after this!

The Wombles? No, we did not. Oh, okay, well, then they’re in good company! [Laughs]. I will check it out, Alice [laughs], that will be my first thing! The Wombles! [Laughs].

Has this diversifying into Wombling in any way influenced the material

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that we will be seeing in the current live shows and what else is making you tick as a comedian at the moment?

Hhhmmm, I don’t know if it really inspired comedy! [Laughs]. As I was picking up wrappers, it inspired my anger to the point of ‘Why can’t these guys throw out a Quarter Pounder Cheese Big Mac box?’ [Laughs].

Chuck it out the window ... but, you know I don’t think it inspired the comedy. I mean, definitely, when I was out there, your mind wanders and all that sort of stuff and that. Right now, I guess it’s all the change in the comedy community, I guess, would be the most interesting thing I have seen, like a whole new generation of comedians, the whole new way of thinking and all that sort of stuff. And being in my fifties and doing comedy for thirty years, you know, I’m always hoping to change and all that sort of stuff, but how to change, I’m not too sure yet.

You know, I don’t want to be a dinosaur or anything, but the problem is, is that whenever you have new

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things, if you’re a younger person, you don’t have the same history as I have.

So, you know, you’re trying to piece it together if it’s right or if it’s wrong, whereas if you’re a new comedian, you know, it’s just right. It’s just the world we live in, you know. So, it feels like I’m trying to navigate myself through this new world that we’re living in and still trying to keep true to myself too, you know. Because, you know, to me, this is like the Millennials’ world, just like it was my world back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and it was changing for other people then and either they changed with it or they sort of got left behind and now I seem to be in the position of the people I once criticised, you know.

So, it’s interesting. It’s definitely an interesting and exciting time to be a comedian, because, you know, you can’t just rest on your laurels, you’ve got to see it for what it is and move with it. You know, that’s what’s really kind of on my mind lately.

Can we go right back to the beginning and ask how you first came to take to the stage as a

comedian and your memories of that night?

Woah, Jesus, that’s going back! That’s going back to the ‘80s! ... Hold on, I need to eat a Rennie, because I ate a Sainsbury’s Shepherds Pie and that ain’t going down so good with me! ...

Well, one thing I knew is, I was going to be an entertainer, Alice. I didn’t know what. I was pretty sure it was going to be acting and when I was really young, when I look back on it, my dad was a big comedy fan, but, you know, back in the ‘70s, that wasn’t really a thing, more being an actor was a thing. But I do remember, all through the ‘70s, my dad playing comedy albums and then even in the ‘80s, we’d always listen to cassette tapes of, you know, Sam Kinison’s and records of all these guys. But I never really thought about it until I got to Vancouver and I was doing a bunch of auditions as an actor and then I went down to, I’ll never forget, it was Punchlines in Gastown in Vancouver and I met a good friend there that was doing comedy. And I think my financial

situation had something to do with it too, because, you know, with acting, unless you get the role, you really don’t get paid. And so, he told me, you know, ‘If you’re a comedian and you get any good, you can be going out and doing gigs and stuff’. So I thought, ‘well, if I became a comedian and did gigs and stuff, then I could use that instead of being a waiter’, you know.

So, I didn’t have to be a waiter and I could write and perform and script-change my own material all the time and so I started doing that and, I don’t know, I just fell in love with it.

The acting, we were good at it ... ‘we’?

What am I, schizophrenic?! [Laughs].

I was really good at it, but it turned out, I really fell in love with the freedom of comedy and the fact that, you know, you could change lines mid-stream, you got to write your own thoughts down and most of all, you got to see people laughing, which is, you know ... there’s a lot of joys in this world, but I’m pretty sure making somebody laugh is definitely in the top ten, you know.

It is a gift, isn’t it?

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Yeah, and, you know, plus the kind of comedy I was into was always risqué and dangerous. Because, I know there’s lots of different kinds of comedians. You know, there’s the comedians you could sit down with the grandmother and grandchild and watch, but I was more adult about it! [Laughs].

If you want to bring your grandkids, I’ll tell them a couple of swearwords!

[Laughs].

When you were starting out as a comedian, did you have any comedy heroes that you aspired to be as great as and why?

Oh yeah, of course, I think everybody has. I know over here would have probably been Billy Connolly and Ben Elton and all those guys, but we were never really exposed to them. Like, I remember listening to George Carlin and Richard Pryor, that’s the only thing to say, but I didn’t really start getting it ... because I was too young at that time and I was sort of listenting to it with my dad and I thought it was funny and I can still do George Carlin’s ‘AM &

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FM’ [1972] album pretty much word for word and it made my dad laugh.

But, later on, for me, it was probably around ‘84 when I really got into it and I really started listening to Sam Kinison and your wonderful Bill Hicks there and, oh God, who else was there?

There was even the silly ones, like Emo Philips was a good one. Because we would get them when we would rent from whatever video store and they would have all the stand-up comics and that was just a new thing coming out back then, you know. I really do remember like, probably Sam Kinison made me laugh the hardest. I just loved his fearlessness. And I can also remember Robin Williams being a big one, you know, because when we were younger ... forgive me, you probably don’t want to write this down ... we would find a secluded spot and hotbox the car [laughs] and just turn on Robin Williams and Sam Kinison and just laugh our guts out in the car while we’re a little bit high, but doing alright!

[Laughs].

Could you talk us through how you

go about writing the material that appears in your performances? Is there a general process to it?

Well, that’s an interesting one. I think, first of all, you need inspiration. Like, a lot of people sit down and, you know, go ‘Okay, I’m going to write a joke about a radiator’, ‘I’m going to write a joke about dog’, or something like that.

I mean, there’s that part of it too, you can do that, but I find the process that I have is, I need an inspiration. Maybe it’s at a party, maybe it’s from a conversation, you know, maybe it’s something from just I was walking around and seeing something. You know, I can’t really dip down and pick the topic that I’m going to talk about, but once I do have that inspiration, I like to get into my kitchen, where I have my big whiteboard, and I’ll start writing on that and I’ll piece something together or move things around, how I want to see them, and then I’ll put it away for about a week or two and come back and look at it with some fresh eyes and all that stuff. And, most of the time, I just need to have the material

in front of me, so that’s why the whiteboard is so important to me, because I’ll always go in in the morning ... and the kitchen is the best place. You’re just waking up, you’re making coffee and there’s no one to think about and then you just look at the whiteboard with all your silly little ideas and you think ‘oh, I know, that could go there, or that could go there’ and once you’ve got a rudimentary joke together, you can go and bring it to some sort of new material night, you know, or whatever and then you can flounder through it. You know, you normally don’t get it right the first time. I mean, some of the time, the hardest thing is just to say it out loud, you know, because what’s in your head and what’s actually going on on stage are two different things, man! [Laughs].

Yeah, Alice, so that’s pretty much how I do it and then once I’ve got a nice piece that I’m comfortable with and I know where the laughs are, then it usually grows from there, because you’ve got a little bit of confidence in them. So, I guess it goes from inspiration to thought to confidence to

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actually being a joke.

Having started your career over in Vancouver, how did you come to live in the UK and is there a distinct difference between British and Canadian audiences?

Hhhmmm! Well, okay, I came over to the UK because a friend of mine [fellow Canadian comedian Craig Campbell] recommended it. They said, ‘They would love you in the UK, Tom, they would really love you’. And, you know, I had no idea of what the comedy circuit was, and this is going back to ... I want to say 2003/2004 maybe. So, there was this big comedy scene going on at the time with glee clubs and comedy stores and it was more than I had ever seen in Canada.

You know, because Canada is a big, big country and they have the big cities, but it was nothing like doing five gigs a night. Do you know what I mean? Not only just five gigs, but the time was shorter. In Canada, when you did a headline spot ... well, it wasn’t really, you could be an MC, you could be an

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opener, you could be a middle or you could be a headliner, but headliners would do 45minutes and over here, it’s only 20minutes and for more money than the 45minutes! [Laughs]. And so I came over here for about two months, I guess, and that was in ... that might have even been before. It might have been around 2001 or 2002, the first time. Anyway, then I came back and on my email, all the bookers that had seen me had emailed me dates and it was the first time I’d seen anything where I was booked like six months in advance! In Canada, we were booked maybe a month in advance, a month and a half. And because I’d married my lovely Trudy, who is really the brains of this whole operation and I’m just the silly dummy hanging off the side [laughs] ... but, she was an English citizen, because her parents were British. And I didn’t marry her because of that, Alice! [Laughs]. The UK wasn’t even in my sights, but it was just a nice happy accident! So, yeah, when we saw that, we decided, ‘Well, let’s just go over to England, because I can get my leave to remain card slash

passport, and we’ll go over there and see if it’s all it’s cracked up and we’ll go and live there for a year’ and a year became two and two became three and now I just ... I haven’t even been back there, I don’t even know what’s going on in Canada! I love this country too much! I feel like the UK left me on the doorstep in Canada and then I just came home! [Laughs]. And there is a big difference between British and Canadian audiences. Well, not a big one, but Canada is a little ... I’m going to say this and this is a generalisation, okay, it’s not true of everyone, because there is obviously exceptions to everything, but Canada is a little more polite, you know, a little more ... you know, they don’t like the darker kind of comedy. Unless they decide who’s saying it. Do you know what I mean? But, in general, they’re more into cleaner kind of comedy, you know.

Which is fine, it just doesn’t suit my style, whereas I find the UK ... I don’t know so much anymore, but for my fans anyways, the UK likes a little bit of edge and a little bit of darkness to their comedy. At least my fans do. Do

you know what I mean? The people that come and see me enjoy the ‘Ooh, risqué, man!’, or ‘You can’t say that!’

But comedy club is the place for ‘You can’t say that!’ You know, that’s what it should be. Like, I wouldn’t say the stuff that I say up on stage in front of your grandmother, like at Christmas dinner, but if granny shows up in the front row, well, let’s talk about her tits!

[Laughs].

For somebody who may have never witnessed a Tom Stade show, what can your audiences expect and what do you feel sets your shows apart from those by other comedians?

Hhhhmmm, well, they definitely can expect a certain bit of edge to it. And when I say that, I’m not lying, because the thing is, I can turn it around and be TV-friendly and clean at any time. Do you know what I mean? It’s more of a preference for me. So, they can expect a little bit of bite, a little bit of edge, a little bit of ‘Ooh, that’s naughty!’, or you know, they might even feel comfortable uncomfortable, if that

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makes sense? And I don’t know if it sets me apart from other comedians still, because there’s just so many different styles out there that I don’t think you can compare one comedian to another, because it’s just so subjective to who the comedian is and who you are and to where you are. You know, there’s just too many factors, I think. I would assume anyway. But, you know, if you come to Tom’s stage, you know it’s going to be different from Michael McIntyre’s. You know, I don’t think Michael McIntyre’s going to be railing on about abortion any time soon!

[Laughs]. Like, he’s not going to poke fun at it [laughs], because, you know, he’s cultivated his fanbase, but what he is, he’s just as good at what he’s passionate about in the same way as I’m good at what I’m passionate about.

And plus, there’s room for every kind of comedian. You know, you don’t have just one band that you like and all the others are horrible. You know, sometimes maybe you want to hear a bit of Pop music and then ‘Oh my God, I feel a little angry, let’s go and hear some Punk! Let’s go and rock out to

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some Punk music!’ So that would be a nice little comparison, you know. I’m more ‘dirty Grunge Rock ‘n’ Roll’!

[Laughs]. Yeah, especially with my Michael Jackson paedo joke! [Laughs].

It’s not going to make it on the BBC, but in a sleazy little comedy club, it’ll stand the test of time!

I was actually going to ask you about your music taste, because as well as obviously being a comedy fan, we assume you are also a music fan. So, could you talk us through your record collection and what you are currently enjoying listening to?

Oh yeah! Well, I don’t know whether I say this, but right now, a friend of mine is in a band called Kasabian and I went to one of their concerts. Me and my wife got tickets and I went to one of their concerts and I really fell in love with them. I fucking ... they were absolutely brilliant. And it was without Tom [Meighan] of all people, so I didn’t really see the original Kasabian, I was actually witnessing the new Kasabian, which was exciting, and I

Tom with Jimeoin and Jason Manford on the set of ‘Live at the Apollo’ (BBC)

Tom with Michael McIntyre.

Photograph by Ellis O’Brien

was absolutely blown away by them!

But they hit the genre of music that I like, you know. Oh God, what’s the one band that I absolutely love right now? Just a second ... The Glorious Sons! Oh, ‘Sawed Off Shotgun’ [‘Young Beauties and Fools’, 2017] is absolutely fabulous! I really started liking ... oh God, what’s that guy’s name ... because what they are, they’re in the genre of my favourite ‘90s ...

Pearl Jam, Nirvana and all that stuff, which I would like to think was the voice of the generation that I was hanging out with, even though there were lots of different voices, you know.

You know, I wasn’t hating on Notorious B.I.G. either, I thought he was pretty great! And, you know, you had Matchbox Twenty and all those guys. So, that was then and now, I love The Glorious Sons and there’s a Rappy kind of guy named Grandson that I really dig ... “And I will not apologise!” [‘Apologize’, ‘A Modern Tragedy Vol. 2’, 2019] [Laughs]. But then my girl, she loves Country music, do you know what I mean? So, I like a guy named Sturgill Simpson and the reason I like

him is because he did a Country version of a song by Nirvana called ‘In Bloom’ [original featured on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’, 1991 and covered by Simpson on ‘A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth’, 2016] and it was amazing!

Sturgill Simpson’s version of ‘In Bloom’, it’s crazy! The ones in the genre of Rock ‘n’ Roll are the ones that I really like, but then again, you know, same as comedy, there’s all these fringe guys, you know. I may not love them, but they’ve got one hell of a good song that I’ll listen to! That’s where I’m at, Alice! [Laughs].

We have obviously seen you treading the boards on television many a time over the course of your thirty-year career, with just some memorable appearances including BBC One’s ‘Live at the Apollo’, ‘The John Bishop Show’, ‘Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow’; ‘Lee Mack’s All Star Cast’ and ‘Mock the Week’; Channel 4’s ‘Comedy Gala’ and ‘Frankie Boyle’s Tramadol Nights’ (which you also co-wrote); Dave’s ‘One Night Stand’; Comedy

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Central’s ‘The Comedy Star’ and ITV2’s ‘Comedy Cuts’. Are there any television appearances that you would consider to be highlights of your career?

Oh! Well, I think in Canada, it was ... the first time I ever got on TV was a highlight with a show called ‘[Comedy at] Club 54’ [1990-2001, now airing in syndicated re-runs on the CTV Comedy Channel]. It was really the first time that I did stand up and got invited back, so I did about four or five of those, which was a highlight because the first time you ever get on TV, it’s so exciting. You don’t know if you’re going to be a big star or anything, you’re just happy that you’ve done so much work that you’ve beat out a bunch of other comics to get onto a provincial, maybe national, TV show that like gets syndicated or something.

Then, I think, the first special for the CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] was next and then we got our first Comedy Channel special and then that was where everything kicked off. And then, from that point on, all of a sudden, my good friend Michael McIntyre put me on his ‘Roadshow’ [‘Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow’, BBC One] and then life changed after that. That was where I performed the ‘Meat Van’ joke and it was like a hit song, like millions and millions and millions of people know it, man! Every now and then, you stumble on to a lottery win and I guess that was the one! And then I did the

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few ‘Apollos’ [‘Live at the Apollo’, BBC One]. Each one of them was really good, they were really, really funny and then you did all the little fringey things for a little while. But those three are the main ones, I think, because the way I look at it, it was like Richard Pryor. You never saw all his shows, you only saw him at his best.

You know, so, for the course of years and years and years, those three shows are me at my best, so I never died! Do you know what I mean? Which is the nature of the beast [laughs], to tell you the truth!

This interview will be in our Christmas issue, so we were wondering, what does Christmas mean to you and is it a time of year that you manage to draw any inspiration from for your comedy?

Well, Christmas is a big deal. And I’m not a religious person, by any stretch of the imgaination, that’s just something in me. But, what I do love is, as for a holiday, it’s at least one of those things where at least you get to see your family again. You know, it’s a really nice excuse for everyone to get together under really great terms, where you ply them with gifts and appreciating who they are. Do you know what I mean?

In a way, you want them to smile and you want to tell them that you love them and all that stuff, you know, by buying them Beats Headphones!

Nothing says I love you like Wireless Beats Headphones! Maybe this

Christmas I will be inspired to write something, or maybe I’ll just be inspired by hanging out with my family. I couldn’t go that far ahead. I don’t think there’s going to be anything, but I definitely enjoy the excuse to all get together, because it’s one of the only holidays that does that.

my God, did I just say that?! [Laughs].

Finally, just because I have always wanted to ask this, what is the essence of comedy?

Oh, Alice, I hope this was a good interview!

What is the essence of comedy? Oh my God, there’s probably so many answers to that! [Laughs]. Okay, okay, the essence of comedy, beyond stand up, beyond professional, you know, just basic grassroots to you hanging out with your friends making them laugh or they making you laugh, is ... the essence is to be able to relate a human experience of yours that they can see themselves in. I think that would be an okay answer! I don’t know if my teacher would give me an A-plus for that! I think that is the essence, because with every great joke, every great funny thing anyone’s said either professional or non-professional, you have to relate and see yourself in. You know, you can appreciate intelligent comedy, you can appreciate all comedy, but the stuff that really makes you belly laugh is the stuff that ... ‘Remember when you did that, Al?’ It’s your joke, but they’ve just rewritten it with you in it. So, I think that would probably be the essence of comedy, where the other stuff can grow out of that, maybe. Oh

That is an incredible answer! Thank you so much for a great interview, it has been lovely to talk to you. We wish you all the best for your upcoming tour dates and for the future.

For all upcoming tour dates and other news, please visit the links below. tomstade.com www.facebook.com/ TomStade

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Andy Bennett In His Element Interview by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

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“I get a warm feeling around Christmas. It’s probably the brandy!”

More years ago than I care to think about (okay, 1998, if you must age me), I remember seeing Ocean Colour Scene live at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. Having already seen the band there on their 1996 tour in support of their second album, the all-conquering ‘Moseley Shoals’, this time around, it was their third album, 1997’s ‘Marchin’ Already’, which had toppled Oasis’ ‘Be Here Now’ from the top spot of the UK album charts, that was in the spotlight. Supporting the band that night was another Mod-channelling Midlands band named Sargent (sic), who I knew very little about other than they had evolved from a previous band called Shakers.

Great as Sargent were, I didn’t hear much about them again until 2004 when, following the departure of Ocean Colour Scene’s bassist Damon Minchella, Sargent’s vocalist and guitarist, Andy Bennett (who it turned out had been taught to play guitar by Steve Cradock when he was just eight years old), arrived in the ranks of the band’s rejigged line-up. Whilst Dan Sealey was hired

to play bass, Bennett took on the role of second guitarist and after his baptism of fire at the Ronnie Lane Memorial Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2004, went on to appear on the band’s next three studio albums, ‘A Hyperactive Workout for the Flying Squad’ (2005); ‘On the Leyline’ (2007) and ‘Saturday’ (2010). He was also present for three live albums, ‘Live Acoustic at the Jam House’ (2006), ‘Live at Birmingham Academy’ (2006) and ‘Live at the Town Hall’ (2008).

But what became of Sargent? Well, sometime during Bennett’s tenure with Ocean Colour Scene, that band once again changed their name, this time to The Elements and in 2008, released an eponymous debut album, which included the number 7 Indie Chart hit single ‘Caught in a Storm’.

We are not exactly sure what happened to The Elements, but Bennett’s skills as a songwriter had by this point been fully recognised by Ocean Colour Scene, with whom he recorded his song ‘Old Pair of Jeans’ for the ‘Saturday’ album. Move

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forward a few years and having quit Ocean Colour Scene in 2015, Bennett set out on his own, releasing his debut solo album, ‘Thinkin’, Drinkin’, Singin’’ to critical acclaim in 2016. A collection of songs written over the course of a few years, the aforementioned ‘Old Pair of Jeans’ was re-recorded with Bennett taking back control of the vocal duties from Simon Fowler.

When we recently caught up with Bennett for a chat, he was preparing for his upcoming ‘Special Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas’ show at the Holy Trinity Church in his home town of Leamington Spa on 18th December and pondering over what to name his second solo album, which is due to set the world alight in early 2022.

Firstly, hello Andy and thank you for agreeing to our interview, it is lovely to speak to you. Could we start by asking how you first came to start playing music, because we believe that you were actually taught how to play guitar by Steve Cradock?

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That’s true. Yeah, I met Steve when I was about eight, maybe? I’d moved house next door but one to him and he’d not long lived there, about a couple of weeks. And I could see him out the back of my window, because it’s round the corner, and he was loading up a van, and I was intrigued, so I went round. He’s a bit older than me and he was loading up a van to go and play a gig, you know. He had a band called The Boys at the time and then, obviously, it became Ocean Colour Scene. Yeah, and he agreed to teach me on a Monday night for a fiver, for about a year-ish, something like that. And it was all around the time when The Boys were finishing and Ocean Colour Scene got started. Yeah, so it was a really exciting time!

Then came your bands Shaker and then Sargent, who supported Ocean Colour Scene on the 1998 stadium shows in support of the previous year’s ‘Marchin’ Already’ album.

Sargent would later change their name to The Elements and release a 2008 eponymous debut album on the

Acid Jazz label, featuring the single ‘Caught in a Storm’, which fared well on the UK Indie Charts, peaking at number 7. For those who might be unaware of Sargent and The Elements, could you tell us a bit about those bands and what are your memories of supporting Ocean Colour Scene on those massive stadium shows?

Yeah, so, I was a school when I formed the band Shaker and it was with a couple of guys from the year above me and then they left and we got a drummer then, when they went to sixth form college. Basically, the band that ended up being Sargent started out as Shaker. It was like the drummer [Tim Jaques], the bass player [Dave Caswell] and then Sargent just added one other guy really called Lee [Burn, guitar and vocals] and that’s when we supported Ocean Colour Scene. And it was a proper eye-opener, I’d not long left school really. And I got to play with Ocean Colour Scene as well, you know, second guitar on those shows, which was fantastic. And yeah, we just

changed the name eventually. Sargent was The Elements and it was the same band members as well, you know, there was no difference. And why we changed the name, I’ll tell you why, it was probably because we started doing a lot of covers gigs and foolishly ... we should have just kept the name Sargent really, but I thought it might not be a good idea to keep the same name, because everybody would think we were a tribute act or a cover band.

But, really, it wouldn’t have mattered I don’t think. I think it would probably have just helped really, because we would have had more history, whereas we ended up just starting again really, didn’t we? It really didn’t do us any favours, but you know, eventually, after the ‘98 tour as Sargent, we did an album with Acid Jazz Records [‘The Elements’, 2008], its the only album I ever put out with Elements. But I’d already joined Ocean Colour Scene by that point, which was properly by 2004 and the first gig with them was the [Royal] Albert Hall [London], the Ronnie Lane Tribute Concert [8th April 2004]. Yeah, I played the Albert Hall

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twice with that band, unbelievably!

I’ve been very lucky!

In 2004, of course, you had joined Ocean Colour Scene as rhythm guitarist and appeared on the studio albums ‘A Hyperactive Workout for the Flying Squad’ (2005), ‘On the Leyline’ (2007) and ‘Saturday’ (2010) and three live albums, ‘Live Acoustic at the Jam House’ (2006), ‘Live at Birmingham Academy’ (2006) and ‘Live at the Town Hall’ (2008). How did you come to be a fully-fledged member of the band and what are some of your favourite memories from that eleven years that you spent with them?

Okay, so when Damon [Michella] left, the bass player, the drummer that was in The Elements, and Sargent [Tim Jaques], he’d gone to see Brian Wilson at the NIA in Birmingham and bumped into Steve [Cradock] and Steve had said to Tim that ‘Damon’s left, will you give Andy my number and tell him to give me a call tomorrow?’ Because we hadn’t spoken in about a year. He’d

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moved house and he’d changed his number. You know, you used to lose your phones back then, because nobody was into mobile phones back then, were they? And so, I did, I gave him a call and he said ‘Look, Damon’s left, I want you to come in the band, but I think that Simon [Fowler, vocalist], he’s already got someone for the bass, but I want you in anyway, come and play guitar’. So, I did. And the other guy happened to be Dan Sealey, who ended up playing with them as well.

So I joined. I mean, I joined on guitar at first and then ended up on bass for the last couple of years of my tenure.

Obviously, the Albert Halls were just fantastic. Obviously, before I joined, when I got to play Wembley and the NEC [as a member of Sargent] were fantastic, but I think the Albert Hall on the 21st anniversary of Ocean Colour Scene [10/10/10] was a pretty special show really. And also going over to do the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan [01/08/2010], you know, and going to India and places like that. We did a tour of the Hard Rock Cafés in about 2009/10 and that was to do with raising

money for ... well, the one in India, that was certainly to do with the sex slave business, you know, raising money to try and help these girls. They’d been caged and it was awful. I mean, Steve and I watched the little presentation together by this Indian chap on the stage one night and we were both, you know, shocked and almost in tears. It was terrible. But I’m glad we were able to help, you know, if we did. So there’s some great memories really from being in that band and I don’t regret any of them. It was a great experience.

Obviously, your song ‘Old Pair of Jeans’ was featured on Ocean Colour Scene’s 2010 album ‘Saturday’, before it was re-recorded for your debut solo album, 2016’s ‘Thinkin’, Drinkin’, Singin’’, so was your decision to leave the band in 2015 a case of wanting to assert your own identity as an artist and songwriter?

Yeah, pretty much and I know I had to start at the bottom again and do all that, but the thing is, I do write songs and I

am a singer and guitar player really and I wasn’t doing much of that, you know, with Ocean Colour Scene. As much fun as it was, and it was great, there was no way of me getting out my songs, they were just going to be put on the side, you know, put away and forgotten about. So, I just made a decision, it’s over, it’s now or never, so it was then. February of 2015, I thought that was it.

It is obviously a decision that has worked out well for you, anyway.

Well, it’s the decision I made and I’ll stick by it! [Laughs]. I mean, it’s working out alright! I have a nice life, so I’m not doing too bad!

Are we right in thinking that all of the ten songs that made up ‘Thinkin’, ‘Drinkin’, Singin’’ had been written over a number of years?

Yeah, they had actually. Obviously, I’d just compiled a lot and there was a few more, but we just whittled them down and got them recorded. We recorded them in a barn on the border of

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Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire and it didn’t cost anything to do. So, you know, it was a very cheap project and it was just something to get out as quickly as possible really, just so I didn’t stagnate. But, obviously, now, I’ve been into the studio during the lockdown, in the pandemic, and recorded in a proper recording studio and recorded the second album. I think people will think that sounds a lot better, personally.

most of us are still booking for next year really, because it takes time to organise shows and things. But, yeah, the difference being that they’re mainly new songs. There’s a couple of old songs that I wrote a fair few years ago on this new album, but the majority of them were written during the pandemic really, in, I don’t know, about three or four months and then recorded in about a week, which was record time!

Following the 2019 single ‘Do It All For Love’ and this year’s ‘Baby Let Me Hold You Tonight’, you are set to release your second solo album in early 2022. What do you feel are the differences between the new album and your debut?

Yeah! Well, there wasn’t much else on!

[Laughs]. I didn’t have much else to do!

Well, a lot of the songs were new last year, when I wrote them in 2020. I mean, a lot of musicians found themselves out of work and it was an awful time for everybody, especially the entertainment industry. We’ve not long been back to work, you know, and

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Wow, that’s good going!

So what can you tell us about the new songs?

Well, I don’t know really. I can just tell you that they’re catchy. I think they’re catchy. I think they’re good, I think you’ll like them. If you’re into guitar-based Rock music, Pop music, then you’ll like them. If you like The Beatles or anybody like that, you’ll like this stuff! And I think it sounds a lot

clearer and cleaner than the first album I put out, and I just think the overall sonic quality of it is just a lot better.

Do you have a title for the album yet?

I don’t, but it could be called ‘World on Fire’. There’s a song on the album called ‘World on Fire’. That really summed up the pandemic and all that, so it could be called that, we’ll see. If my wife has her way, that’s what it’ll be called! She usually does!

Well, I think that is a great title!

Alright, I’ll let her know, yeah!

On 18th December, you take to the stage at the Holy Trinity Church in Leamington Spa for the ‘Andy Bennett’s Special Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas’ gig. Obviously, this is a homecoming gig for you, but for those who might never have seen you performing on stage before, what can they expect from this show?

Well, I’ve got a fantastic band and a lovely string quartet, so I can’t wait!

Rehearsals don’t start until December, which we’re nearly at now. So, I’m really looking forward to it. I mean, the band is just top quality, but also, the best thing about it is sixty-years ago, Rock ‘n’ Roll was ‘the devil’s music’, but now churches have opened their doors to Rock ‘n’ Roll! It’s going to be ... and because it’s such an old church, it’s an old hived ceiling, beamed ... it’s like a mini cathedral, I just think, I’m hoping anyway, the acoustics should be fantastic in there! We do have to take amps and PAs in and stuff, but we’ve got a great sound engineer, so it should alright! But, yeah, I’m just really looking forward to playing in that kind of environment, to be honest with you.

Never done it before, so hopefully, you never know, churches have opened their doors to Rock ‘n’ Roll, so maybe that’s the new venues we can all go to!

Are you coming?

We would love to, but we’re all the way up in Blackpool. Hopefully you will get up here soon though!

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Yeah, I think, hopefully next year, there’ll be an acoustic tour, I would have thought; just me and a guitar.

And then I’ll pick up some festivals hopefully and I’ll add a band then and then probably do a tour with the band towards the end of the year, I would have thought. I’ve got to come up there, such a great audience up there!

I’ve played in Blackpool before, but not on my own, I don’t think, only with The Elements and Sargent, back in the day. We played at the Winter Gardens in ‘98 [on the ‘Marchin’ Already’ tour].

I was a lot thinner and younger then!

[Laughs] I’m going to have to get some exercises done before this gig in December! I’ll have to get the running shoes back on!

Leading on from that last question, as this interview will be featured in our Christmas issue, what does Christmas mean to you and how will you be spending it this year?

You know, just spending with my wife and kids this year and we’re having a very small Christmas. I think we’re

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going to visit the rest of the family, you know, mums and dads and things over Boxing Day and the days after Christmas. I think it’s just going to be my wife, my kids and my brother-inlaw ... he’s in the Army, he’s going to come, he’s got leave for Christmas, so he’ll be here. Well, my wife, actually, and my brother-in-law and my son, they’re Hindu, but they do celebrate Christmas, with me, obviously. It means, I don’t know, I get a good feeling around Christmas. It’s the one time during the cold weather I actually feel kind of warm inside. So, I don’t know, I’ve always liked the feeling of Christmas. It does feel like a warm and ... without sounding a bit girly, it’s a magical time! [Laughs]. Don’t write that down, for God’s sake! I’ll just say, yeah, I get a warm feeling around Christmas. It’s probably the brandy!

Finally, as somebody who continues to make a sizeable impression with their songwriting ability, what is it that makes you tick as a songwriter and what do you consider to make a great song?

Right, well, that’s a good question!

But, you know, I have no idea really. I mean, I’ve heard it compared to fishing and I’ve heard it compared to being an aerial and I’ve heard it compared to ... you’re just a receiver, you see. The songs are already out there in the aether and you receive them like you’re the antenna or something. But, with me, I don’t chase the songs anymore. I used to sit there every day trying to write a song, but you end up just screwing up lots of paper and putting it in the bin.

Nowadays, they come in bouts and, you know, in a week, you end up writing about four or five and out of them five, a good three or four will stick and become finished products really. So, I’ve changed my stance on it really.

Whereas I used to chase songwriting, I don’t anymore and I just wait for it to come. Something usually happens, like a pandemic or maybe an argument with somebody or maybe something will happen with a family member ... whatever, some emotional thing will happen and that’s what will spark off a batch of songwriting. And I don’t really think they’re about that subject

matter, whatever happens. I mean, songs have different meanings to everybody. I could write a song about a certain thing, then you could hear it and interpret it in another way. And that’s exactly what I want out of my songs, to be honest with you. I don’t want people to know to necessarily think about what I’ve written about, you know, it’s more about whether they listen to the song and it resonates with them about something and that’s me, a job well done really, isn’t it? Do you know what I mean? That means more to me really.

Thank you for a wonderful interview, it has been really lovely talking to you. Good luck with the upcoming Christmas show, the new album and for the future.

For tickets to ‘Andy Bennett’s Special Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas’, please visit the links below. andybennettmusic.com www.facebook.com/andybennettuk

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Frenchy’s Rants Coming Home

The thirty-third part in an exclusive series by Flicknife Records co-founder Marco ‘Frenchy’ Gloder.

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So, this is Christmas … almost. It’s as good a time as any to look back, to take stock, to see if you have lived up to your own expectations. It can be an uncomfortable thing to do coz you can lie to anyone, even your nearest and dearest, but you can’t lie to yourself. Anyone with two brain cells knows if they’ve come up with the goods or fu*ked up. There are many words for it: soul-searching, introspection, self-reflection ... citizenship! What?! There he goes again, I hear you think but for me, becoming a citizen of the UK was an experience I wasn’t quite prepared for, despite spending 45 years in these precious isles.

Right from the start, let’s cut the crap out: I am not going to start supporting the Tories, wave a British flag and go about shouting “Brexit is best” (no, it is not) or sign up for a stretch in the Reserve. I haven’t gone all patriotic, wearing Union Jack-tinted specs and forgetting where this country is at: we’re in a mess but at least now, I can say ‘WE’, meaning you and me. It happened on 15th November at 1.47 PM precisely: “I, Frenchy O’Flicknife, do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British Citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and Successors, according to law”. It is called an Affirmation of Allegiance. If you choose to involve the Big Guy above, it is called an Oath of Allegiance

but the result is the same: you get a very fancy certificate with your new citizenship number, a word from the Home Secretary (yeah well, they never said it was going to be pretty!), a beautiful passport holder and a picture with the officiating lady in front of a portrait of Her Maj. Then you’re told to mingle or bugger off, it’s up to you, coz now you’re a ci-ti-zen, you got rights, dagnabbit! Actually, you got the same rights you had before, but more so: you can’t be thrown out of the country! And that’s what it’s all about: I know, I’m making fun of it all, but it mattered, it mattered to me and it mattered to the 29 other souls who pledged their allegiance to the Queen, so much so that some cried …

It’s probably the same in every country: if you’re changing your citizenship to wherever you live, you’d think it’s the best country in the world. It happens to be true in the case of the United Kingdom: it’s not America that’s God’s country, it is Albion. What does it mean, getting citizenship in a country?

For many of us, it wasn’t a case of necessity, we’re not at war when you must choose a side and we all had settled status in the UK. As I said before, we have the same rights as citizens as we had with settled status but you know, when you write a sentence, and you don’t put a full stop at the end? It’s like that, it bugs you, unfinished business. So, for me, it was the right thing to do, finishing what started 45 years ago and something I

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had (secretly) dreamt of since I was 11/12 years old. In a way, it was me saying ‘Thank you’ to the UK, thank you for the welcome and the life I have here, thank you for everything the UK has given me, thank you for being here when there was nowhere else to go. For others there, it was the end of a long, sometime dangerous and fraught journey: for them, it might not have been the country they had chosen, but it is the country they landed in and they felt strongly enough about it to stand up and be counted. That’s what it is about: we, as a group, felt that we owed that much to Britain, to say ‘fair enough, guv’nor, we’ll stand with you’ because ALL of us were outsiders, wherever we had been before, we had never belonged but now, we do.

While we spoke of our voyages from foreigners to British citizens, none of us thought that the insults, the ‘go back where you come from’, the Johnny Foreigners jibes would stop just because we had citizenship: we’re not that naïve. The black brothers and sisters had it tougher than most: for them, it is a leap of faith as well as a full stop at the end of the sentence, faith in the innate human goodness. I sincerely hope they are rewarded for that faith. Personally, I doubt it: there are far too many morons bent on discord for that to happen any time soon, but there was no harm in believing for an hour or so, no reason to spoil their happiness. Yes! We were happy: we’d come home. Not the

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perfect home you get in Disney movies but home, nonetheless. Never underestimate the power of ‘home’ to the perpetually drifting, to the lost, to the homeless.

That’s what 2021 will always be to me: the year I came home, my spiritual home. We all have dreams as kids, but how many of us get to live our dreams?

Not that many I dare say. Many might think it’s not much of a dream to become British, but that’s foolish: the British seem to take it all for granted because being born here gives you the right to citizenship, but I have lived in many different countries and Britain, all things considered, is the best … by a country mile. Never forget how lucky you are … many, far too many, never had that luck.

As an aside, let me wish you all a very happy festive season: try and be nice to each other, spare a few bob for those who have nothing, spread some joy and happiness: you know it makes sense!

www.flickniferecords.co.uk www.facebook.com/Flicknife

Creepy Neighbour Sneaks in a Classy Pop Album Dave Hammond reviews ‘Debut Album’

Max Taylor, aka Creepy Neighbour, has an interesting past. A founder member and bassist with Clor, a band whose self-titled 2005 debut album sits number one in the NME’s ‘100 Greatest Albums You’ve Never Heard’, he has since worked with the likes of Groove Armada, Roots Manuva, Lily Allen and Mika. Over the last few years, he’s been honing his songwriting skills, releasing several singles and performing some wonderful on-line lockdown sessions with his parents, who are both veterans of the music industry. His debut album, nicely called ‘Debut Album’, was released through Neighbourhood Records / Integrity Publishing on 3rd December.

Opening with a backwards vocal, followed by chiming guitar, a high register vocal and delightfully cheesy organ, the first minute or so of ‘Draw a Map’ sets the tone and template for an album of glorious Pop nuggets that dip into pretty much every decade since the ‘60s for its influences, often finding

them in the more offbeat or unorthodox Pop acts such as Sparks, early Queen, 10cc, ‘80s Synthpop and perhaps, more recently, Rufus Wainwright. The rest of the opener includes some lovely harmonies and an unexpectedly deranged guitar solo. ‘Break a Leg’ bounces along on a bubbling bassline with more New Wave keyboards and a catchy “Try your best, try your best, it’s all you can do” chorus. Similarly, the massed harmonies repeatedly singing “Dreams all in my dreams” (on ‘Love’s Young Dream’) stays in your memory long after the songs finished. It reminded me of the backing provided by family members of Rufus Wainwright on ‘Want’ (2003) and made me wonder if it’s a similar affair here.

However, it’s not all fizzling uptempo pop where anything can and will happen, as can be found with the more stripped back, piano-led ‘Summer Job’ (again with some great backing vocals) and the quietly dramatic, almost operatic ‘The Optimist’. ‘Beyonce’ uses a lyric that wonders why, if the author has the same number of hours in the day as the titular singing sensation, they can’t achieve the same in life. The answer is there in the lyrics, of course.

Meanwhile, in taking the Synthpop of The Human League or Blancmange and adding a Funky guitar and harmonyladen outro, he produces another gem in ‘Mothers Ruin’. It’s an unashamedly, slightly eccentric, but expertly put together album of classy pop music, like they rarely make anymore.

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BLOW-UP Stir-Crazy!

Alice Jones-Rodgers reviews ‘Melting Pot’.

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Husband and wife Dan and Natalie Webster, who have been stalwarts of Blackpool’s music scene since the mid-2000s with bands such as Sideshow Sirens and The Drop-Out Wives, may have formulated the idea for Blow-Up way before the world going to hell in a handcart, but we dare say it took an event as catastrophic as the pandemic for them to fully realise it. Since late 2020, they have brought us several singles and an eponymous five-track EP, have added a third member, guitarist Howard Mckenzie and, with restrictions lifted, have began to make a sizable impression on the Northwest live circuit. Now, as the curtain falls on a year that wasn’t quite as bad as the one in which the Lo-fi outfit, er ... blew up, comes their debut album, ‘Melting Pot’.

Clocking in at just over half an hour, this gloriously fuzzy, full-throttle blast of scuzzed-up guitars, idiosyncratic percussion and unfettered vocal exorcisms recorded at REC, Blackpool, produced by Shaun Reader (Dü Pig) and housed in full-on Psychedelic, garden gnome sporting artwork by local artist Marcus Bloom is certainly one of the most assured debut albums of 2021 and also one of the most unique. With wonderfully noisy opener ‘Rattle Them Bones’, all propulsive and unwieldy axework, a backbeat that partly sounds like it was recorded whilst tapping a pit of skulls for signs of life and demonic larnyx-shredding

vocals, Blow-Up are certain to shake off any cobwebs that might still be lingering from those months of self-isolation, whilst on the following ‘Bodybag’, the trio flex the type of Pop songwriting muscle that always underlaid the best work of The Drop-Out Wives (who can forget such should-be classics as ‘F*ck Love’ from their 2014 album ‘Voting for Gloss’).

As with The Drop-Out Wives, it is this mix of the weird and wonderful and intrinsic knowledge of Pop craftsmanship that makes Blow-Up’s ‘Melting Pot’ such an enthralling proposition.

‘Devil’s Eye’ ups the ante yet further, a solitary bugle ushering in a Grungy guitar line reminiscent of Hole’s ‘Violet’ (‘Live Through This’, 1994), before building into dense and slightly unsettling soundscape of inventive percussion from Dan, including some ominous death toll bells; ghostly, atmosphere-enhancing backing vocals courtesy of Louise ‘Peg’ Eccleston; a typically and appropriately weighty bassline from album guest Joey Class (The Senton Bombs) and a sublime guitar solo by Mckenzie. Meanwhile, Natalie’s vocals, here part Courtney Love, part Patti Smith (who’s ‘Ghost Dance’ (‘Easter’, 1978), the overall effect of ‘Devil’s Eye’ is not dissimilar to), have rarely sounded so impassioned.

Continuing Blow-Up’s obvious penchant for the occult is their cover of

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Kip Tyler and the Flips’ 1958 (some say proto-Garage, some say proto-Metal) track ‘She’s My Witch’, the low-slung, slow Blues rhythm of the original given a decidedly ‘90s Slacker Rock meets early-Black Sabbath style makeover, replete with growling guitars and eery woodland noises, whilst the song’s insistent central guitar motif in Blow-Up form cannot help but remind us of that in ELO’s ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ (‘Discovery’, 1979) ... “Grooss!”

Imagine if The Jesus and Mary Chain formed a supergroup with The Kills in order to provide the soundtrack to an obscure and long-forgotten ‘50s B-movie and the driving, one-chord thrash beast that is ‘Souldigger’, a terrifying thrill-ride on an old motorcycle down unlit country backroads at the dead of night, is what we suspect the result might sound like.

This wind-in-the-hair euphoria is continued on the equally exhilarating ‘Shredded Leather’, on which Natalie, all ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (1955) bravado, forcefully declares “I ain’t got no time for fools, like YOOUUU!” Perhaps the biggest revelation on ‘Melting Pot’ (although there are many) occurs as we get into the spirit of this retro-inflected record by imagining that we are turning over the vinyl (aided by a black CD designed to look like an actual record with actual grooves!) to side B, where we are greeted by ‘I’ve Got the Bug’, a 1950s Doo-wop style

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number in which Natalie offers up her finest Betty Boop-channelling vocal performance amidst astonishingly faithful period girl-group backing vocals, guitar work and production values.

On an album where light and dark sit side by side in perfect harmony, Dan takes on lead vocal duties for the heavy riffing ‘Waxwork’, a track which returns us to the grimy streets of the band’s native North-west, where the “little fever”-inducing need to “escape the rabble” is achieved by losing yourself “amongst the crackle”.

Complimenting Dan’s Thurston Moore-esque vocal delivery on ‘Waxwork’ is the second and equally interesting cover on ‘Melting Pot’, the Natalie-sung ‘Harvest Spoon’, Kim Gordon’s account of the sexism endured whilst Sonic Youth were opening for Neil Young on the 1991 ‘Weld’ tour and originally featured as the opening track on the debut album proper by her side project Free Kitten, 1995’s ‘Nice Ass’. Blow-Up’s interpretation of the brilliantly-titled Godfather of Grunge-baiting ‘Harvest Spoon’ is relatively faithful, but with a slightly faster tempo and some neat wah-wah guitar work from Mckenzie.

‘Waste the Day’, an infectious little gem with playful vocal interplay from Dan and Natalie, is another album highlight, although perhaps we are just delighted that Blow-Up have provided a theme tune to Dan’s legendary

‘Wasted World’ comic strip, which you have seen grace the pages of this very publication since January 2020! If MTV were still in any way down with the kids (and as long as Dan kept regaling Eighth Day readers with his tales from Ugleigh), we would by now be campaigning for them to commission a ‘Wasted World’ TV series, thus providing Generation Y with their equivalent of Generation X’s ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ (1993-1997).

We can see it now! Really, who could resist a theme tune with lyrics such as “You know we’re in it forever, These boxes keep us together, And we’ve got to get out, Wasted world”?!

Bringing ‘Melting Pot’ to the climax that such an exciting and eclectic blend

of fun, frolics and Lo-fi experimentation deserves is ‘The Bear’, a joyously chaotic, all-bleeping, mad as a box of caniforms, Psychedelic wig-out with frantic Rap-like vocals from Natalie and hints of The Sugarcubes and Bikini Kill thrown in for good measure. Feast upon this first full-length offering from Blow-Up, because in a world that now seems to constantly teeter on the brink of apocalypse, an album as consistently stirring as ‘Melting Pot’ was exactly the sort of escapism that we all needed.

‘Melting Pot’ is out now. www.facebook.com/ blowupsound

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The Pogues London’s greatest Irish band and their efforts to write Ireland’s most indelible work Eoghan Lyng explores Shane McGowan and co.’s 1987 album ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’.

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Anyone playing traditional Irish music is opening themselves to a torrent of criticism, whether it´s accusations of cultural appropriation, or notions of insincerity. And if that person happens to be Shane McGowan, a former public schoolboy who suddenly remembered that his father was a man from Dublin, the barbs can be expected to increase exponentially. Not only that, but England was recently engaging in a war with Ulster, which meant that anyone willing to sympathize with the Republican cause was either misguided or a terrorist in waiting.

On the other hand, The Pogues were a unique breed of musician, creating an idiom that stemmed from Irish ballads, yet written about the English cities from which the band had learned their trade. And on only their third album in 1987, McGowan married both influences to create ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’, the band’s most fully realised effort, and their finest too.

There isn’t one, but two tributes written for the English capital, while ‘Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six’ paid homage to the many Irish prisoners wrongly accused in an unjust war.

Produced by Steve Lillywhite, the album follows the mantra echoed by the early U2 albums in demonstrating truthfulness above Rock posturing, and in one almost tantric address, McGowan lets out decades of anger

that could only have been sung by a man in search of an identity: “For being Irish in the wrong place, And at the wrong time, In Ireland, they’ll put you away in the maze, In England, they’ll keep you for seven long days.”

For McGowan, Ireland represented a land of redemption, yet it stood as a land that changed even more rapidly than the England that had fed, freed and educated him. In ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’, purportedly written with Liam Clancy in mind, he emerges from the wilderness to find his place of solitude eroding with the land that surrounds them. ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’ is soaked in nostalgia, both for an England where young lust lingers in the air and a battle heavy Ireland that existed most prominently in the tales fathers told their children before bedtime. Schematically, ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’ is a spiritual Folk album for all persuasions, aching to unite all parishioners, listeners and buyers under one voice; music. The title track, a furiously performed rocker sung with tremendous gusto, continues the narrative, spearheading a yearning for a God who doesn’t distinguish between Jew, Catholic or Protestant, but shelters all of them from the rain that surrounds the London streets.

And it’s almost needless to say that the spiritual/gladiatorial dichotomy is what drives the album - and more importantly, the band - forward. This is

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a work of contrast, contradiction and complexities, not least on the startling ‘Turkish Song of the Damned’, a modern day shanty about facing terminal decline with a clenched fist and a belly full of whiskey and pride.

Embellished by Spider Stacy’s whistle playing, this rabble rousing tune holds one of McGowan’s most committed vocals, although that’s not a slight on the album’s medley, a collage that marries London Folk tale ‘The Recruiting Sergeant’ with a pair of Irish pub tunes, giving the Emerald Isle a signal to carry on with their crusade. In the years following the deaths of the hunger strikers, despair flooded the Irish streets, but tied to the economies Britain had in store for them (not least the fact that two thirds of a province lay under questionable British rule), it was growing harder for the citizens of the island to hold true to the warrior spirit that once won them their freedom and pride. It took members of the Irish diaspora (namely Dexys Midnight Runners, The Smiths and The Pogues) to remind younger listeners of the fighting spirit that made the Celtic nations the forces they always were.

The album is not entirely polemical, as the gorgeously produced ‘Fairytale of New York’ so expertly shows. What turned out to be the band’s most fondly remembered tune is presented on the album without fuss or fanfare, stapled as the fourth track. And yet it had made a splash for the band in the Winter of 1987, where it landed in the UK top

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five, ultimately nestling in at number two. “We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine”, McGowan famously retorted, perhaps dismayed that the Pet Shop Boys rendition of ‘Always On My Mind’ beat them to the punch. He needn’t have worried, as McGowan (fittingly, born on 25th December) would come to realise in the years since. The song, rich in detail and dynamism, details the exploits of the Irish diaspora, far from the British Isles that had been the band’s nominal harbour.

Duetting on the song was Kirsty MacColl, herself a child of Irish heritage, and the very sweetheart destined to bring class to a bunch of rag-tags and vagabonds. Married to producer Steve Lillywhite, MacColl agreed to lay down a guide vocal, servicing the band who could not replicate a woman’s voice. Impressed by her vision, McGowan asked her to record the second voice, and dutifully, she appeared with the band on ‘Top of the Pops’. Between them, the duo sparred, as if aping the snowy weather that surrounds their characters on a drunken Christmas night, but behind the scenes the pair held nothing but the utmost of respect for one another. Such was her importance to the song that McGowan has been openly reluctant to perform it in the wake of her untimely death.

Behind these figures stood Jem Finer, the man who composed the song’s

dreamlike melody, as he embraced a daliesque journey back in time.

Picturing the conversation between the inhabitants of a couple against the stormy Clare seas, Finer captured a Munster that was every bit as romantic as McGowan’s, albeit one driven by pragmatism and resolve. Indeed, it was only when McGowan took hold of the track that the band were transported into more phantasmagorical territories, as evidenced by the flourishing counter melody. “I had written two songs complete with tunes, one had a good tune and crap lyrics”, Finer admitted to NME. “The other had the idea for ‘Fairytale’, but the tune was poxy. I gave them both to Shane and he gave it a Broadway melody, and there it was”.

In many ways, ‘If I Should Fall from Grace with God’ presents the ultimate of Irish idealism, and by curating a collage that flits from the snowy terrains of New York, to the battlegrounds of a bomb-laden Belfast, the record proved that anyone could create an indelibly Irish sounding record, regardless of the validity of their heritage, or the information on their passport. And in a century that was shown greater divisions between the two islands (Ulster, as ever, is being forced to decide between venturing further South or overseas to appease their identities), it is important to remember that there is a great deal that unites England and Ireland, particularly when it comes to music. Merry Christmas!

www.pogues.com / www.facebook.com/Poguetry

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Washing Machine

Ten Year Cycle Proves Inspirational!

Live review by Dave Hammond.

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Washing Machine is the name given to the live events promoted at The Hunter Club in Bury St Edmunds and hosted by the irrepressible Seymour Quigley, former member of John Peel favourites, Miss Black America, and another critically acclaimed band, Horse Party. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend a sold-out, all-day event held to celebrate its tenth anniversary, a minor miracle considering the history behind live music in the relatively sleepy Suffolk town, known more for its sugar factory and ‘The Pillar of Salt’ - thought to be the country’s first internally illuminated road sign - than being a centre of Rock ’n’ Roll excellence.

Back in 1978, The Clash rocked up to play a gig in the town, which resulted in what was perhaps over dramatically described as riots in the street. The result: live music was banned from the town for the next twenty years or so, until an enterprising local councillor, encouraged by a thriving young skateboard fraternity, called for and assisted the set-up of the Bury Sound music competition, which is still held annually at The Hunter Club. Since then, the scene has gradually grown, producing a number of bands that have gone on to relative success, garnering excellent reviews and national radio exposure. Washing Machine has been a key part of that journey for the last ten years, providing a safe event space for bands to perform and fans to enjoy in

an all-inclusive environment.

The Hunter Club itself consists of two stages and a separate bar area. The smaller arena is generally standing only, the audience being within touching distance of the performers, creating a wonderful atmosphere. The second, larger stage is used for standing only gigs or seated, café style events.

For the purpose of this event however, the smaller stage was converted into an intimate, seated only venue for the acoustic acts that benefited from such a setting, with seating removed for the more upbeat performers. The larger arena had a second stage set up at the opposite end of the hall to the main stage, enabling a quick turn-around of bands, just enough time for the MC to thank the band that’s just been playing before welcoming the next band on the stage opposite. You watch a band, swivel through 180 degrees and watch another. Across the three stages, this allowed in excess of thirty bands to perform. At ten pound a head, it was incredible value.

I actually missed the first couple of hours of the event, due to the usual Rock ’n’ Roll issues of doing the shopping and sorting out the kids.

However, I did get there in time to catch Study of Us, a manic and acrobatic solo artist whose energy and presence brought to mind a more approachable and cuddly Keith Flint.

He utilised his laptop to good effect, producing some industrial strength

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beats and smart looping while playing keyboards and oddly, bearing in mind the Techno / Electronica base for many of his songs, acoustic guitar. There was humour in the songs and some audience participation which involved him perching precariously on a keyboard stand which he assured us was only designed to withstand a weight two stone below his own. He clearly enjoyed performing in a manner where things (including himself) could literally come crashing down at any moment and the audience thoroughly appreciated it.

Smiling to myself, I headed to the smaller stage to see Belinda Gillett, a singer / songwriter from Felixstowe who I was watching for the second time in a month. Seated with her acoustic guitar, she slipped off her trainers and slipped into her first song. There were one or two issues with a non-compliant guitar and an elbow recovering from a recent sprain during the first song, but she brushed this off with a bit of banter with friend, manager and MC for the smaller stage, Matt Carter. I’ve written

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many words about Belinda and will continue to do so as long as she’s performing and writing. At times her playing has the same timeless drift as Nick Drake’s, though it’s when she sings that time can actually stand still.

From a barely whispered lyric that can swirl gently through the still atmosphere to the seemingly effortless, full-throated holding of a syllable whose sound waves fill every corner of the room. There’s a natural warmth and emotional edge that holds your attention, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and a rare beauty that can make the eyes moist. I kid you not when I say her voice stands comparison with greats such as Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Sandy Denny and Emmylou Harris - it has that same natural, unforced quality they possess.

To be honest, she could sing the latest report from the Office of National Statistics and it would leave me awestruck. There’s some engaging talk too, giving background and substance to some of the song’s meanings, many of which are relevant to her own life and relationships. And there’s the odd flash of dark humour to balance the light, as when she explained the writing of a song about her father, who hadn’t taken any interest in her life and had suddenly got in touch to tell her he had a terminal illness. The song was called ‘Fuck’ and summed up her immediate thoughts on handling the situation. All being well, there’ll be an album from Belinda in 2022.

After a short break to socialise, visit the loo and grab a beer, I headed back to the main stage to catch one of the best live outfits in East Anglia, For the Hornets. I’ve seen them perform three times and they just get better. Singer Adz Queenie Bond is a born frontman, commandeering the stage wearing a slinky red dress with a personality that demanded attention. His energetic and engaging presence is matched by a tight rhythm section that included a stylish bassist whose feet are so far apart he’s nearly doing the splits. Contrarily, guitarist Gabby Deth held his guitar at chest height as he provided chunky, punky, choppy riffs while prowling the stage like Wilko Johnson’s less intense little brother. Some wag next to me quipped that they looked like a band thrown together from two different groups while agreeing they were a phenomenal live proposition. Apart from some high-quality originals, they also threw in an unexpected, high-octane, crowd-pleasing cover of ‘Everybody, yeah, yeah’ by Backstreet Boys (‘Backstreet’s Back’, 1997).

Regularly gigging in the East Anglia area, they’re well worth catching live.

Next up, on the opposite stage, were possibly the heaviest duo I’ve ever witnessed, Kulk. To say Thom plays guitar and sings while Jade plays drums is understating it somewhat. Thom wrung every ounce of sonic energy from each chord he played which, bearing in mind the time warping intensity of his playing means it

appeared they rarely achieved more than four chords every ten seconds, is a skill in itself. Barefooted, he seemingly struck some martial arts pose while executing each burst of sound. When singing, he approached the microphone from an angle, and like it’s his worst enemy, strained forward before unleashing his fury upon it. Jade barely looked up from beneath her mass of blonde hair as she pulverised her drum kit, each blow rendered as though it might be her last. In keeping with her cohort’s chord count, the beats per second is very low, even in fractions.

There was also some weird ambient noise going on at the intro and mid-section of some songs, enough, I imagine, to make you think you’ve stumbled into the UFO Club circa 1967. It was fuzzy, Psychedelic and seriously heavy, slowed down to a pace even I could move to. They also showed a quite endearing side at the end with a simple “Thanks. Goodbye.

Sorry”, before leaving stage. The debut album, ‘We Spare Nothing’, has just been released through their Bandcamp page and is well worth investigation.

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Things were a little hazy at this stage, and I may have sought a quiet refuge for a while before returning to the main stage to catch The Daze, a teenage post punk band from the town. The band have been under the tutelage of Queens Road School of Rock for the last couple of years or so and are an unbridled joy to watch. There’s a youthful zest and energy about them that belies the edgy songs and lyrics.

Stage-front, they have two vocalists who, bearing in mind their tender years, are not short on charisma and stage craft. Albert’s stage movements are a mix of bouncing and prowling while the charismatic Flo, with her cropped hair and permanent grin, elicits a rare combination of ‘don’t mess with me’ and ‘I’m having the time of my life’.

Musically, they’re more than solid with an early- ‘80s post Punk sound and a drummer who provides another focal point with the intensity of his playing.

If they continue to develop as they have over the past couple of years, they’ll be worth following.

The notes in my A7 pad were now

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becoming less informative, relying on hastily scribbled keywords which I hoped to decipher when typing up this review. It’s worth saying at this point that the event was running remarkably smoothly for a three-stage performance venue utilising three sound desks and 30-odd bands with the added complication of a well-used bar. The whole place was refreshingly ego free as everyone pulled in the same direction. Credit to the MCs and all the staff involved who kept it this way for the duration of the day. They were a well-oiled machine, while I was merely getting well oiled. The inevitable, but minor, down side for me was missing several acts due to timing clashes.

Next up on the opposite stage came the Glitter Shop, a band who describe their sound as Cowboy Shoegaze which, if it included keyboard / guitar driven songs that sometimes chimed and shimmered and other times possessed a New Order drive and rhythm coupled with the laid back delivery of early Pavement, is absolutely spot on. Regular Washing Machine / Hunter Club soundman Barny Cutter was unchained from the desk and provided the colour to the songs with some fluid guitar. Vocal duties were shared between Ruby and Harry with the latter providing the visual focal point of the band with some quirky moves that at times verged on a less intense Ian Curtis, matching some of the more potent songs in their repertoire. That he carried off dressing in a frilly shirt and early-’70s style

pinstripe suit with impressive flares and wide lapels (something I couldn’t do myself in the ‘70s) was quite impressive. Think ‘Department S’ era Peter Wyngarde when it comes to sartorial elegance. There was a balance to their performance and an edgy energy which was really satisfying.

Seeking refuge from the mainstage, I headed off to the acoustic stage to catch Matt Reaction, aka Matt Carter aka MC for the acoustic stage aka Delicate Management aka all round good guy.

Matt is a purveyor of songs that, lyrically, are full of charm and wit with nods to local bands, including fellow performers on the day, Belinda Gillett and Gaffa Tape Sandy. ‘Thrilled Beyond Biscuits’ is probably self-explanatory while ‘What the 90s Taught Me’ is tongue in cheek and references several more well-known artists. There was plenty of banter with the audience between and during songs, which gave the performance a spontaneous feel. Matt left it all on stage with an enthusiastic and manic performance utilising backing tracks, guitar and his slightly eccentric stage persona. It all gave the impression that anything could go wrong at any time, but hey, what the hell. If there’s another artist around that I could compare his performance to, it would be John Otway.

Still grinning, I went to catch recent Bury Sound competition winners, Fleas on the mainstage. This felt like a

celebration of the win, an adoring audience lapping up everything the band threw at them. Their brand of Punky Metal with the odd Rap thrown in is performed by a band that are clearly enjoying themselves and at times look slightly in awe of the adulation heading their way. Front man Pedro is a force of nature, spending as much time off stage as on, engaging with and whipping up the audience.

The band are also confident enough to perform something akin to a Metal ballad where the audience are encouraged to sit or squat before the song’s inevitable change in gear, releasing everyone to leap up in unison with Pedro. I look forward to hearing whatever they record in the hope it captures their live sound.

Back to the acoustic stage for a non-acoustic performance from Collars, a duo that have recently released an excellent debut EP, ‘Everything Present 1’. Kane plays guitars and a specially modified drum kit while Danielle sings, plays keyboards and generally owns the stage. Visually, they’ve developed an

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unusual kind of hipster chic look which is part catwalk, part circus entertainer.

Musically, there’s plenty of choppy, rhythmic guitars and changes in tempo which make it easy to move to but difficult to pin their sound down to any genre, though whatever it is would probably be preceded by ‘idiosyncratic’. Idiosyncratic Indie Art Pop Funk perhaps? Like a mutant mix of the B52s and The White Stripes. On stage, they’re both focal points for different reasons. Impressively, Kane played his guitar and drums at the same time - guitar with hands, drums with feet. Danielle was constantly on the move, either walking the stage back and forth, thrusting herself forward or arching back, mic cupped close to her mouth before pirouetting around during the instrumental passages.

And on to the main arena and the headliners on each stage. First up were Fightmilk, relative veterans with a handful of EPs and a couple of well received albums behind them. They’re a well drilled and energetic live proposition, but what sets them apart from many other bands in the Indie Rock arena is their droll sense of humour, touching on the odd side of relationships (songs about prominent front teeth, ex-boyfriends with bad tattoos, etc) and contagious songs. On stage, there’s an offbeat chemistry between singer Lily and guitarist Alex while having an immensely cool looking bassist also helps with the stage image. I was reminded at one point of

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the infectious charm of late-’70s bands The Rezillos or Radio Stars, while one song opened like Wreckless Eric’s ‘Whole Wide World’ (‘Wreckless Eric’, 1978), which endeared them to me even more.

Bury St Edmund’s very own Gaffa Tape Sandy closed proceedings on the night, though illness almost scuppered their plans, with guitarist / co-vocalist Kim seemingly getting through the gig on adrenaline alone. I for one am pleased he managed to make it. The trio have released several singles / EPs and garnered much praise for their gritty garage rock over the last four years or so. Vocals are shared between the very tall Kim and quite petite Catherine, while medium sized Robin plays drums. There’s an attack in their playing and, in particular, the vocals, which marks them out as genuine contenders. The songs, particularly the ones from the ‘Family Mammal’ EP (2019), are strong and were performed with a joie de vivre that closed out the evening in a celebratory fashion, the mosh pit sweatily and enthusiastically acclaiming their heroes. Including a rabble-rousing version of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ by Johnny Cash (‘Johnny Cash and His Hot and Blue Guitar’, 1957) was unexpected but fitted perfectly with the general feel of the whole event. After a stop start return to gigging over the last 18 months, it was a life affirming end to the evening.

It seems churlish to level any sort of

criticism at the whole event, but if I had one quibble, it would be that I didn’t get to see more bands, highlighting the depth of talent in the area not to mention the pulling power of Washing Machine and The Hunter Club. As is the tradition at a Washing Machine gig, it was left to Seymour Quigley to bring the event to a close, thanking all involved in his inimitable manner.

What he has achieved, with the help of others who have been swept along in a self-perpetuating wave of enthusiasm, is nothing short of astounding and long may it last. It seems appropriate to close this review with the words of the man himself, delivered in stentorian fashion with the belief and integrity with which, without a shadow of doubt, it was intended (with apologies if the interpretation of my hastily scribbled notes have missed anything): “If you want to write a song, If you want to write a book, If you want to write some poetry, If you want to write a play, Then just do it. There are people here who can help you achieve whatever you want to do, because, when the world’s going shit, what do we do? We do something that isn’t shit!” Amen to that.

from Indiana, which she describes as really quite boring (and she doesn’t want to go back there), she’s been resident in East Anglia for a number of years. A few years ago, her dearest and best friend, Andy took his own life.

This had a deep effect on Sara, as it has with thousands of other people who have survived loved ones committing suicide. Andy was passionate about two things in life - chips and making guitars. In memory of Andy, Sara is aiming to raise money for HOPE, a charity that supports those grieving after suicide. As Sara says, “Grieving a suicide is a unique, non-linear, misunderstood, and often unsupported type of grief that an awful lot of us carry around in our hearts every single day”.

Page 138: Host Seymour Quigley.

There will be an event at The Hunter Club in Bury St Edmunds on 7th January 2022 to raise money, but there will also be a raffle to win a guitar hand built by Andy. Sara, who is also a talented pyrography artist, has the guitar and is creating a unique, one-off design as the prize. Videos of her creating the design can be found on her Facebook page and more details about buying raffle tickets can be found on her website.

www.facebook.com/ washingmachineclubnight

www.sarakathleen.co.uk/ fundraiser

One of the shining lights in making The Hunter Club click is the Venue Manager, Sara Kathleen. Originally

www.facebook.com/ SaraKathleenUK

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An Unspirited Sequel Review by Alice Jones-Rodgers.

If you thought Paul Feig’s controversial, woke-friendly 2016 reboot of ‘Ghostbusters’ was utterly pointless, then you ain’t seen nothing yet! For now, after no less than four COVID-induced delays, comes ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’, a sequel to the 1984 original and the 1989 second instalment directed by Jason Reitman, son of director of those cinematic classics, Ivan Reitman.

From the outset, there is no doubt that Jason’s heart was in the right place when he set out to make this film, but the result, despite its hefty dependence on cues from his father’s work is, if you will pardon the expression, oddly unspirited.

Of course, ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ was at a major disadvantage from the outset, having to follow in the footsteps of two supernatural comedy films which, combined, grossed approximately $455million at US Box Offices alone and became nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. It also had the unenviable tasks of having to both rewrite the wrongs of that 2016 film

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and find a new angle to approach its subject from that would not upset too many ‘Ghostbusters’ fans. As we went to print, ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ had grossed approximately $90million at US Box Offices in just under a month. So, a promising start in terms of bums on seats, but the film has certainly failed to spark the imagination in quite the same way as its predecessors.

Perhaps this is something to do with the very different tone of this latest addition to the ‘Ghostbusters’ franchise and the fact that it is something of a schizophrenic mess, on one hand attempting to be a compelling family story within a ghost adventure and on the other, wanting to be a film built upon good old-fashioned nostalgia.

The main problem with ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ though is that in just over two hours, nothing actually really happens, with the whole first hour being spent getting to know its characters and remaining time being given over to, not just the ‘N’ word, but a massive over-indulgence in fan service. In comparison, within the first half hour of the 1984 ‘Ghostbusters’, we had gotten to know the three members of the original outfit (Egon Spengler, played by the late Harold Ramis; Peter Venkman, played by Bill Murray and Ray Stantz, played by Dan Akroyd) and they had busted their first ghost, Slimer.

The plot of ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ itself is solid enough and one that we

could easily imagine having formed the basis of an ‘80s adventure film.

Divorced single mother, Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her two children, Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) are evicted from their New York apartment and forced to move into a dilapidated farmhouse in Oklahoma left to Callie by her late father. Here, the children find the old ghostbusting equipment and enlist Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), middle school science teacher to Phoebe and new found friend Podcast (Logan Kim), to help work it.

Grooberson, of course, also just happens to be a massive Ghotbusters fanatic and an amateur parapsychologist fascinated by the large number of earthquakes in the area despite their being no faultlines.

However, the script is, at best, lacklustre, makes less and less sense as the film progresses and, try as they might, Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan fail to summon up anything approaching the type of clever humour that inhabited Ramis and Akroyd’s original writing. Yes, both Akroyd and Murray reprise their roles, whilst Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts all make welcome returns as fourth Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (introduced in ‘Ghostbusters II’), Dana Bartlett and Janine Melnitz, respectively, and, heck, even Marshmellow Man is back (albeit in a very different form), but the real coup would have been if Akroyd had been brought in to at least co-write the script

in order to add a bit of zest to what is otherwise quite a dreary affair.

Appearances from the cast members of ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Ghostbusters II’ may at first have seemed like the strongest draw to ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’, but the actual highlight of the whole film is Grace’s performance.

Already something of a Hollywood veteran at the tender age of 15, having previously starred in films as wildly varied as ‘Frankenstein’ (2015); ‘I, Tonya’ (2017) and ‘Captain Marvel’ (2019), she here does a magnificent job of bringing back the curious spirit of Egon, thus bridging the gap between the older generation of Ghostbusters and the new generation. She is currently taking a break from acting due to undergoing surgery for a back problem and we wouldn’t be at all surprised if this had been caused by having to carry this whole film on her shoulders.

It is a given that, whatever tack had been taken, ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ could never have lived up to either the greatness of films it follows or the expectation that has surrounded its release, but we still expected much more than this. Give it another five years and we dare say that somebody will have another attempt at rehashing what should have really been left as a treasured memory from the ‘80s all along, but next time, “Who you gonna call?” Certainly not Jason Reitman.

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Merry Christmas!