Tom, first off, thank you so much for taking time to visit with me and conduct this interview.

I always like to begin an interview with recollections of childhood.  From what I gather yours was a fairly happy one?

Yes and no. From a family perspective yes, my parents took care of us well with much love and attention. But my Dad was always trying to find a better way to make money so we moved a lot. I was always the new kid. I went to many schools and we went back and forth between St. Louis and Florida (which my Mom loved) a lot. So I would just get situated and make friends, etc, and then we’d move again. So in that sense, I was kind of a lonely kid I guess. It made me sink deeper into music though, because that was friend I would never lose. 

What fond memories do you have of Pompano Beach?

Pompano Beach was one of the high points. I had come down here from dark, snowy, cold St. Louis to sunny Florida. The school was open, in that in between classes you would walk out in the “hall” and be outside in the sun, walking to your next class. It’s where I really started putting my first little band together, and where I got my first serious guitar. It was a wonderful time, I still remember driving with my Mother toward the beach one sunny day and hearing “This is brand new by The Beatles!” on WQAM and they played “Eight Days A Week.” The happy sound of that song pretty much sums up my time in Pompano.

Your family has always been pretty tight knit, as well as a strong circle of friends.  That support net must have meant a lot to you not only growing up but in your musical aspirations as well.

My Mother supported my musical desires early on. Mainly in the form of buying me records even when I was about 6, that I would play in my bedroom for hours. I was in love with the sound of guitars on records by The Everly Brothers and Rick Nelson, etc. They had me on piano lessons at 5 or 6 but I didn’t take to them well, I wanted to just play on the piano and make up my own things, which they also encouraged.

Your mother was a singer.  Why did your grandmother not encourage her to pursue singing as a career?

My Grandmother was just being careful I guess. My Mom had been invited to go on the road with a very good Benny Goodman style band but it was felt she was too young. It was probably true, but Mom had a really, really pretty voice. I didn’t realize how nice until I grew up and heard some old tapes of her singing stuff like “Summertime.”

Mom, Maurine Hartman, must have been some kind of special lady.  What is the “pink center” to which she referred and how did this come back to play a central theme in not only your musical adventures, but your life?

You were brought up in a musically inclined family.  You and your sister Carole were raised in classical music.  Talk about your training and Carole’s scholarship to Tampa University.

Carole was a wizard on piano. I grew up listening to her playing concertos on sunny Summer afternoons, and doing endless scales and exercises. We actually had a Steinway Model M (kind of their medium size) in our living room, crammed in there. When Carole would be done I’d get on the bench and start fiddling around. Then back to my room to listen to “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley” or something. There was always music in the house. My sister did get a scholarship, but ended up feeling like she wanted something all her own, that she discovered, and that was not music, but instead, the airlines. She ended up as flight attendant for Eastern for almost 30 years.

Are you and your sister still close today?

Absolutely, she lives a few miles from us and I we speak daily and I see her about twice a month. We’re all so busy it’s hard to find time.

Back to your mother.  I think she’s the kind of mom that most of us would loved to have had, supportive and encouraging your dreams and aspirations.  Later on with your band, The Aerovons she would actually be your business manager.  Great to have a manager you could trust to have your best interests at heart.

Well yeah she just couldn’t have been more supportive. Probably because she wanted to make sure she didn’t repeat the non encouragement from her Mom…..so she got me my first guitar, then after the teacher told her I was kind of a natural, she got my first electric, etc. She made sure I had what I needed musically whenever she could. She became the business manager almost by accident. She heard one of the early incarnations of The Aerovons at practice one day, and we were all talking about how great it would be if we could get on “The Last Train To Clarksville,” which as a local promotion in St Louis, where the city’s top bands would be set up in train cars….a different one in each car….and the train would leave St Louis for Clarksville, Mo, and return all in one afternoon. Tough to get in. She offered to try to get us in (we were a new, unknown band) and I kind of said “Oh Mom, you don’t understand, nobody knows us, this is for the big local names.” The guys said “Hey, let her try man!.” So of course, she got us in, and from then on started booking us.

I learned that just because someone is your Mom, or friend, or whatever, doesn’t mean they don’t have the ability to do something you thought you need a professional to accomplish. We were all really impressed with how she got it done. My Mom was just able to talk her way into anything.

Aerovons – the name of a local band that you admired.  So these guys had no problem with you taking their name?

That was part of Pompano. The guy who started the band, Chuck Kirkpatrick, is a dear friend to this day. They were the first “pro” band I ever heard. Absolutely crazy to me. Great harmony, jangling guitars, I used to stand in front of Chuck (lead guitar) all night and watch and listen while girls asked me if I wanted to dance. When I moved back to St Louis Chuck wrote and told me his band broke up, and he was starting a new one with a different name. So he didn’t mind, in fact was flattered.

Talk a little about the formation of the band and different personalities involved.

The first Aerovons band was formed when I was 14, in 10th grade at Bayless Senior High in St. Louis. I had found a few people at school, and we managed to play a few pool parties. Then I replaced the rhythm player with Bob Frank, who is still a friend, and who was pivotal in getting the group really sounding good. So Bob, Gary (drums), Brian (bass) and myself started playing high school dances. We practice at each others houses, except for mine since I lived in an apartment until we could find a house, having just come back from Florida.  Soon we rented a house and everything moved there…where the band developed over the next few years, and eventually where we wrote everything on the album, after some more member changes.

St. Louis, Missouri in the mid to late 60′s.  A relative hot bed of rock music, huh?

Very musical town, just not my kind of music. Very SOUL based, a lot of bands like Bob Kuban with brass, white kids trying to be black. Not my thing;)

What were some of the early gigs you played?  And how did the audiences respond?

Well we mainly played school dances. No DJs then….all live bands. The kids loved us. We were very professional. We had two strips of lights my Dad built in front of us, that sat shooting up on us in the front of the stage. In between songs, the lights would go out, there would be silence, and then BANG!….into the next song. We were like a machine eventually. Really good. It came me a LOT of practice.

Early on you guys played a lot of Beatles cover tunes.  Which ones were your favorites to play?

Well let me think. I loved playing some of the off the beaten track numbers, like “I Don’t Want to Spoil The Party,” which we did well. And we often opened with “I Feel Fine.” We also played “All I’ve Got To Do” which was another good one you don’t hear much. And George’s “I Need You.”

“I’m A Loser,” and “Eight Days A Week” were other faves. We did “Good Day Sunshine,” “Taxman,” good grief we did a lot of them. We actually did  “A Day in The Life” in club in London and got a standing ovation. Never forget that!

Your mom, having a good business sense, realized you needed a demo of an original song to tout to the record companies and radio stations.  “World of You” was chosen as that song.  Talk about how the idea behind that song and how it was composed.

A friend had an old piano and offered it to us. We managed to get it into the basement where rehearsed and I started banging away on it. My childhood piano lessons kind of came back to me, and I started playing that riff and next thing you know “World of You” was born. I was thinking that when you fell in love it was both new and exciting, but also a bit scary. You ARE a stranger there after all….it takes you by surprise and you’re not sure what’s next. Kind of like “This is new, scary, exciting, and I have to watch my footing, because if I slip, it’s back to the old world of emptiness.” I’ve always been a bit too dramatic about everything I suppose.

Were there many choices of local recording studios at that time?

No, just two mainly, an expensive more well known place called “Technisonic,” and another small one called “Premier.” We took that because it was cheaper.

What did the “older” engineers think of Aerovons compared with the musicians and styles in which they were used to working?

Oh I think they got a kick out of these long haired kids and their Mom. They had little idea what to do, but they did their job.

Although you had a scratchy throad, how do you feel the recording session went overall?

It was exciting to be in a real studio, but I didn’t know enough to suggest how to make it better. I thought it was very cool but I heard all the bad things on playback and thought “How come it doesn’t sound professional enough, like the records on the radio?” That kind of thing.

Nice touch using the cello player.  Your idea?  From the classical influence?

Yes I wanted strings. I love strings. To this day. I love orchestration. Whenever someone hears something and says “Oh that’s overproduced” I usually like it When I was a kid I would go to the movies and the scores would just give me chills. French horns, strings. It sounded epic to me. So I wanted a taste of that. A touch of class as it were.

A rep from Capitol Records called a couple of weeks showing interest.  But you turned him down in favor of recording at Abbey Road in London.  So the old “bird in the hand” adage didn’t cross your mind?  Pretty bold manouever there for a unsigned band.

Yeah I shudder to think now. But I really wanted to go to England and record where The Beatles did. I felt like there was magic there. I felt like it would seem like home to me for some weird reason. And it did.

The risk paid off as the Capitol guy gave you the name of a Roy Featherstone at EMI in London.

And a meeting was set up with Roy, right?

Yes. We got there and played the demo for someone named John something, and he smiled and took us up to Roy’s office. Roy was a warm, wonderful guy and he just loved it. He thought it was great someone from the States wanted to come to record there! “All our groups want to go to America” he laughed.

What was the reaction of everyone that you would be going to England to record?

Stunned. At the end of our last gig, instead of saying “Thanks for coming tonight, next week we’ll be appearing at the such and such club,” I got up and said “Thanks coming….this is our last live show until we return from London, England, where we will be recording for awhile.” Everyone’s eyes got really big. 

You flew to London.  Talk about your first impressions once you arrived.  Did you do any shopping on Carnaby Street?  How were the locals?  Did any think you were English or in a band?

I thought it was amazing. All the stuff you had seen on TV and in books. Right there. We shopped at Carnaby Street and Kings Road, and did the whole thing. Walked around in pink bell bottoms (I still HAVE THEM!). It was cold, the food was awful, and it was exciting as hell. We heard music we had never heard. The people were great. They walked everywhere. We’d say “We want to go to such and such, do we need a taxi?” and someone would laugh and say “Heaven’s no, just go to the next block, turn right and you’re right there.” Yeah well, you would turn right and have to walk about ten blocks in the cold….THEN you were right there. Those people were tough;)

In the meeting with Roy Featherstone, he thinks it’s odd that an American band would travel to England to record since most British bands were trying to make it big in America.  What were your thoughts on that?

It’s the whole grass is greener thing. In reality the studio doesn’t matter as much as the producer and engineer. I didn’t know that then. There WAS certainly magic at EMI, but there was magic wherever The Beatles recorded, they still always sounded like The Beatles. I should have realized that then.

The arrangement was made for you to return home and write as much new material as you could and then return to actually record.  Did the long period of time test your patience or phase the band in any way?

No not at all. We had something BIG to look forward to, and we spent the Winter in the basement writing. Sometimes I think we thought it was SO FAR away that we probably lost focus. But not very much. We pretty much worked every night or every other night, ’til the wee hours of the morning.

Before leaving you got to meet Paul McCartney at a club called The Speakeasy.  Were you guys believing this was happening?

We had heard it was club where celebrities hung out. When we found out he was there we sat and waited and finally saw him. It was the most unreal experience in my life to walk up and speak with him. Just like seeing a spaceship land in your backyard at night. Fortunately he put us at ease. Very funny, relaxed and kind. I said “No one is going to believe this when we get home” and he said “Ah well, but now you’ve got this!” and handed me back the autograph he was signing. It’s still right here on my wall from that night.

Later you took a tour of Abbey Road studios and happened upond George Harrison.  Relate how you saw him in the control room and “coaxed” him down and the visit that ensued.

Well Mal Evans was giving us a studio tour, to show us around. When we looked up we could see a figure looking down at us. We were all dressed in our newly acquired Carnaby Street clothing so I guess we caught his eye. I said “Is that George?” and Mal said “Yes.”

“Do you think he’d have a minute to come down?” I asked.

“Oh he’s very busy right now…” said Mal. He then went on pointing out things in the studio. I looked up, figured what the heck, and motioned with my hand to “COME DOWN.” He immediately walked away from the window. Then the door opened at the top of the steps, he looks out, and says, “Are you with a magazine? (probably seeing my Mom with a camera).

“No, we’re just a band that’s going to be recording here,” I said.

“Oh alright” said George, and proceeded down the steps to meet us. Another saucer lands in the backyard.

You actually got to sit in with a band, The New Formula, for a few songs at a club called Hatchets.  The band told you that as a rule English groups would not play Beatles’ material.  Was this just out of respect?

I think so, I think it was like “untouchable” or “hallowed ground” for some weird reason. We played a Bee Gees tune I think, and we played “A Day in The Life.” They really liked us. I thought we sounded bad because we weren’t using our gear, and the band, The New Formula, was really good. They were doing stuff like “Reflections” by The Supremes.

Through this whole experience at the time you were still so in awe of The Beatles, still huge fans, that your own imminent recording session just had not really sunk in, right?

It was always on our mind that we might see them there, but we had no idea that we actually WOULD. We really thought there was a chance, but no we did look forward to the recording sessions, very much.

In fact, the worst news for you was that pictures taken with George Harrison were overexposed.  At least one picture was salvaged, correct?  Do you still have that photo?

Yes that photo is on our website, and is still with me. My Mom actually got some lab that did work for the FBI to salvage it. We were so heartbroken, but glad that at least one came out.

On your second trip to England in August of ’68 you had a meeting with Dick Rowe who wanted to set you up with Tony Clarke, producer of The Moody Blues.  You did get to meet The Moody Blues.  Very funny how you were caught unawares when Justin Hayward asked you if you smoked!

Yeah I was very naive. They were nice guys. I was just kind of embarrassed when I realized he was asking me if I wanted a joint after asking me “Do you smoke?” …oh boy. But they were fine about it.

And you also got to meet a band you had long admired, The Hollies, even going with them to a pub.  To top it off you got to jam with them on the song “On A Carousel”.  How was that experience?

Well that was simply amazing. Tony Hicks was tremendous. I was so nervous I forgot the chords and he yelled them out to me until I recovered. Funny.

Back home in the Winter of ’68 you set out to write songs in your homemade studio which was a laundry room in the basement of your house?  Small quarters huh?

It was actually a large basement, where we had the stage kind of setup. But when we went to record, we wanted it more “dead” and isolated so we moved into the little laundry room. I have no idea how we fit in there. It was just like what The Beatles did when they recorded “Yer Blues,” come to think of it.

There were also a couple of personnel changes that took place.  For the best?

Yes and no. We lost Bob, as he was afraid he was going to be drafted, and was also very serious about a girl. So we got a replacement at the last minute, Phil Edholm, who didn’t work out. Nice guy, but not really a good fit.

Finally in 1969 you returned to England to record the album “Resurrection”.  I won’t ask you to go over the details of the recording session as the reader can go to your website here http://www.aerovons.com/aerovons_main.html for that account.  I will ask you how you liked working with Alan Parsons and Geoff Emerick. 

Both were great, Emerick was a quiet gentlemen, and Alan was a funny mad scientist type. Great ideas, lots of joking, lots of talent. I still am in touch with him, when he comes to town we get together backstage at his shows. Really wonderful still to know him.

Once the album was recorded you say you were numb and that you missed home.  So it would be a little while til it all soaked in?

I did miss home. I missed the food, and my house, etc. There was nothing left to do there, and now the wait for its release would begin. It would be a 30 + year wait.

Just when it did start to hit you that you had a full length album under your belt, things went south in a hurry.  Not to bring up old wounds, but the band began to splinter for different reasons and EMI did not release the album.  Looking back now, do you feel it was all meant to be?  Things happened for a reason?

I think that had we gotten a hit or two the money would be long gone. So the experience of what I did is what counts. Meeting The Beatles, learning about recording from the greats, that’s a nice start to your career.

Do you think you were more disappointed in the outcome than your mom was?

I think I would have been had I not fallen deeply in love with a girl when I got back. When I look back, I realize that she was just taking the place of my band, which I had learned to rely on as friends, support, etc. It’s almost like I didn’t think about the album anymore. Strange.

Without a band, you and your mom got in touch with Mike Post to record the single “Sunshine Woman”.  From what I gather, you’re not exactly overly fond of that song and experience?

It was great experience with Mike, I learned a lot from him. He’s a monster. He influenced me greatly. I still follow advice he gave me back then even today. But the song was OK, I just can’t sing that kind of thing. So I hate how I sound on it.

Was it at this time you came to realize your talents were more suited to be an arranger and composer rather than a solo artist?

I think I always knew that. I think deep down I knew that I had everything going for me but a strong voice, and you really have to have that as an artist. If not a great voice, then a unique voice, like Neil Young or Randy Newman. I didn’t have that.

In hindsight, do you feel you may have been a little too young at 17 to go through this whole band/signing/recording experience?

Yes. I think I needed more songwriting experience to be sure, but then again, many groups start like that. Back then, companies would give you more of a chance. They might let you do two or three albums to grow. So I think we would have grown, and gotten more savvy had we had the chance. Our biggest problem was I was not concentrating on writing singles. I was writing SONGS. That’s nice but you need hits.

You chose to go to school, moved to Miami and graduated from the University of Miami.

Yes I actually wanted to go to USC Film School but they were filled up. I would have had a one year wait.  I heard UM had a new film department and I could get in, and with our Florida history we just said “OK let’s go for it.”

Talk about how you got into writing music for TV, radio and films.

That old love of movie scores, as I mentioned, was still always with me. So I did a student film at UM, scored it, and that got the attention of people whow started hiring me to do TV and radio spots.

Fast forward 32 years later and you get a phone call from one Kieron Tyler, an English music journalist.  What did you think when he mentioned his interest in getting EMI to finally release “Resurrection”?

I thought it was great, but then I thought, “Do I want people to hear this thing? It really has a lot of problems…” but since it was being bootlegged, I felt it would be nice to have a real release done well.

And EMI did just that in 2003 on RPM Records.  Could you believe after all those years it had finally come to fruition?

I wish my Mom had been alive. She would have been so proud. I get emails from all over, from even young kids, saying “Hey just heard your album, fantastic!” etc. So it was actually worth it all after all. It just took awhile.

What about all the fan mail and letters you’ve received from all over the world?  What does it feel like to be have that kind of cult following and renewed interest in the album?

I respond to each one and thank them profusely. It’s hard to believe that something you did is appreciated so many decades later. Heck, I know it’s faults, and there are many, but all in all, I own albums from the Sixties by groups with hits, and other than the hit, their albums are no better really.

I did read on your “News And Updates” section on your website that as of 2008 I believe you may be working on a follow up LP?   Any updates on that?

I have been working on it FOREVER. It’s become kind of a joke that it may never get done. But you know, what I DO have done, sounds really good. Doesn’t sound like an old guy or some half baked material. It’s very strong. That’s why it’s taking so long, I keep throwing things out. This time I’d like to hear the album all the way through with cringing once. So far that is happening. 

Back to reality Tom, you now work as a freelance music producer and composer and are married with 5 kids.  Share a little (or lot) of the family situation as well as how busy work is keeping you.

I get hired to do TV spots, and I get hired to do all manner of things, even karaoke, which I did a couple of soundalike tracks for someone once, and now I have people coming to me all the time saying “Could you do a track of such and such for us?” ….really funny.

My kids are all over, from age 8 to 20. All totally different. Several are very musical. My son Tommy is great on guitar, Jonny is picked up bass last year and is just rockin’ on it, Lea plays piano and is just amazing. She’s my Beatles buddy, as she’s the one who will come up and say “Dad, what day is it?” and I”ll say….”Uh…..” and she’s say “DAD….it’s PAUL’S BIRTHDAY!” ….that kind of thing.

I feel very blessed to be alive and kicking, doing music daily, and having people like yourself kind enough to show interest in what I did …all those years ago.

Thank you too so much, and I will let you know when the album is ready. At this point it might shrink to an EP if I ever want people to hear it. Will keep you posted.

Best

Tom

Lastly, thanks again Tom for taking time out of your schedule to do this and my best wishes to you and your family and all the Aerovons/Tom Hartman fans out there!

For more info on Tom and Aerovons check out the website here  http://www.aerovons.com/

Click here to watch “Suantraide” on YouTube  http://youtu.be/y3AL-GsrLNc

Well Sean, first off thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.  Let’s go back to the beginning, in what city were you hatched?  Relate some of your fondest memories of childhood.

I was born in a country town, called Bairnsdale, around three hours drive from Melbourne, lush green farming land with a beautiful river flowing to one side of the town. Visiting the ivy clad river banks and dreaming beneath the trees that lined that river features highly in the cannon of my early childhood. My earliest recollection of the magic known as music is connected with Bairnsdale. I’m around three years old and playing in my Nana’s back garden. Somewhere nearby there is a radio and I can hear the eastern flavoured guitar hook in the Rolling Stones song “Mother’s Little Helper”.  The modulated ethereal nature of that guitar sound literally struck a chord in a special place and opened the door to what would become the eastern tinged personality of my guitar playing. I do recall that the setting for my early childhood years was completely magical and I feel that I was born into the most appropriate part of the twentieth century for the formation of my personality.

My childhood taught me that it was pointless to compromise a dream as creativity is freedom from restriction.

What do remember as your first interest in music?  Any albums/45′s that began your record collection?

My first record was the 45rpm “Strawberry Fields” EP by the Beatles. Somehow I received this as a child in the 70’s. Musically speaking I have always ‘driven down the other side of the street’. At school I was one of a small group of teenage musical odd bods who were walking around school with an overflowing bag of records by such luminaries as The Electric Prunes, The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Doors, The Ramones, Sham 69, The Buzzcocks and many others. Most of the kids listening to what was more or less underground music were a couple of years older than me. I was the younger guy hanging out with the older musically hip kids. Underground or public FM radio broadcasting was a huge way of discovering music back then, really it was the doorway to the new music emerging from the UK. From the radio and hanging out with the older school kids I began to hear about Melbourne’s incredibly interesting music scene that existed in the 1980’s. There were many interesting Melbourne bands back then. The undisputed kings of that music scene were  The Birthday Party. As a teenager I was only partially interested in the underground music of that era. My big thing at that age was music from the 1960’s.  One evening while listening to the radio everything changed. The best public radio station back then was 3RRR FM. The dj’s were a very charismatic lot and were totally into the music they played. The major enigma among these dj’s was ‘Bohdan X’ the front man of  the infamous Melbourne Punk Band – “JAB”. I was listening to his radio show and a song came on which essentially changed my life. That song was the Unknown Pleasures version of “She’s Lost Control” by Joy Division. The opening bars of the song immediately grabbed my interest. All of a sudden I was listening to this incredible droning eastern raga like riff tied down with a repetitive hypnotic mechanical rhythm. And then that icy Morrisonesque vocal crept in with its accompanying flotilla of backing vocal work which sounded something like Gregorian chant sung backwards down a long piece of metal tubing. This music was cathartic – there was something vibrational about it; I could feel it resonating inside me. I had found my perfect music – a music I could truly love and be inspired by. In the coming months I tracked down every seven and twelve inch vinyl release that Joy Division had released. When I first heard “Transmission” it had the same effect as “She’s Lost Control” – an incredibly haunted and ethereal slice of moodiness. ‘Closer’ was easily equal to “Unknown Pleasures”. The first LP, to me, seemed to convey a haunted vision of life in urban city scapes. The second LP felt like it was coming out of the aether – especially ”Heart & Soul” and  the two closing tracks on side two.

From Joy Division  I found my way to The Birthday Party’s first LP –  now often called’ Hee-Haw’, though at the time ‘Hee-Haw” was a separate 12 inch EP. On a humorous note at first I thought that the Birthday Party sounded somewhat like a drunken Joy Division. Joy Division’s music was angular and of a stark meticulous nature. The Birthday party’s music could also be ethereal though it roared and writhed…the lyrical subject was surreal as opposed to Joy Division’s pure introspection. The first Birthday Party record that stopped me in my tracks was the 7 inch single of “The Friend Catcher”. That sonorous other-worldly guitar , courtesy of Mr Rowland S.Howard. Rowland to my mind is the most charismatic individual to have graced Melbourne’s stages. He is Cohen, Cash and Charles Baudelaire rolled into one huge mother load of talent. I had the good fortune of crossing paths with him on several occasions and the absolute pleasure of sharing the stage (gig line –ups) with him in the late 1990’s. He was certainly an example, mentor, fellow musician and an acquaintance. We exchanged humorous banter via various phone conversations, back stage and on the odd occasion when he stopped by my apartment. We shared similar interests and appreciations. I do regret that I did not get to know him better. It was an astounding moment when one night back stage when he commented on my playing and how I was able to do something unique with the 12 string and that he dug it. Obviously I shared this sentiment in regard to his guitar playing. Rowland had been a prime mover in igniting my creative spirit when I was a teenager. Receiving favourable compliment from him compliment favourably in regard to my playing was a high point in my musical career.

At what age did you really start taking an interest in creating your own music?  What was the first instrument you picked up?  Did you take lessons or were you self taught?

I started writing music when I was fifteen. Essentially I began writing crude songs and instrumentals within a few days of owning my first guitar. This was partially because I was untrained and unable to play songs written by other people. I began to make up my own songs; gently experiment with the guitar to see what I could discover. That process has continued to the present day. I have never had any guitar lessons, I’ve never known what note I am playing or what key I am in. For the most part I make up my own chords. I have a poor sense of timing and I do not count while I play. I think about the melody or the mood and not the timing. That said I have developed a sense of pseudo timing which for the most part keeps me in the right place at the right time.

Musical education never ends as it is always a process of discovery. The band I played in before Eden which was “All Things Unseen” was where I learned how to play with other musicians. We were teenagers all more or less starting out in our first band. We all loved alternative music and we were deeply immersed in Melbourne’s alternative culture. To us, there would have been no other culture. We would go and see bands like The Birthday Party, Laughing Clowns or Dead Can Dance play at the Seaview Ballroom St Kilda on a Friday and Saturday nights. After the gigs we would go back to our rehearsal room and sleep on big piles of clothes on the floor. The following morning we would simply stand up, light up a cigarette and start rehearsing. Music was our world 110%. We would see a gig by a given band, be inspired by the performance and write a new song because we were on fire. It was an exhilarating time. I am most grateful for all the fun creative times I had when I was in my teens and early 20’s.

My first instrument was a very inexpensive second hand Japanese made electric guitar. It was considered a relic when I bought it. A crappy cheap guitar was what it was deemed to be. Many years later I discovered that it was the same type of cheap Japanese guitar that Robert Smith had when he was starting out. When The Cure became  a legitimate band and his manager urged him to buy a Fender Jazzmaster, Robert removed one of the pick-ups from his el- cheapo Japanese guitar and had it mounted between the Jazzmaster’s  two pick-ups. He did this because he loved the sound of the pick up’s in the el-cheapo Japanese guitar. From what I remember that guitar actually did have a distinctive sound. In actuality the guitar was a piece of crap and I have no interest in owning another one of those…lol. My current 6 string guitar which is a 1961 Fender Jazzmaster is worlds above any other guitar I have owned.

Talk about the music scene in and around Melbourne at this period in your life.

Sadly I have completely lost touch with Melbourne’s music scene. I have faith that there are still interesting things going on as that’s how it should be. This said I doubt that there is much that is glittering and golden out there. In actuality there never was. In my lifetime, Melbourne’s most creative music scene existed in the 1980’s. Since then the returns diminished with each passing year. Not to mention that the size of the live music scene has continually dwindled due to the increasing gentrification of the inner city areas which were once havens for artists, musicians, migrants and workers on lower incomes. The areas of Melbourne that were areas of flourishing bohemian activity are now home to city based career professionals who can afford to buy into what has become exceedingly valuable real estate. That said – flowers grow in the most unlikely places. There will always be something special happening ; usually hidden away in a place where you would least expect something to be happening.

So basically there were not any local bands that were playing the kind of music that you appreciated.

It’s been a long time since I have thought about the Melbourne’s music scene circa 1988 when Eden began to play live. From what I remember there was still a decent sized audience for underground bands though yes most of the bands were I guess what you could describe as Alternative Rock in format. This is the problem with a given city’s music scene. The scene can stagnate to one where “what is popularly perceived to be cool can actually be incredibly boring”. So in short, yes we did not relate to other Melbourne bands. We could not get what we needed from the music of others so we created our own music to fill that need. We genuinely believed there was not and should not be any limitation placed upon creative vision. Obviously this attitude insured that we remained outside the music scene’s hierarchy. We had to build our own musical world. Fortunately there were plenty of people at the time who wanted to come and see us play. Our live shows attracted a decent sized audience. We gleaned decent attention from the street press and the size of the live audience increased. I can remember some very crowded shows at the Punter’s club in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. To sum up – Eden were a part of the music scene but did not relate to the Melbourne music scene. We did not consider or think about the music around us. We were not influenced by other local bands.

Your first actual band was All Things Unseen.  Nice name.  On your website you talk about this group of musicians quite fondly saying it was really nice working with a group of friends.  What a unique experience that must have been.

Looking back it could be said that “All Things Unseen” was a unique experience. Like Eden we were writing and playing music which did not typically represent Melbourne. Sonically All Things Unseen was closer to The Cocteau Twins or Lowlife than Eden was. We were a four piece band; drums, bass, ARP Omni Strings keyboard and guitars/vocals. We used a lot of modulated delay effects on bass, guitars and keyboards. Carl Carter, William Carter, Ingo Weiben and myself were very close friends. We would rehearse three or four times a week plus go to clubs and venues on the weekends. We spent a lot of time “hanging out” together. I truly miss that high level of comraderie. It was a very special time. We were at the height of our creative and musical ability circa 1985 – 87.

It’s interesting you felt you reached your “creative height” with your “strongest songs” in 1985.  I’ve always been of the impression that 1985 was the best year for alternative music.

1985 was an incredible year! Certainly one of the most wonder filled years of my life. In that year I didn’t so much reach my creative height; it was more like I began to write music and lyrics of much higher quality and crafting. I was at university undertaking a double major in Archaeology and Anthropology. I enjoyed my studies. I became fascinated with cosmology and the varied and different perceptions/interactions that various cultures had with the unseen world. One of my major’s concerned witchcraft and sorcery in Melanesia. I loved reading about the tribal Shaman and their journeys into the unseen world and their quest to bring meaning to the seen via communion with the unseen. A few years later I would develop a similar fascination with the western earth mysteries i.e. The Arthurian mythos and its incredibly rich tapestry of symbolism which has lingered in western culture up until the present day. Something else I received from my time as an Anthropology student was a deepening interest in the power of dreams and symbols on both a cultural and individual level. I loved the writings and research of Carl Jung. For a time I enjoyed the work of Claude Levi-Strauss. Many of the fascinating things I studied began to find their way into my music and lyrics in 1985. Songs such as “Dusk for the Dancers” or “Guardian of the Flutes” concerned Shamanism and taking the rite of passage into the unseen world. More importantly these songs concerned freedom and liberation of the spirit via faith’s ability to transcend belief systems. This theme kept maturing and eventually Eden had cd releases with titles such as “Gateway to the Mysteries” and “Wearyall”. A lot of the music I have written has focussed on being “beyond self”. The other style I work in has been one of pure introspection. i.e. “Fire & Rain”, “Earthbound” or “Midnight Sun”. I have oscillated between these two themes as they have been central in my personal journey.

Eden formed in 1988.  Did you come up with the name?

I remember the frustration we went through in trying to find a name for the group. We spent three or four days writing down lists of names in the attempt to come up with something. The name “Eden” kind of eventuated after this intense filtration process. It was the fruit of an agonizing think-tank and I do not believe it was any single person’s specific idea. It was a word among many other words that made it through the selection process.

What other bands were your contemporaries in Australia at the time?

There were plenty of contemporaries but no one you could accurately compare us to. The late 80’s was a state of flux. There were still bands from the mid 80’s floating around and we played a few shows sharing the bill with some of them. Most of these bands I can’t remember. Our first gig was with a friend’s band – “Captain Cocoa”. They were an upbeat good time band with a ska based flavour. I went to University with Glen and Dave O’Neil – two brothers who founded that band in 1983. It was very kind of them to help out and assist Eden in beginning to develop a reputation on the live scene. When Eden was starting out, the Melbourne Bands I had once loved had either broken up or moved overseas.

Again referring to your website you mentioned you had a hard time finding the right engineers and producers to get the sound you wanted on the EP “The Light Between Worlds”.  Did you consider travelling to England to record?

We did not consider travelling to England to record.  Professional 24 track recording was a very expensive proposition back in 1988. Obviously 1988 was before the era when home recording became an option. We self financed the recording of “The Light Between Worlds”. I had not had any previous experience with professional recording. In the eighties, Melbourne bands did not usually have the opportunity to record unless they were signed to a record company as recording time cost a premium. Because none of us had had any previous professional recording experience I felt that we would be more likely to get an excellent result if we choose to record at a studio which was widely used by Melbourne bands. The theory being that a well known studio would be capable of producing some audio magic for us. Sadly I could not have been more mistaken. Looking back, obviously after now having experienced many years of professional recording working with incredibly good gear I am quite shocked when I recall the first recording experience. The quality of their recording console was fairly average and they literally had no outboard microphone preamps etc. They did not even have a reverb unit. All they had was a single AMS digital delay. OK the AMS is a classic but we didn’t need a delay. The Eden sound required reverb: Lexicon digital reverb to be precise. We spent four days in this “professional” studio expecting to come out with a completed EP. We were wrong – we came out with one finished track – being the instrumental “Dark Beneath Trees”. The other tracks were in various stages of completion. We were extremely disappointed with the first 24 track recording experience. In short – we were amazed at how badly the session went and that not only did we not have a finished EP in hand – we were $3,500 poorer. We certainly did not get value for money…lol. The producer believed that he understood our music and how to translate our vision – if he did he was unable to do so during the sessions. In hindsight it was obvious that this studio did not have the expertise or hardware that we needed for our sound.

After licking our wounds we booked ourselves into a different 24 track studio. We spent another three days in the studio. This session was far more fruitful as we completed the “Light Between Worlds”.

Is this what lead you to think “hey maybe we should try our own hands at producing the material ourselves”? 

You hit the nail on the head! We were so incredibly amazed at the belligerent attitude of the producers towards our recorded work. Particularly because they had forced their decisions upon us resulting in our recordings sounding less ethereal than we wanted them to be. Eden’s music was not only uncommon in the Australian live music scene; it was also uncommon in the Australian recording studio.

So yes after two disappointing experiences in the studio we came to see that we had to produce or at the very least co-produce our recording sessions.

I did not know you signed to Nightshift Records, the home of Lowlife – a band I have long admired.

Even before we signed to an indie label in Australia we were first released on Nightshift records in Scotland. We too were fans of Lowlife’s music. I bought my first Lowlife LP in 1986 – being “Diminuendo”. One of the very best things that came to me during our time with Nightshift was having the opportunity to become friends with Will Heggie (Lowlife’s Bass player). Will’s obviously a great bass player. In a way it was quite surreal to become friends with the guy who wrote that amazing bass part on “Wax and Wane”. Being a song that my previous group – “All Things Unseen” would occasionally jam on at rehearsal. Will had a lot of heart. He was a very rare personality in that he was exceedingly supportive in his role at Nightshift. He had this thing about him. He was always an incredibly easy person to get along with. Definitely my kind of person. It’s a shame he lives on the other side of the world as he is one of the very few musicians I have met whom I could relate to. He was very complimentary toward my guitar playing and we did intend to write and record something together. Sadly that did not fall into place due to distance and the defeatist attitude of the record company.

Talk about your promo visit to the UK in 1990.  Why did you feel British music was on the decline?

The visit to the UK in 1990 was a gas. I enjoyed most of it. I remember being incredibly excited when the Jumbo Jet was landing at Heathrow. It was very early morning and the sun had not come up yet. I was looking down at the city lights and thinking – Wow I am in London! Visiting England can be a special experience for Australians as our heritage is heavily linked to the UK – Oz being part of the Commonwealth etc. In my Childhood, I was heavily exposed to the tales of  merry old England. The topography of my imagination was littered with visions of  longships buried in barrows, Roman Britain, The Magic faraway Tree, The Children of Greeneknow, The Wishing Chair, The Water Babes etc. So many magical stories from England which were somehow a natural and meaningful part of the world I grew up in. Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson were alive and well in the leafy gardens and hedges of the Edwardian style home I grew up in. Rooftop terracotta dragons and gargoyles watched over me and my childhood while I played “make believe” in the gardens of my dreams.

But England and the English were not the people I had imagined them to be. London was fascinating but it was also a hard edged place. The UK culturally speaking was quite different to Australia. I must have thought that Australian and English people would be similar in nature because we had shared the same cultural and genetic background. I was mistaken. There are distinct differences. Not that these differences really matter; it was simply that I was amazed that the two cultures can be quite different. Back in 1990 the standard of living in Australia, generally speaking, was a lot higher than in the UK. It was quite an eye opening experience to see a much more severe poverty level in the UK. I did have the opportunity to visit a few university student households in London. Believe me – they were living a frugal lifestyle by comparison with the Australian counterpart.

Explain the experience in Glastonbury and how this stoked the creative fire for Eden.

When I was in London I was doing as many interviews as I could with fanzines and the music press. One of the interviewers was Tracy Jeffery (later to co-found a band called ‘Orchis”). She was a wonderful person and very much interested, as I was, in the Earth Mysteries. We became friends very easily and before you could say “Marybignon” we were planning a car trip to Glastonbury for the upcoming Beltane celebration. My brother, Simon was with me for the Uk trip and, at her invitation, we both caught the train out to Falmouth where Tracy lived. From there we drove down to Salisbury plain for a contemplative visit to Stonehenge (where on a humorous note I bought a Stonehenge Chocolate bar from the souvenir kiosk as I thought that the concept of  Stonehenge Chocolate was hilarious. As it turned out that chocolate Bar was delicious and I often wondered if that rather isolated tourist kiosk is still selling those delicious Stonehenge Chocolate bars J. Anyway Stonehenge was fascinating ; it certainly has a presence. I remember looking outward from the Stone circle and noticed the many burial mounds or barrows circling Stonehenge – that was a blast.

The township of Glastonbury was even more impressive. To get there we drove down many country roads, passing fields of flowers. The spring weather was heavenly and we had a cassette deck in the car. I remember Tracy playing The Waterboys. It was a idealic. Not long before visiting the UK I had read Dion Fortune’s “Avalon of the Heart” and  was about half way through reading “The Mists of Avalon” when we visited Glastonbury. Can you imagine how amazing  it was to visit the location of the historic tale I was simultaneously reading? I mean – to sit on top of the Tor on Beltane eve and look down over that very green ancient location. It’s an experience; very liberating for the mind’s eye. This is how the creative fire was raised. It’s little wonder that “The Unveiling of Brigid” was written soon after that trip. Every moment of the Glastonbury visit was magical and provided me with creative fuel for the next eighteen months. High points were sitting on the Tor looking out into the haze as the sun went down on Beltane Eve. Glastonbury town was a-buzz with Beltane vibe the following day. I can recall singing 12^th century troubadour songs in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. I can still picture the blossoming flowers and spring perfumes in that amazing Abbey. The visit to Chalice Well was wonder filled. Not far away is Wearyall Hill. We walked up to the top of Wearyall and sat with an aged farmer who was walking his dog. I recall him telling me “Glastonbury is just a farming town and nothing special happens here”. Meanwhile I am looking past him at the very special Holy Thorn bush that sits atop of Wearyall – the very thorn bush which legend states sprouted from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff when he planted it in the soil at some point after Christ’s death. It was a beautiful moment as I was being told that there was no magic in Glastonbury just as I was personally witnessing a living piece of historic magic of mystical significance.

Why did you move to Third Mind Records for ‘Gateway to the Mysteries”?

We moved to Third Mind because we had come to know the label via the CD released by “Heavenly Bodies”.  We loved that album and listened to it a lot. Obviously In the Nursery were  also on the label as well as Attrition and Edward Ka Spel (Legendary Pink Dots). Third Mind appeared to be a very good record label with quality artists. Third Mind were aware of  Eden. We were offered a recording contract when it became apparent to Third Mind that Eden was attracting the interest of the American alternative music press. Third Mind had been sent 4 track demo’s of  new songs such as “Heads on the Hearth” and “Saint Genevieve’s Dance”.

There was a shift in the late 80′s to broadening your instrument base, dropping the guitar, picking up the hammered dulcimer, lute, harp, “saz” and “oud” and adopting more of a Middle Eastern/Gothic feel.  First tell us what a “saz” and “oud” are.

Well the Saz is a long necked lute. It consists of three double or triple courses of strings.  In essence it’s a little like playing a 12 string guitar (which also uses double course strings). The Saz is a modal instrument and lends itself to droning eastern style melodies. It is the key national instrument for folk and popular music in Turkey. That said this instrument is not exclusively Turkish. The Armenians also have their own version of the Saz as do various Eastern European countries. You will also find it in various parts of the Middle East. There are Saz makers and players in Israel where this instrument plays a role in native Israeli Oriental music. The Saz is a bardic instrument well suited to the singer songwriter who has a poetic heart with oriental sensibility. The Oud is the large pear shaped lute with four sets of double course strings made from nylon or gut. It has that distinct “crying tone” you hear in Middle Eastern music. Personally I prefer the sound of the Saz.

Was this movement style including adding members for live shows somewhat mirroring what Dead Can Dance was doing?

When I first read this question I wasn’t quite sure what to say as I have not thought about the ambience of my past creative life circa 1989 for many years. In addition, it has been many years since I have thought about Dead Can Dance as I do not listen to their music these days.

Dead Can Dance, like Cocteau Twins, have been a prime influence and motivator for many musical artists. Meaning that in the 1990’s through to now we have seen various niche musical movements develop which have moments of brilliance but for the most part, quality wise the output is second or third rate. Cocteau Twins and DCD sounded great because they wrote quality music, worked with a record company which ensured that they recorded in professional recording facilities and worked with talented sound and production people. The magic of their releases was an overall process where every stage, including cover art, involved creative visionaries and craftspeople. Whereas, in the musical sub genres inspired by the early 4AD artists we mostly see small independent record companies releasing music that does not have the same crafting. The resulting product often sounds something like a 4AD karaoke concept – a sequenced backing track with a non-descript soprano warbling along with the music. And yes most of these cd’s are recorded at home or in small independent studios where sonic magic rarely happens. I’m describing this possible scenario because I found it quite disillusioning that Eden had to release its work side by side with artists whose artisanship was not on the same page. Time and time again we would submit a track to a cd compilation. Sonically and musically speaking the Eden track would be a world above most of the other artists on the cd. Our recordings sounded good because it was important to us to create something of aural beauty.  To aim for anything less would be musically and philosophically disparate with Eden’s work. Highest achievable production standards was always a key central philosophy of Eden’s work. We always wished to improve the standard of production on each successive release.

Going back to your question, my point is that there was only one ‘Eden’. Picture an alternative reality where there are only two groups playing the blues: one being “Dead Can Dance” and one being “Eden.” We were two different but stylistically related groups, which had come from the same Melbourne music scene. I began playing in groups in late 1981. I am a contemporary of Brendan and Lisa. The key difference being that I was a teenager when they were in their twenties. Back then both Brendan and I were inspired by Joy Division, The Jam, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Walker Brothers and more. As a teenager, and in my 20’s, I was certainly inspired by Dead Can Dance, initially by their live work in Melbourne.

Dead Can Dance utilized the Yan Ching, Hurdy Gurdy, Concert D whistle, Saz and Harp. Eden worked with a European hammered dulcimer, a Rebec (Medieval violin played horizontally), The Oud (Middle Eastern gut strung lute), Bowed Psaltery, Steel Strung Bardic Harp and Saz. Speaking of the Saz, I was playing and writing with this particular instrument before Brendan. Brendan and I chatted about this instrument back in 1989 and 1990. When I visited the UK in 1990 I was going to stay with Brendan in Ireland. Instead I hung out with him in London as he and Lisa were finishing the recording of ‘Aion’. Brendan had bought a Saz from an ethnic music shop in London. He was asking for a few tips and insights about the instrument. I was horrified when he showed me his Saz because he had removed the frets and was putting them back on the Saz neck so that the instrument would only play in a Western scale. In one way this is a feasible approach. On the other hand a part of the instrument’s charm is working with its Eastern scale.

Obviously Dead Can Dance are the parent of a particular musical form. Eden was a sibling as opposed to a child of Dead Can Dance. They were a sister group. Lyrically DCD often came from an intellectual or theosophical stance. My lyrics were quite different. I concentrated on the sensual, dreaming, mysticism and the greater or lesser aspects of love. Personally speaking and from the perspective of the present, I was and still am more inspired by Robin Guthrie’s work. Even so I do not meditate on Robin’s work. I’ll hear his recent cd’s and think “yeah that’s great”. I’ll take that inspiration away, sit down and write an unrelated guitar riff or spend hours refining the unique personality of my guitar sound which these days is based on a deeply reverberant baritone twang or soaring ragaesque delay runs. Equally my inspiration comes from other sources; many not relating to music. What do I enjoy listening to at the moment? Early Durutti Column – I adore LC and Another Setting. I have had a returning love affair with these two LP’s since they were released when I was a teenager. I love Hope Sandoval’s two solo cd’s.  I’m crazy about Bob Dylan’s ‘Highway 61” and Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman”. At this time I love Donovan’s song “Hampstead Heath Incident”. I also love the Israeli artist Efrat Gosh, especially her second LP “Forgiveness and Me”. Serge Gainsbourg, Air, Beck, John Martyn & Charlotte Gainsbourg are my greatest musical loves of the moment.

In 1992 you had enough material for a full length to be entitled ‘Wearyall’.  The failure of Third Mind to release the recordings as a CD was disheartening to say the least.

Yes I would agree with that statement…lol. Most of the material for the “Wearyall” full length cd was recorded on 24 track tape, though the recordings were never finished or mixed. Three instrumentals featuring Middle Eastern percussion, Saz and bardic harp were scheduled to be recorded but never were. Some of the pieces on “Healingbow” were actually intended for “Wearyall”. Wearyall would have been a very interesting cd and would have showcased an excellent phase of Eden’s musical development that in retrospect is under-documented. Third Mind indicated that they were intending to send an advance for the recording of  “Wearyall”. We waited for the advance for a number of months and decided to start recording the cd via self financing the recording sessions. We had been playing the Wearyall material for a good twelve months before we went into the studio. The situation dragged on another six months and by that stage the material had become stale. We were starting to write new material for the next phase of Eden’s musical evolution. Wearyall had started off as something incredibly progressive but became something incredibly stale (to us). Obviously the music should have been recorded while it was still fresh and exciting. In hind sight it would have been better for us to have not waited for a recording advance. But you can’t blame us as we believed that we had a recording contract and would be supplied with a recording budget. We were becoming tired of the burden of having to find thousands of dollars for recording; financed from our pocket. Meanwhile Third Mind had been bought by Roadrunner which obviously signalled the end of Third Mind.

You contracted glandular fever in ’93 and were ill for several months.  However, being sick did not stop the creative juices, eh?

No it didn’t! I literally came down with glandular fever during the 24 track recording session for the first ‘Sunwheel’ song. I was recording the guitar solo and began to feel incredibly weird. After I had finished recording I lay on the couch in the studio’s control room. I was wearing my beloved black fur coat while shivering and sweating. That night I was horrified to discover that the glands on my neck had swollen to nearly the size of a golf ball. This began three months of being intensely sick. After the first few weeks when I was completely incapacitated I sat in my bed and began to write songs on my acoustic 12 string. The first one was “Why?” When I wrote that song I was thinking that it might be a new song for “All Things Unseen” as we were thinking about reforming to record a full length cd. Obviously “Why?” became a track for Eden’s “Fire and Rain” cd.

Throughout the life of Eden you witnessed various personnel changes.   If you could put together your A-team of players, the best of the best, what would that band look like?

Eden’s life has not ended yet. Not unlike Mazzy Star, Eden has been on a sabbatical for some time but the story has not finished yet. There will be more to come… I’m writing and demoing new Eden songs as we speak.

The new Eden will consist of new players. Ronny K. Bowley (my wife) and myself will be there for sure. Ronny is a keyboard player with a unique feel I admire. I’m also pretty excited about a bass player I may be working with as he has an incredible musical history including touring and recording with Bert Jansch, who’s work I greatly admire. Not to mention that Bert at one point was a musical colleague with an artist I have long adored – Nick Drake.

My ‘A-Team’ of players? That’s an interesting question. The Eden line ups which I personally enjoyed the most were the following –

Sean Bowley – Vocals and 12 string guitars

Tracey Ellerton – 12 String guitar

Ewan McArthur – Bass

Peter Barrett – Drums

And

Sean Bowley – Vocals and 12 string guitar

Maria – 12 string guitar

Stephen Wattie – Bass

Peter Barrett – Drums

I liked these two line ups because they were line ups which utilized live musicians who played well together. I don’t like the idea of stating who should be in the Eden ‘A team’ as I appreciated everyone’s input and no doubt each member enjoyed the experience to a greater or lesser degree.

But this is a light hearted fun question and I will put together a line up. If this where a perfect world and there could be an Eden built from past players I would like to try the following –

Sean Bowley – Vocals, 6 String Fender Jazzmaster guitar, 12 String Rickenbacker guitar
Maria or Tracy Ellerton – Acoustic 12 String guitar, 12 String Rickenbacker guitar
Carl Carter – Bass

William Carter – Arp Omni Strings Keyboard

Peter Barrett or Ingo Wieben – Drums

Interesting as this Eden would essentially be “All Things Unseen” with an added guitarist.

In a perfect world I would like to make music with -

Sean Bowley – Vocals and 12 string guitar, Mellotron and Arp Omni strings

Ronny Kramer – Keyboards

Andrew Kutzer or Ryan Lum – 12 String Acoustic guitar

Will Heggie on Bass

Des Hefner- drums

I’m sure that this line up will get you going as it includes a past Cocteau Twin/member of Lowlife, Dead Can Dance’s original drummer and Ryan from Love Spirals. This players would make an impressive ethereal cd.
A recording from this line up would likely be something that ethereal music lovers would be waiting and dreaming for.     

I find it intriguing that you cite Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” as an impetus for you to fall back on the guitar more so in your writing and performing.

It was Joy Division who inspired me to truly want to become singer/songwriter. I was in my mid teens when I first heard them. Before that moment of revelation I had been listening to bands from the 60’s whom I would describe as instigators of the ethereal psychedelia. I’m speaking of bands such as The Doors and The Electric Prunes. I was a teenager who shunned the popular music of the time and looked back to the highly evocative music of the mid to late 1960’s. Discovering Joy Division brought many elements together. It enabled me to see that moody evocative music had a part to play in contemporary music. Further to that the post-punk music movement was all about breaking rules and that anyone, who wanted to, could play a musical instrument and be in a band. It was a very self empowering time. It was the spark that led me to believe that I had the right to write music and lyrics. I had this creative desire burning brightly and insisting that I do something. That wild creative energy has remained by my side ever since.

Tell me about the recording of the “Fire and Rain” CD and the newfound technology of high end equipment used.  All in all, were you pleased with the sound that you attained?

Ah you are an insightful one, aren’t you – always asking interesting and valid questions. Actually I don’t think anyone has asked me this question before and it’s a central issue in my musical development. The short answer is “YES”. I was extremely pleased with the sound of that cd. For me; it is the best commercially released example of the sonic magic that I seek to attain when making a recording. “Fire & Rain” was a major life experience of a Cathartic nature for me. Eden’s earlier work had had a wonderful mystic spirit. Sadly the earlier recordings missed the sonic mark I had dreamed of due to the lack of the required outboard gear, and access to capable sound engineers. I have had a deeply passionate love of music since I was a child. Eden was not attaining the sonic mark I could picture in my mind. During the earlier recording sessions I had repeatedly played cd’s of artists I loved to sound engineers and asked them “how were these sounds created?” They would repeatedly give the impression that they had no idea how the sonic magic I admired was created, nor were they interested in equalling it. To the contrary they would make comments to the effect that the extensive use of reverb or compression was a sign of bad engineering and they wouldn’t do it. I guess they had their way and they wished to stick with that. At the end of the day I was not playing them examples of bad engineering. I was playing them recordings that were character driven. These recordings obviously were highlighting creative engineering…something Melbourne could not offer its Artists at that time.

Talk about Adam Calaitzis’ willingness and indulgence in creative production.

In regard to “Fire & Rain” more was at play than just the engineering. Before that point Eden had been a band which relied heavily on sequenced backing tracks when playing live. In 1994 Eden ditched this format and re-imaged as a four piece outfit that rehearsed frequently striving to be a very good totally live ethereal outfit. This in part was a personal rebellion against the earlier version of Eden which relied on sequenced backing. My formation as a musician had been with “All Things Unseen”. That band was all about playing live ethereal music. I had missed the drive and flow of playing in a fully live band. Ethereal guitar bands are a very rare commodity. Those which play in a completely live fashion are even rarer. In late 1993 I saw Siouxsie & the Banshees play live in Melbourne. Their performance was absolutely amazing – incredibly powerful and they demonstrated a professional orchestration to their set rarely attained by the majority of live bands. I went away from the show feeling incredibly inspired but also a little depressed because I no longer wanted to play in a band relying on sequenced tracks. Melbourne had several bands at that time who were heavily reliant on sequenced backing tracks when playing live. To me, live music was becoming a little like karaoke. Around this time I saw The Prodigy. They too seemed like live karaoke. Compared to Siouxsie and the Banshees’ performance, in my eyes, they were incredibly underwhelming.

The Siouxsie & the Banshees show was integral in inspiring me to begin writing new material designed for a fully live band. I began work in earnest on new songs. Initially I was writing these new songs thinking that they may be new material for the reformation of “All Things Unseen”. In actuality these new songs became “Fire & Rain”.

As a side note, circumstance enabled me to meet Siouxsie after the show. I was very impressed with her. She was a very interesting character. I ended up going on an all night drinking binge with Budgie and Martin McCarrick.  Martin McCarrick was the pick of the bunch though. When he discovered that we had a mutual friend in Lisa Gerrard he launched into a wonderful discussion reminiscing his part in the recording of “Spleen and Ideal”. I related well to Martin – he was my kind of person. In a perfect world he would be someone I would love to work with.

Getting back to Adam Calaitzis, as previously stated, Eden was hard pressed to find a producer or engineer in Melbourne who could render the rich atmospheric setting our music required. Luckily we discovered Adam’s small home studio. These days he runs an impressive fully equipped professional recording studio. “Healingbow” onwards his studio was geared up quite well. For “Gateway to the Mysteries” his studio was more like the traditional old school home studio – it looked something like the inside of a Tardis. He was running an Akai 12 track recorder in his living room and recording the musicians in his adjoining dining room. The two rooms were divided by blankets hanging from the ceiling. The great thing about Adam, right from the start, was his interest in experimenting with the recording and production processes. He understood where we were coming from. This may have partly been because he had played in a band in the 1980’s and was familiar with the English school of sound engineering  During the recording of “Fire & Rain” Adam recounted that he had been working on a cd for a Death Metal Band. All of a sudden the band were freaking out at the way he was producing their music. Adam realized that he had begun to give this death metal band the “EDEN treatment”. So he turned down the lexicon reverb etc to give the metal heads what they needed. At that point in time the creative and unusual had become the usual for Adam – working with Eden had that effect on him. Both Adam and Eden mutually enjoyed a continual creative flow when working together. With each release we worked hard to reach creative heights not previously reached.  We made good use of everything on hand. Meaning we would create ambient textures spontaneously by hand. For example it was raining one session and I had this idea to play rain drenched vines growing outside the control room’s backdoor. We placed microphones near the vines and I played them with drumsticks. We then reversed the 24 track tape, increased the tape speed and applied loads of Lexicon 224X reverb. When the tape was played back at correct speed (and around the right way) we had an ambient texture that worked for a given track. We experimented in a similar fashion on a number of occasions and came up with great results. We used to love thinking up these scenarios and seeing if they would work. In most cases they did. You can imagine that this sort of creative play is far outside the usual rock band recording setting. In summary Adam Calaitzis called his studio “Toyland” for good reason. He has a passion for working with quality audio gear. He enjoys pushing the sonic boundaries and in constantly improving the sonic qualities of his work.  In any case, this is how I found him to be when I worked with him.

You call the 1996 recordings “Midnight Sun” CD and the companion EP “Stone Cat” more angular in design.  Explain. 

Well maybe I once described those cd’s as sounding ‘angular’. Time passes and I’m not completely sure what I meant in using that expression except maybe I was conveying that the material on those cd’s was harder edged/harder hitting. The production ethic was taken to greater heights and I certainly gave my all when those cd’s were produced.

Do you think the engineers/producers in and around Melbourne were beginning to bridge the gap a little between their capabilities and your vision for sound?

Absolutely not. I do not recall hearing any recording made in Melbourne in the 1990’s that made me think “at last Melbourne has a recording engineer of the same calibre as John Friar, Martin Hannett, etc.

Aside from Eden you have written for and performed with various other artists.  Talk about how you met Daevid Allen ex-Soft Machine founder and how you contributed to one of his albums.

I first met Daevid in 1984 at ‘the Cafe Jammin’. This was an old school Hippy Cafe and Daevid ran a night at this cafe which I think was called “Dreamtime Dub”. Essentially anyone attending the night was invited to get up and perform.

It had been a happy accident that led to me discovering that Daevid Allen was in Melbourne and running this weekly event. A mutual friend supplied me with Daevid’s phone number. I rang him and told him that one of my favourite LP’s was “Now Is The Happiest Time of Your Life”. Much to my surprise Daevid told me that he had not performed any of these songs in years. This surprised me because as music listeners we all have an immediate response and relationship with music we love. You don’t stop to think “Hey this music is no longer performed by the artist who created it”. I turned up to the next “Dreamtime Dub” night. Firstly I was amazed to see Daevid Allen in real life as he had been a musical hero and all of a sudden he was a tangible entity as opposed to a face on record sleeve. Meeting people whose music you love can be a really freaky thing; it’s usually quite uncomfortable. Not so on this evening as Daevid performed “Why Do We Treat Ourselves Like We Do” as a result of me getting him thinking about “Now Is The Happiest Time of Your Life”. I don’t quite recall how but some months later I ended up at a restaurant with Daevid Allen and his girlfriend. David recounted wonderful memories of Soft Machine playing gigs with Syd Barrett &Pink Floyd  & The Crazy World of Arthur Brown at the UFO Club, Roundhouse etc. He spoke of one gig (may have been the Roundhouse) where Soft Machine and Pink Floyd played simultaneously at opposite ends of the venue. I remember Daevid saying that Syd had a wonderful demeanour. When playing live he had this look about him which appeared to convey that he seemed to be in a permanent state of embarrassment; a coy and endearing shyness of a sort.

We go forward many years to 1992 and I walk straight into Daevid Allen outside the Supermarket in Auckland Street St Kilda. Daevid remembered me even though by this point I had transformed from a middle class high school student into quite a way out individual sporting purple bell bottom trousers, silver paisley shirt and wild long braided hair. He invited me to play on a recording session for his new cd the following week. I turned up and waited outside the studio door. I remember listening to Daevid singing in the studio and was amazed that I was in this crazy situation where I would be playing on one of his sessions. When invited into the studio, Daevid sat me down and instructed me to be as silly as I wanted because he was going to be even sillier. Daevid as a personality is nothing short of inspirational. He is a global treasure and has given the world a lifetime of innovative thought through music. He deserves to be highly rewarded. I wouldn’t say that he has spent his life dwelling in the fringe as he really is the fringe. He’s the monarch!

Another curious teaming with Peter Daltrey of the late 60′s band Kaleidoscope and the more progressive Fairfield Parlour.  You’ve co-written a couple of songs with Peter and possibly more in the future.  By the way I have the re-released double cd “White Faced Lady/Home To Home” and both are fabulous.  Not a bad song in the batch.  Very much underrated band.

The 1960’s was an intriguing decade. We experienced creative revolution on a culture wide scale seemingly impossible to attain these days. Rules were broken and for a brief period of time creative expression became an everyday norm.  The powers that be did not fully grasp what was happening. Counter culture was simultaneously under and over estimated.

In the 1980’s we began to see the re-release of all manner of seemingly forgotten recorded works from the 1960’s. It became very apparent that there were scores of wonderfully unrecognized artists from this era. Among all these gems surfaced several amazing discoveries. The catch phrase  “Oh my God; how did this artist get overlooked” became quite common in music loving circles. Nick Drake is a now a well known example of a once overlooked super-talent. Arthur Lee and Syd Barrett were well known in their day. Peter Daltrey’s band, Kaleidoscope were known but for seemingly for no apparent reason they were overlooked.  Peter Daltrey’s talent (and enigma) is equal to Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, Daevid Allen, Bert Jansch etc etc. OK that’s a bold statement but its true enough. He still hasn’t had his day in the sun…surely it will come though. And if it does not, it is most significant that his music has and will ignite the creative heart of many a listener. And really this is the single greatest thing any artist can achieve.  A few years ago Peter Daltrey, myself and Andrew Kuzter wrote two songs together. Peter was at the helm in regard to the writing and arranging. Both of these songs are wonderful shards of haunting introspective beauty. I hope that we eventually have the opportunity to record and finish these songs. Let’s see what happens…

You moved stateside for collaborations with Love Spirals Downwards, another one of my favourite bands.  Was this sort of a sharing and uniting of label mates’ visions based on the Projekt Records common denominator?

When I was in the states in 1996, Ryan Lum invited me to stay with him. The idea was to write and record an album together. We did not get to the final recording stage as we did not have enough time to do so. Years later Anji Bee heard some of the demo’s and saw potential in them. A couple of the tracks made it onto a Love Spirals cd. In a perfect world it would have been great to have rearranged and re-recorded those tracks. In hindsight I would have suggested that Anji sing the lead vocal. At the time, as a writing team, we did not have the opportunity to think this equation through.

How did you come to work with the German band Place4Tears?

I met Tyves from ‘Place4Tears’ via myspace. One thing led to another and he invited me to add vocals to one of his songs. Eventually he sent me the digital multitrack and “Tears of Avalon” was remixed in a wonderful high end recording studio owned by Simon Bowley and Tristan Upton. Hence the fat analogue luxuriant sound that eventuated for “Tears of Avalon”. The song was mixed on a classic mid 1970’s British recording console and treated with a Lexicon 480XL, Urei 1176 compressors etc. The finished recording of that song has an absolutely wonderful sonic quality absolutely impossible to attain from digital recording software on its own.

Along with song writing, playing and performing you also write some very nice poetry.  Is there a difference in the way say you write poems vs. how you compose lyrics for a song?  In writing poetry do you have in mind the words being put to music some day?

Yes there is certainly a difference, for me, between writing poetry and writing song lyrics. Poetry is a far less constrained form and in essence it is very ‘stand alone’. Poetry is at the heart of the Troubadour’s soul. It can be read, spoken or sung. Yes many of my poems become songs. I rewrite  poems so that they may work in the song format. For me – in song – less equals more.

What is the most challenging musical instrument you have played?  What is your all time favourite?

The Oud would be the most challenging instrument I have sought to play. This would be why I don’t play it anymore…lol. Second to that would be the Harp. I played medieval steel-strung Bardic Harp for around three years. It was quite challenging to play but I loved the instrument and I kept working at it until I had established the basic stills of a self taught harpist.

My all time favourite instrument has been the 12 string guitar as it feels natural in my hands. I have always had difficulty in playing six string guitars, though I may have remedied this problem as I finally fell deeply in love with my Fender Jazzmaster. I now feel very comfortable on that guitar and I’m creating the tonal textures that I need for the ‘here and now’ with this instrument. Consequently I have not played 12 string guitar in nearly a year.

Where is the most unusual place you have ever recorded a song?

When writing songs I find that melodies or words can come to me at anytime. I used to carry a mini recorder with me and I would quietly sing words or hum melodies into its built in microphone as I was walking along, taking a train etc.

The inspiration to write music – where does it all come from?  Do you write lyrics to compliment the music or vice versa?

Where does inspiration come from? This would have to be one of the classic age old questions. I have read comments from many creative people and many have said the same thing that I believe. Creativity comes from a place beyond time, space and ego. When you create you transcend the everyday and for a time you are in a place where you are free from yourself and everything surrounding you. One of the interesting things about being creative by nature is that you keep finding yourself creating something. The “you” has little say in the process – it just happens when it happens.

Yes I do write lyrics to compliment the music. Though it can work quite differently. I have begun with the lyrics then written music. I often write lyrics and music independently of each other and work out how they will work together at some point further down the track. I like to write a series of related pieces of music as though they are simply instrumentals. Later I will reshape these musical ideas into songs. Often this is because I find the creative process for writing words and music related but different. Often the inspiration for writing lyrics strikes at a different time to when I write music. Though it can also all happen at once. I have set ways of working but I seek to remain open to the possibility that an entirely new way of writing a song might suddenly make itself available to me.

The essence of creativity originates beyond self ; of this I am quite certain. The diverse terrain covered in the progression of life we might describe as the map of experience. Engaging with life is central to the creative process. Life experiences are like little sparks which ignite creative fires. Life experiences can prize open the door that the poet dives through to seek out pearls of creative euphoria. I find that many experiences make their way onto the palette  of creative experience — the look of the sky, frustration related to the lack of the humane in situations, through to the bliss of a special love found in a secluded and special space which is able to remove daily distraction. I regularly return to certain themes. For example, my life with my wife Ronny K. Bowley is a place where I often find inspiration.

Has Sean Bowley come full circle artistically, creatively and musically?  What’s up the old sleeve for the immediate future?  What avenues have you not yet strolled down (musically or otherwise) that you would like to?

Have I come full circle? If you had asked me this last year I would have said that I couldn’t find the circle meaning I was not in creative mode. In the second half of last year I began to play my Jazzmaster guitar after experiencing a long break of not playing at all. At first I just simply wanted to play the guitar; enjoy the moment. This meant being free from the pressure of feeling obliged to write music. I found myself playing every night and for longer periods of time. I looked closely at my Jazzmaster and worked out that I needed to use very heavy gauge strings to get the nice wiry twang that I like. I also realized that an essential tool for enhancing the rich ethereal nature of my guitar playing was to be found in the Fender 63 Reverb tank, Strymon El Capistan tape delay emulator and a Retro sonic compressor.

Interesting that you ask what it is that I have not done that I would like to do in the future. You hit the nail on the head here as this is exactly how I’m feeling at this time. I want to explore certain things I have not done in the past. Meaning to explore musical formats quite different to what I’ve done. I like the idea of doing a full length cd which comprises four or five songs and several instrumentals. I love how this format works for the Durutti Column’s second LP titled “LC”. LC has been a personal favourite of mine since it was released

Secondly I would like to make an instrumental cd. I listen to a huge amount of easy listening music recorded in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I love the rich cinematic orchestration, the period vibe and I’m fascinated with the tone palette they could capture in the recordings that is for the most part lost or non-existent in recordings today.

I’m mentioning instrumental easy listening as I want to create a cd of ethereal echo laden guitar music. I love James Wilsey’s cd “ El Dorado”. He was the guitarist who originally worked with Chris Isaak. James was responsible for creating that wonderful haunting guitar which was the signature sound for “Wicked Game”. James touts himself as a “Guitar Slinger”: the modern interpretation of retro artists like Duane Eddy, Billy Strange, Link Wray etc. I guess I would like to create a Darkwave ‘guitar slinger’ cd. Picture atmospheric twang delivered in a post Joy Division soundscape and you might just be picturing the cd I want to make. The good news is that I have already started writing material for such a cd.

Lastly, do you still have your Siamese cats?

I still have Tiki; He is sixteen and a half years old. He used to sit beside me when I was writing songs for Eden all those years ago. It is absolutely amazing to see him still sitting by my side when I’m writing in the present. He’s an amazing soul; my best animal friend ever. When you invite an animal into your heart there’s nothing like it – a very special and profound love affair that likely transcends life itself.    

For more info on Sean Bowley check out his website here  http://www.blurredlipstick.com/sean/  

Chris and Chris, thanks to both of you for taking time to reply to a few questions.

Where were you guys born?

Chris King: Nottingham or Shottingham as they call it now.

Chris Morgan: Bolton

What was life like growing up in Notthingham?

Chris King: Life was fairly dull really. Nottingham was a hard town as the mines were all shut down by Thatcher and Boots and Raleigh all shut down when England’s manufacturing industries were all destroyed, but my parents were all in education, so managed to keep their jobs somehow. If you watch Shane Meadow’s This is England, that’s EXACTLY what Nottingham was like in the 80′s.

Chris Morgan: I loved it, my childhood memories are all ‘golden hued’. The miner’s strike was a big deal at the time. The Shottingham tag isn’t founded.

Do you remember the first album you bought?

Chris King: I’ve never bought an album. I try not to listen to music as you end up copying it too much. I did have a load of Beatles stuff, but I mostly listened to my friends music.

Chris Morgan: my dad gave me all his old LPs. I totally fell in love with all the Beatles and Beach Boys albums. Pet Sounds remains my favourite to this day. The first album I bought was Outlandos D’Amour by The Police.

Bands/artists you were into growing up?

Chris King: Smiths, Beatles, REM, Sundays, Stones.

Chris Morgan: Beatles, Beach Boys, REM, The Sundays, The La’s, The The, Orange Juice, Talking heads, Teenage Fanclub. The list could go on and on…..

First instrument you played?  Self taught or schooled?

Chris King: Piano, self taught.

Chris Morgan: I was playing guitar at the time, but just for myself which I first learned on my Dad’s old Hohner acoustic. He showed me a couple of chords, and I was off… I migrated to the bass a little bit later.

What was the name of the first band you were in?

Chris King & Chris Morgan: The Deddingtons

Talk about how The Deddingtons came together as a band.

Chris King: My friend Matt who went to enfant school with me started up a band called The Social Divide at school, then we formed the Deddingtons with Chris Morgan and Andy Luczsko.

Chris Morgan: I met Matt Wright when we were both working part time for a supermarket and, despite the funky brown nylon uniform, we recognised each other as groovy indie types. We got chatting about The Smiths, which was our favourite band Matt told me he was looking for a guitarist. I went round to Matt’s parent’s house with my really cheap guitar and bass and before I knew it I was in a band called The Social Divide. The SD seemed to have an almost revolving door policy on it’s members and eventually fizzled out.

At around the same time Matt and I started to play in a covers band, The Losers, which really helped us to learn our instruments. Chris King of the SD played keyboards. It also gained us an ace drummer, in the form of Andy Luczko.  For The Deddingtons, we trialled a couple of singers, who both could hold a tune but didn’t quite “hit it”. We realised quickly that Chris King had the most fabulous voice – we coerced him into becoming our front man.

You guys are not from the Leamington Spa area.  How did you come to be included on the V/A compilation “The Sound of Leamington Spa Vol. 3″?

Chris King: Dunno. someone must have got a copy somewhere. They owe us money whoever they are…….

Any other tracks that you recorded as The Deddingtons?

Chris Morgan: There’s a reasonable catalogue of tracks that we recorded. In terms of names: “She”, “Solitary Sunday”, “Happy Again”, “Sheelagh” and “Naively” immediately spring to mind.

You guys never played live.  Was this your choice as a band or were the gigs elusive?

Chris King: No we ended up getting the wrong manager just as we were getting going. He ruined the band and turned it into the Days. I became the bassist. The Days produced five crap singles and a very crap album and were never seen of again. I was too young to tell the manager to go f  himself. Shame as the Deddingtons really had something.

Describe the makeshift 8 track recording studio.  In who’s bedroom did you record?

Chris King: We turned Matts loft into a recording studio. We had to stop recording every time his parents went to the toilet, as the water tank was next to the drum kit.

According to the liner notes in the aforementioned TSLS compilation, Chris King, you are a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to recording – even comparing you to the likes of Brian Wilson.  Describe the process you undertook when recording.

Chris King: We had a naff old 8 track machine that used to keep dropping out. Everything was done live – before they had computers. That’s why everything is so ‘imperfect’.  We spent a lot of time writing parts and had to bounce everything down every so often to get enough tracks. We recorded on mics from Tandy (now defunct).

Chris Morgan: Chris King is a genius. We had eight tracks and he produced and engineered all the demos – what he managed by bouncing tracks and such, was incredible. It’s hard to say where the songs came from, we tended to work on feel. A couple of us would work something up and then we’d kick it around until it formed. We had the luxury of time: only Andy held down a full time job -  we spent two long, blissful summers doing what we wanted to do. We pretty much kept office hours too, kicking off about 10 in the morning and finishing when Matt’s Mum and Dad announced that they were off to bed!

Who were The Days and how did they come to play your songs live?

Chris King: We just got the wrong manager I guess. He changed the format of the band, and we ended up playing crap. Lots of Uni gigs and the London circuit. Utterly pointless.

And Chris Morgan, perhaps you made a good decision in not joining up with The Days?

Chris Morgan: We had enlisted the services of a manager, who I didn’t get along with at all. I dislocated my shoulder, which stopped me playing the bass for a few weeks. The new manager introduced a new guitarist, who was a decent bloke, but without any consultation. I fell out of love with the band and quit – perhaps a bit rash but I was only 20 at the time. I haven’t really spoken with Matt or Andy since, which I regret. After I left, manager-bloke brought his brother into the band and pushed Chris King onto bass.

So as The Deddingtons a recording contract never came to fruition?  Reasons?

Chris King: We all went our own separate ways. I took a year off before going to Uni, and the rest of the band got jobs. I guess reality kicked in. Funnily enough I ended up being a TV soundman. I do lots of music interviews and meeting successful musicians (I did Robbie last week) does give me pangs of regret. I did my best, but just didn’t get the break.

Chris Morgan: Well we had a couple of moments where we thought we would get a proper release. We sent demos off around the word and the head of A&R at WEA called Matt up late one evening, saying how much he loved what we were doing and could we send some more tracks. We duly sent off more tracks and never heard from him again…

Get us up to date on what you guys have been doing since The Deddingtons.

Chris King: I’m singing for The Legendary Hearts now, but I’m way too old now. It’s all a bit sad…..

Chris Morgan: I joined a Derby band called Saltbox in 1994 and we enjoyed moderate success on the local indie-scene and played in London a few times. We had record company interest and got played on the radio – BBC Radio Derby’s Mark Sheldon (now working at 6 music) was a big champion of ours and even suggest in print that people should “ignore Oasis and dry out with Saltbox”. How’s that for a press-clipping? I’m currently recording some solo stuff, mainly as a hobby, under the guise of Reporters. My wonderful kids and wife , as well as work commitments are the main focus now I’m old and boring!

Chris Morgan, exciting news regarding a new video of old Deddingtons material.  Get us up to date and talk about the video being assembled from the dat tapes.

Chris Morgan: Chris KIng and I have always lamented the loss of The Deddingtons. The interest that we’ve had from around the world, thanks mainly to you uploading “The Last Day” onto YouTube, has spurred us to try and make sure that people get the chance to hear a bit more. We’ve got bits of video, photos and the like and we’re going to try to make something interesting.

Glad I could be of assistance in uploading “The Last Day”.  Yeah it’s nice to see so many people still interested in The Deddingtons!

Mark, first of all, thanks for taking time to visit with me.  Where exactly is Worthing located on the map? 

Worthing is a seaside town in the county of West Sussex about 60 miles south of London on the south coast of England and 15 miles west of Brighton, which is a well known seaside resort.
 
Where were you born and raised?
 
Chichester, West Sussex. Chichester is an old Roman city which has a beautiful cathedral built over 700 years ago.  It was a nice place to grow up.
 
Were memories of your childhood fairly happy ones?
 
I had a good and happy childhood although I don’t think about it too much. Perhaps that’s why my memories often seem vague and incomplete.  One of my brothers has to remind me about things!
 
Any siblings and are you still close to them?
 
I have two brothers and a sister and we are close.
 
Is/was anyone else in your family musically inclined?
 
I thought not but in the last 2 or 3 years I have got to know my Mum’s half sister.  I don’t remember her at all growing up but she was a singer and her father was a pianist, so maybe that’s where it comes from.
 
Do you remember one of the first LP’s or singles you bought?
 
I think the first single I bought was The Sixteens by The Sweet.  I had things bought for me but I’m not willing to admit to those!  The first album I bought was on cassette and may well have been 20 Golden Greats by The Beach Boys or The Beatles red album 1962-1966 or possibly even Showaddywaddy’s first album.
 
At what age did you first take an active interest in music?
 
I remember liking songs on the radio when I was very young which was in the late 60s/early 70s.  I used to play some of my Dad’s singles and LPs. This included various 7” singles like ‘Shakin All Over’ by Jonny Kidd & the Pirates, Searchers singles, an EP from Hard Days Night, Glen Campbell stuff. When I was about 7 we were asked to take a single into school.  Most kids took in ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, ‘Sugar Sugar’ or kids’ stuff.  I took in “Over You” by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap which is a very melancholy but dramatic song.  I think the teacher was quite surprised.  This day and age I’d probably be taken into care!  I still love that song though and think it’s his best but I don’t think it was a hit in the UK.  Even then I had a liking for sad songs!
 
Did you know early on that creating and writing music was what you wanted to do with your life or were there other interest(s)?
 
I remember making up a couple of Beach Boys influenced songs when I was about 8 or 9 but until I started learning the guitar at the late age of 17, I had no other thoughts about writing music.  Once I learned some chords, the ideas started to flow.
 
Was the guitar the first instrument you learned to play?
 
Apart from a stylophone, it was!
 
Did you take lessons or are you self-taught?
 
I took lessons at first as I moved to Horsham in West Sussex and as I didn’t know anyone I thought it might be a good way to meet like minded people.  I bought a guitar from a friend some months before we moved but wasn’t motivated enough to learn from a book.  It was useful to have lessons but I never learned scales.  I never saw the point at the time as my guitar heroes didn’t play long guitar solos.  I still can’t play scales now.  I suppose I always wanted to come up with song ideas more than playing a million notes a second!  After a couple of years of lessons everything else is self taught.
 
What was the name of your first band and how did you get together?
 
I met a bass player called Colin Harmer through my guitar teacher and we formed a duo. We called ourselves several names and practiced songs by The Jam and others but soon started to write our own stuff.  We eventually settled on the name The Beat Circus.
 
Where did the name come from?
 
The name just occurred to Colin when he went to the fridge to get some margarine.  It’s not quite as impressive as John Lennon’s dream of a flaming pie telling him to spell Beatles with an ‘a’!
 
Why did you opt on using a drum machine rather than finding an actual drummer?
 
I think we practiced for over a year without any backing rhythm and eventually tried out 3 drummers.  We never got past one afternoon with one, another was way too flashy for our limited skills and the third was too young and still learning.  Drummers were thin on the ground in the area which around that time had a lot of bands. Technology such as drum machines was just about becoming affordable and as we wanted to start playing gigs, I bought a Korg drum machine in March 1985.  Six months later with the drum tracks recorded to cassette, we played our first gig.  The drum machine was £199.  You can almost buy a laptop for that now with loads of music software options.
 
You had access to a portastudio for recording.  What’s a portastudio?
 
A portastudio was a fairly new invention and was a multitrack recording machine that could record 4 tracks to cassette tape.  Therefore it allowed musicians with a limited budget to record at home for the first time and layer tracks to record a song.   We did our first demos using a hired portastudio machine and drum machine in February 1985.  I hired a smaller portastudio in July that year and recorded my first solo songs.  I eventually bought my own machine the following year.
 
Did you release any material as The Beat Circus?
 
We recorded quite a lot of material (about 60 songs) and put together four cassette based albums.  Looking back, some of the songs, performances and recordings are quite primitive but there are still a few gems there.  We didn’t really make a lot of the music public apart from playing gigs.  Some friends had cassette copies but we didn’t get anything manufactured.  We recorded the songs for our own amusement. 
 
Colin’s brother Neale had his own band at the time and liked some of the material you were writing.  Was there a mutual admiration?
 
Neale was in a great Horsham band called ‘Hoods Yeah Right!’ and they made an impact in the town. When they split he was a part of another great band, ‘No Geraniums’.  I always liked his songs and recordings and still do. Neale liked some of The Beat Circus songs. In 1988 I finished a 21 track album of guitar songs called Poppy Day which he liked.  We always have swapped songs and ideas.
 
You were then asked to join Neale and Fragile.  Your thoughts at the time?
 
I was happy to join because it was a new band and both our bands had ended.  Fragile’s songs came from some of his demos and some of mine and that’s how it remained. We have hardly ever played any covers of other people’s songs.
 
Talk about Fragile and what you consider to be some of the best material you contributed to the band.
 
Fragile is the name Neale adopted for his own recordings and we used it also for the band.  Our set was a combination of his and my songs. We had a lot of material to draw from.  Neither of us is too precious about whose songs are played.  Steve, our drummer, was in Neale’s previous two bands is a very good drummer.  We started off with a different bass player but eventually found Rob who is a very competent guitar player and wanted to play bass with us.  We never played that many gigs but it’s always fun to get together to practice.  I think the best material I’ve contributed include ‘Worlds Apart’, ‘I Remain’, ‘Don’t Mention Her Name’ and ‘Miss Me’ which were all recorded as Shining Hour songs before being used in Fragile.
 
Is Fragile still together?  If so, are you still a member?
 
Of sorts.  We have an occasional practice which is always great fun but we have no real desire to gig anymore.  However, Neale and I do still have a dream of playing with our friends Brideshead in Germany.  We’d come out of retirement for that!
 
On your website  http://www.shininghour.co.uk/  you say that playing with Neale and Fragile inspired you to begin “The Shining Hour”.  How so?
 
After his two previous bands broke up, Neale started to record his own songs and got cassette tapes of albums manufactured which he sold through mail order, fanzines and the Rough Trade shop in London.  This inspired me to compile songs I’d previously recorded into two cassette albums which I got manufactured and sold under The Shining Hour name.  I didn’t want to use my own name – there was already Marc Cohn of ‘Walking In Memphis’ fame and I wanted to hide behind a band name.  I looked through a film guide, liked the name which sounded quite like an indie band.  I’ve never seen the film though. 
 
How was it in the beginning recording on your own with the 4-track?
 
Once I got used to the machine, it was very exciting to be able to record my own songs, to layer track by track and end up with a fully formed song.  The early songs were often recorded and mixed from beginning to end including lyric writing in 3-4 hours!  They take so much longer now as I try to produce the best quality recording I can and there are so many more options available on the computer.
 
Did you or rather do you enjoy the creative control and independence working alone?
 
I like being able to determine the sound I want.  Fragile went into the studio once to record two songs, one of which was previously recorded as a Shining Hour song called ‘Don’t Turn Away’.  It was quite expensive and the result was nowhere near as good as my original demo or even our rehearsal recordings. To me, it sounded limp and lacked the original’s bite or our live sound.  I don’t think the studio was that great.  Neale has had more studio experience and has often been left disappointed with the results.  At home I can do as many takes as I like without feeling like the clock is ticking.  Also I get nervous when the red recording light goes on!  Neale and I worked together on some home made recordings of the Fragile set and I enjoyed that because he has good taste.   I also helped another friend of mine to record some of his songs and I acted more like a producer/engineer suggesting ideas and helping him to achieve certain sounds etc. That was very enjoyable too.
 
What are some of your favorite early Shining Hour tracks?
 
I started recording my own songs in 1985 and adopted the name in 1991 so there are some very early songs like ‘A Lifetime Away’ from 1987 I still like. ‘Chapter One Ends’ is from 1986 but eventually ended up on Apricot’s Airpop compilation in 1998. ‘All Summer Long’ is from 1987 also and was on the first Apricot CD ‘Wait All Summer’.  There are a lot of songs to choose from.
 
Discuss your writing style.  Is the material mostly written through experiences you’ve had?  Do you have a melody in your head and then write the lyrics or vice versa?
 
Most of the time I come up with a melody first either by playing some chords on the guitar or something pops into my head, usually when I haven’t got a tape recorder handy, like when washing up or in the shower!  In the past if I was away from home and came up with an idea I have actually resorted to calling my home phone and sung into the answering machine so I don’t forget the idea!  The lyrics are usually written last.  I often have an idea which may come from a title or a few phrases but it has become harder to write lyrics as time has gone on.  You could say some songs are semi-autobiographical but as I nearly always write lyrics in the first person that doesn’t necessarily reflect my personal experiences.
 
Hanns-Christian Mahler of the German label Apricot became interested in your material.  How did The Shining Hour get his attention?
 
The three guys who formed Apricot Records – Hanns-Christian, Martin Nelte and Johannes Schneider – were on a trip to London in the mid 90s.  They visited the Rough Trade shop where they bought Neale’s first Fragile tape, a four song release called ‘Autumn’.  HC wrote to Neale and he recommended me as some music they might like also like.  HC contacted me and I sent him some tapes.  I got a PC in 1996 and HC and I kept in touch via email.  We finally met in late 1998 and have remained good friends ever since.
 
A 7″ EP entitled “5 O’Clock Rise” was released by Apricot in 1998.  Your thoughts on being released on a German label rather than a local one.
 
I was thrilled.  It meant more to me to be released on a small dedicated label in a different country.  I think it showed they were true fans of the songs and I’d not had that kind of attention in the UK where there is always a lot of choice.  They have a like minded attitude to their output and their attention to detail is fantastic.  The covers that adorn their releases are superb.  Neale and I visited Wiesbaden, Germany for the first time in 1998.  When we got to Hanns-Christian’s flat, he opened a box and I saw fifty 7” singles containing four of my songs and a box of ‘Airpop’ CDs which had two Fragile and two Shining Hour songs on it.  It was a magic moment!
 
Why do you think there were so many German indie labels sprouting up at the time like Apricot, Firestation Tower and Little Teddy?
 
I really have no idea why there were so many labels.  I don’t know the situation of the other two labels but Apricot wanted to put out music they loved.  They did a fine job too.
 
The same year, 1998, you flew to German to perform with Brideshead, Fragile and Mondfahre as part of a 2 night show.  Relate that whole experience and differences you found between playing in Germany and the UK, the audiences, etc.
 
It was a fantastic weekend from the moment we arrived.  Everybody was very friendly, very interested in us, generous and a good laugh.  We felt like pop stars all weekend!  We did an interview for radio and had plenty to eat and drink.  The bands we played with were really good.  The only downside is that Steve and Rob couldn’t come.  We would have played a lot better with them as Fragile.
 
Were the audiences receptive to your music?
 
Yes they were.  I have found this to be the same when I played 2 solo spots.  I think the audience was slightly confused because we went on first as The Shining Hour and played 9 songs.  After Brideshead we went on again and played 8 Fragile songs.   The German audiences are good plus they make clubs from unusual places like an old abattoir or a railway ticket office which make them quite unique.  You don’t get that in the UK. 
 
In 2000 you recorded “Appetence” on a Roland VS-840 digital workstation.  Describe this recording technology.  Were you pleased with the results?  How was it working with Hanns-Christian?
 
After a few years with a 4 track portastudio, I upgraded to an 8 track machine which still recorded to cassette.  It allowed more possibilities to separate sounds and I ended up with pretty good results. I then moved on to the VS-840 which was an 8 track digital machine and it recorded sound to Iomega zip disks rather than analogue tape.  It enabled better editing and mixing capabilities as well as providing on-board guitar effects.  I had an idea for a song which I think I’d only recorded the drum machine and an acoustic guitar.  HC recorded his two guitar parts at my flat in Worthing with no idea what the final outcome would be.  He didn’t hear the final song until about a year later!  As I recall, he recorded his parts a few hours before he had to leave for Germany and we were both suffering from a hangover!  He made a very good job.  I like his guitar playing and his band Brideshead is fantastic.
 
Which of your CD-R’s are you most proud of?
 
There are a lot of songs on ‘Appetence’ I really like.  All but three of those songs made it to Apricot’s ‘Postcards From Home’.  ‘Full Circle’ was originally a tape but later became a CD-R.  I always thought that had quite a well recorded, cohesive sound.  I still like ‘Long Lost’ a lot.  I think that Cd-R is my most polished set of recordings so far and it was good to finally complete that CD.  I recorded those songs on a Korg 16 track hard disc recorder but I mixed the songs on the computer which was a new step for me in technology.  There are always songs or elements of songs I think I could have done better but at the time of recording it’s difficult to always be objective. 
 
Your first solo gig was again in Germany in 2002.  I bet you were a tad bit nervous eh?  All things said, how did it go?
 
I had very little notice.  Hanns-Christian sprang the idea on me about three hours beforehand and after agreeing to it, I hastily practiced five songs.  I was very nervous at first but there wasn’t a large audience watching me and once I got through a few bars of the first song, I was ok and actually enjoyed it.
 
Mark, you’ve had several songs included on various artists compilations.  Do you feel this has helped you gain more exposure for your material?
 
I am sure it has especially through the Apricot compilations.  I think the internet has also helped a lot.  It’s far easier now to reach audiences in USA, Australia, Europe, Japan etc through the Apricot and Shining Hour websites as well as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.  It’s also nice when people write and tell me a song was played on their local radio station.  Sometime last year a song of mine was apparently played on a Mexican pirate radio station!  How strange to think it started off in a bedroom in a small town southern England!
 
In 2006 you recorded a single “From England With Love” as part of a contest to choose the World Cup anthem for England.  Very interesting and intriguing.  First off, are you a big football fan?  Secondly. how did you fare in the contest?
 
Not strictly correct with the competition thing.  For a long time, I had an idea for tune entitled ‘From England With Love’.  It was originally going to be about friendships in different countries.  Then I got to thinking about adapting it to a football song for England’s campaign in the 2006 World Cup but also to try and sell it to raise some money for Breast Cancer Care.  I did a quick demo which I gave to Neale. He wrote some lyrics and suggested some backing vocals and I changed some words and recorded the whole thing in two weeks.  Neale, my friend Kevin, my brother Gary and my Dad all sang one line along in the chorus which I was able to copy to other parts of the song using the computer. I sold 125 copies and raised £250 which I was very pleased with.  The song was dusted off again for the 2010 World Cup and I made a video which was uploaded to YouTube as part of a competition.  There were a huge number of entries some of which were terrible.  Neither I nor the England team fared very well but I still think the song is very good whereas the England team are still crap!  Perhaps next time I should translate the lyrics into German for the German team!  They always do well in football competitions. I do like to watch football but I’m not a fanatic.
 
Also the same year you released “Long Lost”.  Talk about this recording.
 
I started recording in 2001 after I upgraded the Roland VS-840 to a Korg 16 track hard disc recorder.  I recorded quite a lot of backing tracks but didn’t finish anything for a long time mainly down to troubles writing the lyrics and having time.  After completing ‘From England With Love’ in a two week period in May 2006, it inspired me complete some of the backing tracks with vocals and also record some newer ideas.  Neale played guitars on one song and my friend Kevin recorded some backing vocals on another song.   I mixed all the songs on a PC which was new for me.  About 4 or 5 of the backing tracks I recorded still haven’t been finished as they didn’t fit in, but they should be finished this year.  I was really pleased with the results.  I also did a remix/alternate version mini CD of 5 of the songs which is fun.
 
Cloudberry Records out of Miami, Florida.  Why did you switch to a US label for release of “Thinking About Her” in 2007?
 
It wasn’t really a switch as such.  Apricot Records were not releasing as many CDs at that time and Cloudberry asked if I could contribute some songs for a 3” CD-R single.  I sent them 5 or 6 songs from Long Lost and they chose 3.  Around the same time one of the songs, ‘Before You Know It’ was also contributed to an Australian compilation and Series Two Records in the US took ‘For Always Forever’.  If Apricot ever asked me to provide any songs again, I would happily do so as it is a great label and they are friends.
 
Recently, last June, you visited Hamburg to see Brideshead play live and were asked to play a few songs live.  Talk about your return to Germany and how the audience responded?  Do you feel you have somewhat of a following there? 
 
The venue was a small railway station office near Hamburg docks.  It was a fairly low key affair and Hanns-Christian asked if I wanted to play a few songs.  I practiced some songs at home before I left just in case!  On the evening I played three songs just before the support band, The Sleeping Policemen.  I thought I might be nervous but actually felt very relaxed.  It went well and the German audience again was really nice.  The Sleeping Policemen are a very good band as well as being great people too.  It was a fantastic night and both the bands and I went out for drinks and food afterwards.  We stayed out into the early hours!  I can’t say I have a following but the people at the gig seemed to appreciate my efforts.
 
Have you ever considered relocating to Germany?
 
No.  I’m not a professional musician so I have a normal job in England.  I like Germany having visited it a number of times because the people and family I’ve met have been lovely, kind, generous and welcoming.  I look forward to going back there soon for a visit.  I can speak a little German but you can’t spend all your time saying, ‘Can you tell me the way to the Bahnhof!’
 
Mark, what are you currently working on?
 
I’m slowly recording new songs and finishing off some very old ones.  I hope to have a CD-R finished by June.  After that I’m going to start recording a bunch of entirely guitar based songs.  I’ve still got loads of ideas to do.  I’ve changed my recording platform again recently.  I played around with a PC laptop for a while but it didn’t really cut the mustard so eventually I chose an iMac.  The learning curve is quite steep as I’m using a professional program called Logic.  However, it can do some amazing things that I couldn’t have dreamed about in 1985 when I was recording to a four track cassette.
 
Where do you see yourself headed in the near future?
 
No big plans really.  I hope to keep on putting out songs although as I get older the gaps between completed projects is widening!  It would be good to keep rehearsing with Fragile just for fun.  I expect more stuff will appear on Bandcamp for people to download for free and I will probably upload more songs to YouTube.  I really don’t have a clue who the audience is but some people out there seem to like the tunes.  I doubt it will make me a millionaire but that’s okay.
 
Any other artists/bands you’re listening to?
 
I love a US band called The Innocence Mission.  Their songs are exceptionally beautiful especially their most recent album.  I like a Dutch band called Moss who write melodic guitar pop and another Dutch band called El Pino & The Volunteers.  They are both on Excelsior Records which was the home to one of my all time favourites Daryll-Ann.  I’ve been a fan of The Posies for a long time and enjoyed their last CD. Elbow are great and I am looking forward to hearing their new album as well as REM’s new one.  I’ve heard some of the songs already and have been impressed. 
 
What other hobbies/interests do you have on the side?
 
It’s mostly music, listening to it, playing it but I like watching films.  As the weather gets better I will try and go cycling a bit more.  Seeing family and friends. I like to visit my friend in Florida as often as possible.
 
Lastly, any regrets?  Anything you would do differently if you had a second go?
 
I had the chance to learn the guitar at 12 but didn’t take it up at the time but I haven’t any big regrets… at least any I’m willing to share!
 
 
For more info and reading on Mark Cohen, The Shining Hour and Fragile see above link or his MySpace site here http://www.myspace.com/theshininghour

 ”Gifted“  

 
Where were you born Jason?

In a small but very beautiful valley town in the South Australia wine region called McLaren Vale. I’ve just recently moved back to a place nearby this place and it does feel like a kind of home-coming.
 
What was life like growing up in South Australia?

I really adore this place – it’s a kind of secret utopia in many ways with its own hidden darkness and strangeness. My family moved around a lot as a kid so I have seen a lot of the state. I often drive around with friends and endlessly point out places and houses that I used to live in. I think that wears a bit thin on my poor friends sometimes! “Look, there’s another house I lived in for a few years!”

Any brothers or sisters?

One sister. A wonderful woman who is a drama teacher and all-round mentor for creative kids in the south-east of South Australia. Although all my life I’ve lived with this idea of having an imaginary brother too… but that’s another story…
 
Do you remember the first 45 or album you bought?

With my own money, it was Yazoo’s “Upstairs at Eric’s”. Such a great album and I still treasure it as the first LP I bought with my own cash. It’s probably the most looked after album in my collection.
 
What local music stores did you haunt in your younger years?

Ah there were some great ones in Adelaide. I used to haunt this fantastic place called Umbrella Music that used to stock so much great independent stuff and all the records being released on New Zealand’s Flying Nun label. There was also a great place called Mr Music which again stocked lots of really interesting experimental and indie pop stuff too. Another place called Seeing Ears (always loved that shop name!) which carried me through the whole shoe-gaze and Sarah Records years. There’s been a resurgence lately of really good record shops in Adelaide, including some pretty amazing second hand vinyl stores, so I seem to be finding a lot of stuff that was once stocked in these stores.
 
Was anyone in your family musically inclined?

Indeed. My mum was, and still is, a pretty enthusiastic piano player. My Opa (my Mum’s dad, on the Dutch side of my family) was a drummer and very good one at that. He died when I was quite young but I remember his drumming around the house and seeing photos of him with his drums that he played in a kind of street band. I really feel like I carried on the musicality from him as he was a bit of a free spirit in many ways … I often think he would approve greatly of my choice to pursue being an artist and musician.
 
Did you play in band or take music lessons growing up?

All I did in my growing up years was a lot of experimenting with sounds, forming little ‘bands’ with my best friend, just recording with keyboards, his parent’s organ which had a great preset rhythm box on it. Putting stuff onto stereo cassette recorders, that kind of thing. I never took lessons but tried really hard to learn lots of guitar tabs/chords and attempted to try and read sheet music – I think I even wrote some sheet music for songs – but then ultimately found it easier to write down chords and just memorise melodies and ideas. My childhood friend and I formed our first ‘official’ band, The Nightmare Room, when I was 16 years old and made a whole lot of crazy cassette albums. We even entered the alternative public radio station’s music competition in 1988, came second… but that was the first live gig too where me and my friend just played these ridiculous songs with a garbage bin lid for a drum and an acoustic guitar. My first proper adult-oriented band was formed in 1990, called The Millards – and in fact songs like Drove It Down and Spin where written and performed in that band. It was the pre-cursor to Sweet William and Simpático.
 
What was the first instrument you played?

I guess it was a keyboard of some description, probably by friend’s parent’s organ! I just loved the weird echoey sounds it made and making up odd chords and melodies. Although, having said that, I do remember having these two plastic sticks I used to carry around a lot as a kid. I use to go out and play drums on tree trunks and pretend to be some kind of pop star…
 
Who were some of your early influences musically?

I was really into things like Yazoo and Eurythmics when I was a young kid but in high school it was hands-down, without a doubt, The Smiths, The Triffids and The Go-Betweens, all at once, obsessively. I also got into The Cure as well and it was actually a song off their album ‘The Head On The Door’ called The Blood that really made me want a guitar and to learn to play like that, sort of like Spanish strummy guitar. Great song that one… But ultimately The Smiths. As dial-a-cliché as it sounds, Morrissey got me through high-school.
 
Talk about the live music scene in and around Adelaide at this time in your life.

Well,  I do feel like it was a lot healthier, in terms of places to play and audiences to go see bands, a while back or at least 15 years ago in this town. Where there used to be about 10 or 12 places to play now there’s probably a good 4 or 5 decent venues left here to choose from. A lot of the good pubs where bands used to play have resorted to becoming bistros sadly. But it was an exciting time, especially during The Millards. There were so many great bands and friends to be made, a lot of whom are still friends. I think that surge of excitement and being in your first or early bands and gigging is kind of universal. Friends of mine who are just starting out in bands have this excitement in them and it’s quite humbling, to an old cynical gent like me!
 
Talk about the idea behind Sweet William and how your recording career got off the ground.

Sweet William ultimately began as a name and then an idea to start the band. I was listening to the beautiful “Showtime” EP by Australian band, Rabbits Wedding and the song ‘Sweet William’ came on and instantly I knew I needed to start a band with that name. At the time I was also listening a lot to bands like The Field Mice and Heavenly (in fact most of the Sarah label!) and was really inspired by the ethos, aethestics and DIY attitude of those bands and that label. I was working at the radio station 5MMM (now known at Three D Radio) and Louey and Karl were working there too – so I asked them to join the band. We got together with my old drum machine, Dr Rhythm, started programming and rehearsing up songs. Louey’s boyfriend at the time, Peter, offered to record our songs on a Tascam 4-track, which at the time I thought was just as good as going into a studio (which in a way, I still think it is!) – so we recorded the songs as they were written and rehearsed bit by bit over a couple of years. The recordings were always pretty faithful to the live sound and there was a kind of unspoken agreement to not play around too much with the sound in recording (Louey always said “no reverb!” bless her), which in some ways now I do regret a little bit… cos I am a sucker for a good reverb.
 
Where did you record in the early days?

Pretty much in Peter’s lounge room or my place. Although we did do one ‘proper’ studio recording for two of the 7″ releases, “Fedora” and “Lovely Norman”.

Many of your early productions ended up on cassette.  Talk about this process and its benefits at the time.

I’ll always love the idea of a cassette release so I was very much interested in putting things out that way. Just seemed logical at the time to do cassette releases. They were also much more tangible that burnt CDs I guess. And CDs probably still weren’t as widely used as self-releasing objects back in the early 90s. The thing I love about cassettes is you can still work with this idea of an album, an A and B side, and also work to a particular length of tape time. The paper parts are also an alluring thing, being able to do little fold out covers.
 
What do you feel is your best work(s) as Sweet William?

I think we found something when we did the “Fedora” 7″ on Library Records – it was a single, both songs sung by Louey, and really simple and atmospheric. I think Bart (from Library Records) knew something we didn’t when he chose to release that material over other things.
 
Was Shelflife the first label you signed with?

No, Matineé Recordings was our first label.
 
How did you come to be record on Matinee Records?

It was actually a very beautiful situation where Jimmy Tassos found me through a tape release put out by Paul Gough. We had our song “Lovely Norman” on there and Jimmy really loved that so he got in contact with me via email and asked whether we’d like to be the first release on his new record label. It was very very exciting, especially as it was to be a 7″ vinyl release so I felt like all my dreams had come true.
 
You also have a pretty extensive production output with Other People’s Children with Nicole Lowrey.  Describe the type of sound and music you were creating here.

Other People’s Children was always about collaboration and Nicole and I became the ‘duo’ after many years of working with numerous other people, so to speak. This band was always about electro-pop in one way or another, sometimes upbeat and sometimes very downbeat. The project was inspired by the whole motorik movement in pop, the Neu!-inspired krautrock thing. It was never about 80′s pop at all but people often put that label on it. I was just interested in making electronic pop songs that were created out of studio noodlings and experiments, often making these looped pieces and then finding words and vocal parts for them. In a greater scheme of things I suppose I wanted OPC to be the main project, especially after releasing a 7″ on Morr Music. But… there you go. I got my hopes up!
 
Talk about Pretty Boy Crossover with Cailan Burns.

Pretty Boy Crossover began after I met Cailan in 1997. I’d been making music for theatre and dance shows a few years before I met him and I’d received a grant from the youth arts board in South Australia to release a compilation of this music. Also at the time I was still working at the radio station and I asked Cailan to be part of show I was doing called Pretty Boy Crossover… and then mentioned I wanted to do more with this name and turn into a music project… so from that point we started getting together and making stuff on my 8-track tape recorder (yes I’d gone 4 tracks up in the world!). Cailan is an amazing visual artist and his work has often appeared on our record sleeves as well. He’s moving back to Adelaide after living in Melbourne for many years soon and we’re going to be working on a new album.
 
In all of your side projects including School of Two, Luxury Gap and Mist and Sea, you’ve worked with various artists as well as many different recording labels.  What have been your favorites?

They’ve all been great in different ways, I don’t really have a favourite. Each of these projects have their own kind of sound and personnel and I sort of see going to each of them as like going to visit a different part of the extended family of music comrades, including the labels themselves. I think that’s why I do so many projects. I really love this sense of living in a world of creative comrades who one can turn to a different times in one’s life.
 
You’ve also had tracks included on many compilation albums.  In fact I first become familiar with your work on the Sky Blue Records V/A compilationPopular World and the song “Heavy Metal”. Do you feel the comp albums have helped to gain more exposure for you?

That’s always hard to tell. Funny because I moved house recently and pulled out a box of all the compilation albums I’ve been on. It was something like 30 or more CDs of different compilations and I thought “surely this has to count for something?”. I never know what kind of exposure I really have gained from all this. It’s very hard to tell especially not being a person who goes out and tours much at all. And after all, we are all so saturated with musical output on a second-by-second basis these days that compilations often overwhelm people even more. I can only hope that I’ve contributed maybe one or two dusty gems in one or two of the comps I’ve been on?
 
Incidentally “Last Train Home” is also on the aforementioned Sky Blue cd.  This time you have manifest as a solo artist “Simpatico”.  Where did the name come from?  Did you feel it was time to branch out on your own?

After Sweet William decided we’d done what we’d needed to do, I had all these songs I wanted to try new stuff with including more time in the studio to experiment a little bit with how the songs were realised and produced. The name Simpático came from listening to a Stan Getz album and on the back the words “This music is simpático!” was written and I was smitten with the word. And it seemed to encapsulate this idea of a kind of unified sound, something I could really invest with a particular type of feeling.
 
Of your solo work, what is your proudest moment?

So far it’s the second Panoptique Electrical album, ‘Yes To Fear, Yes To Desire’. I am desperately proud of that record. Feels like a culmination of all my ideas and musical passions.
 
What is Panoptique Electrical?

Well, it was the name of my portable studio for many many years and most of the releases I’ve done have credited that name as the studio it was recorded in. Because of this, it led to calling what I ‘do’ in terms of musical composition (as opposed to song writing) this. It seemed to make sense, as Panoptique Electrical is a very personal experience in terms of making music, even though I am extending invitations to another artist for the next record which I am working on right now. I do liken the idea of this project as my own personal radiophonic workshop!
 
You’ve released 2 critically acclaimed albums on the Sensory Projects label. Let The Darkness At You (2008) and Yes To Fear, Yes To Desire (2009).  Do you feel like you’ve done your best work with Panoptique Electrical?

I feel like the work I’ve done on these two releases were quite accomplished and the most satisfying records I’ve made to date, aside from most of the Pretty Boy Crossover records, which I am always really in love with in a different kind of way, in the way you might continue to love someone at a distance. As I say, Panoptique Electrical is much more personal and I really feel like I am just getting started with this project. The first two albums are kind of like epics to me, they really took me out of comfort zones and forced me to be a composer and work with much more complex instrumentation and structures. The next album is going to be even more complex, much more rhythmic and built in a workshop environment with a couple of close collaborators.
 
What other artists do you listen to/like?

The saddest part to this question is: Broadcast. The work of Trish Keenan has inspired and guided me since they began 15 years ago. Her tragic and untimely death last week has really shocked so many thousands of people and my heart breaks for James and all of her family and comrades. I’d only seen them play their second-to-last show in Melbourne a month before. It was an incredible show. The thing about Broadcast (and of course the legacy will continue) was they have been responsible so heavily in turning me on to so much incredible music, sound work, psychedelia, vocal material. I have gone through their radio mixes obsessively and tracked down much of the music that they love. And there must be something about Birmingham because I am also incredibly in love with Pram – they would have to be another great influence on me, for the very fact of their discipline in what they do, how they make music, how they portray themselves as almost covert artists. And they make incredibly evocative music. Two other artists who have been massively important to me since I was very young are David Sylvian and Kate Bush. Kate, in particular, continues to open my ears (and eyes!) to the many different worlds that a musician can inhabit. In a kind of transcendental way, I believe the spirit of Trish Keenan will live on in the body of Kate Bush, she being the mother of so much invention.
 
What’s on the horizon for Jason Sweeney?

Aside from working on the new Panoptique Electrical album, I am spending a lot of time settling into a new house by the sea – the southern coastline of South Australia. It’s so beautiful here and I am setting up a wonderful studio space. I look out the window and I can see the ocean. Very lucky boy am I! Next month I am also beginning work on two film projects – a short and a feature – that will be directed by yours truly! They will bring together ideas I’ve been working on for a number of years and will incorporate very strong sound and composition elements too. The feature film is all about the dark secrets of Adelaide, so look out for that one!

For more info on Jason Sweeney, check out these sites -

sounds solo + duo:  http://www.soundslikesweeney.com
panoptique electrical:  http://www.panoptiqueelectrical.com
unreasonable films:  http://www.unreasonablefilms.com

“Thee”

Kris, first of all thanks so much for taking time to visit with me.    

To begin with it’s very interesting that you’ve done research into your namesake, “Ife”.  Have you always had an interest in geneology?

Yes, in a way. Obviously with such an unusual name it was easier to research than others, but I was in London when I had it done & I never thought I’d end up living in Suffolk – where the name came from.

Your dad was in the RAF and you were born in Aylesbury Bucks.  Whereabouts is this? 

It’s in Buckinghamshire – about  45 miles North West of London.            

That’s funny what you say on your website about things so long ago they must be in black and white.  I’ve often imagined the same thing – hey! I’ve never seen colored photos from my childhood either.

It seems that then – everything was in Black & White.

What was life like growing up?

Good – a real country existance. My Dad was away in Italy so we didn’t see too much of him, except when he came home on leave.

Any siblings?

I have one older sister.

Can you recall the first 45 or LP that you bought or was given to you?

We had 78 RPM records at home.
The first song to make a big impression on me was “It’s Almost Tomorrow” by The Dream Weavers. The first 78 I bought was “Why do Fools Fall in Love” by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, but the first 45 I bought was Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island Line”.
When I went to get it – it was out of stock, so I bought a 78 of “Zambesi” by Lou Busch for my Mum.

When did you first take an interest in singing and being in a band?

My sister was an excellent singer (she sung opera), but my interest started when I was at school.

My sister taught me the Aria (One Fine Day) from Madam Butterfly when I was about 5, & I can still remember most of it now.

I stupidly managed to talk my Mother out of sending me to Piano lessons – I wish she had now!

What was the name of the first group you performed with?

That was The Gravediggers – a Skiffle group at school.

I suppose you could say skiffle was sort of a precursor to rock’n'roll, especially in Great Britain?

Yes – it was, & it had the same impact as Rock & Roll did.

Of course everyone wanted to play both!

Talk about your days with the Gravediggers and who came up with the name.

As I said it was at school. Myself & my friend Alfie Grant (he sadly drowned when he was 18. He was a very talented musician) started the band & we jointly decided on the name. The thing about Skiffle was that it was the type of music that everyone can play – which helped with it’s popularity.I talked my Dad into buying me a Guitar for my Birthday, but I started as a Washboard player while I was learning the necessary 3 chords! LOL

Did you attend a regular public school or private?

I went to Private School in Aylesbury, but after that State schools & finally St. Clement Danes Grammar School.

Were there other musical groups that were your contemporaries?

My favourite skiffle group were The Vipers . I always wanted to sing like their lead singer Wally Whyton.

I met him on a Television show when I was in the Quiet 5.

I told him that & he was pleased.

He told me the verse they weren’t allowed to sing on Maggie May. I sing it on The Beaver St Hat Band’s CD “Beaver St.”

Times have changed!

After leaving school you helped form The Vikings.  Who else was in the group?  Relate the story behind “Space Walk” and the song reappearing years later under a different name.

We went to see a Record producer called Curly Clayton. he had a studio in Highbury London, as was a great rival of Joe Meek’s – who had a studio just up the road.

We recorded the song with him – augmented with a Paraguayan guy playing Harp. A lot of people thought that we were The Tornados who were Joe Meek’s band.

Some years later it was released with Chris Blackwell listed as Producer & the band name “Gemini”. I guess Curly must have got his money back!  Good luck to him!

In 1964, John Smith, your manager with The Vikings, decided to change the name to The Quiet Five.  Now I know you must have heard this question a lot, but was John bad at math or was there another explanation for the name since there were six of you?

John Smith had two bands. We were The Vikings & Patrick Dane & The Quiet 5. He decided to amalgamate the two of us.

He got rid of our Bass player, Phil Leavesley (who was older than us) – & we took Richard Barnes on Bass & Patrick Dane – the singer from the Quiet 5. He insisted on keeping their name although we hated it! I still do!! LOL

How was the overall chemistry in the group?  Talk about the songwriting and recording sessions.

Patrick Dane didn’t work out, so we started singing leads ourselves. We turned out quite reasonable harmonies together. Surprising enough – all the surviving members (Satch – our Sax player unfortunately died) live up here in East Anglia – so we meet up occasionally.

You wrote the biggest hit with The Quiet Five, “When The Morning Sun Dries The Dew”.  Where did the inspiration come from for this song and was it just about the early morning hours?

I wrote it when I was fishing one early morning, & watching a Barn Owl hunting on the opposite bank as the Sun came up. Beautiful! It was a philosophical song but I had to change the lyric to put in female interest. I’d have changed anything for a Recording contract! LOL

Whose decision was it to record a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound”?

It was given to us by our Producer – Ron Richards at EMI.

Paul Simon contacted us to say how much he liked our record. We’d met them on a TV Show in Bristol.

1966 must have been a fairly eventful year.  You played at Windsor Castle as part of an 18th birthday gift for Prince Charles.  Was the prince a big Quiet Five fan?

I don’t think Prince Charles is interested in our stuff. He likes The Three Degrees! LOL

We worked for Lady Elizabeth Anson ( the Queens cousin) who arranged parties & Social Functions.

It was in Windsor Castle & we were presented to The Queen.

Great honour!

Also the same year you played the “Society Circuit”.  Explain.

That came through the same set-up. We did the Debs ball, played for King Constantine in Greece, The Venice Film Festival & the Royal Hunt Ball to name but a few.

We could tell good Champagne from bad, by the time we finished.

In 1967 you quit the band to pursue a solo career.  What led you to this decision?

I fell out with the Drummer that we had then, so decided enough was enough!

You wasted little time in recording a rendition of Joe South’s “Hush”.  And some say this was inspiration for Deep Purple to have a go at releasing their own version.

A guy called Freddie Lloyd (who was in The Vipers) brought

me the song “Hush” & said he’d like to record me with it.

I made it a bit more “Soully” & we went ahead.

Deep Purple admitted themselves in an interview for Mojo Magazine that a DJ friend of theirs recommended my version to them & they did it.

Enter record producer Mark Wirtz.  How did you two meet and form a working relationship?

Mark was a House Producer at EMI.  He was working with a friend of mine Chas Mills and was looking for a singer & Chas suggested me.

We started writing together later on when Mark split with Chas.

What did you think about singing the song “Imagination”?

This was Mark’s brainchild. He’s a crazy genius!!

It wasn’t my sort of stuff – but I was just a voice.

I never believed it would be released in my name.

I’m pleased that I did manage to hit the last note – & double-track it – but I don’t know how!!

You put together a group of studio musicians to record for Mark.  Anyone else that we might know in the Matchmakers?

We had a group of friends that were great musicians. There were various combinations that we used.

Roger Mckew (Quiet 5) is in the band.

Who were J. Vincent Edwards and Michael Derrick?

We met at Schroeder Music in London. We were members of their “Writers Workshop”. Chas Mills was also in it.

We got together & started writing songs under the name of Miki Antony, with mild success. Mark Wirtz recorded some of our songs. Unfortunately Micheal Derrick changed his name by deed poll to Miki Antony – so you can guess the rest.

Vince & I are both in The Beaver St Hat Band & had previously recorded as Jackson & Jones.

In 1970 you co-wrote songs with Mr. Wirtz as Judd on the album “Snarling Mumma Lion”.  What a name!

I originally wrote it as Mummalion, but Larry Page said there was a Reggae song with that name, so he changed it – & changed mine to Judd!! LOL

Roger Mckew & Richard Barnes from the Q5 are both on the album.

Elaborate on the “swamp pop feel” of the Judd songs.

I’d been writing little stories about the Deep South for a number of years (although I’ve never been there), so that’s where the ideas stemmed from. I’d obviously read too many books & seen too many films! LOL

You and J. Vincent Edwards worked together again in the early 70′s, this time as Jackson and Jones on a couple of singles.  On your website they are described as “more heavily orchestrated…Righteous Brothers style” songs.  So you were going for more of the Phil Spector “wall of sound” effect?

Yes – I mentioned this before. We wrote the songs & the feel we wanted was like a British Righteous Bros.

Bill Medley’s voice is much better than mine! We didn’t copy Spector’s style – though we both like him, but obviously he produced them – so that’s where the similarity lies.

Around the same time period you put together a concept album to teach American history through popular music.  Interesting approach.  Why was this album never released?

I was disappointed that nothing came of this. I had the idea in 1968 – that it should be a teaching aid for schools of American History. If the kids learned the choruses – that gave them events & dates that they could remember easily.

Eventually David Frost got hold of it & wanted to keep it until the Bi-Centenniel Events. There were loads of them & the idea got lost.

Shame!! several years research down the pan!! C’est la vie!! LOL

In the mid 70′s you moved into the publishing side of the music industry.  Did you feel at the time that you had run your course in songwriting and recording?

Not at the time – but that inevitably happened. I neglected my writing to promote other people’s. I enjoyed that side of the business – but now I’m back writing & recording again, I realise that this is what I love the most.

I’m glad to see you’re still active in writing and recording as evidenced by your trip to Philadelphia in 2008 to record a CD of Skiffle songs.  Once again with Mr. Edwards and a certain Wayne Newton as The Beaver St. Hat Band .  Is this the same Wayne Newton of “Danke Schoen” fame?

No – same Vince, but Wayne is English although he’s married & lives in PA. He’s Wayne Scott Newton.

Incidentally – his parents ran a restuarant in Barnes in England called the Heads & Tails – hence the HAT in the Beavers St Hat Band. Vince & I would sing for our supper sometimes there, after a good night in the Bulls Head!

With the soon to be released CD of Skiffle material, do you feel your music career has sort of come full circle?

Yes – that’s exactly right! Right back to our roots.

I suppose it’s a form of second childhood! LOL

Mind you – if you love what your doing & who you’re doing it with – why shouldn’t you!?

That applies to everything.

Now Kris, you’re not just a musical “artist”, you are also quite the painter.  Really nice artwork on your website as well.  I’m especially fond of the lighthouses.  Talk about how this has been a creative outlet for you.

Thank you kindly. I got “A” Level Art at school & should have gone to Art School, but circumstances didn’t permit.

It’s something that I love doing – but I can listen to music & paint, but I can’t write songs & paint – so either one has to go on the back-burner for a while!

What are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry? 

Ageist!!

Nice to know there was a record company like RPM out there to release The Quiet Five material as well as your solo output.

Yes – many thanks are owed to Mark Stratford.

And with all the talk of the negative side of the internet, there is a plethora of information out there to help connect artists and fans and to share likeminded interests.  I’m a proponent – if it weren’t for Rosemarie Edwards posting a comment on my YouTube channel, we most likely would not be having this QA.  So thank you Rosemarie!

I’ll second that – she’s wonderful & really talented in her own right.

Kris, any other thoughts to share on where you’ve been, where you’ve come and where you’re going?

Well – it’s been a long time getting here!

As W C Fields said – I’m still looking for a loophole!!

I think I’ve been very lucky (I could have been better-off-lucky though! LOL) 

I have some wonderful friends, seen some beautiful places & met some amazing people – so I’d definitely do it again!

Thanks Greg for your time & patience.

I hope I haven’t waffled too much!

Kris:)

Be sure to check out Kris Ife’s official website here  http://www.craftweb.org/web/kris/index.html

Was Brian a guy or a band? Why did he stop making music and turn up in Father Ted?

Actually Brian is Ken Sweeney with additional help from musicians Niall Austin and Andy Aldridge.  I recently caught up with Mr. Sweeney and tossed a few questions his way…

Ken, where were you born and what are your fondest memories of growing up?

I grew up the youngest of four brothers in Dublin. We were always on

bikes or having adventures in the Phoenix Park which was pretty close

to where we lived.

I love the American band ‘Miracle Legion’, particularly their first

album ‘Backyard’ which captures childhood brilliantly and which echoes

my own. Happy times.

How did you first take an interest in music?  Was your family musically

inclined?

I think all three of my brothers had guitars but my eldest brother

David (sometimes) known as George, was quite a well known

guitarist in Dublin. He played in ‘The Maxquadband’, which Adam

Clayton of U2 was in for a while, Rocky DeVelera & The Grave Diggers

and quite a famous Irish punk/powerpop band called ‘The Vipers’ who

did John Peel sessions and toured the UK with Thin Lizzy and The

Boomtown Rats. This was about 1978/79. Years later he formed a band

called ‘Fat Lady Sings’ but left after their first single ‘Fear &

Favour’.

David was seven years older and taught me a lot of guitar. We used to

sing together at home, doing harmonies on Squeeze songs. I was always

amazed he could conjure up these tunes I loved on an acoustic guitar.

I was playing chords from about 15/16.

David could play great lead guitar, still can, and I wasted lot time

trying be that good when maybe I should have gotten into songwriting earlier.

Do you recall the first 45 or LP you purchased?

Andrew Gold’s ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ when I was maybe 10 or 11. It

was the soundtrack to a holiday in Spain when I was about 11.

I bought Billy Joel’s album ‘The Stranger’ in Jack The Lad’s record

shop in the Dandelion Market in Dublin. That’s the first album I

bought. I still like it. There’s a a song from “She’s Always A Woman’

which was on pirate radio at the time, somebody covered it lately. I

really wish they hadn’t…..

By about 13 or 14 I’d gotten into The Jam, my brother’s band The

Vipers supported The Jam on Irish dates in 1978 and I remember playing

a single he had by them  ‘Down In A Tube Station At Midnight’. I

became a mod soon after and met lot friends and got into The Who and

local bands like The Blades who were a big influence. By about 1982 I

was listening to Echo & the Bunnymen and then early REM.

What was the music scene like growing up in Dublin?

Brilliant. There isn’t now but at the time in Dublin (from the early

eighties till dance music took off)  there was a real Indie music

scene in Dublin.

There was pirate radio with people like Dave Fanning on Big D and a

great DJ on Radio Dublin, another pirate station, called Pat James,

who played all the Dublin bands.

What was the name of your first band?

I had a good friend called Peter Devlin, another mod. We did a gig

playing with an established local soul band called ‘The Temps’.

They were a bunch older guys but wanted to attract a mod audience so

they got two mods in.

Think our first gig with The Temps was Halloween 1984 in The Ivy

Rooms. It was a Halloween night with all these weird and wonderful

bands playing.

Later we started our own mod band called ‘Instant Party’ (not as bad

as it sounds, it’s a Who track) with a drummer called Alan Bates,

another mod I knew. (more here :

http://www.irishrock.org/irodb/bands/instantparty.html )

I say mod but we played a lot Moondogs covers (because Peter Devlin was

from their Newry and liked lot those bands) and new wave stuff. The

Starjets, The Undertones.   Being a mod band there was an audience for

us in Dublin in places like the CIE Hall in Marlboro Street.

We supported lot visiting bands as well, and did a gig in Dublin

supporting The Blades. Some mods in Donegal booked us for a gig

supporting Cactus World News in Letterkenny.

Instant Party are fondly remembered. We weren’t very good players but

there was a great energy. We also produced a demo (has a sports car on

cover) which we sold mail order and which continues to turn up. It was

a three song demo on which I’d written the tracks There was one review

in a Kildare modzine which talked about my potential as a songwriter

which seems funny looking back now.

Peter Devlin, later started a band with his younger brother Colin,

called The Devlins and signed a big US deal. He’s still  a friend as

is Alan Bates, who was a great singer and drummer and still plays in

The Modfathers, a mod band in Dublin.

First instrument you learned to play?

Guitar, just guitar really.

Were you classically trained or self-taught?

My brother taught me chords and then I’d buy books with guitar chords

in them of songs of the day or try and work stuff out. I learned a lot

of Blades songs which taught me a great deal about songwriting.

Who were some of your major influences musically?

Early REM , the Murmur album was a huge influence. It just sounded so

unusual, there were no guitar solos on it and the type of

guitar-playing on it was something I could do.

I was always much more into REM than The Smiths.

The Go-Betweens were another huge influence, just their feel.

The American band Miracle Legion for their warmth and nostalgia.

The Blue Nile for the sadness of their music.

I liked all these acts but I wanted to put something of my own life

and experience in Dublin into it.

I loved The Blades but wanted to do something that was more acoustic

like their b-sides ‘Animation’ and singer Paul Cleary’s solo single

‘Some People Smile’

But the biggest influence was a single I came across by The Buzzcocks

called “You Say You Don’t Love Me”.

It came out about 1979, it’s not on their Greatest Hits, even people

who like The Buzzcocks might not know it.

It was an incredibly sad record with something quite resigned about

it. I used to play it over and over.

Maybe I stored up something listening to it.

Talk about how Brian came together.

I played in Instant Party from 84-85. I played in bands with both Peter Devlin

and Alan Bates afterwards but nothing really came of it.

Sometime in 1986, my brother came home from London after leaving ‘Fat

Lady Sings’ and booked a studio in Dublin to do some solo stuff.  I

was kind of helping him and persuaded the engineer to let me demo a

song.

It was “A Million Miles’ , pretty simple  but I played it to friends

who liked it.

One of the people who heard and liked this was my friend Niall Austin

who I worked with in a Dublin advertising Agency. One Good Friday ,

when everything closes in Ireland, we jammed together and I suppose

that was the start of ‘Brian’.

As far as the name goes, I think I saw it on the

cover of a magazine or something. I wanted something very plain and

lo-fi. For years after people have called me ‘Brian’ instead of Ken

but I can live with it.

There was a good friend of my brother’s called ‘Brian’ Foley , who was

in The Blades. I might have said that was something to do with it but

that was probably just chance of name dropping The Blades into

interviews.

In 1989 just before I moved to London myself and Niall decided to

re-record ‘A Million Miles’ and put it out as a single. There was no

band. We did it anyway on Whitesands Records, our own label. It had a

wonderful sleeve of a road out near St Anne’s Park taken by Cathal

Dawson a very talented Hotpress Photographer.

I went off to get a job in the UK and bizarrely the single in my

absence started to get great reviews. By Christmas 1989 Hotpress Music

magazine had it as their fourth best single in their critics poll.

Elvis Costello was no 5.

That floored me.

Why the move to London in 1989?

At the time that was where you went. I was listening to Microdisney’s

album ‘Clock Comes Down The Stairs’ which was all about London. I

wanted to get a job and it was probably a good idea to get away from

Dublin and go somewhere new.

Although you have recorded with other musicians, you actually prefer going it solo.  Explain.

I’ve had all sorts of very talented people in their own right to help

me, like the producer Ian Catt.

What I will say is that, I’ve spent hours working with other musicians

to get exactly what I want with musicians who in general hated the music

because I wanted them to play less.

The one man band thing happened because I just found it so exhausting

trying to persuade people to do things my way – paying drummers or session people to do exactly what I wanted. My

friends Niall Austin and Andy  Aldridge who both played with Brian for

a while were the exceptions.

How did you come to be signed by Setanta?

Myself and Niall Austin were ‘Brian’ . Niall followed me over to

London and we started doing demos.

We sent one into the trade publication ‘Music Week’ who reviewed  it

in their demo column.

They wrote “every discerning A&R man should be checking out this act”.

Our phone rang solidly for about a month after with A&R men from

record companies as far away as the US and Australia.

I didn’t meet any of these guys, Niall took care of that but no one signed us.

Setanta were interested around then but backed out.

I just kept at it by taking out a bank loan to put out a single.

It was supposed to be a really fast pop song called ‘Wonderful’ but I

demo’d a b-side, a throw-away track called ‘You Don’t Want A

Boyfriend’,  which turned out so well I decided should be the A-side

track.

My good friend Andy Aldridge put it out on his label Detzi.

It did really well in Ireland, again in critic’s polls but myself and

Niall weren’t really getting along and I decided I wanted to stop the

band.

I stopped for about six months, in the meantime Niall moved back to Ireland.

Keith Cullen started playing the demos again and decided he wanted to

put out Understand as an album, basically the demos.

Getting onto Setanta was incredible for me. It was probably one of the

hippest labels in the UK at the time.

I loved bands like ‘Into Paradise’ who were on the label.

Understand did  fantastically well for Setanta in the UK and in places

like France and Spain and

we got a lot of press from NME and Melody Maker, it didn’t cost them

anything either.

Talk about your early album of demos and EP released in 1992.

Most of the songs I wrote for Understand were written in my first year

in London maybe missing home and people. I won’t bore you talking

about the subject matter but I suppose it must have meant a great deal at

the time.

I did The Planes EP later in 1992.

What venues have you enjoyed playing live?

The University Of London with A House in 1992 was good but the Brian

stuff was more about the moment I recorded it.

You can’t recreate that in a draughty venue.

 I’m not a natural performer and often I was working with under

rehearsed pals who were doing me a favour.

Critics have compared your vocals and music somewhat to The Lightning

Seeds.  What say you regarding this analogy?

Back to Brian, I had a huge problem trying write songs after The Planes EP.

Songwriters really need a change of surroundings sometimes and I was

stuck in London, in the same job paying back the back loan I took out

to pay for the second single.

It was really stupid looking back as I wasted all the interest I’d built up.

But I didn’t know any different. I just didn’t feel anything and I

scrapped a lot of material.

I suppose the fact I stopped added to the mystery   …

Voluntary redundancy came up in the BBC where I was working in 1995

and I moved back to Dublin.

Almost immediately I started writing songs, stuff I really loved.

I used to stay up in a coastal village called Termonfeckin in County

Louth with some of the clearest night skies in Ireland and that’s why

there are so many references to stars and satellites on Bring Trouble.

I got back in touch with Setanta and to their credit they were interested.

Bring Trouble was done in The Cocteau Twins studio September Sound in

Richmond, London with Ian Broudie’s engineer Cenzo Townsend.

I don’t think I owned a Lightning Seeds album at the time.

I have yet to find a Lightning Seeds song with lyrics like ‘Right

Through Tuesday’.

I really loved songs like ‘We Close 1-2′ and many of the other songs

on ‘Bring Trouble’, which I literally spent years on, and it was quite

horrific to have some people dubbed it as the Lightning Seeds.

I don’t think it would have sounded so Lighting Seeds if I’d been

allowed to put stuff like ‘Cabaret Band’ on. (It ended up as an extra

track on Turn Your Lights On)

But there was a really stupid woman employed at Setanta at the time. I

think Keith Cullen found her in a shoe shop.

She was against the louder stuff I’d done and I gave into her. I’m

told by the people who did like Brian in Setanta, she took the

decision not to put out a second single off Bring Trouble (which would

have been ‘We Close 1-2′) and to stop promoting the album very early

on.

That album was so radio,  the first single was a BBC Radio One single

of the week, I think it would have been worth doing another single but that was it really. The woman in question went off to be an

actress shortly after …

I felt really bad for Setanta in some ways because they invested a lot

of money in the record.

But overall I’m glad to have gotten my music out because so many other

song writers don’t get that opportunity.

I think a French magazine came down on its “eighties production” which

is hilarious given how eighties production came back into vogue about

a year or so later with the Killers.

Relate your songwriting process, i.e. where does the inspiration come from?

Lyrics first, then music or vice versa?

It’s really just a feeling. Maybe I tape something on the guitar and

play over it quite simply.

Sometimes it’s a line like ‘We Close 1-2′ about an office I worked in.

Sometimes it’s a lyric that comes with a sequence of guitar chords.

Most of the time it’s autobiography.

What are your favorite songs you’ve composed?

‘Getting Meaner’ I love because I’ve never heard a song about that theme.

How you wake up one day and you don’t feel music in the same way. How

you change as a person, you no longer read books the same way.

‘Boyfriend’ is good because of that moment at the end where the strings

come in “maybe you Leaving me….”

“It Never Crossed Your Mind’  and ‘Knowing’ . ‘Time Stood Still’. The

World Ended With You’

Most of all ‘Light Years’ because it’s the best mix of all the things I

wanted to say in a song.

The theme etc

What other artists do you listen to/like?

I loved Stina Nordenstam’s album ‘Then She Closed Her Eyes”‘ The

Canadian band ‘Stars’  (they were on Setanta for a while ).

Are there any you would like to work with?

Not really.

You’ve done a bit of acting as well.  Tell us about Father Ted.  Any other

roles?

I’m not an actor . I had some friends involved with Father Ted and I

got roped into be an extra because I was hanging around. I thought

this might get shown once but in Ireland Father Ted is on all the time.  Bizarrely in one episode I was an extra playing a priest next to Brian Eno.

In between takes. We started talking about music and when I told him I was in a band, he asked ‘and what’s name your band ?

When I said Brian. I realised from the look on his face. He thought I’d name the group after him.

What is Ken Sweeney working on currently?

Setanta did want to do a third album but there were huge delays during

its recording.

For a start the producer I was using, mid-way through the album got

himself a manager who hadn’t been part of the original deal so we had

to wait for gaps in his calendar to get stuff done.

During the recording I was in negotiations with Setanta over my

publishing which led to at least one occasion where I got turfed out

of the studio because I wouldn’t sign my songs away.

One person was my label, publisher and manager which can lead to

certain conflicts,

I was working on Bring Trouble from 1996 but it didn’t come out till 1999.

In the meantime my life was on hold ..

Just after Bring Trouble came out I got a break into journalism. A lot

of journalists , particularly in Ireland were Brian fans and I got a

huge amount of help from them at the start. The years I had in bands

opened all sorts of doors.

It can be incredibly interesting, one morning last year I was flying

to London to interview The Flaming Lips.

The weird thing is the Brian stuff doesn’t go away. I was watching a

documentary on BBC4 about Jeff Buckley last year and ‘Understand’ popped up

in his record collection. A Brian fan became quite a respected

director in France and used some of my music in his film ‘Primrose

Hill’ .

 iTunes and Spotify have been great too, it’s kind of liberated the

music from the old CD’s and vinyl.  I get PRS statements for Brian

music and it gets played all over the place, particularly Finland for

some reason.

What direction do you see yourself headed in the near future?

Probably the wrong direction. (joke) Id love to make another record ,

I really would and I often play with the idea.

I’ve got some ideas but it’s really trying to find the time, a lot of

the energy I put into music now goes into work.

But you never know.

I have been very inspired in the last year by people creating these little home videos of Brian songs on You Tube. Setanta never had any money to make videos.

That people would care enough to do this after such a long time is quite touching and giving Brian tracks like ‘Getting Meaner’ (which I’d assumed had been overlooked) a chance to be heard which they never got at the time. Watching these videos has led to be listening to my music for the first time in years.

For more information on Ken Sweeney and Brian, check out Brian’s MySpace here http://www.myspace.com/brianonemanband

Sorry it’s taken so long to post this interview.  I hope the readers enjoy as I have getting to know Yves Altana a little better… 

“Only You Could Save Me”

Yves Altana is a multi-talented multi-instrumentalist playing guitar, keyboards and bass for among others The Chrysalids, Wonky Alice and Invincible.  He’s also worked as producer and engineer in the past and currently with up and coming bands in the UK, Germany and France.  Yves lives in Manchester, England with his wife Sally and son Ziggy.

Yves, I want to get one thing cleared up at the outset.  Napoleon Bonaparte is your great, great, great, great uncle, correct?  Sorry, a lame attempt at a joke since you both hail from Corsica.  For those readers who don’t know where Corsica is, can you give a brief geography lesson?

Hahaha! Very funny!  Corsica is an Island in the Mediterranean sea, above Sardinia. The island was invaded by the French around 1769.

What was life like growing up in Corsica?

Corsica is very family based (like in the Godfather), so life revolves around respect …and eating.

How did you become interested in music?

My grandfather played guitar when I was a child and there have always been guitars around the house.  It wasn’t long before I picked one up and began strumming it, playing at family get-togethers etc.

Can you recall your first 45 or LP you purchased?

Yes! The first 45 vinyl I bought was ‘Crazy Horses’ by the Osmonds in the mid-seventies.

Alrighty then.  We’ll just keep that between the two of us – oh and whoever reads this interview.  What was the first instrument you played?  Did you have any formal training or were you self taught?

Guitar, then later on the bass guitar when I formed my first band.  There was no bass player in town so I switched to bass…  I’m self-taught and have never had any formal training.

In 1981 you started playing in Corsican bands.  What kind of music were you playing back then?  Care to drop any names of the bands you played in?

I went to see a band called The Opposition in late 1981.  They were from London, the very first British band that ever played in Corsica. They played in a church in my home town of Ajaccio and inspired me to form a band.

The music we played was derived from The Opposition, bands like The Cure, Joe Jackson, The Stranglers, generally post-punk bands.  At that time, these bands were still very much underground.

You moved to London in 1983.  Why London?

My influences were British bands, so it didn’t make any sense form me to be in France.  With London being the capital of England, it seemed to be the obvious place to start.

1984 found you back in Corsica DJing at local clubs.  This is of special interest to me since I was spinning records here in Texas circa 1985-’86.  What were some of the 12″s and songs you enjoyed tossing on the turntables?

I decided to leave London and return to Corsica to recharge my batteries.  I had been squatting in London (Brixton, Portobello..) for too long and was pretty low.  My expectations had been so high and I didn’t find anybody to play with in London.  The language barrier played a big part in this.  I knew I was going to return to London and wanted to be more prepared the next time.

Before leaving Corsica, I was already Djing in discotheques in Ajaccio, so it was natural for me to return to this.  I specialised in playing alternative music, something no-one else in Corsica was doing at this time.  We attracted a mixed clientele including gangsters!   I enjoyed playing Killing Joke’s 12” version of ‘Love Like Blood’.  Echo and the Bunnymen 12” version of ‘The Killing Moon’ and bands like Talking Heads, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, The Stranglers, Tears for Fears, The Smiths, etc.

Ex-One Thousand Violins vocalist John Wood and yourself formed The Chrysalids in ’87.  I only discovered the “Violins” a few years ago while checking out the Vinyl Japan website and picking up a copy of Like One Thousand Violins.  Fine band that was.  Tell me how you and John got together and why The Chrysalids was so short lived.

On my return to London in the mid-80s, I decided to place an ad in Melody Maker looking for a singer in order to form a band.  This was how I met John.  We soon decided to move to Manchester to be able to find other musicians to form The Chrysalids.  The band stayed together for 4 years, so it wasn’t that short-lived.  We gigged constantly for 3 years. John Lever of The Chameleons joined us in the last year. It was a strange time really as we were playing to an audience who expected that “Madchester” sound that we didn’t have at all. It was at times quite frustrating!

Around the same time you moved to Manchester where you still reside today.  Wow what a music city!  Some of the best talent has emerged from that part of Northern England – particularly The Chameleons, Durutti Column, The Fall, Smiths, Railway Children and of course Joy Division.  Was this rich history and fertile creative ground what drew you to Manchester?

Being a big fan of most bands that you mention, I decided to move out of London.  Manchester was a more welcoming, friendlier place than the capital. Even though we left Manchester in 2002, we decided to move back early last year 2009 so yes, of course, it certainly wasn’t for the weather!  

In the late 80′s you began engineering and producing material.  Was this something you had always wanted to try?  How was the transition from performing music to working on the mixing board, etc?

I have always been interested in recording my own demos, as do most musicians. This was just a natural progression for me – learning how to use technology to be more creative, especially with the arrival of midi computers such as the Atari ST / Cubase in the late 80s.

From 1991-1993 you produced, mixed, co-wrote and performed in a band called Wonky Alice.  First, explain what is a “Wonky Alice”?  How did this group come together?  What is your favourite material and fondest memory(s) of Wonky Alice?

Wonky Alice is just the name of the band.  It wasn’t named after a mad girl from the neighbourhood

The group emerged from Oldham (on the outskirts of Manchester) and I joined them when their guitarist walked out. I met them when they came to the studio where I was recording demos at the time.

My favourite Wonky material was unfortunately never even released but I suppose the first 12” single “Insect and Astronauts” is my fav of our releases.  There was a great chemistry within the band and that was very powerful. We were a great live band.

My fondest memory was of a fight at a gig in Halifax (Yorkshire).  People were fighting in front of the stage (!) unplugging our FXs pedals etc, so I started joining in, kicking them!!! It added something to the show!

Of course my brother Jon and I visited with you and Mark Burgess before your show in Dallas in 2007.  Tell the story of how you went searching for Mark and ended up at his parent’s house.

At that time, being a huge fan of The Chameleons, I realised my home was ½ a mile away from Middleton, so… me being too spontaneous I went to bang on his parents door just to say hello and ended up having a cup of tea and biscuits with his mum.

Was it a mutual admiration that brought you and Mark together?  Explain your working relationship as well as your friendship with Mr. Burgess.

Yes and no. Mark got in touch through Pomona Records (the Rochdale based label that signed Wonky Alice) as he was looking for a guitar player with a view to playing some Chameleons songs for the last time, during his Zima Junction era.

Our mutual admiration comes from sharing a similar interest and influence in various bands such as Bowie, T-Rex, Sparks.

1995 marked the release of Paradyning, which happens to be one of my favorite albums.  Relate your experiences writing and recording this album.

I was brought in as a Producer/Arranger for Mark’s next album.  Most of the songs were already written on an acoustic guitar, so my involvement was that of developing the whole musical ideas, writing drums and instrument arrangements resulting in the album Paradyning.

The Bardots from East Anglia and 1995′s V-Neck.  How did you get asked to play on this LP?

When the album “Atomic Raindance” of Wonky Alice was released, we shared a UK tour with The Bardots.  This is how we met.  A year later they asked me to join the band when their guitarist walked out.  They asked me if I’d be interested in producing their next album as I was already working with the band.  I ended up recording, producing and playing on V-Neck. It was a great achievement. I still really love the songs from this album.

You produced The Convent’s 3rd release Crashed Cars & Love Letters in 1996.  How was it working with this German band?

In a word: Fun

I’d met Carlo through Mark when we played in Germany and they asked me to produce their album.

It was quite different to work with The Convent.  It was the first time they recorded using real drums, the drummer wasn’t very good but we worked hard and achieved something quite different than what they expected… I think.

1998 saw you and Mark back in the studio recording Venus as Invincible. For my 2 cents worth, “Think (It’s Going To Happen)”, “Only You Could Save Me” and “Verboten” are the best tracks, but overall it’s a well conceived and executed album.  How did you feel about the end product?

Just after the release of “Venus” of Invincible Mark walked away and reformed The Chameleons so for obvious and personal matters we simply couldn’t carry on working together. It was a shock.

I decided to get away from the UK and stay away from any musical projects.

I didn’t touch a guitar for about 5 years.

After the sudden death of a very close friend, I received a call from Mark to ask me if I would be interested in playing a few shows to coincide his “Boomerang” compilation CD album (The Chameleons split again).

We ended up touring the UK as the main support for New Model Army. I could not believe I was going to play those songs from the “Venus” album once again. It was the main reason that I agreed to join him.

What can you tell us about Black Swan Lane?

I can’t really tell you much about Black Swan Lane… Mark was already involved in this project with main songwriter Jack Sobel. I was asked to jam on a couple of tracks and they ended up on an album. I wasn’t even aware these recordings were going to be publicly released… and to be totally honest, I wasn’t ‘close’ enough to any of the songs and I don’t understand why I’m credited for playing guitar on the album, I played 30 seconds on one or two of the tracks.

Catch us up on what’s been happening with you of late.

Since the US tour in March 2007, I’ve heard twice from Mark Burgess; once to ask me to play the drums (!) when The Sun and The Moon reformed to play a “Versus Cancer” charity event at The Ritz in Manchester in May 2008 and the second time was in July 2009 when he decided to call himself “Chameleons Vox” with a view to playing yet again Chameleons songs. I wasn’t interested in being involved with the project.

I am currently working as a Self Employed audio producer/engineer/composer working at Vibe Studios and other Manchester based recording studios and composing music for a new game called Hydrophobia which is going to be available later on this year for Microsoft Xbox.

I am also playing some shows with a Manchester band called I Am Kloot, playing electric guitar for their European tour Oct/Nov 2010.

I have a son called Ziggy (“Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars” being one of the most important album of all times)

Ziggy is totally adorable. He’s now 2 years old.

Yves Altana – October 2010

The swimming pool, open air, an old barrel wash. If the water was clear it had just been filled up from the spring and would be freezing. If it wasn’t clear it was warmer. Goodness only knows what had warmed it up! Getting a penny to buy some sweets. Singing in church choirs. Not enjoying school. Enjoying listening to music. Still not enjoying school. Going to the local youth club (with a pub just around the corner).
 
Do you recall the name(s) of the local record shops you frequented as a youth/teen?  What music were you into at the time?

The only record shop in town was The Music Centre run by a lady called Bev and they only had a smallish collection of pop/ rock albums. The other place to buy records was Woolworths.
I guess pre ’76 I was in to contemporary rock, Zep, Floyd, Yes , Free, Bowie etc. Then The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Jam arrived, I could actually play these songs! 
 
You play the guitar.  Self taught or music school?  Any other instruments you’ve played?

Self taught on the guitar having scraped away for some years on a violin and trying a bit of piano along the way. However, my biggest passion is singing, can’t remember a time when I haven’t sung or had music in my head, never needed a walkman or should I say i-pod.
 
What was the first band you played in?

My first band was called Fine Jade, named after a house I used to lug my guitar and amp past on the way to a friend’s house to rehearse. I think we only ever did one gig where we played the three songs we knew over and over again. I didn’t sing in this band as we couldn’t afford a mic stand.
 
Tell me about The Spires.  Who was in the band and what kind of music did you play?

Named after the biggest thing in town, the 275 ft church spire, the main nucleus of the band were me on guitar and vocals, Andy Dalton on bass with Paul Barratt on drums. Initially we had a second guitarist and vocalist, Malcom Oxborrow who we asked to leave as he wouldn’t shave his beard off! Facial hair wasn’t cool in ’77. Soon after we were joined by backing vocalist Lynne Claricoats. We wrote our own songs and were quite influenced by The Police and Elvis Costello with a dash of punk thrown in for good measure.
 
Okay, let’s bridge the past and present just a bit and bring you up to when you and Ian Campbell met.  Describe the “genesis” of Still Life.

Ian and me met at school or should I say through school friends. I left school aged 16, Ian joined the same school for the sixth form and a mutual friend introduced us. Ian was left “home alone” by his parents and a group of us, all into music, used to spend hours at his house trying to record Barbara Anne before penning our own songs “Do the Brian Jones” and “Bend Over Baby and I’ll Drive You Home”. We became a song writing partnership with Ian supplying the lyrics and me writing the tunes.
 
Explain your signing to Funzone Productions and how you were approached by Richard Ogden.

For one of “The Spires” recording sessions we asked local “star” Bram Tchaikovsky (ex Motors) to produce us. Richard was Bram’s manager and they both paid for further demos in a London studio. Richard rang soon after to say he liked the songs but not the band. A tough choice with much agonising.
 
Talk a little about the difference in recording and production of music onto album in the early 80′s vs. today.

Everything was recorded onto tape with all parts played from the beginning to the end of a song. Edits were made by marking the tape with a chinagraph then cutting it with a razor blade before splicing it back together with sticky tape. All synth parts were generally played, sequencers were very basic and MIDI didn’t exist. Every piece of gear had a knob for every function rather than multiple menus. Recording was generally a process of getting a good take rather than recording lots of takes and compiling the finished article.
 
The 12″ ‘Away From This Town’ is I believe my only vinyl copy of anything on Regard Records.  How did you come to sign with Regard?  Were there other artists on that label?

We did demos for EMI, spoke to Chrysalis and Regard. We went with Regard as they offered us the best deal, allowing us to keep our publishing rights and were run as a subsidiary of RCA by former CBS MD David Betteridge. Their most well know signing Haysi Fantayzee had a single called “John Wayne is Big Leggy”. Also on their books were a band of pretty boys called Ca Va Ca Va and some time later a band called One the Juggler.
 
I was pleasantly surprised after reading a little about you that Mathew Seligman, ex-Soft Boy and Anne Dudley (Art of Noise) both played on ‘Away From This Town’.  Did you feel you needed 2 bass players?

After Matthew had put his part down it was decided that the bass end of the song needed a bit more oomph to it, so Anne Dudley appeared with a mini moog in an old brown suitcase to double it up.
 
Was the song written based on personal experience?

The initial lyrics were about a contemporary at school who would go on to inherit his dad’s business, but I think, although you’d have to ask Ian for the definitive answer, that it was just a made up scenario about a boy and a girl.
 
The b-side is ‘Teenage Fun’.  A commentary on youth?
Was Funzone or Regard in high or low promotion mode with this single?

A commentary on youth, teenage angst but no regrets!
I don’t think being Regard’s third release helped our cause, maybe the money had run out, but they didn’t seen to do much with it.
 
Radio 1 obviously liked what they heard and began playing it on their Round Table programme.  What was the “Round Table”?  Don’t tell me there were DJ’s named Arthur or Lance on the show.

Round Table was a sort of radio version of Juke Box Jury where a panel of celebs passed comment on new releases and then, I think, voted then a hit or a miss. As far as I know no knights ever appeared on the programme. I seem to remember the singer of The Associates being on the panel when our song was reviewed and it also being a first airing of Musical Youth’s “Pass the Dutchie”.

Why were there not more copies made of the 12″?

I think Regard thought it would take them some time to get airplay for the single but it actually came (and went), very quickly. Too quickly, I think, for them to get any records pressed. I always thought it was quite a good 12” section, compiled by Ian and me at home splicing sections of tape together that we’d brought from the studio and adding further parts over the top.
 
Other songs you had recorded like ‘Tired of Dancing’, ‘Like A Statue’ and ‘Little Innocent’ were never released.  Was this a result of a lack of interest/effort by Regard?

We parted company with Regard soon after recording these songs for them and I think they owned the recordings for some time after.
 
You left Regard and you and Ian recruited Mark Reeves on keyboards, Tim Bradley on bass and Paul Barratt playing drums.  Explain how you guys met and the ensuing chemistry, or lack of henceforth.

Mark was seen by our producer playing in a Brighton band called “Birds With Ears”, Tim answered a Melody Maker ad and Paul had played in all my previous bands. Not sure we ever developed a great chemistry as a band and the whole thing folded when Tim threw a Pukka Pie at Mark in the back of my car. I think I sold the car with the pie still stuck to the back seat!
 
Your second single, ‘My World’ b/w ‘Passion Play’ was released on Funzone.  How did you feel about this pairing on a disc and the end product?

I seem to remember we went into the studio to record “Passion Play” and another song but ended up recording a song we’d just written, “My World” that our manager decided would be our “Vienna”. The end product I felt suffered from a much lower budget, Funzone was a label set up by our manager. I think Ian and me paid for most of the recording of this single from our PRS income.
 
I found it very interesting that as Still Life you played several gigs in support of Culture Club.  Was this a “Funzone” idea or did you have a longing to get close to Boy George?  Ok, that was a cheap shot.  Sorry, but seriously, how was Boy George?

We played a few gigs with Culture Club but were not actually on tour with them ,so we turned up to the venues in a hired transit van, sitting on deckchairs in the back, in time to watch their road crew sound checking, they turned up just in time to play and left as soon as they came offstage. I never actually met Boy George, although Ian and Mark did speak to him briefly. We did meet the other members of the band, Jon Moss, Roy Hay and Mikey Craig.
 
‘Passion Play’ was reworked to be the single.  What feedback from radio or the public did you get that this was the better song?

Feedback was from a record plugger employed by Funzone and from our manager’s industry friends who felt it was a better choice being more up tempo. Interestingly it was yet another story about a boy and a girl, only this time from Ian’s real life experience.
 
Nick Griffiths who’s known for his work with Pink Floyd remixed the single.  Did you enjoy working with him?

Really enjoyed working with Nick at our local studio The Chapel. We remixed “Passion Play”, recorded “Everyday is Sunday” and “Deep Water” and did about ten other songs as “live” demos specifically for A&M. On the three main tracks Nick got us to use some of the interesting instruments that were lurking in the studio to try and give things a more organic sound, rather than just using the synth sounds we’d employed on our home demo.  He also played one of the guitar parts on “Deep Water”.

Then Tim and Paul left the band.  Any reasons in particular?

I can’t remember quite why Paul left, probably because like Ian he’s a lifelong friend who I’m in regular contact with and this was just one of many incidents we’ve shared in our lives. Tim, however, left the band to get a job with British Coal so he could get married, just as Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill were locking horns and the industry was about to be destroyed. Bad timing I guess.
 
Did you feel things were falling apart when Ian decided to move away?

Yes!
 
So that was it for Still Life?  Are there any future plans to re-release any of your material?

Not to my knowledge, but I have just found some very old 4 track demos, mixes of which I’ll be releasing to Ian!
 
The next group you were in was Orange.  Not the color of the group or the fruit, but the name.  Did you have any releases?  Was the music style similar to Still Life?

We did some demos but didn’t have any releases. The style was very different to Still Life a funky/bluesy three piece with me on guitar and vocals, Carl Watson (ex Dogs d’Amour) on bass and Simon Hanson (currently with Squeeze) on the drums.
 
More recently you have moved into teaching.  Expound on this career move and how it feeds your passion.

Actually for me this has been a great move. I work as a self-employed guitar tutor mainly in local primary schools and currently have about 150 pupils aged from 5 to 16 and get to strum, sing and share some of my favourite songs with them. I’m also employed by Access to Music at their college in Lincoln where I work with school leavers, teaching them vocals and music tech. I get great pleasure seeing young people developing both as musicians and individuals and feel I’m giving something back to music, something I continue to derive great, possibly ever increasing pleasure from.
 
You still play in a “covers” band.  Do you play any of your own material?

Sadly no, the band is a function band and plays mainly to the same people in different marquees around the Lincolnshire Wolds. However, unlike Still Life, we have developed a great chemistry and thoroughly enjoy our gigs especially the improvised bits and normally have most of those present leaping around to us and then sitting down for a rest when the disco’s on.
 
Talk about your family.  Do you still have the donkey?

Wonkey the donkey is still with us as are the horse, dogs, cat and tortoise. Animals are my wife’s passion. Nearly forgot to mention, we also have two boys, both really into music, but while both have dabbled with guitar it doesn’t seem to be a passion for them.
 
You now live in Belchford, UK.  Ok, I can’t resist, was the town named for a certain indigestion problem that ran rampant at one time?

Possibly.
Actually it’s a small village with only 250 residents famous now for “The Belchford Downhill Challenge”.

I must say I truly enjoyed listening to your new material on your My Space as well as new-er versions of older songs.  Readers can listen to and find out more about Still Life on Jon’s Still Life page.
 
Thanks Jon.