PEL Presents NEM#249: Kavus Torabi Now Leads Gong

0:00You are listening to Nick and the Exam in Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark Linton-Mire. My guest for episode 249 is Kavis Torabi. He made his name in the London Math Rock scene in the 90s with his band Monsoon Bassoon. He eventually joined the Cardiacs. In their final lineup, you're right now hearing a Ditsy scene, a 2007 single that he co-wrote with Cardiacs leader Tim Smith. The four Tims' health made that band unable to continue. As that was falling apart, he put together a solo project which eventually became his band Knife World. And while that was going on, in 2014, he joined the legendary Prague Rock band dating back

1:00to the 60s Gong. After one album with them, the leader of that band David Allen passed away and with David's blessing, Kavis became the new lead singer. Gong has just released their sixth album featuring Kavis Bright Spirit Hollix, so we'll be talking about the song. Stars in Heaven from that record, then we'll talk about a Knife World song from 2014, then Tim C. Worthy, from their second out of four albums, The Unraveling. Kavis has also released two albums under his own name. We'll discuss it. You broke my fall from the first of those albums, 2020's Hip to the Jag, and we'll say goodbye by listening to Wise Guy, the 1998 single by the Monsoon Bassoon, that was his first real taste of success. Now Kavis has been in several other bands. He's collaborated with retired snooker player Steve Davis to host a radio show and then release several albums as the Utopia Strong for the rest of Kavis's story.

2:00You should just look him up on Wikipedia. And he has a bandcamp.com pages for his own name, for Gong, for Knife World, and for the Utopia Strong. So find more of his music there. For more about this podcast, please see make it the examine music.com. Support the effort and get an ad free feed in my detailed notes on the songs you're going to hear for the patreon.com slash make it lead the examine music. I will play it a little bit of Ditsy scene, the 2007 single by the Cardiacs, the last gasp of that band before the singer was unable to operate, but eventually was released the whole album in 2025, right? That's right, yep. We're going to get pretty quickly to the new stuff. Obviously there's a lot of things way before the Cardiacs. We're going to hear at the end some of them on soon, but soon we want to get right to the current thing that you're promoting, which is the new Gong album stars in heaven, the single that I had picked off of that. Yeah, do you want to say anything about this sort of journey briefly, briefly, getting

3:01to Gong here? It's been a really crazy journey. I mean, I've always wanted to play music. I was doing band school, well I left school, I started my own band, you know, which we toured mildly a little bit, made cassette EPs, that sort of thing. There was a dilaphing, the metal band was dilaphing, yeah. I just heard that today. I discovered the sound cloud that had some of these old things that, and you're not singing because there was a singer that sings like this. Exactly. It was not me singing. And then, you know, it moved up to London, did a new band with one of the guys from dilaphing Dan. And really, that band was the monsoon bassoon. And I think that first single we put out, the first single we ever done was in 1998, Wise Guy. I mean, that band, but particularly that song, because it felt like we really found ourselves in that song. And I feel like that song really kickstarted the next 30, 35 years of my musical career. And without going through all the different bands and projects and records I've made, I think that I can definitely hear a through line between what we found with Wise Guy and what I brought to Gong and what maybe Gong is doing, or has been doing for the last

4:0510 years. I definitely hear the DNA that we started back in 1998. And kind of most of what I do really, but I'm now really down to three main projects, including Gong. It's Gong and my solo stuff and a band called The Utopia Strong. And those are really, since about 2018, these have really been my three main focuses. And each one has a very different way of working, but I'm able to put myself completely into each one. And each one has different results, but I can feel as much of myself in all three of those things. It's been quite a crazy path getting there, which includes Cardiacs and Band Knife World and Guapo and a few other things as well. Do you have a few words to say about Stars in Heaven before they hear it? Stars in Heavens from the new Gong album Bright Spirit. This song I would say came largely from the drummer Cheb Nettles. He brought this tune or the basis of it and then we worked on the arrangement together. He had a vocal melody for it, but I just couldn't really make it work for me. So I modified the melody a bit and wrote the words, but the starting point for this

5:07one was a Cheb tune. It just has a very up vibe and I wanted to write a lyric that felt justified, you know, that almost like the classic nature of the tune. I wanted to write something that felt sort of universal, lyrically. And that's what sort of birthed this one. You've got my vessel, you've stars in Heaven and me, how you all would feel now.

6:14Brakes up, so waiting, blanks, waiting, inside me, how you all would feel. A tender morning, and this glad dawn, and all my earthly sorrows do I need. Parties are sampling, bright spirit traveling, the sun and moon, like golden silver leaf, swept down the wind I had seen from my desire to chase me onto one full spell my game. Ecrash and stars are calling, and with me voices calling, set my greeny heart above you. And with me voices calling, and all the stars in Heaven and me, how you all would feel.

7:20It's a moment, love, and love now, and love, but I would dare waste a moment from my death, but I should never, every breath will get some miracle, I'll say. I've run out of light, this world is all inside, but I need mine, I wish to leave from the night, I'll strengthen my chance, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever, forever.

8:36When you care for the stars in heaven, family to the earth, it's a moment now and now and in a way, but I've been dead, I wish that my life's gonna get back to normal. I think that if we get some miracle, I'll survive. So very, very high energy wall of sound here. I was surprised there's not more instrumental to it, right? I'm just hearing basically two guitars, bass and drums, but then horns come in and things later. But it seems you get a lot of oomph out of that. Are you playing both guitars or you have another guitarist in the band at this point?

9:37No, no, there's another guitar player Fabio Colfetti. He does the solo on this one as well. We both have very different styles. So it's nice and calm, whatever we come up with, they seem to fit together nicely, but I'm much more of an angular sort of player. He's much more of a rounded sort of curve he player, if you will. So he's doing all the little chimie stuff. I think we both are. We're both doing that chimie stuff. Well, just there was a sort of chimie lead. And then I wrote dreamy, tinny chords. It seems like if you're playing while singing, that's probably you're doing the rhythm, I say, in quotes. The way I play, because I'm kind of wired up weird, is I tend to sing while playing the angular stuff. That's really being something that I've always done. I've always been able to, you know, sometimes even play in a different meter. I could be, you know, I've done sometimes where you've sort of playing in 5, 8, or playing a 7, 8 on the guitar, but singing in 4, 4 over the top of it. So that's just something I've kind of going right back, actually, to when I've really first started doing stuff in my teens,

10:39I've just always drawn towards doing that kind of thing. Let me play the first little break here, 37 seconds. These little melody parts were these things that Chad was coming in with, or these are things that you were adding, or the fact that I'm hearing the horn as the main thing doing it. It's already writing their own parts, how it ranged. Basically, it was like Chad came in with the chords and the melody, and then we came up with sort of all together, the arrangement around it, and each of us would write different melodic parts. I can't remember if that was Chad or me, or it was Ian. That's what happens with Gong, is that we'll have this basis of something, and then we'll all sort of alter it, and add to it, and subtract from it, until we end up with what we end up with. And is this all done basically in a rehearsal room, or are you making demos and sending them to each other? It's done in a rehearsal room, on this album, in fact. We operate it slightly different. The way we've often work in the past is that really, whatever gets come up with in the environment of being together,

11:42that's what we work on, so that's what becomes Gong. I tend to generate a lot of ideas and some ideas, so if I'm doing that in the presence of the other guys, then that's what we work on, and what's good about that is that you don't have enough time to get kind of attached to what you've written, and then start feeding pressures about it, because you've just come up with it, so you just come up with this idea, and then everybody's like, oh, well, maybe we could repeat that, or be able to start playing along. What was a bit different about this album is because we didn't have time to do that, initially, we were under more of a deadline. This one, it was a case of going home and writing stuff, and bringing it to the band, so in the case of at least two songs on the album, what I did is I did, not exactly a demo, because I stopped doing demos anyway, because I think they're a bad idea, which I can talk about later on, but what I would do with a demo normally, certainly with my old band, Knifeworld, is that I would record all the parts, or else I would play the parts, like on a keyboard or something, so everyone could hear what their parts are, but that's not how Gong works, so in terms of doing a demo,

12:42for some of these tunes, all ideas I just recorded my guitar part and my voice, and then presented it to them so that they could come up with their own parts over that. But as I said, the downside to that being, as did happen this time around, I started to get quite attached to some of the way I was thinking about things, and start thinking a little bit more, I don't want to say rigidly, but you become more precious about the tunes, which caused a little bit of anguish. And I think the same thing with Cheb with Stars in Heaven is that, you know, he had an idea about how this, he wanted this song to go, and then once it comes to the band, that gets changed. Certainly in terms of, you know, the vocal melody, I just couldn't make out his melody work for me, so I modified it. So that could be a bit difficult if you brought the idea in, so I think it, for me, in Gong anyway, I think it's better. Whatever we get over the line in the end, we always make sure we're 100% with, but I think the process of making it is more enjoyable when everything is just born in that one space together, sort of thing. But I think this album proved that we could do it the other way as well. Well, let me play the section right after the one I played, so this is a verse.

13:52Obviously, there's odd time signatures. Is it 7-4 for the main refrain, and then it's like 7-8 for this section or something? I think it's in 5, isn't it? I mean, honestly, I just feel them all. That's the funny thing. It all sounds like 4-4 to me. It all sounds like, I don't think of this one as being in a funny meter. That's the masterful use of time signatures. Is it, even if it's take 5 or something? Well, then you're still establishing a groove, and they're still doing 4-4 type gestures. It's just, we're going to skip a beat at the end of something, or a half a beat. I mean, that's something that I've always been into. I've always been into playing in unusual meters, not as a deliberate thing. I just tend to write in kind of 5s and 7s or 11s and 13s and stuff, not to say that I don't write in 4, 6, and 9s as well, but you know, I do like unusual meters. I do like playing poly rhythms over them, so do the rest of the guys in Gong. And as it turns out, Gong has a history of that. So if anything, I think this was maybe a good reason for, or one of the reasons a good thing for David Allen to get me into the band is I'd already been into doing this kind of thing.

14:55So we're a band that really likes doing that, and we're a band that feels comfortable doing it. But I think you will be here in certainly in Prague, or in certain types of Prague. You'll hear like, it's almost like sometimes playing in an unusual meter. It gets underlined and put in capital letters, and it gets a bit too, almost like it's trying to prove a point. So I like the slippery nature of an unusual meter, but I like it to feel like it grooves. I never want it to feel like it's like deliberately obtuse or deliberately awkward. So like you said, yeah, it's about trying to make everything sound like it was in full four sort of thing. The change in tone between the main refrain, which is sort of almost a big chotun anthem, sort of, you know, arena rock, and then we have this kind of light little... And we had the transition to get us between these. Yet it doesn't seem like the lyrics don't change in tone. It's still this sort of flowery you got. Well, you tell me, was it just Chad brought in these two sections,

15:58and you were trying to come up with a tone that would work between them? It's funny hearing it analyzed like this, because this feels like kind of what we do. He sort of came in with these sections, some worked, some didn't work. We just assembled them and moved them around, and all between the five of us got this song. I mean, I can't quite sort of remember what the process was. I mean, it just felt like this is how we sort of do stuff. It just sounds like, oh yeah, that's how the verse goes, and that's how the bridge goes, and that's how the chorus goes, sort of thing. Well, just in terms of the lyrics themselves. So the second half of the refrain sort of makes sense tonally to me. I wouldn't dare waste a moment. Every breath through gets a miracle. You know, this sort of lust for life grabbing. But then, why would you care if all the stars haven't fell into it? The thing that you actually lead off with, it's all cold and lonely. Tell us about those two sentiments put together. It's me talking to myself. I mean, we all have our tragedies, and I've had a pretty tough few years. And it's me reminding myself, you know, one point in my recent past. I felt just utterly dejected, just really, really like I couldn't see the point.

17:01Of course, you've got to find a way through it. It beats the alternative. You know, I've not finding a way through it and giving up. It's me talking to myself that you can take the attitude of why would you care of all the stars. You know, that is a cold and lonely world. But come on. Is it? You're really going to let these things like define who you are. So it's a conversation with myself. I don't know if that, I mean, if it's not obvious, that's also fine. You know, I like that. It's set up a premise and then returned it with positivity rather than the other way around. Well, and it's all, you know, very sort of classical poetry. You guide my vessel. Brave sons are waiting. Lights radiating. I wonder what the sort of tone and philosophy, right? Obviously, Rush had a very specific point of view. Yes. Maybe you don't know what the lyrics are, but they're all very like, oh, we worship the sun, kind of thing. I will defend John Anderson's lyrics. I really will. If we get, you know, as ludicrous as they are, I also feel like, yeah, we're fair enough. They're wonderful, totally. And that amazing voice doing them, you know, it's just,

18:03I mean, I wouldn't have written them. But I'm glad that he did, you know. But gone with David, you know, I always had a lot more humor in it. And I hear a lot of sort of Sid Barrett in some of the gestures that you do. I don't know if lyrically or just totally or the sound of your voice. Do you feel like there had to be a continuity, if not in the actual philosophy, but in the tone of the lyrics that you write versus the history of Gong, like so, oh, now I'm in Gong mode in terms of the lyrics. Or it's just, you're just doing what you do. I'd always, or at least, you know, since I was a teenager, written my own lyrics and written music. And increasingly, maybe when I was a teenager, you know, when you had lessons, tried to put the world to rights. And I just wasn't very good at trying to put the world to rights. I was not very good at that. So my lyrics became much more personal and more autobiographical, particularly as I got into my 30s. And when I came to Gong, and when I came to Fronting Gong, and writing the lyrics and having to be the front person, it felt like I couldn't bring my autobiographical lyrics to it.

19:05Because that's not what Gong's about. Before I had been, certainly with Knifeworld, that I was doing before Gong, that was my band. I was writing all the parts. It was, you know, I was putting myself into everything about it. So I could write about, you know, what had been going on in my life. And I'd been going through some pretty interesting times. So it's able to write about that. But with Gong, it felt not right to Gong to do that. So while it wasn't all of what David did, I mean, David had created the whole Gong mythology with the octave doctors and the pot head pixies and planet Gong and, you know, radio-nome, zero-the-hero, that thing. And although that's not where he was at when I knew him, and it's not where he was at with Gong, he did have this sort of humorous approach. Now I'm not really able to do that. Or not in a way that I feel would be sincere. It would be kind of bogus if I did it. Or if I tried to do it, if I tried to affect the same kind of brilliant wordplay he had, I think you would see through it, and I would anyway. I wouldn't be able to be sincere about it.

20:06But I didn't want to sort of write necessarily about myself directly or what was going on in my life. So I saw what was at the heart of what David was doing was, you know, the whole kind of Gong concept was inspired by a acid trip and by his mystical visions. I thought, well, I can use Gong then as a platform to sing about my psychedelic visions and my idea of mysticism and my experience of trying to make peace with mortality and trying to get my head around and understand and throw my arms around death really and the otherworldly and the magical and bring to Gong, use Gong as a platform for that. And so because of being in Gong, it made me far less self-conscious about that sort of stuff. I used to sort of talk about those sort of things in quite kind of hidden or quite sort of obnoxious. It sort of obtuse way. And I've been able to be more upfront about that. And because of that, I think it's made me sort of grow as an artist

21:08and as a performer and maybe as a communicator. But in terms of those sort of lyrics, I think generally, well, probably the last few years, but definitely each record I make not just with Gong, but with my own stuff as well. I think that the lyrics are becoming more sort of, I don't want to say romantic, but more like that kind of language. I love that kind of language to write words with. I like the sound of it to sing. I like the ambiguity of certain phrases. And it has almost like a hymnlike quality, which I've been getting really into. I've just noticed this being something that's definitely happened in the last five to 10 years, more. And it's kind of growing in my words or going in that direction. And I'm just sort of going with them. I don't want to bring them back and make them more matter of fact in real life. I did that. And it's why I was in my way back then. Now I'm feeling the pull of this kind of language, if you will. So even though you're not trying to match David's style that he, at least in the latter day, was providing some sort of model

22:09and the band provides this venue that it is natural to be able to use flowery. It's this very theatrical, whimsical, high energy, spiritual stuff. Yes. In fact, let me play a little of the instrumental break. I mean, just the name Gong. Right? It sounds like you're going to play Gong and have the singing bowl and things like that. But in this section, it reminded me of that. So beautiful Citar-like kind of run. I assume that's you doing that. Yeah, that is. That's me. Well, the pound, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, that's Fabio playing that. And it's me doing the, or kind of Citar-y, but yeah. Yeah. So any thought about that moment choreographing that? We already had that tune when we recorded it. It just felt like, why not?

23:10You know, sometimes there's something really ostentatious about rock music, I think. And it's like, we've already had the stacked up harmonies. We've had this big breezy uplifting, sort of like, as you say, almost like power pop kind of vibe. Let's really go for it. It's a JONG Citar as well. Just, it, to me, it felt like, if we talk about like humor, that's, that was a humor side to it. It just feels like, yeah, go ahead then. Go ahead and have it. We're not, you know, who are we kidding? Kind of thing. So yeah, that really makes me smile at it. And the last bit, I want to highlight. So getting out of the guitar solo, you've got this fast little seven eighth note run and modulate to a new key. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Any thoughts on the choice of that key to move to? Oh, that was, that was the dirty trick. Okay. And that was a dirty trick. I refer to it and I have been referring to it for the past 30 years as the dirty trick.

24:10And I've never, almost never used the dirty trick before. The reason I call it dirty trick, you used to call it like the Eurovision Song Contest trick. What it is is, you know, you'll have a chorus. You used to get this. Do you know about Eurovision Song Contest? A little bit. Yes. It's that kind of really corny thing where each country in Europe submit to song and become quite a camp and sort of kitschy thing now. But I used to watch it growing up. You know, it was always pretty corny. Or the Abba, Abba won with Waterloo in the late 70s. That was there. But there used to be something you'd notice in these where the final chorus would always go up a semi-tone or a tone. And I call it the dirty trick because even the most sort of bland chorus, or even the most sort of very unexciting chorus, if you shift it up by a tone or a semi-tone, it kind of falls you into thinking, oh, that was nice. That was, you know, and I call it a dirty trick. I would normally avoid it, but when you were... Okay, so that is the same key change that it's here. Because I thought for some reason it was going down, that it was going somewhere else.

25:12I think I was from an E to an F. But when we were going through it in rehearsal, I just said, I said, guys, can we just try the dirty trick? You know, can we do it? It was disputed, but we got it, you know, me and Chad agreed as well. But I wanted it to then go back down again. I wanted to go back down to an E for an extra chorus at the end. But it was deemed not that enough. So I got the dirty trick in, but you know what? I'm glad we did because I've used it very sparingly in my career. But I'm glad we got it through on this one. You wouldn't do it on every song, but it is fun. So you've mentioned Knife World, your solo band. Let's get a second song out on the table there. The one that I picked, sent him Sea Worthy from the 2014 album, The Unraveling. This is a bit longer, you know, most of the gong songs are pretty long, but we picked a short one. This one is six and a half minutes. But of some very accessible beat-a-less kind of melodic gestures. Also with the on-time signature. Also with some strange tonal changes between verse and, you know, various sections.

26:16And the interesting parallels between this and the gong arrangement, even though obviously it's not the same people. And it's a different era. Yeah, any thoughts about this before we hear it? I really love this tune. I loved doing that band. It was a great band. And this whole album The Unraveling was a really big one for me, as well as a key. The lyrics were a really big deal because they were about Tim Smith of Cardiacs, who at that time was six years into his sort of, well, I talk of it as being a half-life in the song. That was very difficult for everybody around him to deal with and for him as well. This goes into what was talking about earlier about writing or to biographically. The first time I really sort of put it down quite explicitly that this was about Tim and about what had happened and how it felt, how sort of devastating it was. With nautical imagery. It's still, it's still. Do you know what? That's another thing going back to the romance of lyrics. I've always had nautical imagery in songs that I've done quite a few in gong with nautical imagery as well.

27:19And with Knife World and my old band. And I'd like to say it's because I grew up by the sea in Plymouth. Maybe that's got something to do with it. But I've never really been much of a sailor or anything. But there's something about the sea and about that it can become. It can be stormy. I love the imagery of it. And I love a good nautical adventure. So it seemed like a very good analogy for what was going on with Tim. I'd recently met three years or whatever, four years earlier. I'd met Chloe Harrington, a bassoonist. And she placed many instruments, not just bassoon. But I'd always wanted to have bassoon in a band. That was a massive fan of that. No, no bassoon in monsoon, bassoon. No, bassoon in monsoon, bassoon, exactly. But I always wanted to bassoon. There was a clarinet and sax and the flute, but no bassoon. But I was a huge fan of Lindsay Cooper, who played in Henry Cowell. And the universe zero had a bassoon. And also all that mother stuff, you know, all those classic mothers of invention albums, particularly like Uncle Meet. And Bert Winnie Sandwich just sort of loved that thick woodie bassoon sound.

28:22So as soon as I met Chloe and she paid a bassoon, it was like, oh God, do you want to join my band? That I'm putting together. I love writing that line that she plays, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's that line that she plays. That's, that's just, as I say, where I met. It's certainly where I was at in 2014. It was to hear that played over a, like you say, over this sort of like a time Beatles-esque descending chords and stuff. To get to write that bassoon part and tend to hear Chloe play it back was just magic.

29:30And I was stunned to reason, never set themselves ablaze. I'll put go in the sails today, just towards the other vessels, cut through the waves. Caut to troll around 11 knots. There's nothing to hide home about. All that stuff I've said is true. I really mean that I just can't face up to what's happening with you here. Now we are all dead. In a half-life, nice we come to say it away from me. In a dungeon,

30:30all that beauty locked in a cell with me. At least it meant hit the waves again. I can't adjust the run-up right out of the board. I never knew you'd capsize my friend. I said to rule my brother, I thought you'd be restored. In a half-life, nice we come to say it away from me. All that is so hard to reach, here's new to me, shipwrecked and beached here. In a dungeon,

31:31all that beauty locked in a cell with me. I'll walk through my edges, dream like a dream to me. Makes sense all the dreams were plunged into this beautiful dream. I'll walk through my edges, dream like a dream to me.

32:31I'll walk through my edges, dream like a dream to me. I'll walk through my edges, dream like a dream to me. I'll walk through my edges, dream like a dream to me. I'll walk through my edges,

34:12You're just like you, why you're just fine And I'm like, hey, you are never ready for mind I'm gonna tell the phone, I'm far away And you said you wanted to stay And came as little surprise Cause you always that way I made up your bed I went back to mind, yeah, truth is not fair When you never showed how could I have known You never showed up again Show up again Show up again Show up again

35:27So a real trip there We got to a very high energy part toward the end This very, you know, personal desperate Didn't know that you were never coming back again But we start off with this straight forward But let's use the rhythm to complicate that You know, that we're not gonna start in with some sort of fast solo But then let's repeat it and we've got a couple key changes Right in that intro And then repeat the whole thing with the bassoon on top of it Yeah, say a little more about your construction of that Very strange long intro That's kind of how I was writing songs back then I'd written for years in the monsoon bassoon With my friend Dan Chudley We'd written together Always When that sort of came to an end And I started working on Well, knife world started off as a solo thing And it turned into a band And I think I was just composing for exactly where I was at At that period in my life And trying to make the kind of music that I wanted to hear I've been very influenced by Henry Cow

36:29And you know, magma But then also XTC and a British band called Madness Which I really like, which is a seven piece What I loved about Madness is they would have these really Sort of quite complex arrangements Not exactly sort of gentle, giant level But they would have these pop tunes But these exquisitely crafted arrangements going on with them And particularly there's two albums Which when I was growing up were a really big deal One called The Rise and Fall And one called Keep Moving And before I ever heard Cardiacs and stuff It was really, I mean, that was getting my ears ready For the kind of stuff I would go on to listen to So it's really sophisticatedly arranged pop music But with modulation And middle bits and instrumental stuff That all sort of feeds into where I was at At that point in my life I was in my sort of late 30s To knife world was sort of really between my late 30s To mid 40s And I was able to have a band that could play these ideas That I was having, and we're into it

37:30We're all living in London at that point And we're all able to do it It was quite a difficult band to do And it didn't really survive once I joined Gong And things change It couldn't really survive But for a period of time it really worked with where we're all at I loved writing these rich arrangements And these sort of intricately arranged parts And modulations And you know, whatever it was that knife world did What was kind of difficult about that band would be playing live Because we would spend all this time It was a very rehearsal intensive band And you spend all this time on these woodwind parts And you know, the way the keys would sort of like lock in With what the bass was doing and the drums And vocal harmonies And it would all, to me anyway, all kind of work very nicely And then you put yourself into a live situation And because of the level we were at as a band We were never really able to have the finance To pay for someone just to mix us live All the time So a lot of the time We'd find ourselves at the mercy of whoever was doing the sound at a venue

38:34And you're talking about this eight piece band At some of which, you know, some of the members are playing more than one instrument And it's a mixture of electric and acoustic instruments Plus vocal harmonies Plus it's constantly changing in dynamics It's not really like, oh, it's kind of bass guitar and drums And everything else is just padding that out It was like that every bit of the arrangement was just as important as the other And you'd do a gig and you'd come off stage And people would say, oh, I couldn't hear the horns, I couldn't hear the vocals And it was a lot to expect someone who's probably, you know, a lot of the time They'd tell, yeah, can we hear it? Do you need some of that oboe in your monitor? I wouldn't even know it was a pursuing And you're talking about a lot of instruments that to mic up and to get right In the main, I found playing life a lot of the time very frustrating Because things could sound so good and rehearsal And it could be really disparaging because you'd make a real big deal about a gig And a lot of people come along If we'd played badly, it would be another matter But it was the fact that we would often play well But we weren't able to present this vision I had for the band

39:35The way I'd like it to be presented That could be very frustrating I mean, some liked it would be brilliant It was really hard, and I think had the band been a little bit bigger Had the economics worked to be able to do this sort of eight piece band like that It would have been very different But once I'd expanded to include this three piece woodwind section And I had that colour available to me I just didn't want to go back I didn't want to then go, okay, well let's go back to just basic guitar drums and keyboard sort of thing I really wanted to have this horn section So that was kind of a knife on, I mean, there were so many brilliant things about doing that band And I think I really grew as a composer and a performer And a sort of band leader So the first time I really had to take care of all that side of it It really sort of prepared me for what happened next with Gong You know, I made four albums that I'm very, very proud of, you know That's funny that you're referring to a horn section A woodwind section, let's say I'm afraid No, it's woodwind, I keep saying all that because it's like now It was sax, it was two saxes in a bassoon

40:35And a half life Nice weekend to save it away from me So that actually does sound like you're pick a little trumpet or whatever, you know That blasting high note there It was mainly either bassoon, alto sax and tenor Okay, so an alto sax can do pierced there, yeah Or else it was two alto's on the tenor, depending on the track But I think there might be a bit of clarinet on that album Because we had a player called Nicky who played clarinet on that record I can't remember, it was, it was, it was, you know It was 12 years ago or more All right, so I'm not going to go through all the different sections here There are many, many, many of them I spent about a year of college listening almost solely to XTC That I discovered And got really drawn in Going through every single album And I said be less because it definitely is be less by way of XTC I could even hear, you know, Colin Molding singing that line

41:36If you, you know, it's a similar vocal tone that you're doing there They were my Beatles in as much as they were happening in real time for me So I'm a huge lover of XTC Andy Partridge's songwriting particularly But I think he's guitar playing And they're about that really keeps on giving And what, and as a body of work Starting with white music all the way through To the last album Waspstar Just think it's a really, really beautiful arc of extraordinary well-realized music You know, and very, exactly songwriting Let me play a couple more chunks So just this transition from the XTC-esque Right? XTC would never do that kind of wacky transition That's a more gong world or something A much more overtly prog overtly Yes, yes Vandrograph, I get you know With the sack stuff I don't want to say it's easier or something

42:36But just in terms of how you're There's not a large concern for making the verse just naturally flow A lot of songs like the verse is just building up some tension And then it just releases in the chorus But you add these little twists and turns to get there So that we go on more of a journey A hypothesis that it seems like you could move these around That there's a lot more decision making That's less the songs writing itself And more that it is a composition as you said before I mean those ones they were written In a very different way to say Not well, at least that the previous gong album You know those were written with me here Just composing all the parts Working on them, changing bits around Altering the key or maybe that goes You know, really, really thinking a great deal about these It's very much where I was at At the time of making that I was making exactly the kind of music I wanted to hear That's what I wanted to hear at that point Stuff that did this I can't exactly remember why I would have come to the decisions But the reason I come to any decision Is if it has a charge

43:38If it has a sort of fluorescence to it If you do it and it makes you go Oh, you know, and it has a vibration to it Then you go, okay, that's the one When it seems to have some sort of emotional jolt And hearing that, particularly the point at the point But what it goes into going into that chorus Which is, to me, incredibly sad It's just really, it's an incredibly sad chorus It's a very triumphant musical gesture with that piercing thing But in a way, it's amplifying the sadness It goes even after all of that Even after this huge dive You're still like having to deal with this friend of yours In this absolutely heartbreaking state And it kind of amplifies it I mean, that's the beauty of the music You can't really explain it Whatever it did, it felt like that's what I'm trying to say You know Well, I'm a big fan of depressing lyrics over Johnny, Johnny music Let me play just so we can talk about the bass a little I want to play some of the second verse

44:44The bass is fully as active as the guitar in that Right? The bass is not just holding it down It's doing the arpeggio kind of parts with you Yeah, what is your philosophy in working with bassists Are you telling them what to do? Do you remember with this band? In Knifeworld, I was writing the bass lines I mean, you talk about Colin Loulding He's my favorite bass player in terms of The way his bass lines work In any XTC In fact, I'd say they're probably more interesting In Andy Partridge's tunes and then in his own I interviewed him and he told me I'm sure he said this elsewhere That he always insists on doing them last Now I do As a result of that Not that, absolutely But reading him say that I change the way I work Yeah, absolutely And it's funny to say that because I'm just working on a record at the moment As in like the last few days And the treat at the end of doing it is to put the bass on Because you can totally change It's almost like coloring the thing You can change the color of it So no, Colin Molding's my favorite bass player

45:45He has my favorite bass line And I'd listened so much to XTC But sometimes I'd just put them on And just listen to the bass And it's a whole other tune It's a whole other story going on there So that kind of bass line That just has its own little story Has really been the thing for me And certainly in knife world I think that top line That the guitar's doing I think I used to play that and sing it live I think that it's kind of That's real Beatles-y sort of I love the journey the bass goes on It's kind of my favorite thing To compose a bass line Because you've done all the other stuff So it's the lap of victory at the end And it's the most fun thing You can really find something in the tune And you can find something in your own tune Because I think of like you know There's always a harmonics center moving around And as soon as you put the bass on You can change where that is And you'll find no And go well I didn't I didn't think of it as being that But if I do that Now this alters my own chord How does this translate to working with Dave in Gong

46:47You know with a pre-established style Are you suggesting things for him Or are you just no no that's the Gong way Is your hands up I try not to because Dave's got his own thing going on Sometimes if he's not finding something I might sing Oh I've got this kind of thing And then Cheb will often write the bass lines He'll hear them as well But more often than not Because the trouble is I will hear a bass line I'll be I'll have a riff And also I don't want to be disrespectful Because Dave's a terrific player So I you know mainly will just sit there And then if he finds up If there's something for example That he's doing that I don't think works One of us will say or something like This isn't working But I know rhythmically because of the way Cheb plays And the way he where he puts his kick drum placement He's often trying to get Dave to bring his bass lines in To what he's doing And it creates some really brilliant stuff It is always such a counterpoint to the way I play Because I don't necessarily just kind of strum I'm more of a this kind of more like single-notish Angular sort of player

47:48And so those two then find these sort of really strange I don't want to say strange These really sort of rich tapestries behind it Dave comes up with his own part If I'm finger picking then you can kind of play With your thumb the bass part that you want Yeah and then even if they don't cover it Well it's it's in the song somewhere I'm so envious of I'm so do you do I mean I'm not a great finger picking person But like I can't do it I can and I'm so envious of those who can I'm rarely an envious person but boy I you know I'm 54 now And I've been playing guitar since I was a kid but I just never You know I think I get to impatient But I'd love to be a finger picker you know I remember seeing Richard Thompson solo Opening for crowded house and he was doing his I can play any of my songs because I'm such a good finger picker that I can hold the To give you all the chords and the melody and the treble But yet still hold something down with my thumb Yeah it's fascinating to me I can

48:50Yeah he's amazing yeah Let me play one more the spooky part I put for 249 here I Want to ask you about the like all these vocals layer the whoa whoa whoa and the female vocals and and I can't even really tell What you're saying because like your actual lead the line has a parallel octave and a bunch of phaser or something on it This is gooping it up. Yeah any thought about that that it seems like the underwater section. I guess if this is not a good thing Yeah, that's how it that's how it sounds yeah the ghost of the sailors vibe Yeah, I mean I was making the kind of music I love to hear that's that's what I wanted to hear I loved you know that's really where I was at was well I probably still am at that you know these just this these sort of Constituted all these different things going on at the same time that the strange orbits that go around each other I mean that's what I love to hear

49:52Yeah, I speak of exactly that so you've got a guitar solo that's actually you this time and then you repeat it Let me play it four minutes with a harp something on top of it just spinning out of control Yeah, there's a fact you keep that going I'd forgotten about this. I love this bit. I used to love playing it live That's a little fast guitar part that you're doing over yourself. Which one sing a bit It's here some oh, I think I think it's keys, isn't it? Oh, okay, so you're that so that's the keys is being added I think it's a key part. Yeah, right. Okay. That would make sense unless you're overdubbing yourself a bunch of times So yeah, no, I'm doing I think I'm doing an e-bow guitar ding meh Yeah, I think but remember I love that bit. I love that whole instrumental bit I mean, I remember when I wrote it when we were doing it thinking oh, this is yeah, there it is

50:53That's what I'm on about. Wow. It's funny hearings. I haven't heard this week for years actually All right, then we need to cover the climax of the song Oh Then we keep going although actually you kind of move it down in pitch and intensity that was the climax Given that the song was about Tim Smith, but it keeps going up and up That's a very Tim Smith thing to do. I think that would have been deliberate I would have been sort of wanting to give this thing at least a flavor of cardiac and a flavor of Tim Because it's you know, it's completely about him And that's when the lyric changes to stop being about this sort of using the Nautical analogy and just being really direct and saying, you know, this is exactly what happened on that last time I you know That day that fateful day. This is how it played out, you know, getting that phone call and you not turning up at my place and thinking that he was going to and

51:58That was it for him sort of thing and I think I probably injected a sort of cardiac trick into it Well, let's get the third song out there. I wanted something from your solo catalog And I picked another long one Another another journey another one doing with death You broke my fall yep from hip to the jag 2020 you want to say a little about this before we we spin it So this one wrote itself very very quickly this one wrote itself in about 10 minutes I think and I had started to Perform by myself and the reason was with knife world being a sort of eight-piece band and with all the other members being very Active musicians. It was very hard to get our calendars to Coordinate sometimes we'd get off at a gig and not everyone could do it Sometimes we'd get a depth or sometimes we would just have we'd do it without a particular member But I didn't like doing that it did become quite wearing because there was really no money in knife world So it every really was doing it because they were just really into it which you know was amazing

53:02I was feel extremely honored to have played with these musicians who are prepared to do this, you know And surrounding your music and and not with a built-in audience, yeah I just liked the idea of performing by myself and it was terrifying to begin with I went up when I first started it really was just Me and an acoustic guitar and I was playing mainly mainly knife world songs But and I'd started to write a couple that I could do as well But like I said was just me and an acoustic guitar and I just Early on I must have only got about a handful of gigs under my belt Early on I thought yeah, this looks too much like singer songwriter, you know This is I don't know if this is the route I want to go down just being guy with the guitar sort of thing I wanted another element and I thought I will a harmonium will be nice At first I thought maybe a shruti box and then I have a drone to play over But I don't know I always like to harmonium a harmonium be like nice Now I'm not much of a um keyboard player. I can play a little but not much when I record myself I will use either right very simple parts on the keyboards or else I'll record the right hand first

54:07And then I'll record the the left hand separately, you know Just to sort of be able to play it decently so what I punch in measure by measure So yeah, well that's exactly, you know, you know You know it but whatever it takes to get it sounding good as as long as the arrangements good I think But what I really liked about the Indian harmonium is that what it's hand pumped So one hand is pumping it of course And so you've really only got the left hand to use Well that already makes the job 50% easier for me Because I'm not very good with the left right coordination So I had this harmonium and within the first day I'd written two tunes I'd written a long tune called Slow Movements Which is just sort of going with the sound of the harmonium And the other one was I'd written you broke my fall And it really was just a case of I think I even composed it in the order that the bits happened I think I'd just played that first intro sort of chords Which had a really lovely atmosphere Then I sort of sang a verse over it And then I you know changed key and found a chorus And the words just sort of fell out very very quickly

55:09I think I had those words in the first pass Now it's something that's sometimes with lyrics They can be excruciating Sometimes you can take me days or weeks I've right in front of me the notebook This is the notebook I've been using for the new gong record And for my solo album And getting to like stars in heaven There's just pages and pages of me writing Just not finding it until the ages But with this one you broke my fall The lyrics came out very quickly And they seemed so plaintive But so sincere It's the one song I perform probably almost every night With my soloist I always end End my set with it I think it's quite an immediate song Because I think the message And the meaning is very clear It's not particularly ambiguous And I think the chords and the melody are not too trying either And it's not really my, or at least it wasn't my style I mean you find a tune like that And you sort of cross a line Because you think gosh this is a lot more almost I don't want to say Leonard Coheny But this feels a lot more straight Than what I do And although it does have a tritone here at one point

56:10But it feels a lot more straight And I think that was a transitional period for me Because I think the old me which is the younger me I think I almost felt some sort of self-imposed Pressure to try and complicate things Or to try and put in more bits Or more complicated things I think I'd felt like oh well this is what I do What I do is I'm the guy that does all this polyrhythmic stuff And constantly modulating or going from one meter to another And I think it was a big deal doing you broke my fall And a couple of others on that album Hipped to the Jag Because I thought actually now I can write in this style And this still feels authentically me It doesn't feel like I'm It's a cop out And it doesn't feel like I'm deliberately trying to simplify my music It felt just as authentically me As something like sent him C-worthy did And in fact, I think sent him C-worthy Was probably the beginning of a process Which allowed me to do something as sort of plaintive And as open lyrically as you broke my fall

57:12And to have the balls to do it Because I think I would have felt too self-conscious About writing something so unambiguous I think in the past I'd probably felt a bit self-conscious But I don't know I still feel like I'm able to Maybe it's to do with being middle-aged And having more of a feeling of what have I got to lose I'm less critical about speaking my mind And it has a very him-like quality But here's one where I think I would love to hear this song cover I think somebody could do a really lovely job with this song I mean this is I'm doing this one to the best of my ability Most of my stuff I wouldn't expect anyone to cover it Or one to do it But this is the one I thought I'd love to hear someone have a cover in that one Well usually I present these in reverse chronological order But I felt like this one needed a little preparation It's a full seven minutes So buckle in Not that there's that many sections There are more sections than the previous song But it just takes its time getting there And it does have some movement You talked about the souls of the dead Crying, well we got the clanging of the chains

58:16In this song, you have a parallel thing So here it goes The night is so much dark and now But the burning ships have sailed And when the dawn comes crashing in

59:18But we see where we've failed To break their fall And soldier, I'll lay down my arms And could see we lost the war It'll give me an excuse to drink now I never needed one before To break my fall To break my fall

1:00:23To break my fall So the songs I run just turn out sad Since the Reaper took the reins The friends I once made music went And I've come since clanging their chains

1:01:24And could see we lost the war And soldier, I'll lay down my arms And could see we lost the war And soldier, I'll lay down my arms And could see we lost the war

1:02:32And could see we lost the war And could see we lost the war Where they never really died The spirits keep me company At large they buy my sign Where they're still possible to change

1:03:40But we could all be here The good times I've had in here I swear that I'll keep you there So I'll wrap my arms around my friends Because I love you all You're still here by my life Please know that you're proud of my fall You're proud of my fall

1:05:07A lot of movement It was funny I put this on auto repeat While I was doing some other things yesterday And so I couldn't even keep track of it Because it's not just a linear It starts quiet and then it gets loud And that's the end It has ups and downs It became this ever cycling So I have an interesting relationship to this song now Can you say anything about the dramatic progression through it? It felt very natural and unforce I didn't really give it too much thought Because I know it's a cliche to say it wrote it itself But it really arrived very quickly It arrived in about only in a few minutes And then when I'd got there I don't think it had any extra sections I think it just arrived as that And I think the lyrical arrived as that

1:06:07And it's one of those lovely times where that happened And I think it's also something about having a new instrument And it was, you know, I just got this harmonium And I was just playing on it And this thing came out and that all happened when you have an instrument Even just getting a new guitar That's what happened But for this an instrument I wasn't used to And I just got so excited when I ridden it It's got something, it's got a charge So as for why I chose that move And that's just what came out And that's what felt right at the time You know, what would come next? Oh, this will come next, here's the next section Oh, here's the next section, oh, then I'll do I think there's a little bit of tinkering with the lyrics But I think by and large the lyrics Kind of came out very quickly as well But like I say, I play it almost every night that I play live So I play this one And I love playing it Like a closure on the set But also I think the sort of, I don't want to say message But the lyrics feel like They always feel like a nice Ending point to sort of leave the audience on

1:07:07I've never really thought about this But it's just not a million miles away From stars in heaven in terms of lyrics And we get to experience this thing In these bodies this one time You know And let's just remember We're all going to die But this is amazing that we're all here The incidents that I pick three very existentialist songs Being unto death It's like shooting fish in a battle That's my theme I think So you've got two verses after you've established the intro for a while Two verses it just fall into each other You kind of change up the vocal rhythms But then we hit this tritone So I'm going to play just before 211 where this happens Make my fall

1:08:08And we just sit there in a while And this is like I have a song that does something like this But that's when it's entering the bridge When it's been and done I mean I guess you've got your chorus here And so far as that has a chorus But then we're going to do this thing And you're going to have this new really nice section Yeah we'll say something about this Again you just say it just wrote itself But is there anything in particular in terms of Now we're going to introduce this mellow The guitar plucking section After those verses You know the tritones my chord I remember when I first heard it It was first really became aware of it It's just got such electricity to it The tritone has such a magic to it It's really psychedelic I think it sounds like opening the door to another world You know when the tritone appears Things aren't as they seem Maybe the tritone is to me What the flashing lights were to David Lynch It says something The tritones always Being like a real draw for me I used to use it a lot more when I was young

1:09:09I use it much more Sparingly now but I just I have such a special relationship With that chord you know It's really magical I've just having two notes It's the most magical combination of two notes It really sounds Otherworldly I'm actually forgetting what the Electronic instrument That they use in the sci-fi films That you don't touch it A ferramin A ferramin That you're getting this sort of Glistando guitar Which brings it right back to gong The other guitar player in gong Fabio Golfetti is the master of Glistando guitar I'm a mere novice But it's playing the guitar With a metal rod And you're sort of bowing it And you play it up and down the neck It was pioneered by David Allen David Allen saw Sid Barrett Possibly the UFO

1:10:09Or maybe Alexander Padish First saw the Pink Floyd As they were in 1966 67. Sid Barrett was playing His guitar with a Zippo lighter And that's what inspired David So he went and developed this Glistando technique which then Steve Hillage sort of expanded upon Well Fabio Golfetti Expanded on it even further David Allen and Steve Hillage Said and I concur That you know he's the best Glistando guitar player they've ever heard But it's an incredible thing The way Fabio will do it is He'll use the top three strings The E, the B and the G And through angling it He knows all the inversions For pretty much all the majors and minors He can get so he's really adept If you come up with a chord cycle He'll match it with a glistando And it just sounds absolutely angelic And heavenly. Now the way I do it I don't have that kind of a Polyphonic way he does You know with a bit of compression

1:11:09And a bit of delay You can get that sort of, like you said That pheromony kind of Sound which is It's really ghostly And you know in the mix and everything I think it sounds great But I can't play like he does He's a master It's funny I'm just searching Glistando guitar The second result is a Fabio Golfetti interview Oh there you go If there's a video demonstration So they can get a little better idea Of what's going on with that There's also it seemed like in the section after that Here let me play 219 This very calming instrumental break section here So it's not instrumental break It's just that you introduce some new instruments Or reintroduce them Before you start the second verse Is that you have a very banjo sound To one of the guitars there Yeah maybe I guess it's so long since I've heard this arrangement

1:12:09The recording So it's not instrumental break It's just that you introduce some new instruments Or reintroduce them And I've heard this arrangement The recording Probably electric guitar acoustic guitar What's different about my solo stuff Than say knife work Was that knife work I wrote the entire arrangement By and large You needed all those instruments in order to make the thing work It wouldn't just be that the guitar If you had heard the guitar it's only It wouldn't necessarily make sense of the tune Whereas what I do with the Not exclusively but mainly with the solo stuff I'll write the song Generally on guitar and voice Or harmonium and voice And I want the song to work It has to work with just that So it has to work as a way I do it live And I'll record those parts first When I want to make the record I'll say in the case of that one It was just harmonium and voice So what I did is I just recorded myself singing it Playing that harmonium just like I do it live Once I got that I built up the arrangement

1:13:09In the studio on top of that And stripped down to just that But I like the two alternate I like that live I do it one way But I also like building up these nice arrangements on tunes as well And playing different instruments and what have you Yeah, I had a little bit of a tambourine And proceed through the second verse And playing the chains Back to the creepy chord And then I had a new pattern The percussion such as it is This is the most sort of pick-floid-esque part of the... It's a puzzle, yeah Boom, boom, kick Yeah, as it is Yeah, you're very light on percussion Without your couple solo records My philosophy Or at least my guidelines With the solo stuff Is it has to just be stuff that I can play

1:14:09More often than not just stuff I've actually got So on the one I'm working on Now I've got a snare drum I've got a right symbol I've got a big bass drum And I record them separately I just record me playing the things Because although I could go and get a drummer to play it properly It would turn it into something else So I like the restriction of I have to be able to play everything And I like the simplicity of the fact that Because I'm not a particularly adept drummer in any way The simplicity of just keeping down like Okay, ride that just does And maybe just a shake it And then that's what I've got to play with And I don't want to program drums I don't want to get someone to play them So I'm deliberately restricted by what I'm able to do And the instruments and the arrangements I've got a lot of instruments around I don't play any of them With possibly the exception of guitar I don't play them in such a way that I would offer my talent Of my abilities to someone else But I can simply enough arrangement

1:15:09You know what I mean? I can write a simply enough arrangement That with all the other parts I think it sounds nice I think I write this It's simply enough arrangement that you don't hear what an amateur I am Well, let me play the big shimmery instrumentals So a little bit after that 420 And block it like my melody It seems like like the Monty Python heaven scene Yes, it does That's kind of the idea Yeah, that's the idea You hear the glissando guitar going A lot And yeah, you got some like I wrote tremolo wood block I don't know exactly what you're playing But something fairly wooden that you're That's a kids toy just to think it Oh, okay Whatever gives it the atmosphere So whatever it gives it the right vibe Sometimes it's like I need something I can hear something and it's like

1:16:09Oh yeah, that's what it needs And it's not always a musical thing It's very funny little sounds on my recordings If it adds a vibe and atmosphere There's lots of stuff that if I were to take the tracks and solo A few things going on in there They're really subliminal But it's like oh, okay, that's what that thing is Well, and this is making me think So the very beginning of stars in heaven You know some sort of synthesized Swishing and then some some little Backwards guitar or something like that I mean, was that purely studio stuff Or do you try to do something like that live They've made that. It did come in going Wow, would you care? Yeah And for me stylistically What I wanted to do And I do think this is a very small category There's a small category of songs That starts I either straighten with a chorus Or just straight in No, not even a beat And I think this like helps The beat also helps and it is straight in There's a song by squeeze as well

1:17:09I think it's pulling muscles from the shell Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da Just straight in with the first And so I loved I loved this idea of going Straight in with this But then Dave took some of the tracks and made that intro And said, oh I want to do this He did something that just sounded too Floydy to me. It sounded like something of dark side of the moon because he did it. I went, you know, oh Again, I'll free did it. Oh, breathe. Whatever it is, but then he did this and it's like, okay, one of that does sound cool So live he's I think the last few gigs he started triggering. He's there's only a few seconds I think he's put it on the sample pad and started triggering it and then we just count in behind it I like the idea of having a song that's just bang straight in well you you broke my fall the intro of that has that Pink Floyd let's set up the atmosphere, you know, I'm thinking of a shine on you crazy diamond that lets itself what it's like Ten minutes before we finally roll in with a thing as opposed to I tried to do something like that in one of my tunes

1:18:12But it's still like a four-minute pop tune basically, so like okay the guitar has a little lick and the keyboard has a lick But if it kind of just get it over really fast and then just get in Yeah, I never yeah, I've not had the patience or the the nine-minute songs that you often do to really give yourself room to Introduce these elements one by one, especially in a song like this where there aren't that many elements that come in like we just Sort of the climax and that was you know you adding a couple children's toys and little percussion and a little higher and more Frosious on the on the league guitar Some of these are like the knife world stuff is so arranged and so many pieces Yeah, and to try to do something that has just as much dramatic movement But with less pieces to deal with I found that fascinating that's it you hit the nail on the head and as I said there because of the way it was written It was written to be able to be performed with just voice and harmonium So it had to be able to still have all that drama between those two just with a top line and chords, you know Everything else was just an addition all right Well to say goodbye here

1:19:13We want to introduce the last thing and we had a little back and forth about this You know, you mentioned the utopia strong being one of the bands that you It's you and two synth players and it's right Yeah, and it's very atmospheric. It is entirely like the intro to wish you were here often not ever getting to the actual Song right because it's some I mean I didn't listen through all four of those albums in full I will link people to the title track from dope writer, which was the one that you picked from that is very relaxing We've already had some long songs here So the thing that I was going to use is the intro, but I think it's just so good I really want people to hear it. So why is guy by the monsoon bassoon a 1998 sigil eventually released on the I dig your voodoo album 1999 Especially the end of this was really energizing me. Can you say a little? I mean you could say anything about any of these other projects before we say goodbye But I'm just talking about the wise guy because that's really when the first time I Fully thought we got we got something now, you know, it was probably my mid-20s

1:20:16I mean I was always like really into whatever it was I was doing you know from being in a in a school band and writing tunes in my School band and then doing everything else But when we did wise guy and when we got it together in rehearsal it was this really exciting moment I wrote a bit about this in my book medical grade music which is sort of memoir but It was a very magical time because we just came up with this thing It's like oh my god, and we all we all realized it we kept playing this again and again between the five of us And we you know we were in our mid-20s sort of thing and it was like this thing was bigger than us We we sort of couldn't believe that this thing had happened, you know that we'd got this tune So I think we felt like a new bar for our band and I remember you know We had a gig maybe that week or the following week and we played it live and all of our friends were there and Tim Smith I think Cardiac was probably doing our sound and and everyone was just like bloody other new that new song That we knew we had something in being part of having birth this tune and

1:21:16Watched it go from being something coming up with a sort of basic idea in my bedroom And then working on it with Dan who came up with some of the arrangements and then taking it to the band and expanding into the tune that we eventually Recorded with Tim Smith and really going to town on the big you know all the big mad horns at the end Just really getting to properly use the studio because I up until then never really Explored the possibilities of what a studio could do But with a producer like Tim Smith who obviously being a composer Extraordinary that he was in cardiac. He was very very encouraging of us to get to go down this much more ostentatious and arranged Section and him adding the hand claps and all these things that we really love these multi-stacked up horns and That Just really really creating this big end section and it was I mean getting excited talking about it because I remember What what a big deal it was and it didn't matter whether we're gonna be successful or not or though actually that song really

1:22:19Caught a whole other musical express single of the week. Well, the following on the one after it was yeah actually But they they got really interested in us half we released that and there was a there was a local I say local. There's a London radio station that just started called XFM and one of the shows was playing it every night for a week So we at this point, you know We'd our band was growing growing in a very small way to fall on DIY band and this was the first time We'd really sort of put out a single and got any sort of exposure and it was it was a really really exciting time in my life I'm so glad that that ended up being the first single I put out and not something I was doing five or six years earlier When I was like 19 or 20. I'm so glad that destiny waited until that was the first single because I still feel immensely proud of it and I still feel like we made a real statement with that and Honestly, I can trace everything I've done since back to that tune I can hear the DNA of that tune in everything I've done since it just opened up a possibility as if I saw the potential of what I

1:23:25Was able to do and what I was able to do, you know collectively with a group, you know what we could do I feel immensely privileged to have been there to receive that tune when it arrived Because it's not to say that all the stuff we did did before it I thought was great, but that that this felt like this is sort of defined our band and in a funny way It's funny that one soon as soon as a very obscure band, but that's kind of the one that when people do remember us You know, I mean we have fans of that album, but people you know talk about that song a lot And you know incredibly proud of it. All right. Thanks so much for chatting. Thank you. It's been really fun. All right. Here's wise guy Free time of sex, I saw me in a hole in a volcano when I saw a snake wake up

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