Interviews
Three Blind Wolves
Matt Burrell: Welcome back to Manchester! The last time you played here was 2011? Is it somewhere you enjoy coming back to?
Ross Clark: Oh yeah, absolutely. It is a city that definitely has so many bands; I am a big fan of them and the product of Manchester. It’s really important for us, for me especially, to have a really good gig in Manchester because it’s the biggest music city closest to us, Glasgow, in the UK. Obviously there’s Liverpool as well, there’s so much going on and it’s such a cool city.
MB: And it’s steeped in music history of course
RC: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think the first gig we played in Manchester was in Gulliver’s, and we walked in and there was just like, Joy Division posters and they were playing New Order and before we sound checked The Fall were practising in the venue. So it was probably the perfect introduction to Manchester (laughs) everybody just hangs out with everybody!
MB: How do you get along with the rest of the band? Take us through the creative process of Three Blind Wolves
RC: well I write all the songs, do a demo of them, and just share it with the rest of the band. The final Three Blind Wolves product comes from all of us, we arrange it all together. All the guys add their things to it, I write all the chords and the words.
MB: So it all just coagulates together.
RC: Yeah, everybody throws their own style into it and then we, as a band shape that and mould it into the final cut sort of thing.
MB: The face of British music is changing lately, have you noticed a pattern emerging, maybe better song writing skills dubbed as the ‘Nu-Folk’ regeneration?
RC: No, I think, I think people are getting drunk on this whole idea of a new name or a new genre or something, but the fact of the matter is, in my opinion, is that more artists now are just getting down to the important thing of just actual true song writing. Just like, a song can be in any genre and you’ll like it. I mean, this doesn’t always happen, but chart music, I’ll listen to something and think “that’s a good song”, but there seems to be a sort of divorce from that idea that you don’t need to write a good song, you can just dress it up with loads of funky sounds. That can still be good, but I think for me, as a writer and listener of music, it’s not my thing. And I think the whole ‘Nu-Folk’ thing is….its……I don’t know, some of its good, but I don’t see myself fitting into that area. I think there’s a lot of bandwagon jumping on happening.
MB: How do you feel being compared to such bands as Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons and so on?
RC: Well, I mean I don’t mind getting compared to Fleet Foxes
MB: I suppose it’s a compliment
RC: Oh yeah, to be compared Fleet Foxes or Mumford and Sons or any of these bands is a compliment because they’re obviously big successful bands. But certainly, musically we’re not influenced by Mumford and Sons, its mostly Fleet Foxes. They just sort of paved the way, we started listening to what they were listening to, you know the whole California, log cabin, folk singing was a big influence when we started playing with regards to all the harmonies and stuff like that.
MB: Well you’re last album, ‘Sound of the Storm’, sounded very atmospheric. Did you actually record in a studio or some other location? I know for instance City and Colour recorded ‘Little Hell’ in a church.
RC: No, we actually recorded it in a studio that was an old barn in this area called Dennistoun. The actual studio was built in the stable and next door was where they kept the animals. But I’m a total reverb junkie, like one of our traits is to make everything sound bigger than it is, just puts loads of reverb on it. The new album that we just recorded, we sort of went against that and took all the reverb off and start it from scratch, because for ‘Sound of the Storm’, that kind of like ethereal folk singing that we were going for, it worked. I think we’re not one of those bands that rely on that one formula that works for us, we spend more time trying to do something different and give ourselves a new set of problems to deal with the new record! (laughs) That’s what we need to do to keep, for me personally, I need to do that in order to keep myself connected to what I’m doing you know? Because if you get too repetitive, I don’t know, it just takes my mind off what I’m doing as a musician and just keep doing similar things. I’ve got a big problem with anxiety, I’ll skim over everything so I probably move to fast for myself. Maybe because I’ve just had that double espresso I’m like woooohh! (laughs) But that’s kind of how I live my life, like a double espresso.
MB: Yeah I like that idea
RC: Yeah, music’s such a, it can be such a primal thing like. There’s a certain feeling you get when you listen to a piece of music or a song and you just feel ‘oohhh’, like that, and that’s what you’ve got to chase I think. I almost feel like a junkie for that kind of feeling.
MB: In ‘Sound of the Storm’, the mood fluctuates throughout. At first its energetic and then goes into a calmer mood, is there a narrative you wanted to get through or was it just how the songs were arranged?
RC: Well the thing is it was the first time we had been into the studio to record a record. There’s not really much of one as there is on the new album, I’ll be honest I wasn’t really thinking about getting a theme, I wanted to get the quality down more than anything. What I was interested in doing was looking at the new album as a complete work, not saying; these songs should be singles, these songs should be fillers. All albums I think should have themes to some extent.
MB: What is the new album going to be called?
RC: The new album is going to be called ‘Sing hallelujah for the old machine’. It’s going to be psychedelic, folky; most songs are like six minutes long with different sections, very prog rock like.
MB: When you talk about themes for albums, is there anything you wanted to get across for ‘Sound of the Storm’?
RC: I don’t know, I quite like, I write songs about how I feel at certain times. I like thinking about working, lost and past generations. We are, without sounding too pretentious, there’s something missing, something that our generation has lost but something else going on as well you know? Like a generation of people that don’t know what they’re doing. It’s what I think about a lot, when you think about what generations before us have done and built, and we’ve…….gadgets, we have gadgets (laughs)
MB: What have you guys got planned for the future then?
RC: Well I think about May 6th we’re going to be touring till June and planning on going on to mainland Europe. It’s a big build up, we’ve been working on this album for like two years now so we’re looking at touring the f*** out of it. We also have about 15 songs for another album, so I really want to be in the studio recording at the end of this year. We are producing all our music ourselves, we spent the whole of last year umming and ahhing like, is this person interested, is he? And the whole sobering new year feeling set in, like we need to do something! I think the thing that keeps me going is the fan base, it’s definitely the reason we keep playing music and it’s always growing.
MB: I heard that you and Frightened Rabbit are good friends. Does that help having friends in the same situation but without sounding depreciative, more in higher places?
RC: Oh not at all, we look up to those guys, but yeah we met each other back in Glasgow and they’ve always helped us through and put up with us. It’s great to come and play a gig at all but even better when it’s your friends and heroes, yeah they’re my heroes.
Before I left though Ross had a question for me
RC: Do you know where the nearest Holland & Barrett is?
I hope he found one.
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Reel Big Fish
MB: Welcome back to the UK, you do a massive amount of touring here and all over the place
RBF: Yeah yeah, we’re here for three weeks! And playing a show every night!
MB: And Manchester in particular?
RBF: Yeah we love it here, we haven’t been able to go out and explore as much as we’d like to, we basically walked around the town square and sound checked. But I got a coffee this morning, that was really important and it was huge! The size of a toilet bowl.
MB: That’s what you need! So the new album is out, definitely highly anticipated, do you think the music has changed over the years for Reel Big Fish?
RBF: I think its gotten better, over the years, you could better at song writing and playing your instrument and it was just one of those where all of the performances are really good, the songs are really good and we had a great time recording it.
MB: And are there any songs you get tired of playing live, obviously ‘beer’ and ‘take on me’ are big hits for you
RBF: Oh no, every time you can play a song and have the crowd react positively to it we have a blast. To be able to do that, tour around the world and play the trumpet, it’s incredible.
MB: Everyone’s dream from school
RBF: absolutely!
MB: With a lot of your songs and albums, there seems to be a love hate relationship with people. For example ‘beer’ is about hanging with your friends and having a good time, and then you have on the new album ‘everyone else is an a****le’, is that a muse for you?
RBF: (Laughs) Yeah I think that, there are so many people all over the world and one of the hardest things as a human being to do is spend time with another person. When you do that you find that not everyone else is nice and that’s unfortunate. Sometimes you just want to tell people to f*** off! And so we put it into song (laughs).
MB: It’s a nicer way of doing it. On stage as a live band you’re really entertaining, comedic and fun. Is that something that came naturally or something you admired other bands for and wanted to make part of your show?
RBF: I think it comes from a long history of loving comedy and loving the entertainment aspect of the show. What we do is a show, its not just 6 guys up there playing music and not doing anything else, it’s a show, the whole time we entertaining everybody that’s there and we really take pride in putting on a good show. We were all big fans of Steve Martin as kids and all those influences growing up come out as an adult.
MB: What was the turning point you realised you wanted to be a musician?
RBF: Oooo, I think I was in the 6th grade, and thought “I can do this better than the rest of the people that are here”. I really liked it and it just kind of snowballed, I started listening to the great trumpet players, Louis Armstrong and Billy Gillespie and it was all downhill after that.
MB: How did the band actually start then?
RBF: In the beginning the band wasn’t a ska band, they did cover songs at different clubs. Being in Orange County and that time there was a huge ska scene with bands like No Doubt, Sublime, Aquabats and so on, and Reel Big Fish went, ‘oh we want to play this fun, ska music’. So then players were found, and it was whoever could stay out late and play gigs, there was a constant rotating of group of people playing. And it just grew out of that scene, it was the right place and right time to start a ska band
MB: We’re very glad you did!
RBF: (Laughs) Thank you
MB: Is there anything you’d say to your younger self if you could go back to that time?
RBF: Say to my younger self? No, I did it the only way I could have ever done it, its not always right but you’ve done the best that you can, just do the best that you can damn it!
MB: Great advice. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the artist Neil Harbisson, he had an electronic device implanted in his brain to ‘hear colours’. Given the chance, what musical super power would you have?
RBF: Ooooo, a connection between chord changes and my fingers. To know all the chord changes to every song that I play, so the theory chord change superpower!
MB: How did the unusual name ‘Reel Big Fish’ come about?
RBF: Well the original name of the band was ‘The Fisher kings’, and so the band put out a demo tape entitled – ‘The Reel Big Fish’, and people began to call the band ‘Reel Big Fish’ and it stuck!
MB: Finally have you and the rest of the band got any hobbies you all do as a band?
RBF: Well I’m big into cars and bikes, I work on them when I’m not playing or on the road. A few of the other guys have bikes too and we go riding sometimes. And beer! We all love beer.
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The Ramblers
MB: Hi guys, would you like to introduce yourselves –
Dan: I’m Dan, singer guitarist…..of The Ramblers
(Laughing)
Luke: Luke
Matthew: I’m Matthew, Drummer
Tom: I’m Tom, Guitarist
MB: When did you guys get together?
Dan: May 2012 it was
MB: So not too long then. How did you find each other? Were you all friends to begin with?
Dan: Well we knew each other anyway, me and him were good mates, (me and Luke). We knew Tom for a few year and Matthew we knew from bands anyway, so….
Matthew: I was in a band beforehand, Sailmakers
MB: And are you all from the same place?
Dan: Yeah all from Leeds area
MB: What kind of inspiration would you say you draw from?
Luke: Err, The Stones
Dan: The Stones
Luke: Rolling Stones
Dan: The Who
Matthew: Black Rebel motorcycle Club
Luke: The Coral
Dan: Yeah The Coral, The Beatles
MB: Do you feel like, playing Manchester, it’s a stepping stone for you?
Dan: Of course!
Everyone: Oh yeah
Dan: Hopefully
(Laughing)
MB: And Night and Day especially, there have been big bands here where you’re headlining tonight.
Dan: Yeah it was good to play like, we just had some technical difficulties tonight and you can’t do ‘owt about that but, think as a band we played well, tight….
Luke: dealt with it
Dan: Dealt with it as best we could and..….
Matthew: Got a jam in there while we were waiting aswell
Dan: Carried on and yeah, can’t do more than that, played aswell as we could in the conditions we had.
MB: Have you made any CDs or albums yet at all?
Everyone: Yeah
Dan: Well we’ve just finished coming out of the studio about a week, two week ago and we’re just going to do one more song and sort an EP out. Its hard work isn’t it, it’s hard work thinking of a band name!
MB: How did the name come about?
Luke: Well I’m a big fan of The Rolling Stones and I love the song ‘The Midnight Rambler’. I told Ashley, “what about ‘The Midnight Ramblers’”, but he said no, ‘The Ramblers’, so I thought I’ll settle for that.
MB: Its really good how over such a short amount of time you’ve been able to work well and get stuff together.
Dan: Yeah but, it feels like a lifetime for you boys doesn’t it
Matthew: Cheeky get!
Dan: Well we spent the first ten……..
(Laughing)
Dan: How long is it from May to December?
Luke: Six months
Dan: No, no seven months. We spent the first seven months rehearsing, as much as we could; twice, three times a week. We got the songs together and that’s it.
MB: How many songs do you have over all at the moment?
Dan: Eleven, but we didn’t play them tonight but….
Luke: We’ve got them all, in the pipeline
Dan: Yeah more in the pipeline,
Luke: we’ve got better stuff in the pipeline
Dan: we’ve got seventy-six according to me!
Tom: You don’t want to rush them though.
Dan: Seventy-six starts of songs, seventy-six starts
Matthew: But we just don’t know where to go with them
MB: How many concerts have you had so far then?
Dan: About….four
Matthew: This was third?
Dan: This was the fourth I think
MB: What are you guys doing the rest of the night?
Dan: What are we doing the rest of the night? Going home, to bed.
Matthew: driving home, sober
Dan: He’s (Tom) going out afterwards
Luke: nah I’m going home
Dan: Yeah we’ve got a load to pack up anyway
MB: So you’re well on your way to living the rock n roll lifestyle!
Dan: Ah no, I’m a country boy! I love grass and that!
Matthew: I love grass
Dan: Nah I am, I am a rock and roll star, provided its past tea time.