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Interview: Brian Coombes on Chris Difford and 'Circus of Wire Dolls'
296 Plays2 years ago
To kick off Season 2, we’re in discussion with my friend Brian Coombes from the band Rocking Horse Music Club. Brian has a long and bountiful history within the music industry. First as a musician and then as founder of Rocking Horse Studio, he has worked internationally with numerous creative artists. In this episode, we have many topics to discuss, chief among them his good fortune in working with Chris Difford… not once, but twice! We talk about that history and how Chris has a significant role in Brian’s latest performing/collaborative creation ‘Circus Of Wire Dolls.’ And we’ll also dig deep into several musical genres, studio technology, and Brian’s recording experience at the historical Abbey Road Studios.
https://www.rockinghorsemusicclub.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Cool for Cats with me, Amy Hughes. We're inviting you in for black coffee and a chat about our favorite band Squeeze. In this episode, I'm welcoming Brian Coombs from the Rocking Horse Music Club. Hello, Brian. How are you? Hello, Amy. I'm doing well.
00:00:29
Speaker
And thanks for having me. No problem. I know that's a pretty short description for what you do, and it doesn't reveal a lot sometimes about the connection to squeeze, because we have a ton of stuff to talk about foremost among our listeners to let them know. And we'll give more information farther down the podcast.
Main Topic: Circus of Wire Dolls
00:00:51
Speaker
And the big reason we're here is the release of Circus of Wire dolls.
00:00:59
Speaker
And the reason that Brian is here, dear listeners, is that he has worked with your friend and mine, Chris Difford.
00:01:07
Speaker
So let's go back a ways, because I was talking earlier about history.
Brian Coombs' Musical Journey
00:01:15
Speaker
How did that all come about? But first, your history. Let's go back and talk about how you started as a musician and where you all fit in with the Rocking Horse Music Club and your recording studio, which is located in New Hampshire.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's correct. So I'm I grew up in New Hampshire and senior year in high school formed a band called Tristan Park that played around in New England and played in Boston. And I think that's where you and I met the first time at a Tristan Park show that might have been in Bill Rooka, Massachusetts. Ah, yes, yes, indeed. We go back a ways.
00:02:03
Speaker
So, yeah, so the time at Edible Rex, Tristan Park. And, you know, we did fairly well, you know, I mean, we did well in New England. And then in the 90s, we signed a record deal with the label in England. And they brought us to England and we recorded our second CD in London. And then we did a lot of touring, both in the United Kingdom and out on the continent.
00:02:31
Speaker
And, you know, just made quite a few connections that have stayed with me to this day. So, you know, Tristan Park ran its course 12 years, which kind of took me from, like I say, senior year in high school, all the way through adulthood. Tristan Park's first European tour was actually my honeymoon with my wife, Michelle.
00:03:00
Speaker
which just shows you how cool my wife is. But it ran its course. Other guys in the band were ready to settle down and have children. So Tristan Park ended and I looked to see what was next in line for me and that led us to building Rocking Horse Studio.
Building Rocking Horse Studio
00:03:26
Speaker
First is
00:03:27
Speaker
a pretty sophisticated home studio in my basement in Manchester, New Hampshire. And, you know, it was at that point where we started writing, my wife and I, Michelle and I, started writing some songs together. And we had a couple of the guys from Tristan Park play on that project, Jim Turmill on drums and Mike McAdam on guitar.
00:03:48
Speaker
And that became the project called Waking in the Blue. And Mike McAdam, the guitar player, had contributed a song to that record called Two. And when I heard the song in demo format for the first time, I thought it sounded like a pretty cool squeeze tune. So I joked with Mike and Michelle about, well, wouldn't it be cool if we got
00:04:16
Speaker
Chris to Chris differed to come in and sing you know his low octave part below Michelle's lead vocal and having made some connections from my day's interest in Park I was able to you know friend of a friend call to a call and the next thing I know we were in touch with Chris and Michelle and I actually went to England and recorded his vocal at his place heliocentric and that was our
00:04:46
Speaker
you know, our first time working with Chris.
Collaboration with Chris Difford
00:04:49
Speaker
Now, it's kind of unusual because Chris doesn't advertise, let's put it that way, his contributions outside of Squeeze. So I'm curious to know how the connection was made musically before you went over to England to work with him.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I think what inspired me was Chris and Glenn both singing on Amy Mann's second solo record, which I really liked a lot. So that, at least in theory, that showed me that Chris would be amenable to the discussion anyway. And I believe it was a booking agent of ours, or a concert promoter booking agent named Martin Hudson,
00:05:42
Speaker
who also ran a music magazine called Wondrous Stories and you know it was through him that we he had done an interview with Chris and
00:06:00
Speaker
it was through him that I got in touch with him. And Chris got right back to me via email and asked if I could send the tune along and I sent the song and he agreed that he'd be a good fit for it. And really that was just about it. We scheduled the time and
00:06:22
Speaker
It was a cool excuse for Michelle and I to go to England and we met up with him and had a nice day.
00:06:31
Speaker
And can you, it's interesting because I'd like you to describe what the studio set up is or was back then. Cause this, correct me if I'm wrong, this is 2002, 2003. 2003. Yeah. What, what is it like at his quote unquote studio up there in, where is it in Rye in Sussex? It's in Rye. Yep. On the south, on the south coast. And well, I'll tell you what.
00:07:01
Speaker
It was the primary inspiration after Michelle and I visited Heliocentric. We literally came back to America and put our house on the market to
00:07:15
Speaker
move out, quote unquote, move out to the country and build a recording studio. And it was kind of inspired by Chris's play. So, you know, it's a beautiful part of England, that South Coast. And, you know, getting there, I do remember, you know, following the directions and saying, oh, like, this must be it. It was, you know, an unsigned, posted driveway.
00:07:44
Speaker
that had to be at least a half mile long going through thick trees on a dirt path. And then it opened up into this really gorgeous
00:07:59
Speaker
English country farm type of situation. And it was in a one of his, it was an outbuilding that I don't know, looks like it might have been stables once upon a time. And it had, you know, great
00:08:17
Speaker
look like pine wood floors and of course the Helios console in the control room and Chris had I think had just finished the first solo record with Francis Dunnery which I absolutely adore and you know so Michelle and I talked to him about that and we recognized
00:08:36
Speaker
the pictures that are on the inside of that Chris Solo record were taken at Heliocentric. So it was cool to be like, oh yeah, that's this. And then I also remember sitting and having tea with him and seeing squeeze platinum albums on the wall and in the bathroom. He was a gracious host and we had a really nice time.
00:09:03
Speaker
Can you, for our tech recording geeks out there, because it's very rare that I get to have a guest who can talk about this kind of, you know, technical aspect of recording, why don't you kind of sort of give me, or if you can, a backstory on this helios?
Recording Techniques and Equipment
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, so the Helios console was kind of legendary. I think the one that Chris had had come from Island Studios in London. And there weren't very many of these Helios consoles built. And it's a transformer-based mixing board that just had a sound like no other.
00:09:49
Speaker
You know, it's interesting. The English really kind of dominate when it comes to recording consoles for recording studios. The big names, SSL and Neve and Trident. We have a Trident console here at our studio.
00:10:07
Speaker
But the Helios is definitely a rare, rare, rare instrument. There aren't many of them in existence. You probably, if you do a search, the thing that's cool about it is it's kind of a circular type of console, whereas most mixing boards are just, you know, rectangles. But this Helios kind of wrapped around you and it had, you know, it sloped upwards. And, you know, just walking into the room,
00:10:37
Speaker
It's an impressive piece of equipment, even if you don't know what it is, but then once you realize where it was, and it was responsible for so many classic albums, and it just looks cool, frankly, and it gave Chris's studio its name. Heliocentric comes from the fact that there was a Helios console.
00:11:00
Speaker
Now, would you be able to, as you're sitting at this Helios, would you be looking out and being able to see the musicians? Is it that kind of standardized recording studio?
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, Chris had a control room. His control room was, you know, consumed by this Helios console. But yeah, from what I remember, you walked in, into the building, into the control room. And then there was a window and a door that led out into the tracking space, which was much larger.
00:11:41
Speaker
And I don't think the tracking space had been treated acoustically, right? I mean, our room was designed by an acoustician, and it was designed to make sure all the angles play nicely with each other.
00:11:57
Speaker
And I don't think Chris had gone through, you know, that part of it, but the room just sounded nice and warm. And it was large enough that there weren't going to be any early reflections, like sounds bouncing, you know, somebody singing and it bouncing off a wall and coming back to the microphone milliseconds later, which can cause technical problems. So Chris's space, the ceilings were, you know, it was high ceiling, so that helped.
00:12:27
Speaker
And it was all wood and plaster and it was a nice sounding room. But yeah, it was set up like a traditional recording studio with the control room with the window looking out under the tracking space. And then beyond the tracking space was his lounge from what I recall, it was kind of a linear setup.
00:12:48
Speaker
And the other interesting part is now you and Michelle traveled to England to Chris's space. How did the recording session actually take place? Did you bring a backing track with you? Did Michelle sing with Chris in his studio? How did that all come about?
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, no, we brought a backing track. Well, you know, we actually brought a multitrack and brought, you know, we use Pro Tools as the software and we, you know, we still use Pro Tools as software. So, but we had brought a rough mix of the song with Michelle's vocal, but it was broken out into individual tracks. So if Chris wanted to hear more of Michelle or less of Michelle, he could adjust that.
00:13:37
Speaker
And yeah, so we came pretty well prepared, brought lyric sheets and we just knocked it out. And as soon as Chris started singing and it just like, okay, yeah, this is what we wanted. So his voice is so iconic, if you're a Squeeze fan, it doesn't take you long to realize, hey, that's Chris Difford.
00:14:07
Speaker
And it was so cool because instead of Chris and Glenn, it was Chris and Michelle. And yet it was kind of the, still the same effect. And did you feel that you were really involved in the producer mode at this point or were you and Chris kind of collaborating because it's his space. So he's kind of a little bit more familiar with it. Yeah. You know, whenever we visit other studios, um, you know,
00:14:38
Speaker
I am a record producer, you know, now. I certainly wasn't then. I was more of a musician songwriter who, you know, that Waking in the Blue record was kind of, that was the first real album that, you know, that we did at my home studio and it was my first time
00:14:58
Speaker
producing a record on my own. But even, you know, even still, whenever, you know, on Circus of Wire Dolls, we went to various studios for different special guests.
00:15:13
Speaker
And when you're in somebody else's house, I think not only is it polite, I think it's smart to rely on them to tell us, hey, look, this is where we've had the best success of recording a vocalist. Or this is where you just rely on their expertise. And then certainly, if something isn't sounding right, we can make a suggestion.
00:15:44
Speaker
So with Chris, you know, he had his engineer there. So I really just played, you know, I followed along on the lyric sheet. And if there was a line that I wanted him to re-sing, I asked him to re-sing it. But, yeah, my role in the recording of Chris was minimal from a technical standpoint.
00:16:07
Speaker
Right. And it sounds like it came out okay. People, as I was noting before we got on the air here, kind of have a little bit, just with this particular tune, a little bit of like, is that, is that Chris Difford? Unless they kind of maybe looked at some notes and stuff, but I'm assuming, I shouldn't be assuming actually,
00:16:32
Speaker
I'm guessing that the what you put out for Chris's vocal was exactly what you wanted to do. Yeah, that's right. Well, for both, but for the waking in the blue?
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, we were very, very happy with the end result. And the idea was for him really to just kind of come in and support Michelle on the choruses.
Creating the Waking in the Blue Record
00:16:59
Speaker
And I think he also sings on the second verse with her.
00:17:03
Speaker
It was a great song. It's the only song on that record that I didn't write or co-write. It's Mike McAdam who's also in Rocking Horse Music Club with me. It was his song and it came out on a record of his own shortly after the end of Tristan Park.
00:17:21
Speaker
And I always liked the song, so I actually asked him if we could do a version for the Waking in the Blue record. So it's a really great song, and I thought Chris sounded great on it.
00:17:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah, like you said, and most people who are squeeze fans can absolutely discern his, you know, baritone voice on the on the song. So it's a great sort of beginning, even if you're on his home turf, we're gonna sort of now fast forward to talking about this brand new release.
00:18:04
Speaker
And if you would like to draw an analogy of a thread to Chris, let's kind of start off with you've done all of this work and then you've actually produced and concepted and recorded right before this release a couple of years ago a tribute album because
00:18:30
Speaker
You are, as some people would like to label and categorize, which is not a good thing, but not a bad thing, prog rock. And having known you for all these years, I can understand that in the loosest sense.
00:18:50
Speaker
But let's backtrack right before we get into talking deeply about Circus of Wiredolls, this tribute album that you did with the people who are in the Rocking Horse Music Club.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
Genesis Tribute Album
00:19:03
Speaker
So in 2019, we did a tribute album to the original guitar player in Genesis. It's a guy named Anthony Phillips. And Anthony Phillips, who's a big influence on me, he left Genesis in 1970. So he left Genesis
00:19:25
Speaker
Before Phil Collins joined Genesis, Ant was a schoolmate of Mike Rutherford's and Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel. And he left because of stage fright.
00:19:40
Speaker
There were no, you know, none of those musical difference cliches. There was no disagreements personality wise. He loved the guys. The guys loved him. And he was kind of the prime mover in Genesis in the very early days. But he slowly became stricken with crippling stage fright.
00:20:03
Speaker
And Ant and I have had conversations about this a number of times because, again, Martin Hudson, the same promoter who got me in touch with Chris, got me in touch with Ant. I was producing a record for somebody and I wanted 12-string guitar.
00:20:23
Speaker
And in the early days of Genesis, that was his primary instrument, 12 string acoustic guitar. So same thing. I went out to Martin and asked him if he had any contacts with Ant. And the next thing I know, I was speaking with Ant Phillips on the phone. And again, we made arrangements to go to England to record. And so Ant became something of a friend of mine.
00:20:52
Speaker
I loved his solo material. After he left Genesis, he released a series of solo records that he wasn't really able to promote in the 70s because the way to promote a record back in the day was to go out on the road and tour. And it's kind of difficult to tour when you have stage fright.
00:21:16
Speaker
Various friends of mine in England, one in particular, Michael Clifford, who owns a really, really cool performance spot called Trading Boundaries, where Rotten Horse Music Club is performed. He's a big Genesis fan and he knew that I was a big Genesis fan. So he asked me if I would be interested in having the band come over to do a tribute to one of the Genesis guys solo catalog.
00:21:47
Speaker
And I said, yeah, I'd be interested if you let me do Ant Phillips. And that was not the reaction that he was expecting to get. And he loved that idea. And we put it down, we schemed together, and we put two shows on the calendar. And I thought to myself, well, if we're going to learn the material, we might as well record it.
00:22:11
Speaker
And it was cool to kind of reimagine some of my favorite Ant Phillip songs. You know, one thing that I kept hidden from Ant for a long time was back in my school days, you know, we would have book covers that we would make out of grocery paper bags. And I used to write, Ant is God, right? Because it was, you know, the cliche was Eric Clapton is God.
00:22:39
Speaker
And I used to write, Ant is God on my book covers. And so it was cool to me to do this project. It was a labor of love. You know, all the young artists that I record here at the studio, I always tell them, whatever you do, do not follow the path that I have followed with Rocking Horse Music Club.
00:23:05
Speaker
because our first single was a gospel song and we're not a gospel band. Our first record, full length album, was a tribute album and we're not a tribute band. And then finally, our next record is a 22 song rock opera.
Musical Style and Influences
00:23:20
Speaker
That's not exactly hedging your bets for commercial success, but I'm just following my heart with all of this.
00:23:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And because I know you, and I know your deep, you know, passion for this genre, if I may say, that's why you can help to bring together so many diverse voices, backgrounds, and put it all together.
00:23:49
Speaker
And I can understand this is not a sort of singular vision as far as, and it's been noted in coverage of the release up in your neck of the woods.
00:24:04
Speaker
This isn't exactly Pete Townsend giving over to Roger Daltrey in helping to drive the storyline. To me, this Circus of Wiredolls is an extremely global collaborative effort.
00:24:25
Speaker
Having said that, let's wind it back a little and have you start with when and where this entire concept happened. And I want to touch a little bit on 2020 because were you doing anything creatively and did it inspire any of this to happen?
00:24:47
Speaker
Well, yeah, so Rocking Horse Music Club kind of grew out of Rocking Horse Studio, right? And we work with a lot of singer songwriters who come in and they play a little bit of acoustic guitar or they play piano, but they don't have bands, but they want to produce full band records. So for the first 10 years or so that we were getting Rocking Horse Studio off the ground,
00:25:17
Speaker
We were meeting a lot of musicians, and whenever we would find a musician that we would like, we would hold on to that musician. It kind of became our version of the Wrecking Crew, right? Los Angeles back in the 60s had the Wrecking Crew, where it was these session musicians who were playing on Beach Boys records, and then they'd go and do a Monkees record, and then they'd go and do a Mama's and Papa's record.
00:25:45
Speaker
And we kind of were, you know, we kind of said that we were along those same lines for New England and we were playing on everybody's records and, you know, Eric Wagley was the drummer that we came across very early on and Myron Kibbe is the guitar player and those guys have been with me
00:26:08
Speaker
since the beginning of the studio which was you know two thousand six two thousand seven and but you know so that was i was really rewarding and i you know every day right before i got on this call to speak with you i was in studio
00:26:23
Speaker
producing a record for an instrumental guitarist and he asked me to, you know, improv a piano solo on one of his instrumentals and any so I'm really blessed that I get to do that but for the first 10 years we were performing other people's music and we weren't performing we weren't performing our own so
00:26:53
Speaker
one of my co-writers in the band, Patrick Goachez, he came in with his own band that I think Squeeze fans would really, really like, Pat and the Hats, which then became the Hats. But, you know, if you're a Squeeze fan, I definitely suggest you check that out. He and I wrote a song for a particular project that
00:27:16
Speaker
I think NPR or NHPR, New Hampshire's Public Radio, was involved in a project. And we had to write a song about home, a song that had home in the title. And so we wrote Everywhere is Home.
00:27:35
Speaker
And that became a gospel song. And that was kind of one of the first. And then there was a movie called Granite Orpheus that was in production here in New Hampshire. And I was hired to be the music supervisor for that. And we wrote the love theme for that song, which was called
00:27:56
Speaker
I will save you. I would save you. It's been a while now. But that kind of reignited the passion for me to get back to writing songs. So once that passion was relit, there hasn't been any looking back, apart from the tribute record that we did with Ant or for Ant.
00:28:19
Speaker
um it's been about our songwriting and you know it's again i guess we can talk about that dreaded label of prog i mean you know you know me and you go back with me back to the tristan park days where those are two my two loves are progressive rock but then intelligent pop right and both of those if you drew a family tree both of those kind of are descended from the beetles right it went from
00:28:47
Speaker
the Beatles to the Moody Blues and early Pink Floyd and then the the the the Prague that everybody knows yes and Genesis and bands like that but then at the other side of the tree you know went from the Beatles to the you know the kinks and the zombies and then
00:29:08
Speaker
down a few layers to Squeeze and Crowded House and XTC and Talk Talk. And I actually was in a debate with somebody about how the merits of Aha, I think Aha was a wildly underappreciated
00:29:24
Speaker
band apart from their their hit single and you know so those are my two loves and I never really you know saw that there was going to be a problem or you know that not that there is a problem but I I always wanted to combine those things right I mean I I love the idea of Robert Fripp from King Crimson it was kind of like the poster child for Prague
00:29:46
Speaker
playing on a Blondie record and playing on a, you know, David Bowie record and playing, you know, Talking Heads, right? I mean, that was cool to me. And I never saw that you had to delineate this is Prague and this isn't. But, you know, I think
00:30:05
Speaker
Pat comes from that same line of intelligent pop. He's a huge bad finger fan. So everything that we write, Justin Cohn is the other writer, and he's more of a folk singer-songwriter.
00:30:22
Speaker
We tend to go on the pretty side, we err on the pretty side and the melodic side with lots of vocal harmonies. And some of the harder core prog rock audience maybe thinks we're a little wimpy for that.
00:30:37
Speaker
You know, they want, you know, over the top muscular musicianship. And we don't like doing musicianship just for the sake of musicianship. There has to be a melody and there has to be something emotional there for me to be interested.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I thought also, you know, kind of grazing over, you know, circus, that there is that, I would say like the anchoring point for me, if you want to talk about it really, is Justin's voice. I mean, if there has to be some sort of, you know, unbombastic delivery, Justin's delivery on a majority of this release,
00:31:22
Speaker
is just harmonious and, to use your word, very sweet. And I guess you do have that squeeze element where you have maybe a dark theme or dark lyrics and the whole in general theme of this.
00:31:40
Speaker
But you have Justin's kind of aura in his voice when he sings very uplifting. So it's a little bit of like, like you said, it's thinking man's pop if that makes any sense.
00:31:58
Speaker
It does and I would definitely agree with that. Justin has got an amazing voice and he's our secret weapon, right? And once we started talking about Wired Dolls being a genuine rock opera or a musical, Justin plays the main character and he sings more than anybody else on the record, but he's still only singing on half the record.
00:32:27
Speaker
And, you know, as we went down that path, we were thinking, okay, well, we need another song for this character to sing and that character to sing. So Justin, you know, there are a bunch of songs on the record that Justin wrote with me that he doesn't sing on.
00:32:44
Speaker
And, you know, so, you know, I kind of I joked with Justin that because he has his own solid fan base here in New England as a solo performer. He's an active, you know, we record his music and he goes out and plays. He's a professional musician. He goes out and plays six nights a week. So I joked with him about
00:33:06
Speaker
JC you're gonna have to sell this to your fan base. I don't want them to get mad at me that You know, you're only singing on half the record. So But yeah, so I mean, you know the the in-house vocalists, you know, there's there's there's Justin who's got that, you know, sweet more melodic thing and then there's pat gochis who's got more of a rock and roll strut and You know
00:33:33
Speaker
Then there are a couple of pieces that, you know, I'm a bit sheepish that the first voice that you hear on the record is actually mine. I sing two songs on the record because my character kicks off the record and ends the record. And in the middle, there are all these amazing singers. So I feel a bit sheepish that, you know, I'm the first voice that you hear.
00:33:57
Speaker
You know, but I think often as the creator, sort of the big brain of this project, and it is, you know, a wonderful story behind it that your voices, yours, Justin's and everybody else, including, we will get to it, Chris Difford.
00:34:20
Speaker
You actually can enjoy it as music, as a piece. I think like you said before, prog rock.
00:34:29
Speaker
tends to have this sort of, like you said, muscular tone to it. There's got to be something deep, you know, that we're all missing here. But your delivery and everybody's delivery, including the instrumentation, helps to lift that. And actually, you can feel good. But also, and I know you're going to help me with this, the
00:34:55
Speaker
Uh, backstory or actually the story of this release. So, uh, I'll let you go ahead and kind of explain that. And obviously the reasons why you kick it off. Yeah. So the circus of wire dolls, right? Is, um,
Concept and Creation of Circus of Wire Dolls
00:35:13
Speaker
It's about a performance artist, an artist, performance artist, who creates a circus of miniature dolls made out of wire and cloth. And he goes and performs. This is based on a real person, by the way. It's based on an American artist from the 1920s and 30s named Alexander Calder.
00:35:37
Speaker
If anybody's interested, you can go ahead and Google that or go to YouTube. And there's actually footage of Alexander Calder performing his circus. So he back in the 1920s, 30s, he would go. He was the hipster of the day and and all the hipsters thought he was a remarkable artist.
00:35:59
Speaker
And he would go from London to New York to Paris and he would perform his circus. And at one of his New York appearances, one of my favorite American novelists, Thomas Wolfe,
00:36:14
Speaker
not to be confused with Tom Wolfe. This is Thomas Wolfe from Asheville, North Carolina, the first half of the 20th century. He attended one of these shows and he thought it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever seen. And he was almost embarrassed that a hundred years from now people are going to be looking back at 1929 thinking, wow, they thought this was cool.
00:36:37
Speaker
So that's what put the idea in my head from an artistic standpoint about I wonder what Alexander Calder thought. You know, did he believe in his art? Did he think the art was good?
00:36:52
Speaker
Did he respect his audience? Did he appreciate his audience? And that could, you know, wasn't that long, wasn't that big a stretch to compare that to those of us who play music or write books or any anybody. You know, you start to wonder, does my art really matter? And is it any good? Am I just fooling myself? Am I fooling the audience? So those are kind of
00:37:20
Speaker
some of the themes on the record. So my character, I actually play the author. So I guess and you know, I would play the the author who's telling the story and then I hand it over to the primary character to then live out the story. And so that goes from me to Justin. And they're all it's all alter egos of each other. Right. I mean, my character
00:37:47
Speaker
you know thought up Justin's character and then Justin's character as the puppet master created the ringmaster and then it goes into all of the different members of the circus go and they tell their own stories kind of like
00:38:03
Speaker
Jeffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where there's an overriding story arc, but within it, each of the travelers, each of the pilgrims tell their own stories. And I'm sorry if this is getting geeky on a literary standpoint, but that, along with music, is my true love and my educational background. So that's some of the background of that.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, you know, hey, we're all here to geek out because this is a very intricately detailed yet overarching kind of sound release feeling, I guess, is the thing that I get from it. And would you also say that
00:38:53
Speaker
Well, it took you a little bit of time to put this whole thing together. I would say, did you bounce ideas off people? Did you ask people to contribute ideas? How did you present it?
Adapting During the Pandemic
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah, well, you mentioned 2020. And that's, you know, I know we're not alone in that, you know, we came back from the Anthony Phillips tribute shows in England at the end of November of 2019. And we took a break through Christmas. And then in January, I started sketching out just songs that, you know, they weren't intended to be a concept.
00:39:28
Speaker
And I finished a couple of songs. There was a song called 0300 that's on the record and another one called SY22 that were kind of the first songs. And my usual method is I would start something and I would
00:39:48
Speaker
put some lyrics down or guide vocal down with some chords and then I would send it to Pat or Justin sometimes both and you know ask them for their input and hey let's make can we make this melody stronger or hey guys I'm you know I don't have a third verse can one of you guys write the lyrics for the third verse
00:40:10
Speaker
So that was the first step, and then the second step was bringing Eric Wagley in on drums and Brendan Harris 80s. Because again, from a songwriting standpoint, going all the way back to my time in Tristan Park,
00:40:26
Speaker
We were incapable of writing a song unless we had a drummer playing along with us. That's when something felt real to us, and that's what inspired us. So that's what we always did. So I would bring in Eric Wagley and Brendan on bass. And sometimes it was, hey, Eric, I need eight bars of you playing in 7-4 here.
00:40:54
Speaker
and I'm gonna write something to it, go. And you know, Eric has worked with me for long enough that he was able to do that. So there was at one point, you know, so then COVID hit, right? And once COVID hit, because the plan had been to go back to England with a new record in 2020. So we were gonna record it the first half and it was just gonna be a regular album.
00:41:20
Speaker
that maybe had a song or two based on this wire dolls concept. But once COVID happened and everything got put on hold, I wrote another song or I started another song called Trapeze Waltz.
00:41:37
Speaker
And it was the first song that I actually visualized two characters up on stage singing to an audience and then singing to each other. And it was the that was the birth of when it became more of a rock opera slash musical instead of just a record of unconnected songs. And there was no looking back from there.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, I was wondering because most people have a vision that it is one person and then it's telling other people, this is my vision when you think concept albums and when you think of that. But this is very, very different because like you said, your vision
00:42:30
Speaker
encompasses other people coming in and helping you fulfill a space that's needed that you can't quite get it, but they do. Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, I find co-writing
00:42:49
Speaker
a lot more enjoyable than writing songs solo. And, you know, that being said, you know, there are about eight to 10 songs on this record that I, you know, wrote start to finish. But my favorite memories of the writing of this process
00:43:11
Speaker
getting together with Justin and Justin's wife Jackie, who's also a singer-songwriter, and
00:43:19
Speaker
We got together and I said, all right, guys, we need a song that talks about this and here's a basic vibe. I think I played them a demo that just again had had a drum machine loop and some chords. And we the three of us proceeded to sit in my control room and we talked about, all right, well, here's the character that's singing this song. What would that character sing about? And let's go. And we traded
00:43:49
Speaker
you know we traded lyric lines and we traded melodies and we would you know and then we'd get something that we would like and Justin you know had a microphone right there in the control room and he would do a guide vocal right then and there so we didn't lose the idea and those I love that as opposed to me just sitting around by myself you know I like the human interaction with
00:44:11
Speaker
with people that I enjoy being with, and Justin and Jackie were certainly that, and Pat Goachez, I always, I, you know, I tell people that, you know, when it comes to Pat, that my favorite songwriters are, you know, Paul McCartney, Neil Finn, and Patrick Goachez.
00:44:30
Speaker
I'm sure he appreciates that. So, you know, he thinks that's me, you know, over exaggerating, but it's absolutely true. And the idea that, you know, that I get to write songs with these guys is, you
Songwriting and Cinematic Approach
00:44:45
Speaker
know, it's pretty cool. There's a song on the record called Flowers in November, which is my absolute favorite lyric on the record. But musically, that was a song that Pat had written
00:44:57
Speaker
And he couldn't write a good lyric that he liked. So he was throwing that out. It was going to be on his solo record, but he couldn't finish the lyrics. So he said, Brian, I'm not going to use this song. Do you want to write a new lyric for it?
00:45:13
Speaker
And, you know, we put it on the record and it's the melody is beautiful. Pat's vocal on it is beautiful. And, you know, it has a there's a melancholy to that song. It's about love can still blossom later in life. So, you know, again, on the surface, this record is about this circus, but really it's about a person getting older. And, you know, like I watched my father pass away and
00:45:44
Speaker
you know, my uncle, my dad's little brother, who has Parkinson's disease, lives with Michelle and me, and I'm watching him deteriorate. And, you know, there's a line in one of the songs on this record that says, well, you know, when you're next in line.
00:45:59
Speaker
You know, certainly when my uncle and I watched my father pass away, he must have been thinking, well, that's me in 10 years. And I was certainly thinking, well, that's me in 30 years. And, you know, again, not to be, you know, not to be depressing, but, you know, that's really what the record is about. The last song, the first line of the last song is me singing. And so it begins the last day of my life. And it's, you know, so those we're dealing with mortality.
00:46:29
Speaker
Bye.
00:46:32
Speaker
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00:47:02
Speaker
Download the Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's very cinematic approach to a lot of the music that you and everybody else involved is presenting. And I know you've mentioned in other places that it's not just about this story. This is an analogy or a metaphor for the things that we go through in life.
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. You know, again, that's similar to and again, I don't want to be pretentious and compare myself to Jeffrey Chaucer, you know, the greatest poet in England in the English language, but you know, Canterbury Tales, right, the store, the individual stories in Canterbury Tales seem to be disconnected. But somehow Chaucer managed to put them all together, right. So this collection of songs when taken as a whole,
00:48:09
Speaker
does bring you on this this arc of life and you know there was one reviewer that I really you know he was a progressive rock reviewer and what I thought was cool was he said there were so many genres on the record and that made the record even progier in his mind right now there are some other progressive rock people who don't like the music theater influence or they don't like the folkie influence or the
00:48:39
Speaker
the ballad influence. But in his mind, the fact that we had a song that, you know, kind of sounded like Roxy Music meets T-Rex. And then we had another song that was, you know, very zombies-ish. He thought all of those different genres made the record
00:49:01
Speaker
even more interesting. And I'm really, I really appreciated that because that's certainly the way we felt about it. Because, you know, each of the songs, I mean, there are some narrative songs that, you know, might be a little odd lyrically to listen to out of context. But a good 90 percent of the record, they're just pop songs that might be dressed up a little bit differently. And you could appreciate them and listen to them without knowing the story. I think if you know the story,
00:49:31
Speaker
It could connect with somebody on a different level, but you could listen to a song like Cut From a Different Cloth and totally buy into it without knowing who the character is that's singing the song.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think you've really nailed it on the head for me that a listener should not be put off by the fact that there is sort of this prog-rock dressing that surrounds these kind of concepts. They have to start opening up their minds. And if that means that I'm gonna not talk about this label,
00:50:14
Speaker
that has such a, you know, a huge definition. It really does. But people want to narrow it down and put it under a microscope. And this is something with with Circus of Wild Dolls that you just cannot do. And you you set it right there with
00:50:30
Speaker
Chris's part. So let's let's touch a little bit on on his particular song. Let's let's pull it out. And why don't you give me a sort of description of how that particular song evolved? Yeah, and that's a that's a fun one. So it's a song called cut from a different cloth. And it's sung from the perspective, right? If you think about a circus and you know, you can think maybe P.T. Barnum
00:50:59
Speaker
how he had, you know, the tallest man and the strongest man and the fattest man and the beard, you know, he had his characters. So I had this idea of the oldest man alive, right? And he's in this circus only because he's old.
00:51:21
Speaker
But he wasn't always old, right? Once upon a time, he was young and vibrant and had dreams and aspirations and had other skills. So I had it in mind that we would write a song about this character, the oldest man alive. And I...
00:51:39
Speaker
we as a band discussed who we wanted to have involved in it. And there's a songwriter based here in New Hampshire named Dusty Gray, and that is his real name. He's a Nashville published songwriter who just happened to grow up
00:52:00
Speaker
in the wrong part of the world. He grew up in Concord, New Hampshire rather than Nashville, Tennessee. So Pat and I got together with Dusty and I had had a conversation with Dusty and I told him what I was looking to do about the oldest man.
00:52:17
Speaker
And Dusty did his homework because he came in and he said, Bri, what about cut from a different cloth as the title? And at first I thought, it's kind of it's kind of kind of cliche. But then I thought, well, no, because the character singing the song is actually made of cloth.
00:52:39
Speaker
So once you've flipped the cliche on its head, which is incredibly difficult to do, but Dusty managed to do that,
00:52:50
Speaker
I thought, hey, we're on to something. So similar to the way Justin and Jackie and I wrote a bunch of the songs, Pat and Dusty and I sat in the control room and we traded chords and traded melodies and traded lyrics. And Dusty came up with my favorite line on it. Back then we were made not to fray.
00:53:11
Speaker
which I think is a great, great line sung by a human, let alone sung by a doll made of cloth. It's still a great line.
00:53:20
Speaker
When we cut a demo of it, and the demo had Dusty singing, but he sang it angry. You know, he was an angry old man. And then we put the song on ice because we had a lot of other songs that we were working with. So then, earlier this year, it must have been, you know, March, April of this year,
00:53:43
Speaker
Josh Kimball, who co-produced the record with me and works with me at the studio, he and I sat down and looked at, this was the last call of, you know, or any of these songs that we had demoed kind of make the record. And we came to what we called the Dusty Song. And I said, this song is so good, but it sounded so much like a country rock song. And
00:54:09
Speaker
Then Pat said to me, he says, can I, right, let me, let me take it and see if we can, see if I can, I can kind of mold it into something that's a little bit closer to the spirit of the record. And Pat has kind of a baritone type of voice or is capable of that baritone voice. So Pat went home and later that night he sent me a demo.
00:54:34
Speaker
He had lowered the key and slowed the tempo down and made the character sound more tired rather than angry. And with the new key and Pat singing it as low as he did, it immediately made me think of Christopher. So shortly thereafter, I went to England to meet with Chris Topham.
00:55:02
Speaker
from Plain Groovy, the record label that put the album out. And, you know, we talked about everything that we were, you know, all the business about the release. And then I said, hey, look, we've got this one last song that we'd like to get on the record. And I wanted to get your take on it. What do you think? Wouldn't Chris Difford sound great singing this? And I played him the song and he agreed. And as luck would have it, Chris Topham is good friends with Chris Difford.
00:55:33
Speaker
And I explained that I had recorded with Chris 18, 19 years earlier. And, um, you know, do you think Chris would be interested? I didn't know. I mean, Chris was playing solo shows and Squeeze were out playing gigs. So I didn't know if he would have the time, but a couple of days later I got, um, you know, I got an email from, from Chris Difford saying, Hey Brian, it's great to be back in touch.
00:55:57
Speaker
I think the song was great. And if you want me, I think it would be, you know, it's a good fit for me. So let's talk. And so that's, that's how Chris and I kind of reunited after 19 years. And it's also serendipitous that you were actually, you were actually there, right? You were actually in the home country.
00:56:21
Speaker
Well, no. So yeah, I was there in April to speak with Chris Topham. And then I flew home. And then once Chris and I started cooking up the plan to record the song, I actually flew back over to London just for the recording session.
00:56:44
Speaker
So we're doing that little transatlantic ping pong here. But you just you you live for your art. That's all I can say, Brian. So anyway, so let's talk about the recording session then much, much different than 18, 19 years ago.
00:57:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, unfortunately, Chris and I had our dates confused. So I was trying to, and again, Squeeze fans will appreciate this. And this, again, this brings my love of Genesis and Squeeze together, right? So Aunt Phillips,
00:57:26
Speaker
aforementioned guitar player from Genesis, lives right on Clapham Common, right? And I visited Ant a number of times. And as you come up the underground station, you're blown by the wind coming off the windy common.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yes, I have actually I've been on that windy common. Exactly. So you know that that's in fact real. Right. So, you know, when I was starting when I was talking to Chris, I asked him if he would be interested in coming up to London and recording in Clapham at Ant Phillips's studio, thinking what a perfect combination. Those are, you know, again, my love of Genesis, my love of Squeeze.
00:58:13
Speaker
I wanted that picture with Ant and Chris and I together, right? But Chris was kind of in, you know, I understand it. Driving up to London can be a bit of a pain. So he asked, you know, would I please try to book him something down in his neighborhood? So I found a studio and we booked it and I confirmed it with Chris and everything sounded great. And I got back on the plane
00:58:44
Speaker
And the day of the session, I rented a car and drove to Brighton and struggled to find a place to park and finally did and ran into the studio and we got all set up. And an hour passed, an hour and a half passed, still no Mr. Difford and, um,
00:59:05
Speaker
So I thought, oh, well, okay, geez, I don't have his phone number. So I called Chris Topham, who happened to be in Las Vegas at the time. And the next thing I know, I got a call from Chris saying, Brian, I'm so sorry. I had it in my calendar for Thursday and it was a Tuesday. And I said, well, is there any chance you could get here? And he said, no, I'm up in London rehearsing with Squeeze.
00:59:32
Speaker
So we traded places. Yeah. We traded. We traded places. Right. So I said to him trying to make this work. I said, well, how long are you going to be? I said, if I leave now, I could get back up to London. Maybe we could do it at Ant's place because Ant had agreed to, you know, let us use his use his studio as a professional studio in his place. And, you know, we could do it. We could do it at Ant's. And Chris said, well, let me let me check with Glenn to see how long we're going to go.
01:00:03
Speaker
And he came back, you know, 10 minutes later and said, you know, Brian, I'm sorry. We're going to go late tonight. I don't think it's going to work. So.
01:00:13
Speaker
But he felt bad. I mean, it was a miscommunication. It was an honest mistake. But, you know, so he said, he says, well, you know, if it's all right with you, you know, let me have, let me have Melvin record. You know, I've done plenty of recording with Melvin Duffy who plays with Chris Solo and plays with Squeeze. I'll have Mel record me and I'll send you the vocal.
01:00:40
Speaker
So I, that trip, three weeks after I had just been to England, you know, I joke with my friends that I went all the way to England just to have a nice dinner with one of our other special guests, a wonderful singer named Noel McCalla. I had a nice dinner with Noel and his wife, Heidi, and we visited Eel Pie and, you know, we walked around Twickenham in Richmond and had a really nice night, but it was
01:01:08
Speaker
was really the only thing I got accomplished on that trip to England. But, you know, true to his word, Chris delivered a couple of really, really fantastic vocal takes a couple days later. But I never got an opportunity. I had this conversation with Mel about, you know, I really wanted to let Chris know that he was singing the role of the oldest man alive.
01:01:33
Speaker
And, you know, and but it didn't matter because, you know, Chris definitely connected with the song and felt the song. And, you know, I was able to communicate. Well, listen, you know, the character is supposed to sound tired, not angry, just tired, tired with life. And Chris's vocal couldn't have been couldn't have been better.
01:01:58
Speaker
Right. And it fits absolutely perfectly. Now that I've heard, you know, the backstory of how it can switch, it's almost like a strawberry fields kind of moment, how this all transpired down the road. And yet you've also got Melvin on the track. Yeah, that's right. Chris very early on said, hey, Brian, you know, would you be interested in
01:02:25
Speaker
in having pedal steel on the record. And I thought, yeah, pedal steel would be fantastic. And I had, you know, seen Mel perform and I knew that he was world class. And, you know, we actually, you know, I got Mel's pedal steel before, before I got the vocal. And, you know, he took it to another level. I mean, I love
01:02:48
Speaker
You know, that's Myron Kibbe who's playing a baritone guitar, kind of the cowboy. Myron and I call that the cowboy guitar. And then Mel came in and did the pedal steel.
01:03:02
Speaker
And how rock and roll is that? We have a guy named Melvin on the record and a guy named Myron on the record. I love that. Isn't that great? Yeah. So and both of them were really, really fantastic. You know, and so, yeah, I mean, it really meant a lot to me that Mel, you know, really connected. He connected with the song and and and, you know, he he actually said, Brian, at first, I thought it was a Chris Difford song.
01:03:33
Speaker
And I thought, wow, okay, that's a huge compliment. And the cadence that Chris brings to this song is just so earthy, so ethereal that again, like we said before, you don't necessarily have to understand the overall storyline.
01:03:55
Speaker
but just be able to understand his delivery and that he's such a pro at interpreting what you've given him. It's just, it's just beautiful. Well, yeah, I agree completely. Now, Pat Goeches did end up recording, you know, prior to Chris,
01:04:17
Speaker
Pat did a lead vocal as a keeper and we mixed that. And here's a little bit of interesting trivia. Because the song was so, Chris's version, or the version of the song with Chris was so late in the production, the vinyl
01:04:38
Speaker
of the album was already in production because it has such a long lead time. So the vinyl version of Circus of Wire Dolls has cut from a different cloth with
01:04:52
Speaker
Pat Goeches' original vocal. So it's only on the CD and the digital release that Chris sings. And I think that's actually kind of cool because Pat's version is really, really good. And I think Chris was a little bit nervous. He said to me, he said, well, Brian, he says, I'm going to bring my own delivery to it. Are you OK with me doing my thing? And I said, well, that's why we asked you to do it because we already had Pat's version.
01:05:23
Speaker
Um, you know, so, but Pat's version is really, really good as well. But, um, you know, Pat's a much younger guy with a lot less mileage than Chris. And like I say, Chris just, I think he just connected with it. It, you know, it sounds to me as, you know, his vocal delivery really connected with it from a spiritual level.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, he just knocked it out of the
Album Artwork and Design
01:05:46
Speaker
park. And all of the art direction, I want to sort of jump in and say all of the art direction, which, you know, obviously you would be able to see on the CD just fits so perfectly. And that's Michelle's work, correct? Yeah. So the art is actually it's three people, three very important people. And you know, one of them, I'm pretty sure.
01:06:12
Speaker
Um, so yeah, Michelle created all of the characters that you see throughout the book, throughout the booklet and on the front and the back cover. And it was shot by a guy named Wesley Thurber, who also is a singer songwriter who works here at the studio and played trumpet on Circus of Wire dolls.
01:06:35
Speaker
So he took the components and he kind of compiled them into the front and back cover images, and then my buddy Christian Gustafson, right? Amy, I think you've met Gus back in the Tristan Park days, maybe? Back in the old days. Yeah, so Christian Gustafson is a professional graphic designer, so he did the layout.
01:06:59
Speaker
the models, the dolls are Michels, the composite photos are Wes's, and the design is Christian Gossipsen. And I couldn't be more pleased because I'm a musician and I think in terms of music, not visuals, so it's always nerve-wracking to me to come up with a cover, but I'm actually holding the CD in my hand right now and I'm thinking,
01:07:27
Speaker
Boy, that team did a really nice job on that cover. Yeah, they bring it like if you want to go the route of literal interpretation, so to speak, with the songs. I mean, this is a film waiting to happen. This is like back in the old days, the stop motion.
01:07:46
Speaker
animation. That's what needs to happen with this entire project because it would just be so earthy, so warm, so, you know, grass rootsy that it needs that kind of treatment. And I think it's kind of interesting
01:08:05
Speaker
looking at the credits of a lot of people who are contributing to this record, to the CD, to the release, let me throw out Greg Hawks.
01:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, we love Greg Hawks. Again, being a child of New England, it was, you know, the cars were everywhere growing up. And, you know, I always, you know, some friends of mine, you know, that I grew up with, went to high school with, they agree with this statement
Contributions from Special Guests
01:08:36
Speaker
is that everybody in school
01:08:40
Speaker
liked the cars, loved the cars, but they were never, at least in our school, they were never anybody's favorite band, right? Like my buddy, Kristin Gustafson, his favorite band was the Moody Blues, but he loved the cars. My favorite band was Genesis, but I loved the cars. You know, all the way down the line, everybody loved the cars. So Greg,
01:09:03
Speaker
He still lives here in New England. He lives in Massachusetts. And he's been up to the studio on numerous occasions to do sessions for different people. And he's played keyboards. He's played ukulele. And on Circus of Wiredolls, he plays alto sax on a tune that I had mentioned earlier that's kind of a Roxy music pastiche. We have something when Pat and I got together to write that tune. We were like, yeah, let's write a glam rock tune.
01:09:32
Speaker
And we actually bolted one of his songs onto one of my songs, and mine was very, very Roxy music. So when Greg came up to record his part, and he did the part, he came in afterwards and said, is that Roxy music enough for you, Brian? So I just loved the fact that, and I hadn't mentioned Roxy at all, but he definitely got the vibe and totally delivered the vibe. So he's
01:10:00
Speaker
Such a fun hang. We got together with him shortly after the vaccines were available in that early spring where there was optimism that this pandemic was coming to an end.
01:10:16
Speaker
We had a great time. We have a great time every time Greg comes up and he played us some in-process, and I hope it'll see the light of day, some unreleased cars stuff that he has been kind of tasked with finishing off. If Greg listens to this podcast, hint hint,
01:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, it was really amazing stuff. And we were flattered that he was sharing it with us because it was really cool. Now, alto sax, that needs a little bit of an explanation. Yeah, OK. So the typical saxes that you would hear, like Clarence Clemens with Bruce Springsteen, that's a tenor sax.
01:11:07
Speaker
You know, that was kind of the big rock and roll, slightly lower timbre. The alto sax had its moment, you know, the late 80s into the early 90s, where it's a little bit higher sounding, it's a little sweeter sounding, not as growly.
01:11:28
Speaker
So back in Tristan Park, not that anybody listening to this would, except for you, would get this. Mark Larichelle used to play alto saxophone. Oh my gosh, yes. Mark, right. Yeah, so and Mark actually was here visiting last year and got a glimpse of all this record too. So yeah, so alto sax, because of Mark,
01:11:52
Speaker
Alto sax has always been my favorite, right? But again, the one that everybody knows is Clarence Clemens and, you know, the old G.E. Smith Saturday Night Live band. That was all tenor sax.
01:12:06
Speaker
You know, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown, that was tenor sax. So I guess I'm doing a better job explaining what's not alto sax, you know, because it's escaping me now. You know, Supertramp, John Helliwell played a lot of alto sax.
01:12:24
Speaker
So, you know, that would be a good thing if you want it. Or you could just check out the song, It's Not About You, from Circus of Wiredolls and hear Greg playing. Yeah, so he also plays Alto Sax on All Mixed Up on the first, the last song on the first Cars record. That's Alto Sax.
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's just not sort of like, again, if you're taking it at face value, it's something that definitely doesn't jump out at you that says, this is Greg Hawks. It's kind of like that. It's kind of like, well, let's just say it. It's like the Beatles, you know, my name, look up the number and having Brian Jones playing sax on that, which is actually just a little bit of like, wow, you know, he was a multi instrumentalist that just didn't get his due, so to speak.
01:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, you're preaching to the choir because Brian Jones was one of my earliest musical influences and I loved his versatility. And actually on that trip to England in April when I went to meet with Chris Topham,
01:13:26
Speaker
One of the days I took a train out to Cheltenham to visit Brian Jones' grave and pay my respects. There's a reason I play a mountain dulcimer on the very first track, and that's because of Brian Jones.
01:13:44
Speaker
And there's so many multi hyphenated instruments going on in this particular release. And a lot of it, this is the really interesting part. When you say prog rock, it just sounds all like, you know, people think it must be this incredible din that I can't understand. And maybe there are some lyrics in there and, you know, I'm just putting it as, you know, the devil's advocate that
01:14:12
Speaker
a lot of the instrumentation seems very analog, if I can use that term. And I'd also like you to talk, it may not have a direct reference with Christopher, but maybe it does, is the work that you did at Abbey Road.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, cool. So as far as the analog, yeah, you know, there's there are a lot of acoustic instruments on the record and, you know, that's let me shout out to Kate St. John. Do you remember a band called Dream Academy?
01:14:45
Speaker
Yes, I do. Yeah. So Dream Academy. I love when that first record came out, when you think it was the mid 80s, and I'm not making a value judgment, right? But it was Wham! and Culture Club and Duran Duran. And it was everything was very synthy and drum machines. And suddenly, out comes this record that features acoustic guitar and piano and oboe.
01:15:11
Speaker
And that just floored me. And, you know, when that record came out, it sounded like nothing else on the radio. And I was intrigued by Kate St. John's role in the band. I mean, here we were in the, you know, the technologically advanced 1980s, and they have a band member playing oboe. And, you know, so I remembered that. And again, in my role as a producer, I was producing a record for somebody and I thought,
01:15:39
Speaker
Huh, an oboe would be really cool. Who do I know that plays oboe? And I thought, oh, Kate St. John. And that was a cold call. I just looked her up and found her website and sent her an email. And she's been on every Rocking Horse music club record we've done since. So, yeah, so there's Kate on oboe and she also plays the English horn, the core anglais.
01:16:02
Speaker
on Flowers in November, which I had mentioned earlier. And Rob Townsend, who plays in Steve Hackett's band, Steve Hackett from Genesis, he plays soprano saxophone on a couple of songs. And our own Jenna Jagdian from Massachusetts plays violin. And Jeremy Harmon plays cello. So there are a lot of acoustic instruments on the record.
01:16:32
Speaker
And I'm really proud of that. And I think that really comes across, it brings the warmth to the record.
01:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, and one thing that you must have been so, I mean, it's
Recording at Abbey Road Studios
01:16:45
Speaker
stratospherically incomprehensible to me because I'm not a really accomplished musician. Yeah, you know, I can play a little strum, a little guitar or something, but for you to be in Studio Two and playing the Mrs. Mill piano, that must have just, like, blown your mind. How did you keep the focus?
01:17:09
Speaker
Well, you know, what's interesting is I rehearsed my butt off before going to Abbey Road because I wanted to enjoy the experience and I didn't want to be disappointed. So I really, really rehearsed. But there's also, you know, a drummer who does a lot of sessions for us now, who has played on records for
01:17:35
Speaker
Paul McCartney and George Harrison and XTC and Nick Drake. And his name is Dave Maddox. And he's an Englishman who lives in Massachusetts. And the guy is a legend. And he's become a friend of ours over the years. And when we talked, I talked to him. I told him that we were going to Abbey Road. And I expressed my concern about
01:18:03
Speaker
Am I going to wilt under the pressure?" And he said, Brian, you're not. Abbey Road brings out the best in everybody who walks into that building. And he was absolutely right. He couldn't have been more spot on because, you know, you walk in and
01:18:22
Speaker
First of all, they haven't really made any updates to the walls or the floors. So it looks, when you walk onto the floor of Studio 2, it looks exactly like it did when the Beatles were recording. But yet there's a warmth to it.
01:18:39
Speaker
And there's a familiarity about it. And once you clear your mind that, hey, I'm an Abbey Road and hey, John Lennon played this piano and hey, look at that cigarette burn. That's from John Lennon on this piano. Once you clear your mind, you know, I we had to put kind of a schedule together about what we wanted to get accomplished. And I
01:19:05
Speaker
really over-scheduled or under-scheduled. I gave myself a long time to record two piano parts and I was done in you know half the time because I had rehearsed and Dave Maddox was correct in that it tends to bring out the best in everybody and the staff at Abbey Road was totally pro but you know what coming from as a studio owner and as a you know as a recording engineer
01:19:35
Speaker
It was great to see that stuff breaks down even at Abbey Road.
01:19:41
Speaker
You know, I mean, you know, it's this mystical mythical place, but yet things still go wrong. Mechanical stuff still breaks down. And it did. And the thing they handled it exactly the way we handle it. It's all right. Well, let's not panic. Let's let's find a fix and let's move on. And, you know, so it was kind of an affirmation that we're doing the things that we're supposed to be doing at Rocking Horse and we do them the same way that they do it at Abbey Road.
01:20:10
Speaker
The only difference is we might have a pair of really expensive mics, and they've got 20 or 30 of the most expensive mics in the world. But other than that, it's all the same.
01:20:25
Speaker
Hear you say that because it does offer up this sort of, you know, let's use that country down home kind of feeling where you know that you shouldn't be overwhelmed so much with that
01:20:41
Speaker
I don't know what the word is that that sort of aura, you know, you should be comfortable because this is where you want to record. This is the sound that you have in your head. And for you to be able to work that out is just it's just amazing. What? What? Is there a song on the on on the circus wire dolls with you played that piano?
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, so I played, I played Mrs. Mills on Trapeze Waltz. And then I played the challenge piano, which is, you know, the one with the John Lennon cigarette burn on the final song on the record, Koda. And Pat played Mrs. Mills on Will You Be My Downfall?
01:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's just so much history in there that you're able to extract at this moment in time. When did you actually go over to Abbey Road? When was that?
01:21:45
Speaker
So we went over in December of 2021, just as Omicron was exploding all over the world. You know, it was give or take whether it was, you know, really touch or go, whether we were actually going to end up going or not. Because, you know, the British government, just like our own government, they were changing
01:22:08
Speaker
travel restrictions every day. So we had to keep abreast of the new policies and we had to test and then we had to test again and then we had to test again and there was a danger that if we tested positive or even if somebody on the plane had tested positive, we were going to have to isolate for 10 days and that would have meant
01:22:29
Speaker
I would have been trapped in England until Christmas Eve, right? So it was really, really tense before we went, but we all managed to get there and we all managed to get home. Our last day in England, I did get a notice. My phone dinged just as I was sitting at the Mrs. Mills piano on our last day at Abbey Road.
01:22:56
Speaker
It was a text message that said you have been identified as a close contact of somebody who has tested positive for COVID-19. But as luck would have it, the following day, the Monday, the rules were changing in Britain that if you were a close contact, you just had to test and you didn't have to self-isolate. So I tested because I was leaving, you know, we were going home on a Tuesday.
01:23:21
Speaker
So I just got lucky, but that was certainly a concern. But the other cool thing about Abbey Road is we had a lot of our English special guests join us at the studio. And when you tell them, hey, look, we're coming to England, we're recording at Abbey Road, do you feel like coming to London and recording your part at Abbey Road? Most people say yes to that.
01:23:48
Speaker
And I was wondering about that. Do you just say that? Well, we're going to be recording at Abbey Road, and they're like, I'm there. Yeah, that's pretty much it. When we told people, some of the special guests were done in their own home studio, but then a couple of them, I said, well,
01:24:08
Speaker
If you feel like joining us at Abbey Road, come on down to Abbey Road and we'll redo the vocal at Abbey Road with their collection of microphones.
01:24:22
Speaker
So it worked out really well. There was an artist from here, you know, that was coming with us because he wanted to record the same choir that recorded on our debut single, Everywhere is Home. We had an English choir sing gospel of London and he wanted them on one of their songs. So I said, well, you know, let's see if we can do that with them at Abbey Road because I know they had recorded at Abbey Road before.
01:24:52
Speaker
So we recorded the choir for him. The choir is on our record as well. They sing on a song called All Shall Be Well, but that was done in a church in North London. So then, you know, after the choir was done, we had the rest of the time, you know, to record our own stuff, which was pretty cool.
01:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, time well spent, as it were in that studio. I also just want to sort of touch down, spend just a little bit more time too on, you've got this release all ready to go. And certainly there is a lot of, and I don't, post production, and I don't mean post production in the musical sense, I'm thinking,
01:25:39
Speaker
You have now got this thing together, this project together. How do I present it?
01:25:48
Speaker
well yeah i mean you know that's something that i've always i've always enjoyed that aspect of it right uh... you know and maybe marketing isn't the right word but you know just you know just just just getting out there and and spreading the word of the record so i kind of looked at that as uh... you know i looked at that as a challenge and what was cool was we finished the record back in may it was mastered which is the you know the final
01:26:16
Speaker
final step of the creative process and the beginning of the manufacturing process.
Promotion and Live Shows
01:26:20
Speaker
So that was May for a September release. So from May until the record release, I had all of that time to reach out to people. And I had made a lot of new contacts, having done the Anthony Phillips tribute record.
01:26:41
Speaker
And, you know, I'll draw a distinction between Genesis fans and Prague Rock fans because I think they're two separate entities, you know, and I can tell as this record has come out and it's been received, it's been received really, really well amongst the Genesis community and pretty well amongst the Prague Rock community, which was to be expected.
01:27:06
Speaker
But yeah, so I reached out to all the journalists and internet radio programs that I had, you know, made contact with for the Ant Phillips record and then local contacts here in New England and then obviously, you know, you were the first person I shared cut from a different cloth just because I knew you would appreciate, you know, the story behind it.
01:27:30
Speaker
And I actually, you know, you and John Lay, you know, were the first people to hear the song and hear the story of how it happened. So, yeah. So, I mean, you know, I enjoy doing interviews. We did all the local media. We were just recently on the ABC affiliate up here in New Hampshire. They did a feature on the band and the record. And, you know, so it's kind of a combination of
01:28:01
Speaker
local old-school television newspaper radio and then online uh... blogs and discussion groups and uh... i've enjoyed that and you know there are certain people that just aren't going to be interested for one reason or the other and you know they're entitled to that but you know sometimes it's frustrating where i'd see you know a particular bloggers writing about stuff that
01:28:29
Speaker
Oh, well, geez, if you like that, you'd really like our stuff, right? But, you know, it doesn't do any good obsessing over it. If somebody's not interested in covering you, there are other people who are. So we've been, you know, we've been flattered with the amount of coverage that we've had so far and there are more things in the works. And it's also exciting that the band is starting to rehearse right now for the live shows that we're going to do in March.
01:28:56
Speaker
Oh, yes, please. Definitely. Please, please talk about that. Now, is it going to be mostly circus of wire dolls or it is? I mean, this is it. Right. Yeah. Well, it's a good it's a good question. I mean, it's it's certainly going to be a heavy dose of circus of wire dolls, you know. But, you know, you mentioned earlier that you thought it could be a movie. You know, our original thought was it could be a stage show, right? Like a Broadway type of thing.
01:29:23
Speaker
But, you know, we're a band. We're not actors. We're not singers. We're not dancers. So, you know, we're going to go and play the record kind of the way the who would play Tommy, not Tommy on Broadway. Right. Right. And I think what we'll probably do is we'll, you know, we'll print play bills in case in case anybody wants to follow along or is wondering what the heck is happening here.
01:29:48
Speaker
Rather than me, because I can be long-winded as evidenced by our discussion here today, I don't want to take up half the night explaining, hey, well, in this song, this is going on. If I just hand out a playbill to people and say, if you want to follow along, or if you're wondering what the heck's happening, follow along on the playbill. But if not, just enjoy a night of music. But I think we're also, when we went out and did the shows in 2019, people really
01:30:18
Speaker
uh... you know for the ant phillips tribute we also combined our ant phillips tribute with a tribute to mike rutherford from genesis his first solo record is a record called small creeps day and uh... there's a singer this the lead singer from that record is a gentleman named noel mccalla and he sang on our ant phillips tribute record on a song which again as a genesis fan i think it's pretty cool right so he sings on a song called
01:30:47
Speaker
which way the wind blows, which is a song that Ant wrote, Noel Sings, and Steve Hackett, who replaced Ant in Genesis, plays the guitar solo. And that's kind of the only place that that can happen. So when we went, you know, when we did the shows, Michael Clifford from Trading Boundaries, the venue, you know, mentioned, hey, you know, I'm good friends with Noel McCalla, could we get him involved?
01:31:13
Speaker
So we got Noel involved, and then the logical thing was, well, if Noel's going to be involved, could we do a couple of songs from Small Creeps Day? And the cool thing is Aunt Phillips played keyboards on Small Creeps Day.
01:31:28
Speaker
So it all kind of tied in. So a lot of Genesis fans, and again, I'll say not necessarily Prague fans, but a lot of Genesis fans, me included, really like that Small Creeps Day record. And I love Noel's voice on that record. So we did a bunch of songs from that. And I think what the plan is in March, and these shows are the 17th and 18th of March,
01:31:54
Speaker
We're going to do Circus of Wire Dolls, but we're also going to invite a couple of our special guests who played on the record and have them come down and do a set. It'll almost be like a mini music festival. And we're going to have Noel and Dave Henschel, who produced Small Creeps Day and produced a bunch of Genesis records and also engineered Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and others from Elton John. So Dave Henschel is a pretty established guy.
01:32:23
Speaker
they're going to do kind of a fireside chat about the making of Small Creeps Day. So it's going to be a big event. And, you know, we might even extend the offer out to to Mr. Difford. So, Chris, if you're listening, be prepared that that invite is coming. And if you want to come and play that, you know, sing cut from a different cloth with us on stage, trading boundaries isn't too far from where you live. So consider that the invitation.
01:32:50
Speaker
Yes, we are going to cast a wide net so that we can catch all of the great performers from this release. That's why I'm so happy that I was able to get back in touch with you and to see this magnanimous project come together with so much
01:33:19
Speaker
And I used it earlier. I used the word passion. I mean, that's kind of where I stand with it. So I was like super happy that I could just put this on and I'm working. And I'm like, wow, this is great. Because I'm going to say it. I am now a huge fan of Justin's voice. I just love Justin's voice on it. It's just so gorgeous. And to see him on that little bit that was done up in New Hampshire singing, I was like, oh my gosh.
01:33:48
Speaker
That's just and listen to that voice. So anyway, I'm going to stop fangirling about that and just say, I'm so happy that this project came together. And like everything in life, it's a struggle and there's this going on and there's that going on. But to be able to drop this little pearl into the ocean and have the ripples come out, you know, I'm just I'm just really, really happy. Thanks, Amy.
01:34:16
Speaker
So I guess when we say that we want to have a future with this release, we are talking multimedia event. We're talking theater. We're going to talk about computer stop motion animation. And have I have I missed anything else? Well, you know, it's interesting that, again, our original thought was stage show, and we might try to develop that. But then
01:34:44
Speaker
There have also been a few people that I've discussed the possibility of a movie and it's interesting, depending on who you talk to, some people are thinking Tim Burton and I'm thinking Chris Columbus because I like the warmth and, you know, just the warmth of Chris Columbus's movies.
01:35:04
Speaker
But then, you know, somebody presented the idea, well, maybe when he's in his imaginary world, it could be warm and Chris Columbus like. And then when he's in the real world, it's more Tim Burton like. So it's fun to think about those. We're going to, you know, we're going to develop those.
Reflection and Future Projects
01:35:25
Speaker
This is just step one, the album version, and then we'll see where it goes from there. I love the idea of
01:35:31
Speaker
You know, Caroline Carter, who's one of the guest singers, and she actually co-wrote a couple of the songs on the record. She came up with a wonderful expression. She called it Prague Way. I love it. Right. Yeah. So a combination for progressive rock and Broadway equals Prague Way.
01:35:49
Speaker
All right. Well, I'm going to use that then somewhere in the description for this episode. So I just want to say, Brian, it's so I'm pleased and honored that we have been able to get back together audio wise and to have this release to talk about. And I just I will be looking forward to to a bigger world with the circus of wire dolls. Wonderful.
01:36:19
Speaker
Thanks, Amy. It's been great being back in touch with you. I think of you and Tristan Park in those days fondly. And it's just great to connect in a different era. So I appreciate it.