STEVE BYRNE (SONS OF LIBERTY)
Q: Bristol's not the likeliest place for it to form, is it?
SB: No. Not for Southern. Back in the midst of time, the two guitarists, Fred and Muse - I think Muse was buying another one of his guitars - they went off together and on the way, they have Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchett, Blackfoot, Blackberry Smoke, Blackstone Cherry, Allman Brothers on a playlist, listening to it going, ‘No buggers playing this stuff. We ought to put a band together to do it’. So, they put the feelers out. They knew Mark and Rob and Mark knew me through helping out the Metal covers band that I played in with him.
Q: Where you were already a Southern Rock fan?
SB: Yeah. I never got to see Skynyrd original but I saw them about five years ago and I'd seen Blackfoot supporting the Scorpions. They'd done a short set. gone off after about 35 minutes but then came back on. The crowd were going ballistic. So they finished off, obviously, with Highway Song and the whole place erupted. I was actually quite disappointed in the Scorpions after that. I mean, the Scorpions really had to up their game.
Q: So what's your background in?
SB: Edited highlights, my late auntie bought me a junior drum set (as opposed to a kid's drum set) when I was three, three and a half because she could see I was hitting things. At the age I was, I was massively into the Beatles so I play along to all the BBC Live programme and the Beatles singles and then when I was six, my mum said, “Right, you're not playing drums anymore, I've had enough of this, you're going to go play a decent instrument” she sent me off to play piano, because she played piano. So I did piano until I was fourteen. I was two exams from qualifying as a piano teacher at fourteen - I was that good - but like all teenagers, I started to, well, I was more into other things. Sabbath, Purple, Zeppelin, Floyd, and wanting to play that stuff but she was like “No, you can't play that!” So I thought, “I've had enough of this” fuck that, I'm going back to drums and stopped with the teacher, obviously without saying ‘fuck that’ to her. (laughs) I had some money of my own from premium bonds, cashed it all in, went out and bought a drum kit, and been playing drums since then.
Q: You actually play double bass drums. Two drums and two pedals as opposed to the single pedal with two beaters many prefer these days.
SB: I’ve been playing double bass drums since 1982 when there wasn't that many doing double bass drums around. It was a new album kind of stuff. Mooney (Keith Moon) had one, of course, but my idol was Cozy Powell. I was playing in a prog band called Multistory and that's why I had the full sweep of kit, two bass drums, so I could do the Neil Peart and Genesis stuff and whatever else. I've got a double pedal in the car, just in case and I use the double pedal in restricted venues.
Q: Did you ever meet your hero?
SB: The very first Schenker tour and I walked right past him! (laughs) My best mate was screaming at me. “Steve! Come here! Turn around! Who have you just walked past” and I could see Cozy stood there. It was the end of the show. He walked onto the stage and was packing up and whatever else so I just said, do you mind a chat and he went “No, no, no. You're more than welcome”. So we chatted as he was doing all his stuff on the stage and it was a lovely fifteen minutes.
Q: Steve, great to talk to you. Thanks very, very much.
SB: No, you're welcome.
A NEW DAY 2025
16th August 2025
KINDRED SPIRIT
KINDRED SPIRIT BAND
Elaine Samuels, Keith Buckman, Paul Austin, Piers Hogg
Q: So, how did the album launch go? It's just out, I believe.
ES: We haven't launched it with an actual concert yet but we're planning the concert for October. People seem to like it and we're just getting reviews back now. We've had a couple of really, really good reviews.
Q: It's an unusual premise for an album.
ES: It was written all in sequence; I just wrote one after the other. We had this creative day and Keith played a riff on his bass and I instantly saw it. I was transported to this gloomy old house with all these mirrors. I knew there was something in it and I went away and wrote the first song. Then I realised it was to do with mental health because I've been thinking so hard about how to help someone in my family to recover. Then I researched - I read a load of books. That’s the way I work. If I'm writing about something I need, I know I need to know. I read a whole bunch of books that were written by schizophrenics who had recovered and showed you from the inside what, what they experienced.
I wanted to recreate that in a song so the first two songs take you right into that mindset.
Q: This is obviously something very dear to you, lead us through the rest of the album.
ES: You're in this old house with all these mirrors and these shapes start to form. You're starting to see things and hear things, shadowy creatures who know where to find you because you've created them in your mind anyway. Right. They chase you, you feel like it's the end and you end up opening this portal and you dive through into this kind of dream world. There’s a glowing pathway which you decide to follow and you meet these characters that help you along the way. Eventually, you are able to rise back up into the real world again and feel whole. I'm hoping that people listening to it, especially if they're struggling a bit, they'll find a lot of messages that are very positive.
Q: Such as?
ES: To keep traveling making positive steps learning to believe in yourself more and to trust yourself and this kind of thing.
Q: So Keith, where do you come into all this?
KB: Well, I did a fair bit of the musical arranging. Elaine and I live quite close to each other, about a mile's walk. I sort of mapped it out with Elaine and I kind of translated Elaine's ideas into something that the rest of the band could engage with and play. Scoring a few things out and that and I also co-produced it with Paul.
Q: What’s Keith like to work with Paul?
PA: Very, very easy, actually. I think one of the real pleasures of doing this has actually been how easy everybody has been to work together because sometimes bands, you know, can get a bit fractious and everybody has their own opinion of how things should be but on this album, everybody's chipped in when they wanted to and we've, we managed to come to a consensus fairly quickly and easily.
KB: Yeah we got a kind of workflow going that we first tried out on, on the Mechanophobia EP. After the arrangements and everything like that, we put the core tracks down, which was basically acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and held that together throughout the whole album to give it a bit of coherence. Then we overlaid the arrangements with Piers and Stevie and the guest artist that came with us. Paul's role was recording and also the mixing and mastering. I just did some of the file editing and all that kind of stuff.
ES: This is a a new band line up for me because during the lockdown my band left and we got this whole new band but everybody's just so friendly and mature.
Q: Good. Do you concur Piers?
PH: Yes, I concur. Everybody's easy to work with.
Q: When you come in, do you change things around a bit or are you happy with it?
PH: No not really. It can take me a while to get something because basically, Stevie and I are inventing our parts as we go along so it’s a case of coming up with something you're happy with and then submitting it. Then somebody saying, ‘Well, maybe you could do this…’ but that’s ok, that’s all part of working together.
ES: The whole writing and recording process was so enjoyable. No egos in the band and great teamwork.
Elaine Samuels, Keith Buckman, Paul Austin, Piers Hogg
Q: So, how did the album launch go? It's just out, I believe.
ES: We haven't launched it with an actual concert yet but we're planning the concert for October. People seem to like it and we're just getting reviews back now. We've had a couple of really, really good reviews.
Q: It's an unusual premise for an album.
ES: It was written all in sequence; I just wrote one after the other. We had this creative day and Keith played a riff on his bass and I instantly saw it. I was transported to this gloomy old house with all these mirrors. I knew there was something in it and I went away and wrote the first song. Then I realised it was to do with mental health because I've been thinking so hard about how to help someone in my family to recover. Then I researched - I read a load of books. That’s the way I work. If I'm writing about something I need, I know I need to know. I read a whole bunch of books that were written by schizophrenics who had recovered and showed you from the inside what, what they experienced.
I wanted to recreate that in a song so the first two songs take you right into that mindset.
Q: This is obviously something very dear to you, lead us through the rest of the album.
ES: You're in this old house with all these mirrors and these shapes start to form. You're starting to see things and hear things, shadowy creatures who know where to find you because you've created them in your mind anyway. Right. They chase you, you feel like it's the end and you end up opening this portal and you dive through into this kind of dream world. There’s a glowing pathway which you decide to follow and you meet these characters that help you along the way. Eventually, you are able to rise back up into the real world again and feel whole. I'm hoping that people listening to it, especially if they're struggling a bit, they'll find a lot of messages that are very positive.
Q: Such as?
ES: To keep traveling making positive steps learning to believe in yourself more and to trust yourself and this kind of thing.
Q: So Keith, where do you come into all this?
KB: Well, I did a fair bit of the musical arranging. Elaine and I live quite close to each other, about a mile's walk. I sort of mapped it out with Elaine and I kind of translated Elaine's ideas into something that the rest of the band could engage with and play. Scoring a few things out and that and I also co-produced it with Paul.
Q: What’s Keith like to work with Paul?
PA: Very, very easy, actually. I think one of the real pleasures of doing this has actually been how easy everybody has been to work together because sometimes bands, you know, can get a bit fractious and everybody has their own opinion of how things should be but on this album, everybody's chipped in when they wanted to and we've, we managed to come to a consensus fairly quickly and easily.
KB: Yeah we got a kind of workflow going that we first tried out on, on the Mechanophobia EP. After the arrangements and everything like that, we put the core tracks down, which was basically acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and held that together throughout the whole album to give it a bit of coherence. Then we overlaid the arrangements with Piers and Stevie and the guest artist that came with us. Paul's role was recording and also the mixing and mastering. I just did some of the file editing and all that kind of stuff.
ES: This is a a new band line up for me because during the lockdown my band left and we got this whole new band but everybody's just so friendly and mature.
Q: Good. Do you concur Piers?
PH: Yes, I concur. Everybody's easy to work with.
Q: When you come in, do you change things around a bit or are you happy with it?
PH: No not really. It can take me a while to get something because basically, Stevie and I are inventing our parts as we go along so it’s a case of coming up with something you're happy with and then submitting it. Then somebody saying, ‘Well, maybe you could do this…’ but that’s ok, that’s all part of working together.
ES: The whole writing and recording process was so enjoyable. No egos in the band and great teamwork.
ALMAMOR
Rafael Monteiro, Will Ang, Dave Radford
Q: Interesting name. Where's it come from?
RM: We were lucky. We never had to debate too much about a band's name. I came up with this contraption of two Portuguese words. One is ‘alma’ which means soul and then I did a shortened version of a word called ‘maior’ which means higher or bigger. I shortened it into mor so putting it together kind of means higher soul or bigger soul. I proposed it to the other two members. And they were like, yeah, I like the sound of it. And that was it.
WA: No, I mean, I haven't gone through debates about band names before. It's something. There we go. Something that’s unique.
RM: Actually, the two of us, we were in previous bands together and I remember one was a nightmare to find a name with.
WA: Everybody had their own opinions.
RM: So I was so glad that everyone just said, yeah, let's do it. Let's stick to it. And that was it.
Q: You've been in the studio recently, I believe.
RM: That's right.
Q: How's it going?
RM: It's going well. I mean, unfortunately, due to financial limitations, we're pacing ourselves but we're happy with the results. We've got, what, 12 songs on it?
WA: Yeah.
RM: We went a bit crazy. 12 songs.
WA: I think we're almost done, apart from a few extras. A few vocals and we want a few keyboards, pianos.
Q: Same studio and producer as “Shelter?”
RM: Same producer. Different studio but same kind of vibe, we hope.
WA: It's more rock.
RM: Yeah, because Dave only joined us for the second album, the drummer and he's a more powerful drummer. I think, unconsciously, we just went that way because we want to get the best out of him.
WA: It'd been a long time. We'd been looking for a drummer for ages. I mean, you'd been writing and doing bits here and there anyway and just by what we were listening to at that time, it just influenced us a lot more.
RM: Of the writing, yeah. I agree with that.
WA: It took a long time, whereas “Shelter” was all very quick.
RM: With “Shelter”, we formed the band and I think four months later we were in the studio recording it so it was all very organic and very spontaneous. It was a joy to do. The same with this one; the same with Dave. As soon as we got him on board, we forgot the old songs and we just went more in his direction. Dave is like, give me more, give me more, give me more and he really handled it really well. We're very happy so far with the result. Obviously, we still need to mix it, master it. But yeah, I think the ingredients are there.
Q: What's your view of the current music scene in the UK? Particularly in your field, is it healthy?
RM: Well, that's a big question I think there's still the two sides. There's some still good music being done and being played live. But the majority of mainstream, in my opinion, it's all soulless.
WA: I agree. I mean, it's just that. But then there's also the lack of...what's the term recently? It's like grassroots venues and smaller venues. Especially, let's say, in London. A lot of the pubs and a lot of the places that would have done live music are closing for one reason or another. Which means that the bands playing there aren't getting the exposure or the profile or the experience of playing. And it's a bit soul-destroying, sort of having to do that. The nature of the business has changed, as cliche as that sounds.
RM: I was going to mention that, because the nature of the business... Come on in, Dave.
DR: Hey, what's going on here?
RM: Jump in. I was going to say the nature of the business...has
Standardised. So, you know, everyone wants to make money with it. Producers mainly and then that kind of band environment is getting lost. It's like a solo artist who hires musicians to put down their parts and I much prefer to be in the band and get the best out of each musician. Because I think the music is a lot more soulful and original in that sense. So, we don't see it as a business. When we compose music, we compose it for ourselves. We don't compose it to have the goal of making a lot of money.
Q: You’re the new boy Dave.
DR: Yes.
Q: How was the gig?
DR: Sweaty. Very hot.
Q: How is it working with these guys?
DR: They make it easy. They give me that opportunity to kind of do what I want to do. But they also challenge me with things; hey keep me on my toes in a good way.
Q: It's not straightforward music. That's not a criticism, it's just an observation so I'm just wondering, with all this AI rubbish that's going on around the world at the moment, could AI write one of your songs?
RM:I hope not.
WA: No, not at the moment, because they're quite simple. They're not really trained on our sort of music. It's predominantly Country and Pop. They can do bits of metal here and there but it's predictive. It's a musical form of predictive text, which is how it currently is.
Q: I like that description.
RM: My fear is that in about 10, 20 years' time, they will catch up and they will be able to do it.
WA: You'll probably notice it more in corporate settings. Adverts and stuff like that. You won't find band songs being licensed. Then it will change the commercial viability of music in that sense. From a publishing standpoint. It won't replace live music.
RM: We as a band, we want to be honest with the music we make. I will never put one word coming from elsewhere, or one note coming from elsewhere. Everything we're debuting, it comes from…it comes from our hearts, from our soul. Otherwise, for me, it has no value to be on stage and give a soulless performance. We love that we're human. We are organic, and that's what we want to do. We don't overthink our songs. Everything we do comes out naturally. I'm glad that you think it's not straightforward and for us, it's just a joy to do and perform.
ERIN BENNETT (EBB)
Q: You have a commune…
EB: Yes. Well, part of one. We're kind of an arts collective that lives communally. So, yeah, you could call it a commune.
Q: I'm fascinated. How did all this come about and the origin of the band as well?
EB: It's a long story that I'll try to make a shorter one. The core of everyone here, there's about five, maybe six people who all got together through music years ago. Back in the early 90s, they started a band, and the easiest way for them to live and pool their resources and make the most out of being in a band was to live together because it meant that nobody had to try to get time off work, nobody had kids, so there was no worry about childcare or anything like that. Everyone shared the same bills, everybody shared the same financial responsibilities. So it meant that whatever money was made from the band went into the same house, and it made everybody available for practices and gigs and stuff like that. It's an ethos that has followed the group as they've moved around the world and new people have joined. The primary characters, Dog, Nikki, Suna, and Kitty, were part of a larger band that went over to America in 2005. I was working in this little waffle house in the US and I was cooking and in walk their drummer and bassist, Joe and Amanda, who were playing with them at the time and in Alabama, you don't particularly get many British people, so I was very like, oh my god, who are you guys, where are you from, what are you doing here? And as it turns out, their tour bus had broken down in that town, and they were going to be there for about a week, so I made quick friends with them, showed them around the city, got them a gig while they were waiting, and because I was a singer-songwriter in my own right, I supported them, and we became really, really fast friends. Joe, the drummer, and I sparked off a relationship and so that was it.
I joined the commune as Joe's drum tech, as a sound engineer, and I think it was maybe three or four weeks after I'd met them, Dog, who was managing the band, met me at a coffee shop, and said, you're really cool, and you seem to be really into Joe, and you're into music, so how about you come on the road as a sound engineer with us? So I quit my job, and I joined the circus. So flash forward, I don't know, goodness me, 12 years later, and the guys decided not to renew their visas after being in America for a few years and we all came back to the UK. Joe, Amanda, and I were playing in a three-piece alt-rock kind of acoustic thing, an alternative trio, and Joe died. She got breast cancer and passed away. So, Dog, Nikki, Suna, Kitty, they all sort of gathered around me and formed a band, because the only thing keeping me sane was music, really, and it was doing a good job of it, but it was a hard job. They formed this band, and we found Anna, our drummer. We played around for maybe three or four years before we really decided, okay, this is what we're going to do, this is who we are, who are our influences, and what kind of music do we actually want to create? That didn't happen until lockdown, but luckily, of course, because we live communally, we were all together.
Q: I've never heard one like that before. Maybe if you go back to Hawkwind in the mid-1960s, there's something similar, but that would involve copious amounts of dope as well.
EB: Well, our ethos is not so much the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, its sex, tea, and rock and roll.
Q: You've had great reviews from your show. I was very fortunate to see you as it’s the first time I’d been to A New Day. I was absolutely knocked out, to be honest.
EB: Excellent. Thank you. I'm really glad you enjoyed it.
Q: Back in the 80s, Prog Rock were really two four-letter words. What kind of reaction do you get from people now?
EB: Interestingly, I was at the dentist yesterday and my dentist knows I'm a musician, but doesn't really know, you know, anything else. He asked, what kind of music I played and I said it's Progressive Rock and he just kind of looked at me blankly. I said, imagine 70s rock and you've pretty much got it. So, from my personal experience, I'd say it's about 40% of people that you say Progressive Rock to don't know what the hell you're talking about and so you often have to draw a comparison and name Silver Machine or something they might have heard.
Q: It seems to be having a big resurgence in the UK.
EB: I think people want something a bit more thought provoking. They want something that is actually made by a person, not by AI or somebody that simply has to paste together some samples. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that and there is absolute artistry in it but with Progressive music, it's such an enormous window, that you can have Progressive Metal, you can have more jazzy stuff, more classical kind of elements. Then you can have this this lovely in between where they all sort of mesh together, which is, I think, what EBB has got, because I'm a bit of a rocker in my heart and most everybody's massively into classical music and jazz. We take all these influences and we mash them together and with any luck, that sort of eclectic set of influences can touch a larger amount of people. This is just my personal opinion but I do think that the innovation and the artistry that used to go in to Pop music is missing these days. You can listen to Simon Le Bon's lyrics and Duran Duran and how profound they were, how he put a lot of thought into those lyrics, whereas these days I'm not seeing it.
Q: I agree with you. I think you hit the nail on the head quite a lot. I want to go back to something you said earlier. You said you're a rock and roll fan and too me, Rock and Roll is Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry.
EB: Oh, yeah! Everything, you know, exactly like you said, Chuck Berry. I'm a massive fan of Jackie Wilson, who I suppose fits more into the R&B element of Rock and Roll. But still, I mean, God, you see that man live! He was absolutely as Rock and Roll as they come and I adore Prince. He kind of takes Pop and Rock and Roll. Oh, I tell you, when he died, that broke my heart. For me, it's not necessarily one decade. It's the evolution of rock and roll from where it started when, you know, Les Paul or Leo Fender put some strings on a plank and called it a Les Paul or a Stratocaster. Just like watching where it came from. Right from the early 50s to now, it's evolution. It drives me crazy.
Q: Back to Prog and the other thing I've noticed. Over the years, back in the 70s and even with the neo-prog movement of the 80s with, Marillion and IQ and all those, t was incredibly male dominated. That wasn't because they just said no women, it was just males just happened to gravitate towards it. Now I see an awful lot more women in Prog Rock. How is it for you these days?
EBB: Well, you know, we've only kind of been involved in the UK Prog scene for the last, say, three or four years and when we when we did our first gig in the proper Prog scene, it was a big deal for a lot of people.
I remember it was it was a Sunday in September at the Bedford in London and Chris Parkins of London Prog Gigs took a massive chance on us because he'd never seen us live. He'd only heard some demos from our debut album, which had not been released yet. He took a chance and you could almost taste the atmosphere when we took the stage. People going, oh, girls, right…which was not necessarily a sexist thing; it was just so unheard of to see an all-female band in Prog. We got up and we did what we do. We played our music and we played as good as we possibly could and as it turned out, everybody liked it. Outside of that one experience, I'm not aware it hasn't really been much of a big deal about the fact that we're female. It is an intricate and skilful, technical music that has largely been dominated by men. and I'm glad to see that there are other women doing the same thing. There are other women who are approaching it with that drive like Ruby Dawn, who is a fantastic singer, songwriter. Doris Brindle, as well, she's amazing.
Q: You could well be spearheading this movement and I hope you are. I really do. You have certainly found a genre you can work well in.
EB: I like how with progressive music in particular, if you're trying to write a song and you're trying to say something that can be really quite emotional or really profound or however you want to describe it, you're not just left with the lyrics and the melody and how something is sung. You also have just endless options of where the music can go and what the music can say. I feel like it can cover far more complicated feelings than a simple nursery rhyme type of song can. It's why I love it.
SOULWEAVER
Goodge, M, James Barber
Q: There have been some amazing three-piece bands. Hendrix, Motörhead, Cream. Tank, Cream, The Police and they all have a certain something that kicks in, which is more powerful than many beyond a five-piece bands. You guys have it.
G: Thank you very much.
Q: How does that happen?
G: Well, I think it's various things. I mean, we are all, like, we love what we do, and we put a lot of energy into it and also, it's important with three-pieces that there has to be that kind of magic, and there's just something... That's why we all play together, because we actually live really quite far from each other, and logistically, it's not very easy, but there's just something, when we all play together, there's just, like, a magic and an energy.
JB: I also think, with a three-piece, something that you have in a three-piece that you don't have with more people is space for each instrument. So you have room to add more, if that makes sense. There's space to sort of fill, so you can let rip, as you say.
M: Yeah, definitely and I kind of tie these two together as well, which is beautiful.
Q: Case in point: most bands will take a song and add classical instruments. You actually took a classical piece, ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky”, took it down to a three-piece, which works really well.
G: That was a long, long, long time ago. It was one of the first things we ever did, and when M and I first formed Soul Weaver, we were still sort of doing pub gigs and stuff like that as well, where you'd have to do a few covers. So we did a covers album, and we just really enjoyed that song, you know, so we just really wanted to do a version of that.
Q: I enjoyed the song as well, but I just can't imagine it taking a 28-piece orchestra down to a three-piece.
G: Well, you know, you can't pay them all, that's the problem, isn't it? (laughs)
JB: Because they won't fit in the van!
M: It's taking it and putting your own slant on it isn't it and then trying to fill that to represent the song itself the best you can. You feel the song, you feel the music, and then the way you represent that.
G: We're not classically trained people. I'm not classically trained at all. It's all about the feel. We're totally feel-based. So maybe sometimes we're not the most on-point or polished act in the world, but it's always from the heart.
JB: I think the energy from the performance comes across to the audience, and personally I think that's one of the things that the audience likes. We've all seen bands at times who are technically amazing, but they're just going through the motions and don't look like they're having fun.
G: It's meant to be fun, isn't it?
JB: For me, that's one of the big things about it.
Q: I've been travelling around over the last couple of weeks and from what I've seen, there seems to be a resurgence of Classic Rock. Is that something that's actually happening, or is it just me and my head?
G: To be honest with you, I don't really know!
JB: It is. There does seem to be this New Wave of Classic Rock scene going down. There's a festival and a lot of bands fitting on that genre. I think at the end of the day, good rock is good rock. We kind of fit in that a bit, because we still like to have direct choruses and direct riffs and that kind of thing, something that's easily digestible for a lot of people but at the same time, it's good to mix it up. Some bands can just fit in a whole paint-by-numbers kind of things like that but we love all kinds of music so we can be a bit punky, we can be a bit Prog…all kinds of things but at the end of the day, everybody loves a good chorus, a powerful, catchy chorus, a good riff.
Q: Now, I think the world needs a new Soulweaver album…
G: We are absolutely working on it. It's hard work because James lives one side of the UK and we live the other side of the UK but we've just released a new single, which is called “Red”, which is available on all streaming and download platforms - get it now! We're just in the process of recording, but it's going to take a while but we plan to release a new single sort of every three months, and then there'll be an album next year.
TROY REDFERN
Q: I've got to say, the first time I saw you was at New Day. Great band. How long have you been together?
TR: Well, to be honest, that line-up has never played together live. We've had no rehearsals. Paul, the drummer, has played with me from November last year on and off. He's a stand-up drummer, so he's been taking out floor tom, snare and one cymbal. He's done a lot of supports with The Sweet, we went out with those guys and other bits and pieces. But he's never played full kit with me and Kiera, because I was doing a duo on a lot of these support slots I've been doing, she hasn't played with me for about nine, ten months. So we got together, I sent them a set list and hoped for the best on the day.
Q: Well, it came off really well, I can tell you that.
TR: I really enjoyed it, I felt the energy. What really helped was that the sound crew were so good at New Day. I've seen some videos, someone managed to film the whole thing with multi-cameras. I asked him if he got the audio off the desk because I was so impressed with how clear everything was. He said, no, that was just off the camera. I was shocked because it sounded like a desk recording but that must have been what it was like. I'm so glad that someone captured it, because I kicked myself after as I enjoyed the show and how it felt. Luckily, this guy managed to film it all.
Q: Now, you're from near Hergest Ridge. I've been to Hergest Ridge. I went to Mike Oldfield’s place out there and it’s lovely. You love slide and blues: How on earth do you get the blues out there?
TR: You know, my parents actually sort of lived at the base of that ridge. It's quite steep on the one side and sort of like a gentle slope. I grew up at the base of the gentle slope. Back in those days, I was buying cassettes. The BBC Hendrix Sessions was a really important album. I just used to hammer that cassette or double cassette, I think and then a friend lent me a Son House vinyl, which is The Library of Congress. So I was listening to that, but at the same time, also bands, probably when I was more like 14, bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith, you know, all the LA sort of thing at the same time. So I was kind of listening to a mix of all of that and Beatles and sort of got into Frank Zappa. So it was just a mash of all of that stuff that I was listening to in my formative years. You know, you've got players as much as they get slammed, but guys like Mick Mars, who was playing slide in that metal format, which was unusual.
Q: Yes, it was.
TR: I was hearing players do stuff like that. There was like crossovers between what I was hearing in Blues and Blues Rock and then anomalies like him doing things differently with open tunings when not many people were doing that. Mick was interesting as a player just because of what he was doing in that format with the type of style he was playing. There was just a mishmash plus I lived in a very rural area so there wasn't as much to do so you focus inwards. At that age I didn't appreciate the rural kind of lifestyle but you've got more time and your imagination can develop because of that. I started playing clarinet when I was a kid because I heard “Your Latest Trick” on Brothers in Arms and I wanted to play sax but my brothers wouldn't lay out £500 for a sax. Then someone told them that clarinets got the same thing so they got me one of those and I hated it and I couldn't get on with it so I traded that for a guitar when I was about 11, 12 and immediately it was something that felt right.
Q: Coming back to the present day, in May you did 21 shows around the UK. Without going into details, how financially feasible is that these days for somebody of your level?
TR: I did those shows the year before as a three piece that was with Keira on bass and Nicky on drums and this year I did it as a duo. I went out with Phillip Stacey as a duo and we were playing to large audiences you know thousands of folks in theatres and stuff and a lot of people who've seen the set multiple times, know the various combinations and they said that the duo was their favourite. I'm tuned way down to C so I've got lots of bottom end in my sound regardless of no bass so I can hold that bottom end without it feeling like its empty. Last year as a trio I lost money and this this year as a duo I made money. Everything just got stripped right back, one vehicle, one car even with everything in it and one hotel room. You know, I'd love to take a six piece band on the road but that would just haemorrhage money unless you're a band where everyone's in it and everyone takes the hit.
Q: So when it comes down to festivals like A New Day those are incredibly important to you then.
TR: Yes! Definitely yeah and Dave Reese, he's amazing I did Alpha for him as well. That and A New Day are probably two of my favourite festivals because the crew are and it's a very different sort of crowd, very open minded.
Q: I'm catching up on you because I hadn't seen you before. Your last album was Invocation in 2024 is that right?
TR: Yeah.
Q: Okay so I read a couple of things and it said that when you released that you were also writing for a new album at the same time
TR: I'm constantly recording and writing I'm in the middle of recording an instrumental album at the minute which is definitely left field from anything that I've done. I've got a lot of albums on Bandcamp… about 10 albums I think. There's all sorts of stuff on there. I've been wanting to record this current one for a long time, something I can record, taking the creative something where I can open up and let my imagination completely be free of any confines.
Q: It sounds to me like you're one of those artists that need to get stuff out and then once it's out its great then you can move forward.
TR: Exactly that and the last three official albums which are The Fire Cosmic, The Wings of Salvation and Invocation were done a year after each other. I worked with a producer called Dave Marks who's Hans Zimmer's bass player. He’s a phenomenal arranger and just an all-round genius. We wrote those albums, the last two went from nothing, no demos, to finished mixes in a month because David only got that little window in his schedule to do it.
We just hammered it and so I know I can do those kind of things but it's just nice to have some breathing space to be creative in different ways. The last three albums have been received really well they've been play-listed on things like Planet Rocket but there's an inner need which is different a kind of fulfilment for yourself. I had a a bass player friend who I grew up with went through school played in school bands right through to the sort of mid-2010s
And he died a few months back and another bass player who I played with for ten years a few weeks ago died. What that brought home was that sense of how fast life zips by. So, it's to get things out you know because you don't know what's around the corner.
I started recording when I was 16 I had four tracks and stuff I was making music because I loved hearing what was coming out of the speakers, just for me. This thing I'm writing at the moment it's from that mind-set really. I'm not a pianist as such but there are three tracks on this album that are written around the piano and that's a complete creative shift because it allows you to be more creative and take the blinkers off and explore different things.
Q: On a different topic, I had no idea there was such a thing as a signature slide which you have.
TR: Yeah a guy called Ian McWee from Diamond Bottle Necks makes them. They are in Stourbridge and I've been getting slides from him since about 2015 or something like that. I went to his place, on my birthday, to get a new slide. I just thought I'd pop over and see him. And he said, how do you fancy coming on board? I was gobsmacked to be honest, a bit speechless, that he felt that I was worthy of that because there's a group of guys who are specialists in resonators and slides. That's their world, his own separate little universe. For him to consider me worthy of that meant a lot, you know, from Ian.
Q: The original guys were people like Earl Hooker and Robert Nighthawk and people like that, which was a very, very different kind of slide, obviously so these days, how do you actually start to develop a custom slide?
TR: It's obviously to do with of the internal diameter and then there is the wall thickness. They're blown glass so they can get the right weight and diameter of the wall of the slide.
Q: Mouth blown?
TR: Yeah. A lot of it's to do with the lead content, how soft or hard the glass is. Those variants affect the tone. Some that haven't got much lead, are very brittle sounding and with more lead, the warmer the tone against the string. It's its own little world, its own little universe and the ones we've got now, we've got it down really for what I need but it would be very different for what someone else needed. Things like the weight of it can slow your hand down when you do vibrato or sometimes the vibrato will be too quick because of the weight of that pendulum effect of the way you play slide. All those things you become acutely aware of when playing slide.
Q: So this is actually a science.
TR: Definitely.
Q: I had no idea about any of that. Thanks Troy and we shall again.
TR: We certainly will. Thank you.