ARTICLE ABOUT Elton John FROM New Musical Express, May 22, 1971

A different kind of Elton John than the man he is in his older years? Well, surely he is as we all are, but it is refreshing to read his opinions from way back when…
Read on!

Chat-in with Elton John Part Two

From Martin K. Webb in Vancouver

DURING his current American tour, Elton John met NME’s Vancouver-man Martin K. Webb and, spurred on by intelligent questions, poured forth his pertinent feelings about things in the pop industry today. His frank answers make interesting and refreshing reading…

Rocknroll

MW: I know that you have a rock and roll ending to your act, and so do a lot of other groups. Why do you find it necessary?

EJ: I don’t want to sit down and do slow things all night. I’d go to sleep. No really, I’ve been a rock and roll freak for a long time, but people seem to think that I have to do rock and roll just to prove that I’m a hip young man. Well I was brought up on rock and roll. I’ve always been into rock and roll. That’s my favourite sort of music. The Rolling Stones are my idols, and that’s it.
Rock ‘n’ roll music is the most important music to me. So I’m not going to sit there and sing all these boring songs. Everybody wants me to be like Randy Newman, which is a drag because Randy Newman is fantastic, and there’s only one Randy Newman, and that’s it.
There’s only one Elton John and there’s only one everybody. I know what you mean though, like Led Zeppelin and Procol Harum and Donnie and Balanie or whatever it is. It looks as if I’m jumping on the bandwagon, but I don’t care what they say because that’s the point in the show where all my energies spill out, and the audiences love it.
It’s just a release. I mean there’s nothing visual about me on stage, I just sit at the piano. Nigel is the most visual point. He has a huge drum kit, and all you can see is nothing. He’s got a new drum kit that’s so big you can’t see him.

More Moog

MW: Is your next album going to be similar to the two that we’ve had released over here?

EJ: It’ll be like an Elton John with more Moog Synthesizer… more freaked out. The songs will be more complex, they’ll be more in the line of the Elton John on Tumbleweed, they’re mostly slower type things.

Copying ELP?

MW: I can see that the next probable criticism in that case will be that you’re copying Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

EJ: Oh no, there’s quite a lot of Moog on “Elton John.” We used a lot of Moog on that. I won’t use it the same way as Emerson, Lake and Palmer do because that’s a completely different aspect of using the Moog, we just use it as a la “Abbey Road” really. I think that some of the best Moog stuff ever for pop music was on “Abbey Road.” Speaking of criticism though, we’re really getting criticized for the “Friends” album now.
We’ve got so much product coming out, it’s such a drag. But I mean when we did the “Friends” album we weren’t known. When we were contracted to do it we weren’t really known anywhere, and it’s come out now.
And we have a live album in three weeks, which is really good. That’s the one that we did in the radio station in New York. We’re doing very well in England… oh I don’t give a damn about criticism. I’ve got to learn to take it. Constructive criticism is helpful sometimes.
Some points I consider valid, like the Rolling Stone thing, about the orchestration. That’s a point of view which I think is constructive. Some people put you down and you learn to take it. I mean, I’ve been very lucky and I really can’t complain.

Press receptions

MW: Do you think big Press receptions like this are really worthwhile, or do you hate doing them?

EJ: Not really. I mean the first time we came over I shook hands with everybody, including the MCA cleaning staff which I, at the time, considered necessary. I like meeting people and I’m very aware of promotion and I don’t think it does an artist any harm to be polite. I’m quite interested in meeting people.
We know all our distributors in different cities and it’s quite fun, you get to know people, and I like that. I can’t say that I’ve been aware of a conscious hype. I think the Paramount album’s a bit of a hype. Not because of the album, I mean we did it as an Elton John soundtrack, but they sort of put Elton John on the album cover, and then soundtrack from “Friends” in small print.
That is a bit of a hype, but I can’t really blame the record company for doing it. I mean if I was in their position what would I have done? They said they could come up with a dynamic sleeve design that would completely flatten “Tumbleweed Connection” into a box, and when I saw the sleeve design I nearly threw up. I just think it’s funny. I mean the whole thing amuses me. I mean we got a review in “Rock” magazine which said that the album was a load of crap — which again ‘ amused me — and they said “Oh yeah, the film’s rotten too.”
I quite liked that, it brings you down to earth. I often wish that when I sit down to do an interview that people would say “Well listen, you’re a no-talented idiot, and you’re very lucky, and why? And I think you’re a bore.” And I really wish somebody would say that to me, but everyone’s so nice!

Custard pie

If someone came over right now and threw a custard pie in my face I’d probably be quite knocked out. I remember doing an interview with a college kid in New York, and he worked for just an ordinary college paper, and I said ” Yeah, I’ll do the interview” and he came in and said: “I really don’t like this, I think it’s crappy rubbish,” and it completely slayed me.
I said “What do you mean?” I got really annoyed and we got down to it and we fought like cat and dog through the whole interview, and I really enjoyed it, and we were great friends afterwards. I just think that people should say what they think sometimes. If they want to say that it’s awful I don’t really mind.

Got to do it

MW: In that case, I really can’t say that I dig going through all this Press reception crap just to get an interview.

EJ: I can’t help that, what power have I got over that? I have to do it. I can’t just walk in and do a moodie. If I came in and said “Ah bugger it fellows, forget it” that would be the big-star-ego-tripper, wouldn’t it? I can’t do that, I really can’t do that.
I know what you mean, half the guys here don’t know what’s going on. They’re here for the free sandwiches and a bit of wine. I saw the guy from the local underground paper, the “Georgia Straight,” and I knew I’d probably like to have a word with him because he criticised me last night in the paper, which got me interested straight away.
But you have to meet the local newspapermen, it’s part of selling yourself. If you want to sell records you have to do it. I want people to like me, it’s part of the necessary ego. I mean we’re here now and nobody’s bothering us so we’re sort of talking about the weather and all that scene.

MW: The Rolling Stones seem to have made it on an attitude of “I don’t give a damn.”

EJ: Oh yeah, I mean that’s Jagger, he can get away with it. Probably one day I might do it, but I’d probably feel terribly guilty about it later. They’re perfect. I mean Jagger is the perfect pop star. There’s nobody more perfect than Jagger. He’s rude, he’s ugly attractive, he’s brilliant. As I said earlier the Stones are the perfect pop group, they’ve got it all tied up.
They’ve beat the Beatles into a cocked hat in that category. The Beatles were a bit showbiz, but the Stones are just sort of “oh bugger off” and I love that. That’s why I love them so much, they don`t give a s——-

Not the Who

MW: Do you think that if it hadn’t been for the Stones, the Who would have made it in that category, as you call it?

ET: No, I mean Townshends all right, but Pete’s such a nice guy really, when you meet him. He’s not like a Jagger. Jagger is an ego-maniac I’m sure, but Townshend is down to earth. I thought he’d be an ego-maniac but he wasn’t; he was great.
I mean he has his moments when he’ll be doing his thing for the people, but that’s then. I mean I played with the Who when I was in a semi-professional group, and oh God they were arguing so much. I mean he’s controversial, but there’s nobody like Jagger… he’s a bitch, he really is!

MW: From “Tumbleweed Connection” people get the impression that the group is interested in United States old west culture. Are you?

EJ: I’m not, not at all. Bernie (Taupin) is. Again, all the songs were written at the same time as “Elton John” and it’s really a coincidence. You see, when we did the “Elton John” we had 24 songs, two albums worth of songs. And we fitted all the songs that could be lumped into an orchestration thing into one album.

First song

Like “Ballad Of A Well-Known Gun” was probably one of the first songs that Bernie and I ever wrote and people think that we really consciously put a theme of the wild west into “Tumbleweed,” but it is really coincidental. Looking back now it’s really strange that it happened on that album like that. And it’s funny because people get all these preconceived ideas about what happened.
“Son Of Your Father,” for example, was recorded by Spooky Tooth a year and a half ago. It’s just that Bernie’s very interested in the wild west. I get bored to tears by it all. If I see a western on TV I switch it off because I can’t stand it.

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ARTICLE ABOUT Paul McCartney FROM New Musical Express, May 22, 1971

Mr. Smith was not amused by this album, and even if it wasn`t on par with his Beatles releases, it still climbed high up in the charts of most countries reaching first place in Canada, Holland, Norway, Spain and the UK.
Read on!

Alan Smith assesses the McCartney “Ram” album and sums up with…

Paul, what a mess you´ve made of it!

Paul and Linda McCartney: Ram (Apple, SMAS 3375; £2.40).

What, in the name of all that has gone before, is happening to Paul McCartney? His newly-released second solo album, RAM, is an excursion into almost unrelieved tedium. The melodies are weak, the ideas are stale, the arrangements are messy. Much of it is like listening to the sound of Bobbisox Middle Class America set to music.
I first heard the album at a “listen-in.” Some of those around me were so gripped while it played that for most of the time they called across the room to each other about old times and old friends.
I thought this slightly ungracious, so in the past few days I’ve played “Ram” over and over again in a desperate bid to find its redeeming features.
But they were right, you know. It’s awful! NME American correspondent Allan McDougall must have been listening to some other LP when he raved the other week about three tracks being “real sweaty rock ‘n’ roll.”
I find it all rather sad to say this in the light of McCartney’s previous excellence and my enjoyment, on its particular level, of his first solo album last year.
It’s difficult to know quite what he’s been trying to achieve with “Ram.” Certainly it would be true to say that it contains not one worthwhile or lasting piece of music. Almost all of the songs are cliches of things he’s done before and in many cases the parodies of himself and others have become reality — and the reality a parody.
Suffice to say that “Ram” is the worst thing Paul McCartney has ever done. It seems to be a ragbag of items, almost all of which go on far too long.
I ask to be spared a detailed track by track, but here are some of the numbers:
HEART OF THE COUNTRY is an inconsequential, scat-type, guitar-pickin’ opener on one side and it’s followed by MONKBERRY MOON DELIGHT, a strident piece of whisky-still, raw country music with sandpaper vocal chords, piano cymbal and a nice back riff with a girlie chorus. This could have been good — there’s an eerie feel and a raw humour but it degenerates into a weird assortment of groanings and grunts in an endless, endless, endless fade.
EAT AT HOME, which follows, is again a messy and meandering piece mainly of interest for those who may wish to hear McCartney’s impression of Elvis or Buddy Holly.
LONG HAIRED LADY has some of the “When I’m 64” thing for a moment (although it opens with one of those hard-bitten girl choruses from a bad night in “West Side Story”), but then it’s off into some eternal thing about “Love is long’ sing your song.”
A couple of things I liked on Side One were TOO MANY PEOPLE, but then this drifts into another mess (Discipline, Paul, DISCIPLINE); and a sort of Elmore James thing called 3 LEGS. This is a flip blues, nicely put.
There’s not much else to report except there’s a dreadful piece of “Yellow Submarine” megaphone in UNCLE ALBERT, a Noel Coward impression; and a fair rocker at the end called SMILE AWAY, which features the occasionally inevitable McCartney crudity.
Sorry Paul, I don’t suppose I’ll get a Christmas card this year, but it had to be said.
AND A NOTE FROM OUR ART CRITIC: The sleeve is terrible, although it was interesting to note the photograph of two beetles engaged in an act of intimacy. Does it mean what it seems to mean?

ABOUT ‘RAM’

“RAM” is the first album credited as co-written and co-produced by both Paul and Linda McCartney. For the most part it was recorded last winter in America.
According to Press officer Tony Barrow, Linda joins Paul vocally throughout, and whenever vocal backing effects are created then they consist of their two voices multi-recorded. Mrs. McCartney is said to have also contributed instrumentally by playing bass drum, triangle, and so on.
Says Paul: “Linda was present all the way through. We’ve been writing more and more songs together, and we’re developing as a harmony team.”
Recording for “Ram” began last October at the Columbia studios in New York City, and in January production shifted to the A and R studios for two months before a final stint at Sound Recorders in Hollywood.
Adds McCartney: “We conceived the LP in Britain, although we went off to America to record it. I found this New York drummer named Denny, and we just went to work the following Monday.
“To get together a couple of other people, I listened to various musicians and picked out Dave and Hugh. We had a bit of a holiday before going out to the West Coast. There I found this very, very good mixing engineer, Eirik Wangberg, Eirik the Norwegian.
“Now we’re back home in Scotland and having a break. But we’re writing more stuff as we go along.”
Beneath the album’s publishing credit to Northern Songs are the words: “Copyright also claimed by McCartney Music Inc.”

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ARTICLE ABOUT Chicago FROM New Musical Express, May 22, 1971

Problems for Chicago as they were doing over-seas concerts after their third album release.
Read on!

3000 to be turned away but Chicago defend London concert cancellation

By Alan Smith

“UNDERGROUND is now Overground,” said Chicago’s Terry Kath… “and Overground is commercial.” We were on a trans-atlantic phone line at the weekend and he was having a quiet sneer at those few critics who’ve accused Chicago of perhaps becoming too much a band of the Establishment.
But Chicago remain philosophical about such minor and largely unjustified knocks and Kath hardly raised his voice as he told me: “I hate this whole underground thing, this whole business of trying to categorise and contain.
“The truth is, there’s a lot of people getting work by calling themselves Underground! And you know, to be Underground in America is to be really cool — and really commercial!”
With this swipe at the cultists, the posers and the pretentionists among us, we moved on to talk about Chicago´s concert visit to London next month and the news that 3,000 ticket holders for the first of the two shows were about to be slightly aggravated – the early show had been abandoned.
Apparently promoter Robert Paterson had gone ahead and made the arrangements – for two performances – with the band´s management.
Everything was fine. A 6 p.m. performance was arranged and the tickets were a sell-out, many of them to postal bookers from out of town.
Then Chicago heard about it and refused to do the other show on the grounds that their act lasts more than two hours and that asking them to give of their best twice in one night was just about asking too much.
Shouldn’t they just stretch the point this time? I asked. Wouldn’t that be a better deal than messing up the arrangements of 3,000 Chicago-ees who’d simply been caught up in a business hassle?
Said Kath: “The question is that if we do two shows in one night, then one suffers, and we don’t want to do that in London. We just couldn’t do two long shows and be good.

Impossible

“We’re playing like two and a half, three hours, man, and we’re really jacked up for it. It’s physically and mentally impossible.
“I’ll admit there ARE lots of places we do work longer. That’s because our manager has an arrangement that if things go well and there’s a lot of people who’d like to see us, we do a second show. But this is different.
“It’s sort of a shame because, sure, we could go on twice and reach more people. But the people who’re gonna be there for this later show, this one show… they’ll benefit.
“We tried to find out if it was possible to get the Hall for two nights instead of the one, but it wasn’t.
“Is there some other place available? We don’t mind doing the other concert, maybe the night before. It would have to be worked out.”
We touched on the question of recording, and Kath – Chicago guitarist who once played with an outfit called Jimmy and the Gentlemen — confirmed that the band has not now recorded for almost a year.
“The exception is some live scenes we taped when we worked at Carnegie Hall every night for a week. There’ll be a live album sometime… Columbia have plans.
“Right now I’d personally rather not release it for a couple of years. This is just personal to me. If we released it right now… well, you know. Give it time.
“There’s only one song in it that’s a new song, one that nobody ever heard. All the rest is off the other albums.
“It’s a time thing. We’re on the road a lot. I get a real kick from seeing these places, and maybe that’s a good thing, because we’re really the kind of group who really work a lot. All through High School I was working in bands. I just dig playing.
“You know something — if you get too much time off, it’s constricting. I get restless. That’s why we dig being on the road.”
I asked Kath about his early days with the aforementioned Jimmy and the Gentlemen and found him happy to talk about this phase in his life and its effect on him.
“Well,” he said, “this Jimmy and the Gentlemen was some band and I guess we were fairly bad. But the lead singer, he really was a good singer. The only thing was he dug Elvis, and the whole time we were doing Elvis tunes.
“I guess I was about 16 at the time, and maybe we were a year together, maybe longer. We only worked about three, four gigs!
“With Chicago, we’re mainly into the college circuit and we spread out the concerts to once in a while. The colleges are more receptive… but you know, there’s a whole lot of bands who don’t play the colleges for some reason.

No singles

“Another thing about it is we really dig the smaller audiences. It’s closer. There’s more feeling. Making it to a big audience is harder and you don’t see half of them anyhow.”
With the memory of NME Chart singles like “I’m A Man” and “25 or 6 to 4” still in my mind, I wondered if Chicago would release another single within the foreseeable future.
The answer: “I hope we never release another single as long as I live. They’re all bull–.
“A single never changed us, but it changed some of our audiences.
“Sometimes we get some really weird audiences. They think they can rip our shirts off.”

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!
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ARTICLE ABOUT B.B. King FROM New Musical Express, June 19, 1971

There should be more people like B.B. King in the world, and by that I don’t necessarily mean the musician B.B. King, but the person B.B. King. Simply put, a beautiful soul.
Read on!

Question & answer with B.B. King legendary guitarist

Conducted by Roy Carr

IT’S not every day of the week that one gets the rare oportunity of meeting a legend, let alone a childhood idol. For that is exactly what guitarist B.B. King is, not only to me but so many others, as our recent guitarists poll showed.
Quite unknowingly, he was to formulate the blue-print for a whole generation’s music. Indeed, his influence has been so far-reaching that it is impossible to over or should I say underestimate his contributing influence… he is a colossus.
Contemporary guitarists stand in reverence, at the mere mention of his name, and his far reaching influence is continually reflected every time they choose to pick up a guitar. King is the master and only a fool would argue the fact.
Like most great men, B.B. King is amiable and humble in that he always underplays his god-given gift. Currently in London to record an album, tentatively entitled ‘B.B. King in London’, I spoke to him in his hotel.

Q. Which musicians have been sitting in on your London recording sessions.
A. Oh, there’s been Ringo Starr, Klaus Voorman, Peter Green, Duster Bennett, Alexis Korner, and his son Nicky, Steve Marriott, Greg Ridley, Jerry Shirley, Ian Stewart, Gary Wright, Dave Mason and Jim Price, Bobby Keys, Jim Gordon and Jim Keltner have also dropped by.
(N.B. it is rumoured that Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood will also participate in the final sessions which are going to be filmed by BBC-TV for a forthcoming special.)

Q. How do you personally feel about the influence you have exerted on this generation’s rock musicians?
A. Well I can tell you that it makes me so very happy to know that all these people think so very much of me.
Actually it was the English musicians who were the very first to speak out about me… they were the ones who really discovered me.
The black people who were with me when I first started are still with me, but together we have gained momentum.
Not only am I pleased for myself, but also for all those other musicians whose talents were opened up when English musicians started talking about me.
Since then things have happened that I never even dreamed of. I’ve travelled, played and met people who I thought would never ever look my way. I can tell you that it makes me feel so very good because it makes all those many days and nights of practising and all those hopes that people would appreciate what I was trying to do, seem all that worth while.
Not everyone has liked what I have done, and sometimes I’ve felt pretty bad about what people have thought. But I always felt that if I worked hard enough maybe I could make them like me and what I was doing.
The trouble is that sometimes people expect you to be what they think you should be. When I play something that’s a little bit different they say that’s not you, but then they don’t really know what is me.
Most things that I come up with are things that people like and that’s good, for I love to feel free and creative.
You should always try to do better and progress. You owe it, not only to yourself, but to what people may think of you, especially those who show some kind of respect to what you are doing.
People put you on a pedestal and say “You’re The Greatest,” but I know that I’m not.
O.K. so I know that I’m pretty good at what I do, but honestly, I want to be better.

Q. What are your reactions when you play with musicians who have obviously been influenced by your playing?
A. It not only makes me feel good, but it also makes me try and play all those things that made these people respect me in the very first place. I try and play the things they know me by, I can tell you these guys always make me feel and play so much better.
You know a little fire always makes everyone move just a little bit faster. I enjoy guys putting the heat on me for it makes me realise that I’ve still got a lot to learn, I really have.

Q. Of the new generation of rock musicians which guitarists do you personally admire?
A. Well, that’s a difficult one to answer, especially right here in England. I guess there’s so many but right off the top of my head I must pick Eric Clapton and Peter Green, but then again there are so many great ones both here and in the States.
I feel so close to them all, and there are many musicians whether they are guitarists or not who I feel so very close to. It’s just impossible for me to name them all, and I wouldn’t even try.

Q. You have given so much confidence and inspiration to countless rock musicians the world over… who initially gave you confidence?
A. There were so many, but of the original ones I was fortunate that I had the opportunity of meeting Lonnie Johnson though only once. Bukkha White, who is my cousin also gave me confidence on how to be a man… a good man… one who lives well and does the right things. This also applies to my Dad.
I also got a lot of inspiration and confidence from listening to records by Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Django Reinhart, Charlie Christian and Lowell Fulson.

Q. With so many bands over-amplifying their instruments do you feel that perhaps they are destroying the beauty of the guitar and music?
A. In each generation every one has to experiment. I suppose it’s just like the early days of jazz into bebop and rock ‘n’ roll. Take the Beatles, they turned out to be the greatest thing that happened to music in the last decade. Their influence is to be found in jazz, pop and even the light classics.
Personally, I never kick against these things, for if there’s nothing really outstanding in their music then you can bet that it won’t last. These musicians are just like scientists… if they’ve got something to say then you can be assured it will last.

Q. Your new album was recorded live in Cook County Jail. Could you give some insight into that particular event?
A. I really enjoyed doing that album. Not only was I performing but I personally felt that I was doing something very worthwhile.
A lot of those guys in the jail were young and if it hadn’t been for them I can tell you that I wouldn’t have enjoyed being behind bars from 2 until 5. Had it not been for their appreciation and enthusiasm which they showed it would have been extremely depressing.
We let all those guys know there are people who care about them, if they had known that beforehand then they might have not been there in the first place.

Q. So what about these recording sessions which you have been conducting in various studios around London?
A. They have been very good, terrific in fact. They have been more or less informal jams with nothing prepared beforehand. If I had, then it would have been just B.B. King. I prefer to have everyone stretch out and play what ever they feel like playing.

Q. What are your reactions to all the education that has been bestowed upon you over the last few years?
A. Well, I much prefer to hear people say I dig you than don’t, it’s as simple as that. For when they say that they don’t then you just ain’t got no defence.

Q. And what are your immediate plans for the future?
A. When I get back to the States I would really like to do an album with Ray Charles and also a big band instrumental album with everyone reading from charts.
I also intend to visit the deep south of America and do some similar sessions like the ones I’ve been doing here in London with some of the local musicians, many of whom are unknown.
If I’m lucky they’ll be a lot of names whom I hope people will remember. I’ll hire just a little studio miles from anywhere and get the local musicians from that particular area to jam with me… it should prove most interesting.

Q. You have given so many people a musical philosophy, what is the philosophy by which you live by?
A. I just try to be the average guy and to live the way that I feel I should live my life. I want to have as many friends as possible… I love to be loved, and just be a good Joe.

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!
Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer.
We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.
If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.

If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

ARTICLE ABOUT Skid Row (Ireland) FROM New Musical Express, June 19, 1971

No. Not everyone can write a riff or play bass. Heavy music was far from dead. I wonder if these statements were made to try to grab headlines or if they really meant it?
Read on!

Skidding out of riff rat race

By Nick Logan

Skid Row have a nice line in laying it on the line. Pronouncements such as “anyone could write a riff” or “anyone can play bass” crop up like comments on the weather, while stories they tell against themselves of bizarre amateur-run gigs that descend into a shambles have their manager`s face frequently turning a pained white. Honesty of the Irish I suppose, but they`re amiable, talkative lads with their “I tink”s, “in-trickat”s and their self effacing references to “bog rock.”
“We don`t want to be known any more as `the fastest group in the world` and all that,” blurted Skid bassist Brendan `Brush` Shiels when he and drummer Nollaig `Noel` Bridgeman met the NME, denim seats barely getting to rest on the cafe benches before he got a-chattering away.
“We are definitely finished as a heavy band. There are only so many riffs you can play; and anybody can play intricate riffs.”
“Anybody could sit down and write a riff,” put in Noel.
“You could,” took up the bassist, adressing your correspondent. “You could sit down now and write a riff. I mean… even our manager is writing riffs.”
In Brush’s view, assembling a riff-based band would be a piece of cake. You take your one member who can churn out the necessary riffs, outlines the bassist, you pinch your lyrics from any convenient old blues standard and to sing them you get yourself a singer with the high-pitch of a Robert Plant. Simple as that. Though if the singer doesn’t sound like Plant, adds Shiels, who doesn’t sing like Plant, then forget it.
What all this amounts to is that Skid Row is after changing its music. Since the three of them – guitarist Gary Moore completes the line up – came over here from their native Ireland they have accrued for themselves quite a considerable following on the British club circuit.
But in their minds, Skid Row has come a little too close for comfort to getting snarled up in the riff rat-race, so that the critical and to a lesser extent public mudslinging that gets aimed at the stereotyped heavy bands is in danger on splashing unjustly onto them.
“What we have tried, to do is play within a simpler structure, and see what we can achieve within the limitations we set ourselves, keeping it more basic. Because the fact is that anybody can now play intricate, or can play fast. You don’t need the skill to do it.”
Shiels points to the band’s use of roadie Paul Scully as sometime bassist to support his theory. They used him on the “Mar” track on the new album – “We just wanted a simple bass line,” explains Shiels, “and I thought I might be tempted to freak out during the number” – yet up to a few weeks before Scully hadn’t played bass in his life. “Anybody listening wouldn’t know that, because anybody can play bass. As long as you have the rhythm it is simple.
“What we are into now,” adds Shiels, “is songs. Like the Stones’ album is great… straightforward rock… good songs. You cannot be any more basic than that.”

From their own not inconsiderable experience of the club circuit, both Shiels and Bridgeman feel the “heavy thing” has been overplayed to the point where a depression is starting to set in. “There is beginning to be a fall off in the clubs,” the bassist claims, “Too many people jumped on the heavy bandwagon. At most places now there are seven nights a week of heavy bands.”
Again, they both point out, heavy bands are not lasting bands. “The public,” says Noel, “seems to pick its heavy band for six months, then it wants another.”
Of course there’s always the temptation to try for that sort of acclaim, however short-lived, and Skid Row certainly felt that they could be drawn that way on their recent American tour. “We could have been pressurised into it in certain halls, and on the West Coast. Next time we go over there we might not be playing exactly what they want, but we will be more lasting.”
The band’s previously-referred-to second album, titled “34 Hours” after the length of time it took to record, was released by CBS last week.
“I suppose people will expect something similar to the last album,” notes Shiels “and I don’t want them to get the impression it’s a country album. It’s an extension from the last… we are a lot more intricate but in a different and simpler structure. And if they are going for speed it is also faster, whereas although before we used to play very fast unison type riffs we don’t do that here except on one track. If you expect the album to be the same you will be disappointed, if you expect it to be better you won’t.”

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