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09 October 2010
In the heady days of the late sixties and early seventies, the combination of musical talent of Grand Drive’s Danny Wilson (www.dannygeorgewilson.com) and Willard Grant co-Conspirators Simon Alpin and Josh Hillman would have been called, without a trace of irony, a “Supergroup”. Although the term may now be a bit passé, the sentiment is still valid, and will undoubtedly be seen as genuinely appropriate by those lucky enough to see them play on their recent UK tour. Barry Jones played the support slot for their excellent Americana UK house gig, and changed hats the following week to interview them on their brief return to Liverpool. Interview date: 21st March 2005
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OK, so the tour’s just about to end, how successful has it been? What about you Simon? And you Josh? D. The reason why we did this thing which was literally just, we’ve all got a bit of spare time, and we’d rather be playing songs than sitting at home y’know, watching Trisha. It’s been brilliant to do that, and it’s been quite an experiment on our behalf. In terms of the experiment, because we’ve all recorded together before, and we’ve done gigs, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Grand Drive have done gigs together, so we know each other well musically and everything, but just to see what it’s like to put the guitars in the back of the car and just drive around y’know is something that none of us have done for a little while, I suppose, and it’s been absolutely fantastic. Any particular highspots? There’s talk of an outtakes Grand Drive album, a new Grand Drive album (www.grand-drive.com), and a solo Danny George Wilson album, all this year, tell us about those. OK, Simon’s been an honorary Grand Driver for a while, but doing some of your own songs as well on this tour. When’s your album due out? I believe Robert Fisher, Caitlin Cary are actually on it, anybody else of note? What about Caitlin Cary, did she do overdubs? Well we’ll look forward to that. Some of your success, Danny, must stem from Radio 2 playlisting. How important is that in this country, and will the solo album aim for that same market? It’s also 100% PRS returns on Radio 2, so the royalties will come through as well? You’ve actually gone down that video market as well on quite a few of your songs, are you planning that for your solo stuff? Standing in the water at Dieppe was it? It looked a bit chilly? There’s been a bit of an argument going on on the Americana UK site forum at the moment, about a review of a Cousteau album. I only realised today that your ex-drummer is now with them. Have you heard the album, what do you think of it? Great, thank you very much. Simon, when working with Willard Grant, do you actually get rehearsal time over there? Does it cause a problem? Does Robert rehearse with the American musicians he brings over, beforehand? Josh, what about you? How are you managing to balance the time between this organisation and Willard Grant (www.wgc.hinah.com) and Viarosa (www.viarosa.co.uk) ? Which takes the priority? A musical slut? And what about your involvement with Willard Grant, do you go over as well to rehearse or do you just pick up from here? I’ve not heard you sing, but do you actually do your own songwriting as well? Oh right, OK. What about Tenderloud (www.tenderloud.dk) , the Scandinavian band, both you and Josh worked with them, how did that come about? That was going to be the next question, how Josh got involved, but I was actually under the impression that you’d mixed it over in Copenhagen, but that was not the case? I’ve only heard the downloads from the site, but it sounds very good. Is there any ongoing involvement with that? I don’t know if this is right, but I’ve got you down as playing harp, is that right? What about Teenage Fanclub, have you got any plans with them? I’ve just completed an interview afternoon, with Jess Klein, and I hadn’t realised she was on Regard The End. You did the Peel Sessions with The Toques? I was wondering if you got to meet Peely? And the mandolin on Beyond The Shore, I was wondering whose idea that was? I have to admit to liking it particularly. I was wondering if that was you just coming up with something to Robert’s song, if he just presented you with the song, or did he say that he wanted something like mandolin on it? Which must have been difficult, unless you’ve got perfect time of course? And tell me what have you been listening to, Josh first? What about you Danny? Was that on Island? S. The two albums I recently got was an album by a guy called Little Barry from London, who works in a guitar shop in Denmark Street, and another record by a girl called KT Tunstall, which is really good; a Scottish girl. They were presents, but I didn’t take them back so… but I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Tim Hardin and Josh just made us a copy of Iris Dement’s Infamous Angel, ’cause I remember seeing Iris Dement about twelve years ago at Cambridge Folk festival, and just being astounded with her voice and with just that kind of like grit, without being too twee y’know it’s kinda… D. Talking about that I’ve been listening to Greg Brown a lot, who’s her husband I think. And there’s an album by Eric Taylor, his first album I think is only just released on CD, called Shameless Love. There’s a song on that called Joseph Cross, which is just an incredible song He was married to Nanci... What about you Josh, have you thought of anything else? D. There’s a song on the Kevin Kinney album called This Train Don’t Stop At The Millworks Any More, which is just so good. When we played with Kevin, actually, these two got up and played with him and it was one of my favourite gigs that I’ve seen in a long time. It was so great. Well thanks very much indeed thanks for answering the questions, and thanks for the time, and thanks for the enjoyment you’ve given us.
D. In terms of us having a good time, it’s been a complete disaster. I’ve had to sit in a car with these fellas for about two and a half weeks and it’s been trying to say the very least, and musically it’s been an absolute total success, we’ve had a brilliant time.
S. Yeah it’s been interesting, and the drives have been interesting, but apart from that it’s been great, so I’d probably agree with Danny on the other bits. I don’t know if we’ll ever speak again on this tour, but the songs have seen us through.
J. It’s been great, we’ve played in a...you couldn’t have found a wider variety of places that we’ve played in, ranging from quite smart little places to dingy little dives, and we’ve had really good crowds everywhere we’ve played, and stayed in all sorts of places, and had a great time.
D. In terms of being a tourist, going to the highlands was really incredible, and the guy, Rob Ellen, he booked the show with us and he took us to some fantastic places and some real…y’know told us a lot of stories of the area and everything. It was a real thrill.
D. The first one that’s going to come out is an album called Cup Of Stick, which is a Grand Drive outtakes and B sides album, which is coming out in May, and we’re going to do a couple of Grand Drive gigs in London around that time. I’m not sure how many, whether we’ll do any shows outside of London, but that’s all outtakes from True Love and High Adventure up to the more recent stuff, then I’ve got an album that Simon produced, and Josh and Simon both played on, that’s coming out on Fargo called The Famous Mad Mile, and then, later in the year, me and the Grand Drive boys are getting back together, and start working out what songs we’ve written and all that y’know.
S. Well Danny’s gonna sing on a song as well, hopefully, if we can get it all fit in in time. I’m not sure who’s gonna put it out yet, we’re still putting the finishing touches to it; it’s kinda one of those things where it seems a bit odd, just listening to odd songs, rather than when you listen to them altogether, it kind of fits…there’s like a thread running through them. Caitlin’s singing on four songs, which is quite interesting… I met her in Kilkenny, and she agreed to do it, just off the demos I played her. And she… I was just expecting her to sing on one song, and I sent her four possible songs, and she just kinda sang on all of them, which I was a bit flattered by, because she’s got such a beautiful voice. And the reason Robert was on it was it was one of the songs that I thought would work well with Willard Grant, but it never really y’knaa… I had the music and I didn’t have the words, and then I played the thing to Robert, and I’d kinda half written it, and I think he’s more in the thing that he wants… because he’s such a good lyricist anyway… he wants to have his own stamp on it, so... but we recorded that in Italy, I think, his vocal, in a hotel room, just on a portable machine, and then bounced it down, later on, in a studio, but he did a great job y’know, it was just one of those ten minute jobs.
S. Yeah we initially recorded nineteen songs in two days, live, and just… I wanted to keep it live as possible, so pretty much everything that’s on there is just a band playing live; there’s no overdubs. There’s a couple of little guitar bits that I’ve got other people to play on, because I didn’t want to do all the guitars myself, so there’s just a few little bits of icing, but nothing really that much different from what was recorded on the days we recorded, and there wasn’t a lot of technology used, it was straight down, and that was the way it came back so… we’re quite pleased with the outcome.
D. The first time we ever got playlisted on Radio 2 was a massive thrill, really, to be honest, and in terms of how important it is I’d say it was...it’s not something that we’ve ever taken for granted, but it’s something that we’re aware of. I mean to get played on the radio, and such a big radio station, is brilliant, and every time we tour we see that there’s new people come, they’ve heard it on Radio 2, so I couldn’t even stress how important it’s been, to be honest with you.
D. Yes, you notice the difference in the cheque when you’re getting played on Radio 2. And in terms of my record, I’d love it if it got played on Radio 2. Like on Grand Drive records, I never have any great… not expectations, but it’s nothing that you take for granted. There’s so many records that get released now, and so many good records, that y’know, I just hope that someone likes it. If they like it, and I hear it on the radio, then I’ll be over the moon.
D. It wasn’t Dieppe. It was a place called er oh shit I’ve forgotten. It was a fantastic day that (laughing)
D. It was very chilly yeah. It was great. That was the video to Ladder To The Stars, where we had a budget of something like £1500, it was a real small budget thing, and they spent something like £800 of it on the cook, so the food and wine was incredible, but no, as far as I know, unless something happens, I don’t know, I doubt it.
D. I haven’t heard their new album so I couldn’t possibly comment. I like Cousteau though, I think they’re good, and Paul is a brilliant drummer. I don’t think Paul’s on the album actually, he’s joined since. They seem like lovely fellas, y’know, I wish them all the best. Y’know, this thing about...we’ve talked about reviews, and about people’s reaction to bad reviews, and I think it’s good on say your forum, for example, when fans say, “Oh I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there.” But for bands to, unless there’s something particularly personal, or something, I mean everything’s subjective. I like records that you probably think are crap, and vice versa y’know, but I haven’t heard the Cousteau record, but they’re good musicians, he’s got a great voice I’m sure it’s great to people who like it.
S. It varies… on the first tour we did; I went... I flew over to Boston, because he was living in Boston, and it was cheaper for me, because when I first joined the band, pretty much everyone was American, apart from the keyboard player, who’s Japanese, so it was cheaper for him to bring me over there than to bring them over and to put them in hotels, and y’know, sort somewhere out in England. So I spent a week over there on the first tour I did. Which was great y’know, really nice to go and not rehearse in somewhere where you wipe your feet when you leave kind of thing. And even though this place we were rehearsing in was kind of very reminiscent of places in England that you’ve probably been in yourself, but it was just kinda nice to work with people I’d never actually worked with before. I felt a bit like a stranger abroad, and it was quite a humbling experience y’know. Because it was like, “This guy’s flying us over to America, he’s obviously got some faith in us.” Because I’d never actually played with them before I went there. I was playing with a girl called Mary Lorson, as a support, as a favour to her, because the guitarist dropped out, like on the day, so she asked if I’d come up and do five songs with her, for her showcase, for her first record, and it was... fortunately, it was supporting Willard Grant, and then we came off and he said “Are you interested in a job playing guitar?”
J. I just have to juggle around, and basically if I have to...once I’ve committed to something, that’s what I stick to, but it’s… being a promiscuous musician, it does involve a bit of juggling here and there, but...
J. Yeah exactly, but so far, touch wood, it’s... there haven’t been any major problems; things seem to have worked out so that there hasn’t been very much overlap and I haven’t had to miss very much because of doing other things.
J. Occasionally, but as Simon says, there’s a tendency for European tours for the band to rehearse in Europe when they arrive, at the beginning of the tour.
J. The only way you’d hear me sing is coming and having a shower at my place.
S. Erm that was through a friend of mine who I used to live with in London. He’s friends with this Danish band based in Copenhagen, and we were doing a gig in Loppen, in Copenhagen, and one of the guys, well a couple of the guys came to the show and were big fans of Willard Grant and with me co-producing Regard The End, and mixing it, they were big fans of the sound of it, and they approached me just to kind of put the finishing touches on the record, and kind of produce it, and put it into some kind of shape. It was… I heard the mixes that they’d done and they asked me to… they couldn’t afford to bring me over and actually do it in the studio, to produce them as they went along, so it was a lot of e-mails and they sent me the demos and asked me like what I thought of the demos, and how they could improve it. So I was quite like... more kind of overseeing from a distance, y’know like some of the tempos were not right, some of the keys weren’t right, some of the stuff was very busy in areas, so I told them to like strip things down and maybe focus on different parts of the song rather than the way it was full on all the time, kinda thing. And in reducing different instruments at different times that they hadn’t actually thought about, which was like trumpet, and we added a few things in London. My Dad was around the house as I was mixing it, and he’s a great harmonica player, and I got him to play harmonica on a couple of the tracks, so there was a few songs that I thought would suit violin. They actually had violin on some of it, but I didn’t feel it was in the right kind of frame for what they were doing, so I got Josh in.
S. No I mixed it with the guy who did Regard The End, Nick Hunt, in… we started in a studio and then ended up doing it at my house, because it sounded better doing it at home than in a studio, because it was just sounding a bit cavernous in this studio, it was just very impersonal. I kept getting the mixes back at night, and listening to them on my home system, and they just sounded terrible, so we ended up… in the end they kind of ran out of some money to do it in the studio, so I suggested that we just finish it off at home, and see how it sounds, and then we did all the remixes at home, because it sounded so much better,
S. And it was all mixed on a laptop, so it was quite limiting, what we had, but just using your ears I think is the best part of things.
S. I did yeah, not “harp” harp though, harmonica. Yeah, I did some bits of harmonica as well. I wish I could play harp, what’s that girl’s name Joanna Newsome? I think if you’re gonna go down that road, you need someone like her to do it.
S. Well they’re going out on tour, I think, because they’ve just done a new record in Chicago, and they’re really good musicians, y’know they can do pretty much anything y’know, Norman’s a fantastic keyboard player, and he plays a lot on a lot of their recordings anyway, and I think they had a kind of tight budget, and a tight schedule, to do stuff, so it was kind of one of those things that they could get a way without having me there. And I think the fact of me not living in Glasgow, it’s a bit of added expenditure doing that.
S. Yeah well Jess, I got Jess in when we were doing Danny’s record. I approached Jess because I thought her voice would really work nice with Danny’s, and we basically sent her the album, and y’know, “Whatever song you want to sing on, y’know, have a go.” And so she did the recordings in Boston, and then just sent them back, and we put them straight in. She did a fantastic job, and we really didn’t have to do a lot.
S. He wasn’t actually there, but that was one of me favourite sessions I’ve ever done. It was through Danny’s brother Julian that I actually got invited to do it, because they were looking for somebody just to play a bit of dobro, and slide guitar, and Julian said, “Do you fancy coming down?” And it was like it was just a kinda jam type thing, I thought, and it turned out to be a great record, we just done four songs.
S. No, because we co-wrote that while we were out in the studio, while we were in the hotel, we wrote pretty much al of those songs as we went along. It was done like… the song was written the night before we recorded it the next day kinda thing. And the mandolin kinda counterparts the acoustic kinda thing, if you listen to it on the record. The way I mixed is the acoustic’s on one side and the mandolin’s on the other side, so you get a really wide spread of acoustic instruments. Robert actually did some mixes before he let me mix it. Everything was like jumbled together, and there was no spread in the mixes at all so we actually stripped out a lot of stuff that we recorded. We didn’t record Regard The End with any drums at all. It was all just in a studio with no clicks or anything, and then the drums that are on there, we put on afterwards.
S. I don’t know, (laughing) I wouldn’t want to live up to anyone putting a click on that stuff.
J. What have I been listening to? I really like the new, well newish Nick Cave album. What else have I been listening to? It always completely throws me. Come back to me.
D. Today what we’ve been listening to, Gene Clark, I think we listened to No Other in the car, we had a listen to a Nina Simone album called Baltimore. We had a listen to Jimmie Rodgers, Carter Family, Doc Watson. I put on an English folk album for about twenty seconds, by a group called The Trees. They had an album called The Garden Of Jane Trelawney and the vocal came in, and I think I got sort of buzzed off immediately.
D. Columbia actually. Witchseason production had the pick of the crop at that time. Fairport Convention I listen to all the time. Richard Thompson, who you played a song of the other evening, I love listening to Richard Thompson.
D. Griffith, yeah he’s great. There’s so much stuff, but that album’s brilliant.
J. Well yesterday I was listening to that album by Skip Spence, Oar. Also an album that was given to us by a guy we played with a couple of weeks ago called Kevin Kinney, who’s fronting a band called Drivin’n Cryin’, that’s an amazing record. That’s his solo album, which is coming out now.
Thank you Barry.