Interviews by DPRP's Dave Baird & Ian Butler

When InsideOut announced that THE TANGENT, BEARDFISH & RITUAL would be touring together as a triple bill, two DPRP team members, Dave Baird and Ian Butler went along to one of the concerts on 24th May 2008 at Spirit of 66, Verviers, Belgium, to interview members of all three bands. As is always the case with this time of event, the best laid plans go awry and the interviews were conducted rather hastily undertaken around the band's performances. So here's the result of chatting informally to members of each band at different points during this special evening.

The Tangent Interview | Ritual Interview | Beardfish Interview

Main Page | DPRP Concert Review from 22nd May 2008

Interview with The Tangent's Andy Tillison

DAVE: So the new album has been out, what, two months, how has it gone, what has the reception been?

ANDY: Well the reception has been, erm, embarrasingly good, I really didn’t expect it to do what it has. In fact the reception has been so good that there has been a back-lash which is good you know, when people start saying “I can’t see why everybody is finding this so good” then the back-lash has started and means that something has gone right, if you see what I mean.

I never really expected it to be received as well as it has been but then again all The Tangent records bar the second one have taken a really good write-up straight away from most of the progressive rock community. This time round I had pushed a lot of buttons to see if we could change things, to try and change the way we make music, our attitude and the lyrical content, even the way we presented the record, and I kind of thought that we’ll just have to take some risks and see if everybody hates it, you know? But it just didn’t work out that way, it turned out that everybody really was very supportive and seems to like what we’ve done so I’m suprised but pleasantly suprised.

DAVE: It’s an evolution from "A Place In The Queue" which was itself very different from "The World That We Drive Through", maybe perhaps because Roine wasn’t present but it seems perhaps now that we’re seeing The Tangent now and The Tangent sound as being this evolution from "A Place In The Queue"?

I think that is pretty much it, if you actually look back at the body of The Tangents’ work since the first one up ‘till now I think that one the first there’s no doubting about it that it was kind of like a second cousin of The Flower Kings, we had three members of the band playing, one of whom was the the boss. Roine’s guitar style and voice along with his oan bass player and drummer was likely to make something that sounded like The Flower Kings, particularly as he was involved on the overall making and production of the record. He didn’t want to take a back-seat role, he wanted to be co-driving the bus if you see what I mean, and of course this continues into the second record and this is the one I wish we hadn’t made – it was too quick after the first and I hadn’t really had enough time to think about it, I got a request “we’d like you to make another one. Can you do it? Can you do it by then...” to which I rather foolishly said yes, being run away on a runaway train.

Having said that when you look back there are actually some quite decent parts on it and some bits that I’m actually missing playing – we aren’t playing anything from that album tonight. I miss some of those songs like the title track "The World That We Drive Through" and one of my favourites which is “The Winning Game” which is in fact one of my favourite Tangent songs ever.

But, you know, "A Place In The Queue" obviously developed a little bit further moving away from thay and now the new one is further away again. I think the great thing is that although the new Tangent album still sounds like the same band that made the first, it doesn’t sound anything like The Flower Kings any more, it has completely lost The Flower Kings sound.

DAVE: Looking back at influences, you’ve got this Canterbury, UK thing going on with these big fat 80’s keyboard pads sounds with a funky, neo-prog style ...

ANDY: I think the track you’re talking about there is "Crisis In Mid-life" and originally when I wrote it, it was an organ figure but then I though “we’ve made four Tangent albums with a lot of organ on every record, lets just change the sound and see what it sounds like”. Now the middle-eight section had already started to remind me of UK so I thought lets take it the whole way and put the riff onto a nice big fat Yamaha CS80 like Eddie Jobson would have used. Yeah, it’s another aspect of prog – The Tangent have been around constantly digging-up things, finding things that people haven’t done for some time, putting them together and mixing it up. It was doing that and making a piece that sounded like it came from the tail-end of the progressive music original period and this was a time that I really enjoyed. We also spent a lot of time digging around and finding Canterbury references and stuff like that. I think it was because around the time that I became re-baptised into the progressive rock community it was the time that Porcupine Tree were out, The Flower Kings had just surfaced and Spocks Beard were just appearing. I looked at what was going on with The Flower Kings and Spocks Beard, and I thought that these people had the spirit of prog but that there was something missing. I just tried to think about what it was and I though “England”.

ALL: Laughing

ANDY: “Englishness”, that was what was missing

DAVE: Well this is very apparent in your lyrics as well, they are very English

ANDY: Absolutely, I usually try to let people know, and I might have said the before in a DPRP interview but it’s bizarre, some people think of me as some kind of keyboard wizard but as a matter of fact I’m not all that good a keyboard player. I’m OK, I can play the keyboards but I’m not Rick Wakeman. The guy out of Beardfish – he’s a fucking real keyboard player and I just sit back in awe.

DAVE: And he’s still a kid

ANDY: But the reason why I do The Tangent is the words, that’s it, that’s what I do first, I write words. I try to make songs out of them but for me the words are the most important part and that’s why I’m here tonight – to sing my words, not to play the keyboards, but somebody has to play the keyboards so I do. And this is also another weird thing, in all honesty, Neal Morse is a great singer in terms of hitting every note, sounds great and the like but I’m kind of like a punk. I grew up with punk bands and I never got taught to sing or anything like that.

DAVE: Let’s just say that your voice has character

ANDY: Well this is it. Somebody once wrote “Andy Tillison can’t sing to save his life but he’s got character by the bucket-load” and I thought that was right, spot-on.

DAVE: In a previous review I think I wrote that your voice takes some getting used to but it’s worth the effort. It’s like Hammill, Hammill is not a great singer in many ways but there’s so much character in his voice that you learn to adore it

ANDY: Progressive rock goes from singers who are just impossible amazing like Jon Anderson through to people with totally strange voices like Pater Gabriel that do take some getting used to, and Peter Hammill to people that can hardly sing at all but somehow still manage to get the message across like Lee Jackson and perhaps Andy Latimer for example – you don’t really come home from a Camel gig saying “Weren’t the vocals great”! So my voice is really there as telling the story and I get for instance a lot of Americans because they see things in a slightly different way who kind of think that The Tangent are a bit of an insult because they don’t get their tenor voice putting it across like Daniel Gildenlow, Neal Morse or that guy out of Dream Theater. They are not getting any of that, they are getting this guy who is basically an English punk-rocker screaming over the top of it.

But, yeah, I believe I’ve got the character and the people that I’m really trying to appeal and sing to are people that are really actually listening to the words. I find particularly in Holland and Germany that people are listening to the words. I’m not so sure about the French guys, maybe it’s a bit difficult for them as they don’t find English as easy.

DAVE: I think anyone that listens to Van Der Graaf, you don’t listen to Hammill without understanding the lyrics because they are very profound

ANDY: They are very personal as well?

DAVE: Yes, very personal but in fact it’s the same with you, your lyrics seem to be quite introspective or self-mocking a lot of the time, "The Full Gamut" for example is a very personal track about your split-up with Sam. I’m also a 40-something guy and I relate to these lyrics, I’ve been through a lot of the crap that you are talking about. I don’t think you are targeting, you’re just saying what you think and feel?

ANDY: Well, as a matter of fact yes I am targeting, there’s a deliberate thing into it. When Sam and I split up I had to go through a full gamut of emotions and problems. There’s so much more to breaking up when you’re later in life, it happened in a different country and all sorts of things that I won’t go into but I found myself thinking that when I was young, there was always some kind of song for when you got dumped by a chic or were given a wrong telephone number deliberately or your parents wouldn’t let you go out, or use the car, all that kind of stuff that rock-‘n’roll songs are about. I thought yes, but in those days rock’n’roll was just for young people, that’s what it was for and now rock’n’roll is itself middle-aged, late middle-aged, and I thought it is time that I started singing to the people that are going to listen to this. I realised that people could be in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s when listening to this kind of music so I tried to write something that was relevant to them on this album.

DAVE: Well I think it’s a success

ANDY: Well a rock’n’roll song can take you to the point with a two minute love ballad when the girl you spent the summer with has gone off and that’s it, it’s all over but this is fucking peanuts when you’re left and there’s a house to worry about and what’s going to happen to the kids, and where’s the fucking car, and what can I do and where am I going to sleep tomorrow?

DAVE: Sure, and in writing "The Full Gamut" and putting it on a CD did it help you come to term with it all, was it a cathartic process?

ANDY: It was cathartic but being quite honest I haven’t got over Sam...

DAVE: Indeed, I read your comments on your website where you say that these are the first gigs you’ve done without her since 1994. It hurts, somebody doesn’t just walk out of your life after such a long time...

ANDY: Well that’s it, I look for her every night behind the keyboards and it’s like, you know, really weird without her and life has just not been the same since. So yeah, the fact is that when I first presented "The Full Gamut" to the band, the band's managements and to all the team that support us there was a sort of “*cough cough*, Andy, erm, this piece, erm...” in facy everybody was against doing it, everyone. They said “look, this is for you and for you only, don’t put this on the album”. So I had one ally, of course that was Manning - Guy, he heard it and he was (laughing) “Fuckin’ hell, this has got to go on the record, it’s fucking brilliant, there’s been nothing like this since...”. You know there are not that many 20 minute prog-rock epic love songs in fact...

DAVE: I can’t think of any actually

ANDY: ...I think Hammills “Over” is the nearest thing to it. So we were very much divided and so I decided to settle the score and wrote to Hammill himself, explained it all and asked “What should I do about it all”. He eventually came back with with an email and basically said “This is your fucking job, this is what you do. This time round you haven’t had to think about it or try to find inspiration, you haven’t had to think ‘what shall I write the song about’, it has hapenned, it’s the most important song you’ve written. Put it out”. So there you go.

DAVE: Personally it’s my favourite track on the album, I find the opening melody that you replay later in the song very haunting, I love it and the lyric hits home with people that have been through simillar things, obviously not the same process you have been through but similar...

ANDY: Everybody has a different one, I know

DAVE: Same canvas but a different painting

ANDY: That’s it, you know that nobody will go through the same one but at the heart of it everyone will feel that same kind of emptyness and stuff so, yeah. We play some of that tonight

DAVE: I read on the web that you’re playing a three-part medley from the longer songs

ANDY: Yeah

DAVE: Your website is very informative, unlike Beardfish’s which is absolutely crap

ANDY: (laughing) Beardfish have the worst website in the entire universe

DAVE: They need some help because their music needs to be heard

ANDY: Yes I realise so I will probably help them

DAVE: Be a father figure?

ANDY: Well it’s already a bit like that because they are all about the same age as my son which I find remarkably good fun...

DAVE: The Tangent have been around now for how long, remind me?

ANDY: 2003 was the first release...

DAVE: So you’ve come from nowhere to being a prog god in a very short time

ANDY: (laughing) A prog god who manages to get 100 people to come out in Belgium...

DAVE: OK but The Flower Kings don’t always get many people either, it’s just a sad reflection on people’s taste. Regardless you are very well respected let’s not beat around the bush, are you surprised at this?

ANDY: Yes, surprised but I think that the one thing that really got everybody was the moment on the first album, because strangely enough I never really thought about what I was doing when I was doing it but I realised that I’d written the first song that anyone had ever written about prog rock. This hadn’t been done, every other genre has its thing, metal bands sing (singing) “Metal will stay...” and all that kind of thing “I believe in Metal...”, “For those about to rock...” and all that kind of stuff. Rock’n’roll has songs about rock’n’roll, “Rock and roll will never die...”, disco has its songs “D – I – S – C – O...”, country has country songs, and blues has songs about the blues. Prog rock never had a song about prog rock and I didn’t even know. I realised it about two months leter and though fucking hell, this song is about prog rock, "The Music That Died Alone" and it just struck a chord with people. I think the fact that the band admits that we love this kind of music – I’ve loved it all of my life but up to now I’ve been the guy in the front-row waving his hand in the air at the band I’m watching

DAVE: And now you’re up there

ANDY: Yeah, I’m doing it. I think the point is that there’s a kind of recognition and a belief, that The Tangent is able to put over, well at least I do believe in this kind of music and love it. I think the fans recognise this and kind of enjoy the ride.

DAVE: Most of your music is quite ‘in your face’, some quiet moments but mostly very up-beat

ANDY: Yeah but we will play also some of the quieter stuff tonight

IAN: It must be so good to play with really talented musicians like Jonas and Jamie and stuff

ANDY: It’s fabulous

IAN: You write a song and the guys can just play it?

ANDY: Yeah you’re undoubtedly right, it is great to play with them, but at the same time there’s something I miss right, and this is quite important, something I miss about what I call a real rock band. Now you’ll see it tonight for instance, Beardfish and Ritual, these are real rock bands. They live near each other, they are best friends, they rehearse every week...

IAN: They hang-out and drink beer...

ANDY: That’s right. Now I don’t do that with my band because they live in Sweden and they are basically session musicians

DAVE: So you’re an internet band effectively?

ANDY: That’s it now although we have been able to do this the simple fact is that I’m English, I don’t speak in their native language. They’re so experienced, they’ve done so many gigs for so many different people and this isn’t anything special for them, none of them, it’s nothing special they’re just going to do this gig tonight, they’re going to play as well as they possibly can and that’s what they do. Although I’ve always really relished working with great musicians I still miss the hug at the end of the gig, the comeraderie. I mean Ritual do have a little ritual before they come on stage – they sing a gradually ascending note together, and Beardfish are really kind of brotherly and everything. In The Tangent's case it’s like “OK, are we ready?” and so I miss it but you know it’s horses for courses.

IAN: But this doesn’t reflect on the record, the band seems to be able to lock effortlessly into a groove

ANDY: This is something we like to do in The Tangent, locking into grooves

DAVE: Jamie’s very good at that, Zoltan too but very different

ANDY: We’ve never been able to guarantee future line-ups of The Tangent and the point is that I still can’t

DAVE: That’s why you’re here with a reduced line-up?

ANDY: Yeah, just to get out and play. I think that my future decisions about whether The Tangent will continue to be a live performing band will be based on who I decide to play with. I have often thought that maybe it might be nice idea to form a band in England where we could rehearse and put it together. We always come out and play on two days of rehearsals and I would like...

DAVE: To write together too?

ANDY: Yeah, that kind of stuff would be nicer. Manning’s really important from that point of view with me but unfortunately he’s one of the guys I can’t bring because I can’t afford to bring a guy just to play accoustic guitar, I’d love to have him here but I can’t.

DAVE: You’re paying the guys to play

ANDY: Yes

DAVE: And these tours don’t make much money...

ANDY: No, that’s right, we are not a money making bus, no. So I do get on well with everybody and everything but it’s more a question of practicalities or input from the rest of the musicians. I’ve now added Jacko to the The Tangent and basically Jacko is The Tangent’s guitar player and Krister’s just hired for this tour.

DAVE: That was some great playing on the new album

ANDY: Jacko, yeah he’s amazing, an astonishing guitar player and also of course very much into progressive rock music, he know what I’m on about. How about this, Krister has never heard "Close To The Edge" or any Yes album, he can’t relate to "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway". It’s not his fault, it’s not a personal criticism but to be able to work with Jacko and say “what we’d like here is something you know, like that bit in Close To The Edge” and it’s really nice to be able to have these reference points in common, and Jacko is really very well up not just on the overall prog scene but he’s particularly well up on the Canterbury scene. He’s done a lot of things and I’m able to relate to him closely. So, back in England the band is Jacko, Manning and Theo Travis, the saxophonist – already a pretty damn good band there.

DAVE: Where’s Jamie living?

ANDY: Hymar? He’s in Sweden, he’s Swedish.

DAVE: I always thought he was Brazillian or something

ANDY: He’s originally from Peru

DAVE: The funny thing is, when I spoke to Roine (although Flower Kings and drummers is always a strange thing), he said that Jamie left The Flower Kings because he didn’t like prog

ANDY: Well he doesn’t...

DAVE: Well he’s doing a pretty bloody good job at it

ANDY: It doesn’t matter whether he likes it, it’s a paid gig for him, sorry. But there are many bands out there, for instance, Chris Maitland wasn’t in Porcupine Tree because he liked the music but he did a fantastic job. I heard that he didn’t like the music at all. Hymer doesn’t exactly dislike our music its just that he’d rather be listening to something else. Hymer likes Elton John or Boston, Foreigner, Aerosmith. There’s nothing wrong with it...

DAVE: No for sure, you can’t judge taste

ANDY: But he’s an amazing drummer and he’s a nice guy, and Krister’s an amazing guitarist and also a nice guy, the point is that they do their job. I think more than anything its this tour that has made me notice the holes in my own life because I’ve been watching the brotherliness of Beardfish and Ritual and have though “I want that back”. I want how it used to be with Parallel or 90 Degrees, we used to arrive at the rehearsal room then say “Can’t be bothered to fucking rehearse, lets go and drink”. We’d just go to the pub and fuck the instruments, and I miss that.

DAVE: If the band are in England and you’re in France is that not a problem?

ANDY: Not really, I have EasyJet very close

DAVE: And why are you living in France?

ANDY: Now that’s a very long story but we’ve only three minutes before Beardfish are playing

DAVE: Whereabouts in France?

ANDY: Near Toulouse. I miss England like crazy until I get back then the traffic starts to really get me down.