Since joining the DPRP in October 2005 one of my greatest pleasures has been to review the three most recent albums from Guy Manning. Guy is the genuine article, a gifted songwriter, multi-talented musician and a highly respected artist boasting a prolific output. To some he is the man behind Manning (the band name he adopted following his debut for reasons revealed in the interview) with nine albums to his credit in as many years. To others, along with his good friend Andy Tillison, he is a member of The Tangent and a key contributor to their latest album Not As Good As The Book. He is of course both and more as he discloses during our lengthy conversation. I say conversation when in fact my contribution was minimal allowing Guy to talk freely and passionately about matters closest to his heart, not least his music.
Following the release of Manning’s excellent Songs From The Bilston House in November of last year I received a message from Guy suggesting we get together for an interview. I naturally leapt at the chance but Christmas found me in the grip of a virus and at the beginning of this year Guy suffered the same fate. So it was one rainy evening at the end of January when we finally met up at Guy’s house on the outskirts of Leeds, England. My journey had been relatively trouble free thanks to Guy’s directions which in attention to detail were almost as meticulous as his music. The door was answered by Julie King, Guy’s partner and vocalist featured on the latest albums from Manning and The Tangent. From that evening onwards she will also be remembered by this weary and hungry interviewer as a gracious host and a wonderful cook.
I was shown into the lounge which was dominated on one side by a huge TV screen. More impressively opposite was the largest CD collection imaginable which took up almost the entire wall. Guy soon entered sporting a Peter Gabriel t-shirt and we settled back to await the arrival of his friend and Manning guitarist David Million who would be joining us for the interview. As we sat and chatted he revealed his passion for classic progressive rock, most notably Jethro Tull, Yes and Van der Graaf Generator. He also displayed a knowledge interest and respect for his contemporaries including The Flower Kings, Neal Morse, Magenta and of course The Tangent. When you speak to Guy in the flesh his distinctive voice sounds exactly as it does when he sings on album.
Following David’s arrival, and a hearty dinner prepared by Julie we finally made our way into Guy’s home studio just across the hallway. Guy directed me to a high stool with a microphone positioned in readiness. He and David sat in anticipation a short distance away surrounded by an array of guitars and keyboards. I suddenly felt very nervous could this be an opportunity to audition for the next Manning or Tangent album? Given my limited musical abilities there was little chance of that! Coming back to reality I decided it was high time to get the interview underway. For the following two hours, with contributions from David, Guy talked openly and honestly about his music displaying a sharp wit and the occasional frustration at the lack of recognition.
~ Recording ~
DPRP: Guy, nine albums in nine years plus your other musical involvement, that’s quite a formidable output by anyone’s standards. How do you balance the music with the day job and your personnel life?
Guy: I tend to write a lot of songs at night and sleep during the day at work (laughs). No, it is a difficult balance but the thing is if I wasn’t driven to write the songs I don’t suppose I would find the time for it. There’s an inner drive that makes me come into the studio and do some bits and pieces and try things out and write songs and play. That’s changed over the years because obviously when I was a lot younger I would be playing the guitar or keyboards all day long. We would be playing, never recording because we didn’t do any of that. So you’d end up just playing and playing and bashing out songs all day long with your friends. But now the recording side has taken over so I come in here and end up putting bits onto tape. Not playing really I pick up the guitar do what I have to do and put it down again, same with the keyboard. I don’t spend a lot of time like I used to playing the guitar or playing the keyboards. I play to order and when I need to write something on a keyboard I work those parts out. But you find the time because you want to do it, when I don’t want to do it anymore and I can’t be bothered I’ll just stop. Sometimes I think I have stopped and I think well that’s it, here I am and I can’t think of another thing to write about. I’m a middle aged man in a boring job and it’s not really the great source of material for an album. Well it could be but it’s already just now been done. So apart from having a crisis in mid life or something that shakes you out of that it becomes something that you need to do.
YouTube Trailer for A Crisis in Mid-life
I like playing guitar and I like playing in a band but because of home life it’s become very difficult to play in a band. It’s not the Beatles where we’re all living in the same house you have to get people to come in over distances to play. But the recording studio here is just a doorway through from the hall into this little room and I can lock myself away in here and write so that’s what I tend to do now. But you do it because that’s what you need to do and if I didn’t do it I’d go completely crazy and bored. If I won the lottery I would not be going out to work in the day. I would be taking us on tour and putting the money into getting the music a bit more exposure and trying to get it somewhere. But as I get older I realise that I’m not going to be able to do that forever even if the Rolling Stones do, I can’t. The days of jumping in a Bedford van and going down the M1 sat on a mattress in the back are over for me. There has to be a level of comfort. When I go to see a concert I don’t want to stand up for 2½ hours, I want to sit down and really enjoy the concert. It’s just an age thing. So in answer to your question, you balance it because you have to, it’s a necessity.
~ Song Writing ~
DPRP: Where do the inspirations come from for each album and the songs you write?
Guy: Crikey, have you got all night (laughs)? The first album should be your best because when you come to make it you must have gone through all the songs and thrown all the crap ones away and ended up with all the really brilliant pieces left. The second album’s always difficult because you’ve run out of all your good songs on the first album and find out you’ve got to write another one. Inspiration’s a funny thing, I don’t know where it comes from and to be perfectly honest I don’t delve too deeply into where it comes from. I hope that when I pick up the guitar I can write a good tune and I hope that if I get an idea for a song title or a lyric or something that just strikes my fancy I can use that idea as a springboard to start from. But some days I do and some days I don’t and inspirations for the albums over the years have come from many sources. ‘Tall Stories For Small Children’ was the title I decided my first album was going to be called when I was still at school in 1972. It took until 1999 to actually make it but I knew what the thing was going to be called, I’d already got the song titles. Some of the songs I’d been writing for some years to get there and I had loads of cassettes as you do with songs that I’d composed and recorded on an old two track tape recorder with one microphone. So I had those and I wrote some others.
When I came to do ‘The Cure’ I wanted to write a concept album so I had this idea with a really strange story, that’s how that started really and decided that was going to be it. ‘Cascade’ I wanted it to be not like ‘The Cure’ which was dark and moody, I wanted it be a lot lighter and more pastoral. So I made it more poppy, up-tempo and lighter. And when I came to do ‘The Ragged Curtain’ it was the first time we were allowed to go into the studio so I took the drums into Fairview Studios in Hull and we wrote. I happened to get the inspiration for that swimming on my back on the Greek island Rhodes. We used to go on the beach everyday and I used to go into the sea and float around on my back with my eyes closed trying to relax. They tell you when you go on holiday you’re supposed to take the time out to relax, so I do it. So I got this idea of the sea and the sand and all the rest of it and ‘The Ragged Curtain’ came from all of that plus the first part was songs that I had accumulated about the break down of a relationship, my first marriage as it was.
When I came to do ‘The View From My Window’ I had an idea for a song all about dreams and being asleep and the strange things that happen to you. I started to write some autobiographical songs littered through all the albums starting with ‘Tall Stories’. ‘Candyman’ was written about my kids and ‘Owning Up’ on ‘Cascade’ was about a relationship I’d had with a girl when I was younger and the things that happened as a consequence. The break up of the relationship in ‘The Marriage’ was somehow related to my first marriage which wasn’t too successful so it comes from anywhere.
Funny enough now I’d done ‘Bilston’ I’ve found there’s more autobiographical songs on ‘Bilston’ than anything else I’ve ever done and I don’t know why that is. It didn’t start out that way and it certainly wasn’t intended to be like that but it just seems that every time I had the idea for a song it turned out to be something that either I’d done or was about me, apart from the song ‘Bilston’. ‘The Calm Absurd’ is about me trying to write love songs which I cannot do for the life of me. ‘Icarus & Me’ is all about me when I was younger trying to bash out those songs when you form a band. ‘Skimming Stones’ is about my father and the last few days of his life and me. ‘Inner Moment’ is a personnel song which I wrote for Andy (Tillison) about going out on a journey and finding yourself and coming back. ‘Understudy’ is all about me growing up and the pressure I was put under by my family to adhere to the family regime and the way we have to live and all the rest of it and how I rebelled against it.
So these songs just came from nowhere and I don’t tend to sing about them really in the first person a lot of the time. If I put them in the third person it makes them more mysterious and interesting because they’re about someone else rather than podgy me. So to answer your question it can come from anywhere. Ed Unitsky sent me some paintings to look at and ‘One Small Step’ was born out of that. I was looking at that picture of the guy used on the front cover in his holiday shirt standing on the edge of the planet and it made me think about going into space and going on holiday and all the rest of it. So who knows where it comes from? I don’t know, I think we should get some ideas from Dave.
David: I’m just a guy who plays guitar. I’m a single instrumentalist, I don’t play anything but guitar and even that’s not as well as I would like. But Guy’s been a source of encouragement and the inspiration factor for me was getting home from a session here. It’s quite hard because he’s a slave driver and you’re creating very complex pieces and its digital. So you can’t get anything wrong and I’d never had that discipline thrust upon me so it was quite frustrating, do it again, do it again. I’d get home late and tired because it was after midnight and then I’d be powering up my basic software and I started writing after I meet this fella here. So the inspiration is actually endless and my stuff is quite amateur in nature but I’ve posted it on the web and I’m quite happy with it and proud of it.
Guy’s not aware of the inspiration he spreads out amongst the people around him because he’s moved on to the next thing and the thing that inspired him is almost incidental to that. But for me it was very focused. But it’s funny, I think inspiration means different things and if you listen to some of the tracks as someone who can just appreciate the music it’ll inspire you in a different way. It’s evocative, and if it’s autobiographical to Guy by the time it translates across to the audience it’s still inspirational but inspirational in a different way. It has a completely different meaning. So if you listen to ‘Understudy’ and a lot of people have said how much they like it, it would be interesting to get a bunch of people together and say when you listen to it and enjoy it what did it make you think? It inspired me just to play and it’s improved my musicianship no end.
~ Songs From The Bilston House ~
DPRP: It’s interesting that you should touch upon ‘Understudy’ because that’s certainly one of my favourite tracks on ‘Bilston’ an album which for me is one of your strongest and I can see a progression through your albums.
Guy: I’m glad you feel that way obviously I do. Some people think it’s great and I’ve looked at things where you can get score ratings and people who’ve marked ‘One Small Step’, ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ and ‘Anser’s Tree’ as five stars marked ‘Bilston’ as three. And some people think it’s five and everything else has been one. It’s a funny thing different albums mean different things to different people. You’ve got to be in the right mood for it and somehow it strikes a chord and once it’s got you it’s got you. An album that’s good is one that gets its hooks into you and doesn’t let you go. I’m hoping ‘Bilston’ is one of those. I think there have been good songs on all the albums I’ve done and some of them have been executed better than others. I think I’ve managed to pull off the arrangements better in places and I’ve certainly managed to pull off the recording better. The equipment I had in 1999 was quite primitive against what I’m actually using now. So some of it sounds quite dated, not because the songs are no good, because the arrangements and keyboards and drum sounds and samples I had weren’t up to scratch. But you do what you can at the time.
But ‘Bilston’ is getting some good reviews and I hope it continues to do so. Whether I do another one that’s better or worse I don’t know I never go out to try and better the last album I just try to write an album. I just try to write some songs and they happen to all fit together. ‘Bilston’ I look at it and think yeah there’s a pretty good collection of songs there. Some of them for me are better than others I’ve got my favourites, everybody’s got their favourites. I like ‘Understudy’ as well, I think that’s a strong one and there’s a few others I think are really, really good. There’s a couple where I’m thinking yeah they’re OK but they’re not my favourites, they’re on there because they have to be. But these are the ones I want you to listen to. It’s these that I think are the guide to it, this track and this track are the ones. But people say that’s not my favourite track, my favourite track is this one. And I think come on why that one, it’s the worst on the album!
David: Guy was working on ‘Antares’ which doesn’t feature any guitar, or not mine, and it was nice to sit back and I could be quite objective about it because I wasn’t really involved in it. It’s probably my single favourite song off the whole album. But what really made it topical at the time there had been that awful tragedy off the Scottish coast with a Norwegian ship and a father and son had been onboard and the ship had capsized. There had been this really terrible accident and it had gone down really, really quickly and they died. That was around about the time Guy was working on the song at the back end of the process. I said to Guy do you realise how spooky that is because ‘Antares’ the song it’s about the sea and it’s about somebody that’s gone and ultimately isn’t coming back. There’s that really sad sort of strand running through it and it really hit me as I was listening to this story on the radio. I’d been listening to one of the rough cuts of ‘Antares’ because I carry the discs around with me when I’m learning all the stuff so when I get here I Know what I’m going to be doing. I said to Guy that’s really spooky and when I heard this story it was quite a tearjerker and the ‘Antares’ refrain just came straight to my mind. That’s what I mean about inspiration it inspires you to think about things that are directly related to the theme or they’re unrelated but very powerful. That’s the weird thing about music it does that to you doesn’t it. That was a funny thing. What’s the word for that? There’s a word for it when something’s very sad it creates that…..
Guy: Melancholy?
David: Yeah, it’s a very sad song but it’s a beautiful song. I love that song.
~ The Concept Album ~
DPRP: There is a concept that underpins ‘Songs From The Bilston House’. It’s set in a house and it’s about the people that inhabited the house. Is it important for you to have that overall concept to contain the songs?
Guy: Drat, you’ve found me out. I’m a child of the 70’s. I was born and lived in the 60’s and really started to get into music in the late ‘60’s early ‘70’s and that was the emergence of the progressive rock movement and specifically the emergence of the concept album. People hadn’t really heard of concept albums before that. I liked the music to be brilliant and I liked the artwork to be good but I liked something else. I was always very fond of ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ and ‘Tommy’ they had something that bound them together. Other than being brilliant songs there was something else about it that just made it come together as an organised whole. And I suppose it’s became a little thing that I do now really but it certainly didn’t start out like that for the first few albums. I mean obviously ‘The Cure’ was a concept album that was telling a story in three acts but nothing really happened up to ‘A Matter Of Life and Death’ which was again another concept album. I was telling a narrative story that we’d started some time ago and it was telling what happened next or reiterating part of the story that started on ‘Tall Stories’ so that became a proper concept album. When I came to do ‘One Small Step’ because the actual title track was so long being over thirty minutes it really took up the bulk of the album. The rest of it was four supporting pieces so ‘One Small Step’ really had one concept and it had this idea of man in space and all the rest of it.
Then I came to do ‘Anser's Tree’ and again I had various songs and I thought well I’ve got all these songs is there anyway I can bring them all together? They all seemed to be songs about people, different people in different stories telling tales about people and so I thought well what can we do. It was actually Julie’s idea she said these people, why don’t they be part of the same family and I thought that’s a good idea, that’s a good way of doing it. Then all the other ideas came (clicks his fingers) once the light went on suddenly family trees, the song titles were going to be names of people with dates, that was it, that was their song title and the whole thing just flew together. It made it far more exciting to think of it bucketed together in that form and that’s what I liked about it. You could have heard the songs individually and hopefully they would have stood up on their own merit but having them as part of this overall thing, there all from the same family, the family tree of how they all got there it adds something to the spice.
Its like looking at the album cover from ‘Topographic Oceans’ with it on your knee while your listening to it and looking at all the pictures or ‘Thick As A Brick’ looking at the newspaper. It’s that sort of excitement I wanted to try and bring back a little of. So when we came to ‘Bilston’ the idea for the album was when Dave and I were both at the Summers End Festival in 2006. We stayed in this hotel outside of Bilston with (Norwegian prog band) White Willow and we had some nice chats into the early hours with White Willow they were great….
David: And with Barney the Macaw.
Guy: Yes, Barney the Macaw who lived in this big cage in the middle of the room. And every time we went out of the hotel we drove up to a T junction and turned left to Bilston and we did this a couple of times backwards and forwards for the day. Right opposite the T junction was this big house, boarded up, double fronted with a sign on it ‘Don’t enter here the last person died’. When you see that staring at you you’re bound to think, I wonder what they died of and who was the last person that went in? And I thought that’s interesting you could have some stories about all the things that have happened in that house. And that’s it, a simple idea and it just binds it all together. Songs can stand on their own quite happily but you can think of them set in a particular room which we did. ‘Inner Moment’ is set in the hall, ‘Pillars Of Salt’ is set in the music room, ‘Skimming Stones’ in the master bedroom. Then you suddenly have this floor plan of the house with all the rooms and songs happening in each one. So it just holds it together in a nice container and I like that little extra something. People that don’t buy the CD will just hear the songs on the radio. That’s good enough but if you buy the CD you get that extra bit. If I do another album I might think of another container but its going to get a bit trite after a while. If you box it up into an album about fruit the first song’s going to be called ‘Apple’ and the next one Banana’.
David: Yeah, but I think it’s great. I know what a concept album is but I’d never worked on one. On ‘Anser’s Tree’ I came in right at the end but for ‘Bilston’ I was right there from the point Guy looked across the junction and saw this house. He probably made a crack at the time, there’s a song in that house. We were kind of busy but when we did the first session and I said have you got a theme going and he said yes it’s around the Bilston house and I said right. We used to start the sessions off and I say something like, which room are we in today Guy? So the whole experience of recording was you entered the house and I could visually picture myself in it. So I would say this bit could be about the pantry and Guy would say no let’s be serious. We’re upstairs in the back bedroom looking out on the garden and there’s some child’s toys and you could literally physically picture what was going on. It didn’t influence the music you played but it wasn’t like coming in cold and talking about stuff and how did you get on today. It was straight into the room of the house. It was an eerie experience but I thought it was very good it brought the whole thing together. So when Guy’s trying to get you into the mood and capture the essence of what the track’s all about for me it was a lot easier. I needed it but Laura (Fowles) she just turns up and plays because she’s a genius (laughs).
Guy: Laura’s done every album since ‘The Cure’ and I would say her total session time for each album is about two hours. When you listen to the parts she’s done and the vocals she’s done it’s quite miraculous. She walks in and says what do you want here a sax solo (mimes sax playing)? Do you want a bit of singing here and do you want it like this? And out she goes, two hours worth and she’s done. “Thanks I’ll see you next year” and that’s it. Dave on the other hand, eighteen months worth of effort went into ‘Anser’s Tree’ and that’s just the bits we left out (laughs). So it’s interesting. That’s why concepts are fun for me, it just keeps me interested. It’s not because I think it’ll sell more albums I just like it as fun. It’s a novelty for me and it gives you something to talk about. I like the songs but what’s behind the ‘Bilston House’ what’s it all about?
~ Album Artwork ~
DPRP: I suppose part of that is the album artwork and you mentioned there the packaging and the look of the album when you went back to ‘Topographic Oceans’ and that’s obviously something that’s been very important on your albums. Not just the cover but when you open up the booklet there is all the wonderful artwork to go with it.
Guy: Yes, and I think were getting better at it now because the earlier attempts were me. ‘Tall Stories’ through to ‘The View From My Window’ I did all the artwork really and it’s a bit cack-handed. Basically it’s me and Photoshop getting acquainted with one another and some of it’s not bad. Of course when I was on Cyclops Malcolm (Parker) wouldn’t do anything colour to keep the costs down. So the booklet was colour outside, black and white inside, which made it quite challenging to get something interesting in grey. When we went to ProgRock (Records) I was able to start using Ed Unitsky who had obviously done The Tangent and The Flower Kings work. He found it quite frustrating because he likes to go off on a flight of fantasy. He’s an artist and wants to create where as I’m saying no Ed, it’s about this fella so I want a picture of him sat at this desk and a picture with a Raven in it. I’m actually giving him the storyline because I’m trying to create a backdrop for the songs. In other words if you think of the songs as the play then the artwork is the empty stage waiting for the song. Pull back the curtains and there’s this scenery. So I wanted to create the mood of the music in the booklet especially with ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’.
‘Anser’s Tree’ yeah we still did that but they were more and more peculiar but they were all trying to say something about the lyrics. They were all related to the songs and the same with ‘One Small Step’ which as I said started the whole ball rolling. With the picture of that guy on the front I said right he’s in a Bermuda shirt so I want a suitcase there so the suitcase arrived and so did this little dog for some unknown reason whatsoever. I said we need something over here and a bath with a clown arrived for no reason but that’s Ed you see he brings things out of nowhere. So I’ll leave that in but what’s the guy doing? He’s looking out into space, he’s got a suitcase, and he’s got a Bermuda shirt on. He’s obviously going on holiday and there’s this fixation of wanting to colonise everywhere and wanting to go off into space. People are booking flights around the Moon and starting to put their money down for the first Mars trip. Why are we so keen to get out there, we’re such a mess as a race and we’re so keen to spread our litter through the universe and it all came from that picture.
So the artwork is extremely important and this time with ‘Bilston’ I decided it was time for a slight change. I wanted the album to sound more modern than the other ones which have a more ‘70’s feel. This one’s also got a 70’s feel but it’s got a more modern production. I worked on trying to get some of the sounds a bit more peculiar than just the organic sounds we were using before. My daughter Rosie, who provided the kiddie’s pictures for ‘Tall Stories’ in 1999, is now 9 years older and is a graphics artist so I said how do you feel about having a go at this? She said right, I’ll take on the project if you pay me. What a girl, she’s her father’s daughter (laughs). So we worked on ‘Bilston’ and basically all I said is I’d like a house and a floor plan of some sort. After that she went off with a camera taking shots of derelict houses and rooms and using light and brought it all together and I think it’s absolutely splendid. It’s a really good job and it’s given it what it needs. Its got all that atmosphere, its got a more modern feel to it than the more fantastical previous three albums which were more, not cartoony, but more magaziney. This is more grounded in a modern art approach. The pictures look like art in places with the light and shade and the colours she uses, blues and greens, it’s just fantastic. And the whole thing goes together to provide the gloomy claustrophobic atmosphere of the house. Perfect, what more could I ask? And she’s cheap as well folks so if anybody else wants an album cover please get in contact with me because she’s very good and she’s looking for work (laughs).
DPRP: I would agree, its fantastic artwork and I guess that Ed was a hard act to follow but she’s done a wonderful job. You mentioned there the gloomy interiors but I particularly liked the optimistic final shot which is actually looking out through the open door of the house to a lake if I remember.
Guy: It is, and ‘Inner Moments’ is about setting out and taking those first few footsteps out of the door on a journey that’s going to take you somewhere. So it was very important to me that a) that was the last song and b) we had it looking out. The only other shot with an external setting is ‘Lost In Play’ which is the garden. That has to be there because of the content but everything else is set within the house. The candles, the sofa and the Beatles poster on the wall it’s all quite evocative of the songs and it does it proud, its wonderful stuff. Very proud I am of her for that.
~ Laura Fowles ~
DPRP: Speaking of female involvement with the album we talked about Laura earlier and all her work on your previous albums and also live. Would it be fair to say that Laura was less involved with ‘Bilston’ than previous albums and I guess I’m thinking of ‘Anser’s Tree’?
Guy: Well yes and no. She could have been more involved if I’d written more sax parts. The problem with me is I write what I write and if there happens to a lot of saxophone in it she gets to play a lot and if there isn’t, she doesn’t. It just so happens that these songs didn’t need a lot of saxophone. It’s just the way it came out. It wasn’t I’d better write the sax parts out because she’s not around. Each song is taken on its own merits, what does it need? As Dave said ‘Antares’ doesn’t need electric guitar so there’s no point pushing it in there. Each song has to be arranged for itself and it just so happens that there is not a lot of saxophone parts. Bit more singing from her this time maybe, but less saxophone. But the next album might be smothered with sax. The saxophone is a funny instrument if you overkill it and put it in too much it becomes less of a feature. Apart from Van der Graaf Generator I can’t think of any other band that can ensemble a saxophone into it. A saxophone usually does a solo it’s not part of an ensemble. On this particular album the parts just weren’t there to provide for her really. So it wasn’t a conscious effort it just happened that way. She would have happily done more.
DPRP: We’ve got Dave with us of course who provides some fantastic guitar work on the album certainly some of the best playing I’ve heard during 2007. Another instrument that was strongly featured was the fiddle. Was that a conscious thing Guy?
Guy: Well yes it was but you’ve got to work out who’s doing what. There’s two types of violin on ‘Bilston House’. There’s the fiddle you get on things like ‘Inner Moment’ and there’s the more classical sounding violin which you get on things like ‘Antares’. The fiddle is Ian (Fairbairn) and the violin is me. So there is a lot of violin but there definitely in two different camps. So every time you hear folky fiddle that’s Ian’s work and every time you here orchestra cellos and violins that’s me doing my samples and things. It just turned out that way and I quite like that evocative violin sound. I’d used it a bit on the ‘William Barras’ song on ‘Anser’s Tree’ and I just like that very sad sound. On things like ‘Antares’ I wanted it to be very dramatic and melancholic and that was perfect. Again there weren’t a lot of scrapey fiddles on this one, only where I could put them. There is a fiddle solo in places and Ian’s song is definitely ‘Inner Moment’ where the fiddle in that song is absolutely wonderful.
But again it’s what does a song need, and I get people in. If it’s the flute I’m going to need Steve for this one, if its guitar I need Dave for this one and for saxophone I need Laura. Or I don’t need anybody it depends on who does what, it’s a funny thing. Are all the keyboards Andy (Tillison)? No they’re not. Are these keyboards Andy, yes they are. There’s a lot of things we do and the idea is you judge it as a whole and arrange it so that all the parts make the song. You think if you left one out it wouldn’t quite be as good. That’s why some of them are quite difficult to perform because they’re like a lattice work with one instrument resting against another. So in answer to your question you use the songs as vehicles for the instruments and visa versa.
~ Arranging ~
DPRP: I suppose in classifying your music it could loosely be described as coming under the prog rock umbrella. I certainly think your music is a lot more varied than that however with different textures and I’ve read all sorts of descriptions including jazz, folk and blues and suppose that’s because they’re all in there. Not so much in the style but the different instruments you use and some of those we’ve already mentioned and a lot of those we know come from yourself. Also you seem to be able to write some really good parts for soloists. Again we talked about the fiddle playing, the flute playing, the saxophone and the electric guitar and everything else. How important is to you to bring these different ingredients into your music?
Guy: Well that’s how it works. If I was a better player I wouldn’t need to worry so much. The music doesn’t rely on each of the instrumentalists being the best of breed what it does rely on is having good feel and being able to interpret it. My songs are all written round the part that if you dissect them there all pretty simple but that’s what I like. If you take ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ apart it’s absolutely simple and believe me I have done, and we’ve played it. It’s not hard to play ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ but when you put it all together that’s what makes it sound brilliant. So it doesn’t rely on people being maestros it relies on them being able to put in a good performance, getting a good sound and a good feel. I act as a sort of musical director. Sometimes I’ll say that’s got to be like that and I’ll try and explain why. Other times I think something needs to happen here, a guitar solo or fiddle solo needs to happen there. I’ll say that bit was OK, I like that bit, the first bit wasn’t quite as good, why don’t you try funking it up or something. We’ll go through those processes to get to the end. I’ll say yep that’s the one, or it’s so close I don’t want to replace it but there’s a little bit there I don’t like so if you can just put another track along with it and we’ll cut and paste that into place.
You end up with some things that are stitched into place and some that are true performances. The art for me is you can’t tell which is which and I think its getting harder to tell which bits are manufactured. Some of the solos were never in that order or in that place they’ve just been moved. And I think oh, I like that bit and that’ll be the best way to start it so we’ll move that to there and move that round here. So I look at the songs like a tapestry or a mosaic. I take pieces out and try and fit them in so it sounds like a cohesive whole. But it does actually rely on people like Dave putting the performances in because without the performances I’ve got no building material. So it’s important we get it right and sometimes I am dictatorial. That has to play that tune, the guitar has to do that bit and the fiddle has to do this bit. Other times I’m less so, but I have to say that I’m in control all the time aren’t I?
David: Yes.
Guy: I know what I’m doing or I know where I’m trying to go. It’s a matter of how much patience I’ve got before I explode.
David: There’s room in there to interpret. It’s funny because sometimes Guy will say I want you to play this like Mick Ronson when he was playing with Ian Hunter. So how was that then? Your immediate reaction is I need to dig the album out from Guy’s extensive collection but there isn’t time. So you mess around until you get something approximating the sound. When Guy’s happy with what you’re playing the sound level will go up and you’ll have a crack at playing a solo. It’ll be ghastly and then you’ll loosen up. The hardest part is when Guy says now play that and he sits here and I’m sat where you are with the amp. He’ll say go on and it’s a bit like trying to go for a pee when your dad’s watching and you just want to hide (laughter from Guy). Sometimes you’ll turn round and face the other way and it’s quite an intense experience because if you were brought into a major orchestra and Simon Rattle said play a bit of violin for me you’ll crap yourself. It’s quite intimidating because however modest Guy is about his music and what he’s capable of, when your part of it you know how big a deal it is. I think that a lot of other people that listen to the music know the same thing so when you’ve survived all of that you come out the other end and that’s what gives you the biggest buzz of all.
Guy: I’m still alive. I’ve made it (laughs)!
David: Julie’s waiting outside and says are you all right love, have a cup of tea you’ll be fine. The St John’s Ambulance is waiting (laughter from Guy and me).
Guy: (Putting on a broad Yorkshire accent) Eh-up love, we’ve got another corpse in here (laughter from David and me). Can you wheel in the next player please?
DPRP: Maybe that’s something to put on the bottom of your CV Dave. I played on a Guy Manning album and survived, I’m still here to tell the tale.
David: Yes (laughs). I’m going to put it on the website.
Guy: The Spinal Tap of Leeds!
David: The best thing of all there’s no ego in the process. Guy doesn’t put his ego on it. It’s a managerial job that he does and he’s quite firm. We leave all the humour outside, it’s really intense. It’s harder than when I’m working and that’s demanding. At the end of it you realise why you did it and it’s strange because you don’t know what the end result will be. Guy’s a sneaky bugger. I did some Tom foolery guitar and it was deliberately wooden top playing. He recorded it and used it on the end of ‘Lost In Play’ and that was me just hamming. It wasn’t meant to appear anywhere and I can’t remember why I did it but Guy had wound me up. It was like Mark Knopfler on some kind of drug and when I heard it I said you’ve used that piece and you’ve juggled it. So what Guy thought was a brilliant performance I’d fabricated. I am Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator. I’m a cyber guitar player!
Guy: It’s not that bad.
David: Yes actually it’s not that bad.
Guy: How do you know it’s you?
~ Andy Tillison ~
DPRP: And I guess another important collaborator for you on your own albums and your work elsewhere, especially The Tangent is Andy Tillison and I know he had a large input production wise on the ‘Bilston’ album.
Guy: Yeah, we were lucky because he was here. He offered his services basically. He said I’ve got some free time on my hands why don’t I have a crack at doing this, so I said OK and we had long arguments about it. We’ve been friends for 25 years or more and we can still have a damn good argument about music and the way we see things. His way of recording and dealing with musicians and writing is different to mine. When we put it together hopefully we get the best of both. I hope that The Tangent albums when I’ve been working hard on them are the product of us both working together, debating the merits of various bits and coming up with the right answer but we do have arguments about it. As a keyboard player he’s second to none. He’s the best keyboard player I’ve ever played with. I don’t care what people say he could hold his own against Rick Wakeman. I think he might argue against Keith Emerson, he might have a bit of a struggle he thinks but I think he’s up there with the best of them. I think he’s a fantastic keyboard player. He’s got a great ear for music. He can hear things that I can’t but then again I can hear things that he can’t. Especially around the vocals and things, which I spend most of my time putting on The Tangent, apart from all the acoustic instruments.
~ The Tangent ~
Guy: I’ve put a hell of a lot more on this album (Not As Good As The Book) folks than I have before because I was allowed to (laughs). That’s because I was here and because I was co-writing. Andy had the songs but he was looking for help with the arrangements. I managed to get stuff in so I’ve got bouzouki, mandolins and all sorts of things on this new one. I’m just trying to get my list of instruments longer than his you know (laughs). He had to cap it all, he actually played motorbike! We’ve got a song on there that actually features a motorbike as a musical instrument. He was revving it in time to the music so he had to go one better. I’m trying to put some orthodox instruments in and he’s got the Moog synthesizer, the Hammond organ and the Suzuki 5000 or whatever it was as an instrument (laughs). So our relationship is close, but we do see things differently and we do argue but we always come together to do it.
We argued about ‘Bilston’ and the way it should be and the things he wanted to do with it. I didn’t like some of the things he was doing and he didn’t like the way I was talking to him about the things he was doing. We have arguments but having said that ‘Bilston’ is a well produced piece of work and that’s mainly down to Andy I think. He took the ideas and things I said and he worked them and he came back and he’s pretty good at doing that. I like to look at a problem and say I wouldn’t do it like that, so let’s try to do it like this. Or an alternative suggestion, why don’t we keep your original ‘Uh’ but try and do another take and see which you prefer. That’s my kind of approach, let’s try it out and see. Some times that gets in and sometimes it ends up on the cutting room floor.
In the end with The Tangent albums, Andy’s king. He sits there and says that’s in that’s out you know. It doesn’t matter how many parts you’ve recorded or what you’ve done. Even if you think that’s the best bit on the album it’s going to go in the bin and that’s the way it is. With my albums the roles are reversed and sometimes I think he might find that a little more difficult (laughs). But he did a sterling job on ‘Bilston’ and on the keyboards and drums. He did the drums as well, and the production. We spent a long time looking at it because I wanted it to sound different. I wanted it to sound more modern and punchy and I think it’s got that. Our working relationship’s not over yet. There’s a new Tangent album coming out in March, I’ve got my copy in the other room. It’s great; people are all ready saying it’s the best. Andy was worried about this one, he’s gone out on a limb, we’ve tried to make the sound more modern. It’s still the Canterbury jazzy Tangent sound but this one’s less Genesis and more Gabriel if you know what I mean. It’s mature, it’s moved on in years, its using other sounds. Its not monophonic anymore it’s polyphonic in places with some of the things we’ve done. A lot more acoustic stuff on it, a lot more acoustic based instruments all round. The emotional input into this album for The Tangent is far more striking than the other albums.
It’s a far more personnel album this one than the others. Andy’s very good at empathising with a third person narrative like ‘In Earnest’ from ‘A Place In The Queue’ where he’s able to convey the story of a World War II pilot after the war’s ended. And ‘Lost In London’ which is his own experiences of going to London to try and get a recording contract in a funny, amusing way but brilliantly put together. On this one there’s far more about the way he thinks about the world and a lot of the themes on the album are all about getting older. There’s lots of songs about young kids but there’s not many songs about 40+ year olds. We wanted to try and redress the balance a little bit and say this is the sort of thing that’s bothering the middle age man or woman you know (laughs). This is our crisis in mid life, this is what it’s all about and things did not turn out as they should. It’s just not as good as the book; the things we’ve done can be a little bit disappointing. It’s done in quite a meaningful way and I think when you actually hear this album it’s quite a piece of work. I think it’s going to take more time to get into the bigger pieces but I think it’s worth it. The melodic content and the lyrical content are quite good on this one and I like Andy’s lyrics at the best of times. I think he’s really done it well; he’s put more emotional input into it. You do get involved with The Tangent looking at it as a project, but with this one he invested a lot more of himself in it.
Following the release of Manning’s excellent Songs From The Bilston House in November of last year I received a message from Guy suggesting we get together for an interview. I naturally leapt at the chance but Christmas found me in the grip of a virus and at the beginning of this year Guy suffered the same fate. So it was one rainy evening at the end of January when we finally met up at Guy’s house on the outskirts of Leeds, England. My journey had been relatively trouble free thanks to Guy’s directions which in attention to detail were almost as meticulous as his music. The door was answered by Julie King, Guy’s partner and vocalist featured on the latest albums from Manning and The Tangent. From that evening onwards she will also be remembered by this weary and hungry interviewer as a gracious host and a wonderful cook.
DPRP: Speaking of female involvement with the album we talked about Laura earlier and all her work on your previous albums and also live. Would it be fair to say that Laura was less involved with ‘Bilston’ than previous albums and I guess I’m thinking of ‘Anser’s Tree’?
DPRP: And I guess another important collaborator for you on your own albums and your work elsewhere, especially The Tangent is Andy Tillison and I know he had a large input production wise on the ‘Bilston’ album.
