DPRP Specials : Guy Manning : Interview 2008

Interview by Geoff Feakes

~ Part Two ~
Continued from Part One

~ The Book ~

DPRP: The album is of course ‘Not As Good As The Book’ and there is a version available with a book.

Guy: Yes.

DPRP: Was that Andy’s idea?

Guy: That’s Andy’s idea. That’s another thing he likes doing. Andy’s a man of multiple talents. Not only can he paint; two coats in one afternoon (laughs) but he can turn his hand to anything. He’s always liked writing stories. He likes the Douglas Adams, Iain Banks style of amusing science fiction stories and he loves progressive rock. He’d been dabbling with this story about progressive rock and how one guy blows the world up by playing ‘Relayer’. I won’t tell you how it ends. It’s very strange but he was writing this thing and he thought why don’t we put it with an album? Again, trying to think outside the box. What can we do to make this package more exciting, more interesting? Lateral thinking rather than just another Tangent album. So he had this wonderful music, a double album and he decided to put this 100 page novella with it. He found this artist in France (Antoine Ettori) who does all that French cartoon art. He got him to do this wonderful artwork littered throughout the book with that French comic strip look.

David: It’s that departure in style like your album.

Guy: Yes, we definitely invested time in doing something different. I think Andy’s very keen to get a review which says these Tangent albums are wonderful but isn’t it a shame that Roine Stolt left. The Tangent has to be its own self governing thing. Roine left two albums ago and Andy’s taken over and he’s always written the stuff anyway and The Tangent needs to be his. That’s his life’s work, that’s his career. The Tangent is what he does and he hopes to be able to write some stories as well. He’s bringing all these artistic things together to try and get the word out that there’s something more to The Tangent than just a Canterbury pastiche and playing some nice tunes. So he’s a very important artist I think.

I don’t know what he’s going to do next maybe he’ll take a rest. He’s not as hurried as I am; he thinks well I’ve done enough. ‘A Place In The Queue’ is about two years old now but he hasn’t really been rushing to do another one even though some of the songs on here he started writing at the same time as ‘A Place In The Queue’. He just put them to one side and said there’s no rush, I’ll get through them when I do. Now this has come out and I think he’s happy with it, it’s a good piece of work. This is going to be a more difficult album for people to get into but I think it’s worth the investment this time. It’s definitely going to be a goody.

DPRP: Like the best of music I guess it has to have that investment by the listener.

Guy: Yes.

~ Going Off On One ~

The Tangent - Going Off On One DVD DPRP: Certainly that’s very true of your music. Just sticking with The Tangent theme at the moment, last year of course there was the ‘Going Off On One’ DVD. What was that experience like for you?

Guy: You know they say the camera adds 10lbs? I must have had ten cameras on me (laughs). I couldn’t actually play because people from Greenpeace kept coming on to try and push me off the stage “Get back in the sea you fat beggar” (laughs). It was an interesting experience because the whole thing came together very quickly. I had to come down from the north to the south to rehearse. I got two days rehearsal with them. They hadn’t rehearsed at all so we all came together saying do we know these songs? We’re just about to go off and do a couple of dates and record a DVD. So we had two days but it wasn’t two solid days we had a few hours a day. We all spent time copiously writing all the songs down, chord changes and notes. Play it off that and hope it all comes together and it did I think. We did the Rotherham one first when the Classic Rock Society asked us to play. I had to do the solo set as well because a band had dropped out at the last minute so I offered my services. I did my set then went on and did The Tangent set which went down really well, very encouraging.

Then we all had to go back to the hotel and then we had to drive all the way to Southend. Why on earth we did it in Southend I don’t know but we went all the way down to start again, set up and get everything in. Then we had to get all the cameras in and all the recording equipment and make sure everything was in place and then go and do a blinder of a gig to try and record it. As it turned out on the actual night we had a couple of electrical problems and the computer went down in the middle of ‘In Earnest’. We had to stop, reset everything, go back 10 bars before and start again. You don’t know that on the album because it’s been stitched together from the two performances but we had things like that happening. It was very cramped on stage. There were seven of us on that stage and the lights were on and we were literally standing over each others shoulders. Andy couldn’t bring his ribbon controller strip on because there wasn’t enough room but we had a great time and in the end it was fun. Manning as a band doesn’t get the chance to play to audiences of that size, yet (laughs) so it was a novelty to actually play to more than ten people and I thought it was great.

I was having a great time because I was actually on the stage with them for the first time. They’d obviously been to America, they’d done Rosfest without me and they’d been on a European tour without me. For the first time I managed to beg and squeeze myself onto the stage from the side and I managed to get to do a bit. I think what I added was worth putting in I don’t think it was distracting. When you look at the DVD and listen to the sound of it the acoustic guitar, the extra voice, the bits of percussion just add a little bit of icing to the cake. It was just a great thing to do and the fact we’ve actually got a recording of it on DVD is a big plus for me because I can look back on it and say haven’t I lost a lot of weight (laughs).

David: There’s a weight fixation going on here.

Guy: Soon as I saw that thing I went on a diet and I have lost a lot of weight. I’m still big but if you think I’m big now…..

David: He brought me in to make him look slim because I’m huge. But then again I’m huge because his wife’s cooking is so bloody good.

Guy: Why do you think I’m so big?

David: I arrived for ‘Anser’s Tree’ malnourished. So I come here for Julie’s cooking.

Guy: Quite right to.

David: The music’s incidental.

Guy: That’s what I’ve felt for sometime (laughs).

~ Not As Good As The Book ~

DPRP: Staying with the DVD it was interesting when you talked about your input into The Tangent because for anyone that has their doubts, seeing you singing and playing acoustic guitar it’s obvious just how much you do contribute to the band.

Guy: Yeah, I think it’s a funny thing with The Tangent I don’t think people realise just how much work I do put into it. That’s apart from the fact that for every note you hear there might be two left off because I put in a lot more than you actually get to hear. I do help out with as lot of things, on the new one especially. When you come to hear that and you listen to some of the vocal arrangements, the choirs and the multiple vocals I had a lot of input into that. I virtually took over some of the vocal arrangements for Andy and I provided most of the backing vocals. We had three singers on this album, sorry there’s four I nearly forgot Julie. There’s Andy doing the main vocals and backing vocals, there’s the new fella Mr Jakko M Jakszyk on guitar and vocals. He’s got a very nice voice, quite American AOR. He’s got this thing we can’t do. We have quintessentially eccentric English voices, he provides a normal voice. He’s Hasse Froberg of The Flower Kings to Andy’s Roine Stolt. Then there’s me filling in all the other bits and on this album we actually got Julie singing. On one of the songs she actually sings quite an important part in ‘Four Egos One War.’ She’s in there and she does a cracking job of singing this part with Andy like a duet, girl and boy and I just sort of fill in around the outside bolstering up.

I was trying to get in as many instruments as I could, thinking what haven’t I got on the album yet? I’ve got everything on. I’ve got bouzouki on, I got the meditation bell on, I got the harps on it, I’ve got the electric bouzouki on it, classical guitar, 12 string I’ve even got some slide guitar. With The Tangent you’ve got to get your name on it and you’ve got to get the biggest column for your instruments as possible. Poor old Jonas (Reingold), it just says bass, sorry mate (laughs). So I do put a tremendous amount of input into a Tangent album and I have done for sometime. But it’s not always obvious because acoustic instruments really aren’t the featured thing of The Tangent they’re the incidental icing on the cake. But on this album I think you’ll find there’s a lot more acoustic based stuff. Some of the songs are based around the acoustic guitar and there’s a lot more acoustic playing to anchor it. So I’m hoping that people actually start to realise exactly how much work I‘m putting in. But the proofs in the pudding, you either like the album or you don’t. It doesn’t matter how many bars I play or how many are left off or which songs I play on. If the album’s great I’m on there somewhere and I’m part of The Tangent. I might not be the most important part of The Tangent and I might not be the least important part but I’m in there and I’m part of the band. Andy’s the most important, after that everyone else just queues up in pecking order.

David: That’s like Manning but that’s as it should be. There’s a symmetry to that because the ego isn’t there.

Guy: We all try to help. We all pitch in and try ideas and we all want it to be the best. We have this control that says it’s got to be good, try and make it better or different from the last. You just pitch your ideas in and you say Andy, what do you think? He’ll say yes or no or I tried it and I didn’t like it. Fine, you tried it and you didn’t like it that’s good enough for me. He’s not one of those guys that says forget it, I do the writing round here buddy, I’ll let you know when I need you to squeak. I hope it’s the same with my stuff and basically it’s the same sort of relationship. I know what I’m doing but I try to get everyone engaged into doing it if I can. That’s how we work and that’s why I think it’s successful because it’s a composite of musical direction and wonderful performances. It’s seamlessly melded into one project.

David: It’s strange a non-connected process of orchestral things where you only meet the band at the end of the recording. That’s how it worked for me wasn’t it? Because Guy’s done all the work anyway, everybody else comes in individually. Then Guy and Julie throw this lovely dinner and we all get together and it’s like a thank you for the work and you listen to the first proper mix of the album. The first time I did that was ‘Anser’s Tree’ and that was the first time I’d met the band. Then we rehearsed for ‘Bilston’ so that was the first time I actually stood in the same room playing, it’s really quite a strange experience. The only person that was a constant for me was Guy.

Guy: Well it would have been odd if I hadn’t been there. I’m sure you would have managed (laughs). I’m going to do that to you. I’m going to book us in to Bilston, I’m going to rehearse with you for three weeks, then you’re going to turn up and I’m going to ring and say your on in for minutes and I’m not coming!

David: I’ll just dye my hair black and mimic you. We’re similar proportions and they‘ll say is it Guy? It looks like Guy but it’s not quite like Guy…

Guy: And Guy plays better guitar than him!

David: Yeah but strangely I can’t play acoustic, it’s weird that. Of course Guy says he can’t play electric but he can play electric. There’s a certain way of playing those instruments. I’ve seen him use all these instruments it’s quite a thing to behold (He points to a dozen or so electric and acoustic guitars hanging on the studio wall around us).

~ Julie King ~

DPRP: You both mentioned Julie who apart from being a wonderful cook...

Guy: Which she is.

DPRP: ...And in addition to her vocal input on The Tangent album, she was also involved vocally on ‘Bilston House’ and is a member of your live band.

Guy: Yeah, she’s an important part of my life and an important part of the music. The music is part of me and makes me what I am. She appreciates that, she’s very patient with me to be perfectly honest. Most wives would have gone completely berserk if their husband’s had insisted on locking themselves in a small room at the side of the house for large parts of the evening for a year. But she understands it has to be done. I like her to be here because a) its fun and b) she looks after us with sandwiches and we’re well feed…

David: She’s an important part of all of our lives now. Whether Guy likes it or not we love her to bits and she’s unique. My wife’s supportive and she’s got young children to look after and it’s hard work for her. When I devote time to this it puts pressure on our home and she’s not accustomed to it. I’m amazed at the level of tolerance Guy gets from Julie because when she walks in and he’s in mid session he’ll say what the bloody hell do you want, be gone (laughs).

Guy: We do have a good laugh and she feels the pressure because I get terribly ratty when we’re about to go out live and I don’t hear it clicking. There’s dread and the colour starts to drain from my face and you’re up there in front of twenty people and we’re not going to be able to play a note. I do get ratty because I care about it. If I didn’t care it would be sod it, we’ve done enough lets go down the pub and have a pint.

David: She kept some of my guitar parts for ‘Bilston’. When we sat down and had the play through there are certain parts you play on and you pretend to be all dispassionate. You’re divorced from the process and you’re sat there thinking shit if he’s cut any parts out I’ll be heart broken. There were certain things that had changed and that’s different then, you think yeah it does actually work. Then Julie said you see that bit, you have me to thank for that Dave because Andy and Guy were going to get rid of it (laughs). So you see she can do no wrong, she’s in my world is Julie and she’s staying in it. You can have my guitars and my amps…

Guy: Yeah, she’s important and the calming influence in the band, she looks after us. She does an important job she sings, she plays the keyboards and adds tambourine and percussion and bits and pieces. Without her it just wouldn’t be the same so the stuff she does is important. It’s not like Wings she’s actually important (laughs)……

David: And she’s a vegetarian (laughs).

~ Changing Labels ~

DPRP: (Laughing) I was going to ask a really important question but it’s completely gone. Your current record label is F2 Music but you started out with Cyclops...

Guy: Yes I’ve done the rounds (laughs).

DPRP: Yes you’ve done the rounds and you went to ProgRock Records. Would you like to talk about those changes?

Guy: Well Cyclops changed because Malcolm Parker wanted to, not downside the roster, but didn’t have a lot of investment capitol to put out a lot of records. I had ‘A Matter Of Life And Death’ which I thought was quite a good album and he said well I’d like to put it out but could we wait a year. I said well to be perfectly honest Malcolm the only reason people know who I am is because I release an album every year, if I didn’t they’d forget. It’s not like Pink Floyd, take ten years off, come back and everyone jumps around. I thought I needed to maintain continuity so I said would you mind if I looked for somewhere else? He said no, that’s absolutely fine. It was very amicable, there was no split. I got in touch with various record labels and I finally tracked down ProgRock and Shawn Gordon out in San Diego. He liked what he heard and said this is the deal he gives his artists, would I find that acceptable? I said yes, so we struck a partnership that lasted for three albums including ‘One Small Step’ and ‘Anser’s Tree’.

When I started ‘Bilston’ it was a funny project really because the original idea was it was going to be collaboration between myself and parts of my band here and White Willow. We were going to do a joint thing. Jacob (Holm-Lupo) and I talked about it at Summers End and I said why don’t we do something together? I started sending him all the demos for ‘Bilston’ saying what do you think about that and we’ll use the band here and your band. But time wasn’t on our side and he had other things to do. It sort of petered out but I had all these demos for ‘Bilston’ knocking about. So when we came to do that album the problems I was having with ProgRock were they are a great label but they just seemed so far away. I could speak to Shawn anytime I liked but it had to be via MSN. They were getting albums out there and they seemed to be selling them but I didn’t know if they were getting out there and sitting on shelves or were they actually being sold. I thought well to be perfectly honest it would be better for me in the UK to have a UK record label and somebody I could chat to when I feel like it. When I’m having a problem ring them up and say what about this Dave (Robinson) or can we do a tour or can you help me get a gig with Solstice? You know Magenta, how about getting me in on the old support slot with them, or whatever it was.

Dave and I had met on a couple of occasions, we met down at Bilston at Summers End and we got on very well. So I gave him a call and said what do you think and he said let me hear the demos. So he heard the demos and said yeah it sounds great let’s do it. So I thought a record label that’s just down the road however big it is or what it is it’s something to embrace. He’s got a good idea about how to do things. He’s got the problems of being a small organisation I think but the better the organisation gets and the better the artists he gets on the label the better the label will get. ProgRock started small and suddenly become this big thing, so did InsideOut. They all had to start somewhere and F2 is a good label and it looks after its artists. They’ve got ‘Bilston’ and its getting great reviews and people are picking up on it. I hope it’s a success for him because some point in the future I’m going to be banging on the door saying I want to do another one and we’re talking about this DVD. There may be a DVD shoot if we do some live dates this year. That’ll be budgeted by F2 and myself and its important I keep that partnership up and it’s good.

So I’ve got nothing but good things to say about David really, he’s a nice guy and he tries to ring me. I like to talk to people I don’t like MSN really and I don’t like emails so he kindly agreed and said look why don’t I give you a ring once a week and see how your getting on so he’s done that pretty much. He’s not done that this week because he’s been tied up but he gives me a ring and says how’s it going, what’s happening? We have a chat and a laugh and that’s it. So yeah, it’s a good relationship and I’m hoping we continue for a little longer until I stop making albums or he gives up the label or whatever. It’s not a bad relationship and we talked about live dates and he’s looking at that and he’s looking at European possibilities for us and things. So I can relax and leave that to him while I get on trying to sort the other problems out like getting a band together for example.

DPRP: And Loughborough (home of F2) is a lot closer than San Diego.

Guy: An awful lot yeah. And we meet up. When Magenta comes to play the CRS in April no doubt he’ll be there and I’ll go down and meet and say hello. We bump into each other so it’s good.

~ Playing Live ~

DPRP: I’ll be there as well so no doubt we’ll catch up then. You touched upon some plans there for the future including playing live and a possible DVD. When you had your last interview with the DPRP in December 2001…

Guy: Oh yes, it only seems like yesterday!

DPRP: A question you were asked at the time was where do you see yourself in five years time. I’m not going to stretch it that far but as we’re into a new year, what are your plans for 2008 Guy?

Guy: 2008 would be good to do some live dates. We’ve been threatening to do them. We enjoyed Summers End but fun though it was, it was a lot of effort for one night really. What I’d like to do is get us to a state where we’ve got some stable musicians that make up a band and were able to play dates as and when they come and we think there worth playing. We’re not going to go on tour and play every pub in the Yorkshire area or go round the country playing for a £5 door take. We will play gigs as they come up where I think there worth playing or where we’ve got a chance of playing to an audience or where we’ve got some other motive in mind like recording it. But to do that we need a stable line-up of people who like the stuff and that’s a problem.

When The Tangent comes together it’s an inordinate amount of effort and money because as well as us there’s the Swedish guys who are professional musicians and they want paying as professional musicians. They have to be brought across from Sweden and they have to be paid to play. What you get out of it is a brilliant result but it’s all on a very business like basis. I’m hoping we can get together because we like the stuff, I haven’t got that budget. I can’t say I think I’ll have Bill Bruford on this tour and who else? Yeah we’ll have John Wetton playing the bass, he’s good and we’ll have Rick Wakeman because he’s not doing anything at the moment as he has a bit of a cold but he can play the keyboards. No it’s not like that, we have to try and find a band that can actually cope with the material in whatever shape it is because we blend and change the material with the people we’ve got. If we’ve got no drummer it becomes a sort of folky acoustic line-up, if we’ve got full drums and a lot of electric guitars or powerful bass and drums it becomes a rock band. If it’s got saxophone and flute and a bit of acoustic it becomes a jazz band so depending upon who we’ve got that will dictate the style we go out with.

But I’d like to play some more dates and see if we can actually play to an audience this time. Even after nine albums nobody knows who the hell I am, it’s ridiculous really. Its stupid, but they don’t and that’s just a fact of life. When albums come out and people are shelling out their cash they’ve got The Flower Kings, they’ve got Spock’s Beard, Dream Theater and Ritual at the top of the list. By word of mouth if they ever have some spare cash, down the bottom is a pile of artists of which I’m one. That’s fine, the only way we’re going to shake that illusion, where if you happen to have some spare time listen to this, is by playing some dates. So we need to get a band together it needs to be damn good and we need to be able to pick a good cross section of the music. I don’t think we can be over ambitious because without taking three keyboard players out we’re not going to be able to perform the album as it is. So we’re going to have to strip it down and we’re going to have to make it a tight, funky, punchy affair and we’re just going to go out there and play some dates.

That’s the idea, if we can get a band together long enough to stay together then that would be great. I’ll start to line up some dates and we’ll see where it takes us this year. If there is no studio album this year it might be all devoted to try and get the live thing off the ground and a live album made. I don’t know, I’m not writing anything in particular at the moment anyway. I’m just writing a loud of crap at the moment so it doesn’t really matter. The idea is to try and devote sometime to getting us out before I’m too old and we get to the point where we look back and say wouldn’t it have been nice to have done some gigs from our zimmer frames and wheelchairs. I’d like to play some gigs while I’m still able to stand.

DPRP: How old are you Guy?

Guy: How old do I look? Have a guess (laughs).

DPRP: It’s too late for guessing, you tell me.

Guy: Fifty one.

DPRP: That’s a good age.

Guy: I’m wearing well. I mean I feel great, I feel sprightly other than being a bit overweight. I feel OK but I know that by the time you get to 55-60 how many gigs are you going to be able to play? My voice is going to start to go because you get the old-band croak coming out and that’s going to happen (laughs). So I want to get some gigs. I like to play in front of an audience but the trouble is when we go out we play in front of ten people. We turn up, do our bit and there’s nobody there. Nobody knows who you are. It’s one of those things you’ve got to be big to get the audience in and how do you get to be big? Luck or whatever, so we can go out and play but there’s no guarantee of getting anyone to come and see us that’s the problem. That’s why I can’t afford to book The Met in Bury or a big venue in London and go and put a gig on because nobody will come. All I can do is try and book a couple of joint dates maybe with another band to boost the profile up and show we can play a bit and then hopefully people will come and see us. We should be playing the CRS (Classic Rock Society) this year. We’ve been promised a headline gig by Martin (Hudson) so we’re going to take him up on that. There’s an off chance although it hasn’t been confirmed but when I spoke to Steve at a CRS event he said we might be on the list to do Summers End again with a full line-up this time.

David: That would be good.

Guy: We can’t say if that’s true because I don’t yet know if it’s going to come off. But he did say we are being considered for Summers End again and have the live band do a full show this time instead of the acoustic set. So hopefully this year we’re going to play some shows and that would be nice wouldn’t it?

David: That’s what keeps me going. There’s nothing better than treading the boards and playing to an audience. Bilston was actually bigger than ten…..

Guy: Yeah Bilston was good.

David: We were in that last quadrant of the second day where they were building up to The Flower Kings. It’s funny when you’ve been to these concerts where the final band has got the backline exactly where it wants and the sound check. The middle band has got some of the backline and their own gear and halfway towards the front there’s us. We’re right on the edge of the stage……

Guy: Pushed off the stage!

David: You’ve got no sound check and no chance of doing anything and you’re rushed on stage and I was absolutely filling my pants. What are we doing first? I couldn’t see a set list, my pedal board packed up and then Guy belted into the first tune. It hadn’t packed up at all I’d inadvertently turned off the key pedal that ran the board. So when I recovered that Guy was already about ten bars in. There was someone in the audience having a bit of a smile so I got that going and within about five seconds we we’re in the zone. I couldn’t believe how fast that forty five minutes went past I was absolutely having a whale of a time. For all its imperfections and things missing like the drums, which would have been great to have although we had some percussion, it was fantastic.

I think that’s what makes Guy’s music worthwhile. It’s not the thought that somebody in a darken room is listening to a copy of ‘Bilston House’ or ‘Anser’s Tree’ or they’re living through an old edition of ‘Cascade’ which is bloody fantastic, my personnel favourite album. It’s the fact that people are going to stand and listen to you and appreciate what you’ve done. That’s the recognition Guy really needs, pulling an audience, clapping their hands and saying that was absolutely bloody great. Andy (Tillison) was at that gig and Andy doesn’t throw compliments around he’s quite cuttingly honest with his views. I’ve played with him in a band (A New Opera) so I know what he’s like. He couldn’t have been more complimentary or warmer about what happened there.

Guy: Yeah he thought we were good.

David: He said it and he meant it. Actually I didn’t care whether he meant it or not it was a fantastic compliment. We need more of that with the full impact of Guy Manning with proper electric instruments. Not everything because you can’t cram all this (pointing to the instruments around the studio) on stage and he’s only got two arms but we can do a good job. We’ve already started to explore it.

Guy: Yeah we’ve started on the set list.

David: The set’s absolutely fantastic it’s got to be gigged. It’ll be a lot of fun.

~ Live Recording ~

DPRP: Did you record any of your shows?

Guy: No, we only did Summer’s End and we were so rushed on that even if we wanted to we wouldn’t have been able to press the tape recorder button. They threw us on stage while the audience was coming in and said get on with it basically.

David: Maybe there’s a bootleg somewhere.

Guy: No I don’t think there is. There’s some old stuff knocking around from pre Dave days but the quality of it is not very good. We put a recording mike in a room to see what it sounds like, nothing set up properly. If we’re going to do it this year and do it properly we’re talking about cameras and lines out the desk into multi track equipment. So we can do it properly, do it justice, a bit like ‘Going Off On One’.

DPRP: I can remember in particular an excellent live version of ‘Strange Place’ on ‘Cyclops Sampler 5’ in 2003.

Guy: That came from that gig I was just telling you about with the mike in the room. That was the one track I was really able to salvage and beef up and master it. I added a couple of things over the top of it (laughs) to make it sound right because you couldn’t hear the vocals so a had to re-dub some of those but in essence it was a pretty live recording. As a band we’re pretty good when we’re good we’re good, we just don’t get a chance to do it very often and that’s the problem of not having a regular band. When you’re an 18 year old you have the same line-up and everyone runs to the rehearsal room to get on with it. Now your saying well I’ve got a drummer and he lives in Coventry and he’ll be able to come up for two rehearsals and this sort of stuff. I want everyone to be living in the same streets so I can say why don’t we have a rehearsal on Saturday afternoon but its not possible anymore unfortunately.

David: And it’s a shame. When I played with Andy in A New Opera that was OK and Andy would say you’re a tight guitar player which is his way of saying your not very adventurous but you do what you’re told and you do it in the right places. I think all of us are better, warmer and looser musicians now. I think one of the benefits of age is you don’t give a stuff about certain issues. You care about the music but your not concerned about being spotted or there could be an A & R guy in the audience or that girl’s watching me I hope she’s impressed.

Guy: The girls are always watching you Dave (laughs).

David: Yeah, like in disbelief, how can it live? But you can actually get up on a stage now where you’re not intimidated at all. One of the great benefits of approaching 50, technically he’s gone over the hill……

Guy: Just approaching the hill at 80 miles an hour (laughs).

David: When we have a gig I’m going to have a proper rock star Persian rug or carpet and I’m going to have a lamp table and a glass of water (laughs).

Guy: Who said rock’s dead (laughs).

David: I’m going to have leathers like the Black Crowes.

Guy: Yeah right!

David: When you come to the gigs Geoff you’re going to see it happen. I’ve told him we’re gigging Guy, you’d better get your finger out!

Guy: Have I told you yet what the band are going to wear?

David: Oh no, pinafores (laughs).

Guy: Dave and Steve Dundon in a pantomime horse. That’s what they’re coming on as (laughs).

David: With a guitar plug coming out the side.

Guy: I’ll toss a coin to see who’s going to be the front and who’s in the back end (laughs).

David: Look, if it means playing your stuff live I’ll dress up in a bloody tutu!

Guy: Right, you’ve just said that on tape and I’m going to keep that. I’m going to use that as evidence later when I’ve bought your tutu.

David: That’s one of the benefits of old age you can come out the closet a lot more readily.

Guy: You can’t fit in a closet.

David: Or in a tutu if it comes to that.

Guy: If we get a big enough tutu that’ll be alright.

David: You heard it, it’s going to happen Geoff. We’re going to gig and we’re going to have a lot of fun as well!

DPRP: Speaking of stage props if you do it ELP style you’ll have three large trucks to carry all the gear with a letter on the roof of each spelling out the band’s name (laughs). But there’s seven letters in Manning so you’re going to need seven trucks.

Guy: We’re going to go for G.U.Y. for this one or three Minis and a trailer (laughs).

David: What’s the abbreviation of Manning, its Ming isn’t it? We’ll call ourselves Ming or the Mingers.

Guy: Manning and the Mingers!

~ Multi-Instrumentalist ~

DPRP: In 2003 I saw you support Focus for the CRS and as you’re a multi-instrumentalist it was interesting seeing you on stage playing mostly acoustic guitar. Are the instruments that you play on the albums precious to you and is it hard to give those parts to someone else?

Guy: No it’s not precious really, I mean nine times out of ten they can probably play it better than me (laughs) and that’s the whole point. I play acoustic guitar I suppose because that’s my instrument. If I had to take one instrument to a dessert island it would be the acoustic. I can play other things, not brilliantly but adequately and I get the job done. So it’s nice to take the pressure off and have people who can actually concentrate on that instrument and do it justice if you like. I mean when we started out on the early tours when we did ‘The Cure’ and stuff like that there was two keyboard setups. There is now, but it was more dominating then. Now Julie’s got one keyboard which she does bits and pieces on and there’s going to be another keyboard player with a full set. In those days there was two rigs one for the keyboard player and one Laura used to play bits on. I used to go over and do things like ‘Tightrope’ from ‘The Ragged Curtain’ all on keyboards, no acoustic guitar. So I ended up playing more instruments but for this line-up and the songs we’ve picked the acoustic guitar is a nice instrument to strum and to sing. My main job is to sing and get the song across. The fact that I can play other instruments is nice for me to have and know, but it’s not essential in a live setup. I have to demonstrate that. Maybe I’ll end up by playing some keyboards when we go out live this time and I might play some mandolin which I haven’t done. But primarily the acoustic instrument and the singing is my main responsibility and making sure everyone else is doing what they have to do. No it’s not precious, they can play better than me anyway, they can blow me off the stage so it doesn’t matter (laughs).

~ Guy to Manning ~

DPRP: Speaking of things precious you started off as Guy Manning and then you dropped the Guy part to simply Manning. Can you say why that was?

Guy: When I’d released ‘Tall Stories’ as Guy Manning all the reviews came in saying singer/songwriter Guy Manning, he writes the songs, he sings the songs. And I thought to myself yeah but these are big pieces, I’m doing all the guitars all the keyboards and drum parts and everything and I’m being reduced to a strumming… you know. I’m not just a singer/songwriter in the same way that Roger Waters when he releases an album he’s not just a singer/songwriter. I wanted to get rid of the tag. It’s a perception thing if your going to be called Guy Manning people will think you’re a solo artist. In fact that’s something that drives me berserk now. Every time they talk about The Tangent they say Guy Manning has released nine solo albums. What does it mean, solo albums from what? Solo albums are usually the albums people do on their own when their out of a band so it doesn’t make any sense to me. There not solo albums, there my albums. I’m not in The Tangent and go off and do an album every now and again on my own, it’s the other way round.

I got sick of it really and somebody said if you’re in a band why don’t you just think of a band name and go out as a band. You do exactly the same thing but call yourself, you know ‘Britannia’ or ‘Triumph Three’ or ‘Retro’ or something. I thought well, I’ll just drop the Guy bit. Manning is the project name so that was it. It’s not the greatest name in retrospect if I made the decision again I’d probably try and think up a proper band name like Magenta or whoever. Magenta in essence might have been Rob Reed’s band when it started and he got people in to play but he’s lucky they stayed with him and it became Magenta. It was self fulfilling it became its own band which was great. Maybe I should have thought of a proper name and not Manning because people still don’t take me seriously and think it’s me and a few other people doing what I do. But I dropped it because I was taken far more seriously as a band than I was as a solo artist even though the albums are exactly the same. It’s just silly, it’s a perception thing. It’s just odd.

~ Guests ~

DPRP: Interestedly enough you talked about the musicians on your albums some of those you list as actually band members and some as guests. How does somebody become a band member as opposed to a guest?

Guy: Basically a guest is somebody who’s in another band and plays on the album. So Andy’s a guest because he plays in The Tangent and Steve’s a guest because he plays in Molly Bloom. All the other people aren’t in bands so they’re band members because this is what they do. They haven’t got a primary band and come and help me out. Dave, until he gets his own band is a band member so is Laura. She’s got her own band but it’s not in the same sort of genre so I could say guest Laura Fowles from the Laura Fowles Quintet her own band. I could do, but I haven’t done that yet. Ian Fairbairn the fiddle player he used to play with Lindisfarne and Jack The Lad and all those people but he doesn’t play with them anymore so I can’t say guest from Lindisfarne or whatever. So anybody whose in a band which they take more seriously than mine they’re guests and anybody who plays with me because they like playing and we do it regularly is in the band that’s how I make the distinction.

DPRP: And I suppose it stops the write-ups from saying that person has left that band and they’ve joined Manning.

Guy: Yeah exactly. Not that anybody would think that Andy had left The Tangent to join me but yeah it’s acknowledging their own bands. Once they come through these doors I don’t think right, you’re working for me now sonny. These are people who have given up time from they’re own projects to help me and it should be acknowledged that their projects exist. This is where you can find them and if you want to research Molly Bloom or you want to research The Tangent then this is where you should go. It’s a respect thing.

DPRP: I suppose on the new Tangent album you’ll be billed as a guest from Manning (laughs).

Guy: No, it doesn’t work like that actually (laughs). Funny enough, that’s where the theory falls down because actually I’m a full time member of The Tangent. Or I’m called a full time member but how can you be a full time member when people live in Sweden. We never get together so there isn’t a full time band but the people who make The Tangent albums are made up of a core group of musicians and other people and it fluctuates. But we’re not guests because we all do it on our own in the same way that Jonas isn’t credited as Jonas Reingold guest from The Flower Kings and Jakko isn’t a guest from the 21st Century Schizoid Band or whatever he’s doing at the moment. Were not guests we’re seen as being The Tangent because of the very nature of what it is which is a band made up of people from other bands. It doesn’t have guests because it’s acknowledged everyone is doing other things. Theo (Travis) has got his own outfit everyone in the band is doing something. So it doesn’t quite work like that although I could suggest it to Andy and become a guest!

~ La Voce Del Vento ~

DPRP: Speaking of other bands you and Andy have worked on two Colossus Spaghetti Epic projects under the name La Voce Del Vento which I believe translates as ‘The Voice Of The Wind’.

Guy: The Voice Of The Wind yes, I thought of that. I’m proud of that. The brief from Colossus was you can be on this album and we want you to do a piece twenty five minutes long and it’s got to sound like 70’s Italian progressive rock. So I thought of an Italian name for us.

DPRP: So did you run home and drag out your old PFM albums?

Guy: Naturally, and my Banco albums (laughs). But to be honest we did play that way but a lot of it is old Hammond, Moog and Mellotron based and that’s what we do anyway. We wrote a piece around this western theme and we put a few little Leone bits in just to make it twang a little bit and the solo trumpet (mimes Ennio Morricone style trumpet) and all that stuff in it. We put a lot of wind and other noises like the rustling of tumbleweed and the rest of it was just what we normally do to be perfectly honest. We had a lot of fun doing it. The first one we had a lot of fun, the second one coincided with Andy’s problems in France and it wasn’t a happy time for him so it was a bit rushed towards the end. I think the second one could have sounded a bit better but we ended up by rushing it to get it out the way because we were meeting deadlines for Colossus.

DPRP: That came out just last year.

Guy: Yeah. We haven’t been asked to do another one (laughs). Two’s enough!

DPRP: I guess that’s because they’re running out of Sergio Leone films. It was interesting when I first read about your involvement as for me you were treading on sensitive ground because they’re two of my favourite films. Ennio Morricone responsible for the original music is also one of my favourite composers so I was really interested to see how you approached it.

Guy: We were never going to rip anybody off but there obviously had to be some sort of Spanish bits in there because that’s the way it was. I did a lot of the orchestration for the second one like the part about the battlefield and the lone trumpet and the orchestra. I guess I thought it was a nice idea to do that and Andy came in and did his typical ELP bits and I did my singer/songwriter bits and we just stuck it together like we do with everything else. It could have been a Tangent album if we spent more time on it and got more people on it. We just used our instruments so it wasn’t a problem to say it has to sound like PFM or Banco it just had to sound authentically 70’s and have a bit of Spanish in it to make it western and we got away with it. I think the pieces aren’t bad. There not the best thing we’ve ever written but they’re not bad. And they’re probably not the worse.

David: Are you legends in Italy then (laughs).

Guy: No, we’re not even legends in our own lunchtime!

DPRP: I think they work. The last one you did which was ‘The Bad’ from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is based on an evil killer but I thought the music was quite sunny and upbeat and the lyrics very sympathetic to the character.

Guy: I tried to make it so that he might be bad but what made him that way? Rather than just being a swine because he is he’s a swine I basically wanted to say for all the badness, remember he’s on his own all the time he hasn’t got anywhere to go. He’s got no family, he’s a lone guy and at the end the fact that he gets killed to him is probably a good thing and it probably ending his torment. So I approached it from that angle rather than go (sings) I’m a swine, I’m gonna gun you down. I tried to look at it from a different angle because that’s what I do. I try and get a different perspective on the character.

DPRP: I think you put a lot of depth into the character that isn’t there in the film but that bleakness suited the style of the film.

Guy: It’s a fantastic film but you just couldn’t write a song about someone gunning people down could you? It just wouldn’t have made it a decent lyric (sings) I’m gonna shoot you in the head, shoot you in the leg. You couldn’t so I had to make it different and that’s what we try to do and I think it was OK. Andy got fed up with it by the end (laughs). He said I can’t do this anymore. We do all this, six months of work and what do we get? Three copies of the album and that’s it, is it worth it (laughs).

DPRP: So no future plans for La Voce Del Vento?

Guy: We did say we were going to do a La Voce album when we’ve got time on our hands. We’ll come together and take that as the boundary for a project and just the two of us will sit down and hammer out some pieces together and try and write it. No Tangent, everything we do we’ll do together and do an album as La Voce Del Vento. But that’s for another time he’s too damn busy these days to contemplate it. Never mind, The Voice Of The Wind has blown away.

DPRP: It’s a great title and I like the Italian variation on your names in the CD booklet. Who thought of those?

Guy: Guy De M’Anningi and Andreas Tillisoni (laughs). Andy thought of those, he insisted on putting those in. I take no responsibility for the Italian names.

On that note, and conscious of the lateness of the hour, we brought the interview to a close. Before David and I made our way into the fresh night air however Guy picked up his acoustic guitar and provided an impromptu performance that included tantalising snatches of several rock and prog classics. When Guy switched to keyboards David took over revealing that contrary to his earlier comments he’s actually a very good acoustic player. An elegant duet that touched on The Last Psalm from Guy’s first album made a fitting conclusion to the evening.

Since the interview it has been announced that Manning, along with Strangefish and Black Bonzo, will be playing a special concert for the Classic Rock Society in Rotherham, UK on Saturday 21st June 2008. It’s been planned as a tribute to Rob Leighton of Radio Caroline fame who tragically passed away in January of this year. Tickets are available from the CRS website and all profits will go to the charity NACC (National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease) nominated by Rob’s widow Sharon. I’ll be there, so if you make it along please come up and say hello.

Interview for DPRP by Geoff Feakes

Interview by Geoff Feakes ~ Part Two ~ Continued from Part One