Location: Orpheum / Graz / Austria
Interview date: 05.05.2010
If anyone had told me I’d one day be sitting at a table with the legendary Scottish rockers Nazareth, I’d have asked them to come up with a better joke. And yet the devil took that very joke aside and it actually happened. The band, which has been around for over 40 years and has unforgettable evergreens like This Flight Tonight, Love Hurts, Dream On and My White Bycycle, was shaking up the top of the charts especially in the first half of the seventies.
In 2010 Nazareth set off on a new tour. They gave it a pretty fitting name: “Still Lound N’ Proud”. Along the way they stopped in Graz, Austria, at the Orpheum hall. Could you even ask for a more fitting place to catch a Nazareth show?
Both original founding members of the band joined us at the table, singer Dan Mccafferty and bassist Pete Agnew, and in a concise and hugely entertaining chat they revealed why that’s still the case today..
RockLine: You’re in the middle of a new European tour, how’s it going? Is everything okay?
Pete: We’re three and a half weeks in. So far everything’s going really well. We’re on the road all the time anyway.
Dan: The UK leg is behind us, a big German leg is next, and then North America at the end.
RockLine: You called the tour Still Loud n’ Proud. Why did you decide to name it that?
Dan: Because we’re still loud and proud!
Pete: You know, when you’re booking shows, the promoters in Germany always want a name for the tour, some kind of title. We didn’t have to rack our brains much. Our famous album “Loud ‘N Proud” helped us out a lot there. You know, many, many years ago, back in the seventies, we called a tour of Canada “Loud N’ Proud”. We had that album out at the time. It’s really just a name. We had to call the tour something.
Dan: Instead of, say, calling it Bob, ha, ha, ha….
RockLine: Two years ago you released a new studio album, “The Newz”. With the current lineup, which has actually been together a lot longer than the new album is old. What was the story behind the album?
Dan: The last CD we recorded before “The Newz” came out ten years earlier. It was called “Boogaloo”. Jimmy Murrison was already on guitar on that album. Then what happened was that our good old Darrell (Darrell Sweet, ed.) died of a heart attack. That’s how Lee (Lee Agnew, son of the band’s bassist Pete Agnew, ed.) joined the band. We had enough material for a new album, but we just couldn’t reach an agreement with the labels. They told us we could record the album, but they wouldn’t do anything beyond that. No promotion. That made no sense for us. No vision. So we said we’d stick to our tours and put out an album ourselves some day if we had to. We restarted the whole concept. It so happened that people warmed to us in Switzerland and at the Swiss branch of Phonogram Records, so we sent them all the details and material, and they really liked the title we’d picked for the album, too.
Pete: I think the title is really spot-on. The album is full of new ideas, and we worked together brilliantly in the band while writing and recording. That’s why it’s so varied. We’ve got two members who are quite a bit younger than Dan and me, so there are some new influences on it too. The album sounds more modern.
RockLine: So Lee and Jimmy were quite an influence in shaping the sound of the new album?
Pete: Yeah, very much.
Dan: Jimmy in particular contributed a lot of arrangements.
Pete: Even while we were finishing the album, the air was full of good ideas about how to work individual ideas into the arrangements. We talked a lot with each other and in the end reached a really good consensus on how the songs, and ultimately the album, should turn out.
Dan: The criterion was that we’d put together 13 songs for the album that all four members would like. And we managed that. So nobody among us could say, say, six months later, that they didn’t like some song, because they did like it, ha, ha, ha…
RockLine: With a 10-year drought of studio albums, were you ever afraid that people would get tired of coming to your tours, which are fairly frequent?
Pete: People love coming to our shows. Because of the classics. So we don’t have to worry about losing our audience. What’s true, though, is that this September and October, after we finish the tour, we’re heading to Prague, where we’ll start recording our new studio album. So in the summer w
Dan: Unless you want to piss into the wind of the market. Plenty of people do that today. Albums are bought by older music fans, young people are happy with mp3s.
Pete: Three or four years ago I got hold of a single that hit number one in the UK in its first week out and sold 25,000 copies. I laughed my head off at that. When we were putting out singles, you couldn’t make the Top 10 unless you sold 50,000 copies a day. A day! When you look at the situation today, it’s a complete joke. You can’t take it seriously anymore.
Dan: The internet changed everything. The material, the music, is out there and it’s available to everyone. It’s waiting for you. It’s not going anywhere. So you don’t have to go to a shop and rummage excitedly through the shelves for your favorite artist. People are laid-back and reluctant to part with their money. And the internet indulges them.
Pete: I can’t even tell you how happy I am that I’m not in a new band. It must be really, really tough for new bands today.
RockLine: Did you ever imagine that after more than 40 years on the scene you’d still be this loud and proud?
Pete: No, no! Not even in my dreams, ha, ha, ha, ha,… My answer to that question is definitely: “Noooo!”
Dan: We figured that at this age we’d be doing anything other than still making music. And the years just flew by in the blink of an eye. And now we’re still here. I just can’t quite wrap my head around it.
Pete: There are quite a few bands from the seventies who are still going. Like us. Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Motorhead, for example,… I’d dare say none of them ever thought it would all last this long, either. In one way that’s really good. Because bands like us are there for each other and can do joint tours. That’s easier today than it was, say, 15 years ago. It’s also easier to get a mixed crowd in front of the stage. Besides the regular older fans, younger rock fans are turning up at our shows again today. They want to hear rock live! They catch what others are saying and it starts to draw them in. They want to see how the thing works live. It’s like that on this tour too. You’re surrounded again by the audience that’s been following you faithfully for 40 years, but alongside them there are always young people who are probably seeing us live for the very first time. What’s interesting is that when you watch the younger people, it’s easy to see they know your music. They sing along, they know the lyrics. And that’s really encouraging.
RockLine: Where did you meet and find keyboardist John Locke?
Pete: We were recording the album “The Fool Circle” on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. We were still the original four-piece back then. That studio’s gone now, because a volcano completely destroyed the island years ago. While we were there, we were thinking about recording some keyboards. And our manager says: “That shouldn’t be a big problem, John Locke is here too!” Our eyes popped out: “Who?” We were stunned. We all knew John Locke, we all loved the album “Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus” by Spirit, where he played. Of course we invited him to play piano. An incredible guy. In the end we used keyboards on as many as five songs on the album. When we finished the album and later planned a new tour, we asked John if he’d join us. And so it happened that we went back to Montserrat and, after “The Fool Circle”, recorded the album “2XS” as well. John lived on Montserrat. Then he played keyboards on our live album “Live In Texas” and on “Snaz” too. After a few years he packed his bags. To be honest with you, he wasn’t on good terms with our manager at the time. John really couldn’t stand him. He told us: “Guys, don’t take it the wrong way. I’ve got no problem playing with you, but I just can’t stand that shithead!” But later John did join us for a few more tours. Sadly he passed away a few years ago. He was a great guy and a great keyboard player.
RockLine: Nazareth are known for hits that are covers of other artists’ songs, like This Flight Tonight, Love Hurts, My White Bycycle. Who in the band was the driving force behind these covers?
Pete: It happened totally naturally. We played those songs on the road, in our little van, back when we weren’t making a living from music yet. We all had regular jobs. We listened to those songs when we were young, they were our favorites. But when we tackled them, we wanted them to sound like us. As if we’d written them. Take This Flight Tonight by Joni Mitchell, for instance, it’s very, very different from the original. When Joni heard it, she really liked our version.
RockLine: And of course she probably didn’t object to the “jingly” side that came along with the success of that cover, either?
Pete: Yes. She was undoubtedly very happy about that, too.
Dan: She was happy about the checks, ha, ha, ha…
RockLine: In November 1985 you also played in Ljubljana. I don’t remember exactly anymore. Were you a four-piece or a five-piece back then?
Pete: Four-piece!
RockLine: That was also the first and last time you played in Slovenia.
Pete: For us, that whole region was Yugoslavia. That was easiest for us. We didn’t know what Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and so on were,… But I do remember playing in Zagreb, in Belgrade, in Ljubljana.
Dan: We’d love to go back there. But then the war got in the way…
Pete: Nazareth would have played in that region many more times without hesitation, but those were times when the agency that rented out the PA demanded a very expensive fee. They were afraid for their gear, thinking something terrible could happen with us in that part of the world. They didn’t dare lend out equipment because they had no guarantee it would come back safely.
RockLine: After all these years of what you do, how much respect does your hometown, Dunfermline in Scotland, show you?
Dan: Dunfermline is a very Scottish town. Everybody there loves us a lot, but none of the locals will ever tell us that, ha, ha, ha… You know how it is there. You walk into a pub. Everybody’s talking about football. If you cut in with something about fame and music, they throw you straight out of the pub, ha, ha, ha….
Pete: For us that’s very relaxing. Everyone there definitely knows who Dan and I are. But they don’t jump all over us. They leave you in peace, they mind their own business.
RockLine: In one of the pieces in Classic Rock magazine, I read a concert report about your recent show in London. Debborah Bonham played with you. How did that collaboration come about?
Dan: Debborah is looked after in the UK by the same agency as us. So it probably would have taken years before another chance to play together came up.
Pete: Debborah is surrounded by excellent musicians and she’s a great singer herself. This year we’ll be playing together at a festival in the Czech Republic. That Ozzy guy will be there too, and Ken Hensley.
Dan: Looks like Ozzy is looking for a support act for his show, ha, ha, ha… The question is whether Ozzy will even show up. There’s plenty of time until then and Ozzy always likes to stir something up.
RockLine: Do you ever get tired of touring?
Dan: You know, you never get tired of playing. That’s a lot of fun. The traveling gets really exhausting from time to time, though.
Pete: The show is the high point of the tour’s travel day. But getting to the show, that’s another story. Just arriving. From location to location. Especially in Russia. Sometimes you need two days to get from one place to another. There’s a lot of sitting around in airports, and we really hate airports.
RockLine: What about groupies?
Pete: We don’t have them anymore.
Dan: See this face? You’re joking, right?
Pete: I don’t think groupies exist anymore.
RockLine: Besides the new album, does Nazareth have any other major plans for the future?
Dan: That we’ll be recording an album, I can tell you for certain. But planning anything else ahead of time isn’t our habit. We’re not young anymore and we’ll never be younger. The train has left the station. We’re not interesting for MTV. We’re not trendy, nicely built, perfumed and so on…. which is plenty fine with us. We’ve lived our years. And thank God we lived them the way we did! I regret nothing. Anyway, we were never the media’s darlings. The cameras didn’t look for us often. We weren’t scandalous enough. Only the tours are where we can get close to people. And that’s how it’ll stay. As long as we’re alive.
Pete: As for this tour, there’ll be a new one and then another and another,…. You know, we spend most of the year on tour. We take Christmas off and part of January too. But that’s when we meet up for rehearsals. In January pockets are usually empty. Everyone’s paying with credit cards, so why would we tour then? But between February and November we’re booked solid with shows every year. We spend very few days a year at home in Scotland. It happens that people ask how things are back home, and you answer: “No idea. You tell me, if you know anything about it?”
RockLine: Are you Glasgow Rangers or Celtic fans?
Dan: Neither team. Dunfermline Athletic, for God’s sake, ha, ha,… And we’re not doing too well. But we keep hoping we’ll get better.
Pete: Honestly, none of us is particularly fond of either Rangers or Celtic.
Dan: Yeah. Because they always thrash us.
Pete: They’re the guys with the money.
Dan: Not anymore, but they still have more of it than our club.
interview by: Aleš Podbrežnik
text translated and edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Urban Bolta, Jernej Vene & Aleš Podbrežnik
You can read how the Nazareth show in Graz on 05.05.2010 went HERE.
Heartfelt thanks to the traveling music encyclopedias Dragan Bulič and Jernej Vene from RTV Slovenija, who spiced up this Nazareth interview with their lively reflections.
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