Roye Albrighton on Nektar’s Past, Present and Future Challenges, and the Time Machine (2014)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 12 June 2026

Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Greifenburg /Kultursaal / Austria
Interview date: 18.03.2014

Guitarist and vocalist Roye Albrihgton is a founding member and the boss of the legendary British band Nektar, who were an important part of the fast-growing progressive rock scene in the seventies. Roye has been part of the Nektar story since the band’s formation in 1969. Apart from a short break in the late seventies, when he left Nektar for two years, he has lived through all their ups and downs, and in the late nineties he made sure this cult band got its ‘resurrection’. Unlike their British peers, Nektar spent most of their best creative years on German soil and developed a pretty distinctive approach to prog rock. We talked with Roye about the new Nektar album »Time Machine« and his take on the modern prog rock scene, and the conversation also drifted to his band’s unforgettable tour with Frank Zappa in the early seventies and the future of this legendary group.

Rockline: Are you happy with how the current tour is going?

Roye Albrighton: Very happy. Last night we played Austria for the first time, which was only the second time in our career so far, so that was definitely something special. For now, I can honestly say I’m really happy with how this tour is going.

Rockline: How did Billy Sherwood (formerly of the legendary Yes) joining as bass player and producer affect the new Nektar album, »Time Machine«?

Roye Albrihton: Well, Billy Sherwood isn’t exactly our new bass player. He’s only played one concert with us. But we made thorough use of his services in the studio, where he was the producer, or co-producer, of our new album. Billy is very good at whatever he takes on, and that goes for his producing work too, and on top of that he’s an excellent bass player. But even so, he’s not a member of Nektar at the moment.

Rockline: So he works with you as an occasional musician?

Roye Albrighton: Yeah, as you know, ever since he left Yes, Billy has mostly worked as a studio musician. At first we only planned to work with him as a producer, but while listening to our new material he decided to leave some of his own musical stamp on it too and contributed some of the bass lines. On top of that, he really focused on the drum sound. The result of our collaboration is a really good album.

Rockline: We’d like to hear more about how your new studio album »Time Machine« came about.

Roye Albrighton: Most of the material on the new album, apart from two songs, was recorded as pre-production in a smaller studio and then finished in the main studio. That’s been our usual practice for the last few years, because these days it’s simply too expensive to afford too much time in the studio. We used to spend three or four weeks there, but today that’s just too pricey, so we prefer to do the pre-production and only then record the final versions of the compositions in as short a time as possible.

Rockline: When and why did you decide to change the title of the new album from »Juggernaut« to »Time Machine«?

Roye Albrighton: That actually happened in the middle of the creative process, since even before »Juggernaut« we’d been toying with another potential title for the album. We originally thought about calling it »Juggernaut« because of the lyrics of that song. »Juggernaut« was originally supposed to be an instrumental piece, but we later added vocals and lyrics to it. Quite often, once an album gets through the production phase, the original decisions or concepts change, so this kind of thing isn’t exactly earth-shattering for us.

Rockline: Why did you decide to record your first covers album, »A Spoonful of Time«?

Roye Albrihton: »A Spoonful of Time« was originally an idea that came from our label. Their idea was that the core of our band, meaning the central members, would record an album of covers of other artists and work with lots of other musicians on it. So we worked with many great musicians, but it definitely wasn’t our idea. Personally, I wasn’t all that thrilled about our label’s idea. Still, there are people who like »A Spoonful of Time«.

Rockline: I liked it.

Roye Albrighton: Well, there’s our first person who liked it.

Rockline: Do you follow the modern prog rock scene at all?

Roye Albrigton: Yeah, I listen to new bands now and then, but I try to make sure it doesn’t influence the Nektar sound too much. We’re still an ‘old-school’ prog rock band with a pretty distinctive sound. People like to call us prog rock, even though I don’t even know exactly what the term ‘prog rock’ means. If it means lots of sudden time changes within individual songs, then you can call our music prog rock too, but I’ve never counted Nektar as part of the core of prog rock, meaning where you’d put bands like, say, Yes.

Rockline: What was the joint tour with Frank Zappa, which you were part of in 1973, like?

Roye Albrighton: Astonishing. That tour was just astonishing. Frank was an incredible musician, and the band he had with him on tour was just as outstanding. Every single one of them was a fascinating musician. Frank really loved our music. For the first five days before the tour started, he regularly came to our rehearsals and happily watched us on stage. He also offered us the chance to join his label, since he was looking for new bands for it, but in the end we decided otherwise. Frank’s band had a completely different setlist every night, which meant that every single night a different set of music was on the menu. You never knew what he’d come up with the next night, because each time he put completely different songs on the setlist. On that tour we traveled ‘country to country’ instead of ‘city to city’. In every country we played, Frank opened the show by playing their national anthem in his own style. That alone ‘blew everyone’s heads off’. During the show in Germany he played the German anthem, in his own style. And when we visited the UK he did his own version of the British anthem, »God Save the Queen«, which was no less fun. Those were truly wonderful times, and I’ll always fondly remember hanging out with that extraordinary musician.

Rockline: You’ve probably heard Iron Maiden’s cover of your classic »King of Twilight« from »A Tab in the Ocean«? If you have, I’m curious what you think of it.

Roye Albrighton: I like their version. I find Iron Maiden’s approach to the song interesting. It’s not all that different from ours, but it’s noticeably punchier. I have to admit I only heard that cover, thanks to my son-in-law, years after it first came out on the Iron Maiden single »Aces High«. I like that it wasn’t some overly faithful jazz fusion or prog rock version of our song.

Rockline: Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris is a longtime fan of yours, by the way.

Roye Albrighton: Oh yeah, I know Steve Harris personally. I met him once at an airport. I think it was in Saudi Arabia. His whole band was at the airport at the time. I remember wondering what band it was when they invited me over. They introduced themselves as members of Iron Maiden and told me they’d recently recorded a cover of one of the Nektar songs. Of course I thought that was great, and Steve also told me he was a longtime fan of ours.

Rockline: Some media have often wrongly labeled you as part of the so-called krautrock scene, given that you were based in Germany in the seventies, even though your music was quite different from krautrock bands. Did comparisons like that ever bother you?

Roye Albrihghton: No, not at all. I really don’t know why some people think ‘krautrock’ isn’t a nice word for labeling a certain band. It’s just a term, and Nektar are still Nektar, so we don’t pay much attention to labels like that. The only real reason some people still think we’re a German band is the way our band name is spelled, Nektar instead of Nectar. That happened when we started, simply because by choosing a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c’ we wanted to say something different, and this was before we found out that it’s the German version of the word ‘nectar’. So because of that, some people thought we were a German band. But since we’re on the subject of krautrock, I have to add that back then, in the mid-seventies, there were quite a few fantastic krautrock bands, like Can, Amon Düül II, Birth Control, and a band we guys in the band were talking about just the night before, Grobschnitt.

Rockline: What can we expect from Nektar in the future?

Roye Albrighton: We’ll keep doing what we enjoy, which means we’ll keep recording new music and playing concerts for everyone who’d like to see us live. We’d like more shows and tours than we’ve had lately, but for financial reasons we simply can’t afford that anymore, since we have to be very careful with the money side of gigs. So we’ll keep doing what we do best: making new music and trying to pull off as many live shows as we can.

Rockline: As long as you still have the joy for new musical adventures, of course.

Roye Albrighton: And as long as people are still willing to listen to us.

Rockline: Thank you so much for the interview, Mr. Albrighton. The Rockline team wishes you the most successful show possible in Greifenburg, where we’ll be happy to see Nektar up close.

Roye Albrighton: Thank you. I’m really glad that you’ll be coming to our show today.

You can read the full concert report from Nektar’s show on 18.01.2014 in Greifenburg, Austria, HERE!