Location: Vienna / Reigen club / Austria
Interview date: 05.02.2012
Four decades of Wishbone Ash have come and gone. Last year the band played a ton of shows to mark this round anniversary. To do it, they dug through the dusty archives of their rich discography and put together a retrospective live set covering the most recognizable pieces from their classic albums, with the focus on the first decade of the band.
All that intense playing across a nice bundle of dates last year has seeped into the guys’ blood and fingers, and the new album “Elegant Stealth” shows it beyond any doubt. It’s the kind of record that serves up serious freshness and quality, a “return” for Wishbone Ash to the days of the excellent studio effort “Bona Fide” from 2002, and I’d even dare say it’s the best Wishbone Ash album of the new millennium, bristling with the recognizable trademarks of this band’s musical originality. Four years have passed since its predecessor “The Power Of Eternity”. And that one was very good too.
So the guys found themselves on a new tour. They always tour in winter. And always with the bulk of the shows in Germany, where they’re especially popular. As for us, three lone riders, the road took us to see one of the “Elegant Stealth” tour dates at the easiest place to reach. Which, as it has proven countless times before, is Vienna, Austria.
Even before the show, we had the great honor of chatting with the boss and the only original member of the current Wishbone Ash lineup, Andy Powell.
How’s the tour going?
Andy: As you know, Europe has always welcomed us really well. For us, being constantly on the road playing shows, that matters a lot, especially in Germany, where we’re even more popular than in other European countries. Last week, when we were in northern Europe, temperatures were dangerously far below zero, and that didn’t stop people or put them off coming out to our shows. We’re very happy with how the tour is going.
Is there any corner of the world where Wishbone Ash haven’t played yet but you’d like to?
Andy: As far as Europe goes, we haven’t played the eastern countries for a very long time, like Hungary or Romania, but otherwise I’d love to play in China someday. That would be a real big one.
In November 2011 you released the new studio album “Elegant Stealth”. Can you tell us something about how it came together, how the recording went and so on…
Andy: It all started two years ago. First we decided to shoot a video for a DVD. It’s a summary of the writing and creating of the album. We added the process of recording the album in the studio last summer to that, and that’s how the DVD “This is Wishbone Ash” came about. Part of the material we recorded in our new studio in England, I recorded some extra vocals in the US, in Connecticut, where I live, and Muddy recorded some guitars in Helsinki, Finland. People say “Elegant Stealth” is one of the best albums we’ve put out in a long time. People really love it. It’s honest, direct, it was just us doing the recording, plus a couple of sound engineers, and everything turned out great. We’re very happy.
Can you describe the background of some of the most interesting messages in the lyrics of the new album?
Andy: The new album deals a lot with relationships, with the bonds between people. Take the song Warm Tears, for example, it’s about the breakup of a relationship on a personal level. Anyone who’s ever been in a relationship will understand the emotions that run through that song. Heavy Weather is a song we recorded in the summer in the US, and during that time we got some extreme weather. Even though the title also hides a metaphorical play on words about a relationship, we actually did get tornadoes and floods, weather-wise. Where I live, in the northeastern part of the American continent, we had hurricanes too.
This year it’s 40 years since you released the album “Argus”. Are you planning to mark this anniversary in any special way?
Andy: That’s a very good question. A symphony orchestra from Germany has already contacted us about working together on it, saying they’d be very interested in recording an orchestral version of the album together. The album “Argus” performed in full with orchestrations. I think it’s a very interesting offer and I believe something really cool could come out of that collaboration. We have some experience with orchestras from the past, but in this case, playing the whole of “Argus” would be a truly unique and special experience and a really nice way to mark the anniversary. If it happens, we’ll shoot a DVD as well.
Not long ago you celebrated 40 years of the band. What feelings wash over you when you look back and take in the long road Wishbone Ash have traveled?
Andy: For me, as the only original member who has actually lived through this whole era from the beginning until today, the occasion is something special in itself, and I get reflective about the band’s past times. Every time. It’s just incredible that after all these years the band even still exists, writes music, puts out albums and is constantly out on tour. We marked the occasion with the release of the live CD and DVD “Live In London”. 40 years is a lot. Plenty of members have come and gone in Wishbone Ash over that time. Our current bassist Bob Skeat has been in the lineup for 15 years now, which is no small thing. That’s twice as long as, say, Ted Turner lasted in the band in the early days of Wishbone Ash. I often look at Wishbone Ash like a football team. It’s been around for a very long time, and lots of different players have played in it.
How would you describe your music yourself? The music of Wishbone Ash, and where would you place it genre-wise?
Andy: When we started the band, there were no labels, we were just music. Later they started calling us progressive rock. That was in the seventies, and then later on they started calling us “classic rock”. The really good thing about Wishbone Ash is that there’s no limitation with us. We can play metal, we can play jazz, we can play folk. We’re eclectic. But if you’re asking me to pick a label, I’d choose the one that calls us “classic rock”. The basic format we’re built on is two guitars, bass guitar and drums. That’s classic rock. Lots of melody, very English, very raw. Some blues, some folk, and we’re not afraid to venture into weird rhythmic textures either. We like to take the audience with us on a special musical adventure.
What are your favorite Wishbone Ash albums and your favorite Wishbone Ash songs?
Andy: Mine?!? My God… There are so many that it’s hard to choose. Everybody loves the album “Argus”, and I love it dearly. I’m really glad that album is part of us, and it turned out that “Argus” was obviously the peak of our career. I also really like the album “New England”. That was our first album recorded in the US. I have good feelings attached to that album. As for favorite songs, really, leaving out just the obvious favorites, it’d be something like Sometime World from the album “Argus”. I love that song. Also Thrown Down The Sword. That one has exceptional sentiment, exceptional guitars, it’s an exceptional song. In many ways that song embodies the band as a whole.
In recent years there’s been a kind of fad where lots of well-known musicians and acts, among them Alice Cooper, Queensryche and now also Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, decide to record a second part of their most successful and popular albums. How do you see this trend?
Andy: A second part of an album, you mean? With new songs?
Yes.
Andy: As far as I’m concerned, in this case it’s more or less a commercial move. If I put myself in the same shoes and decided we’d record Wishbone Ash “Argus” number two, I actually know I couldn’t do it. Because I don’t feel it in my heart. I think Wishbone Ash are more honest with themselves in that regard. Sure, you can take the atmosphere and ideas from “Argus” and use them again, even record it along the same principle. For the first microsecond that might even be interesting.
Can you list which musicians influenced you the most as an artist?
Andy: As a young hopeful, the first one who caught my attention was the Gibson guitarist Django Reihnardt. I love the emotion in his playing. As far as rock n` roll goes, it was Hank Marvin of The Shadows who stuck in my memory, especially because of the specific guitar sound he used. I was about 11 at the time. Later, in my teenage years, in the mid-sixties, I played a lot of rhythm guitar. Back then Steve Cropper was an influence, I listened to a lot of American bands, Stax, then Motown, and then blues music took me over, and Albert King. I was never a big B.B. King fan, whereas Freddie King and especially Albert King are from a different cloth. Especially Albert King… I like his temperament. Then Peter Green, who’s among the best English guitarists. I have enormous respect for him. Then Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck came out of England too. Those are the three greatest English guitarists England ever produced. In the late sixties. Those guys were hard to top. The only way for us was to try something different. And so we tried two guitarists in the band.
Two guitars and Wishbone Ash. That’s actually your trademark.
Andy: Definitely. And it still is. Twin solos. That’s what we do. That’s our formula, and you can feel a bit of that twin-guitar melody tingle in every single one of our songs.
Do you still say guitars have wings?
Andy: That’s my belief. I believe they do. The great thing about the guitar is that it’s always the cornerstone of rock n` roll. Sure, you can stick keyboards, saxophone, etc. in anywhere… But let’s face it. Rock, rock n` roll is the guitar. And it always has been.
What can Slovenian fans expect from your show when you play in Slovenia?
Andy: Lots of classics. We’ll play the older songs that these fans of ours grew up with. It’s very important to give them something sentimental. On top of that, we’ll add three or four songs from the new album “Elegant Stealth”, just like tonight here in Vienna.
Do you have any important message for our loyal readers?
Andy: As I remember, we really haven’t played in Slovenia for a long, long time. If I remember right, the last time was sometime in the eighties. Ljubljana is a very beautiful city and I remember it well from when we visited. It will be a great honor for us to go back and play there. I hope it’ll be one of those gigs at venues we always love coming back to and where we’d like to play more often. In the future too. Above all, the most important thing for us is meeting new faces and our fans in Slovenia as well. I’m really curious how things are with you, since a lot of big changes have happened in your country while we weren’t playing shows in Slovenia.
Thank you Andy for your precious time.
Andy: My pleasure, guys. See you at the show.
interview by: Peter Podbrežnik
text translated and edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos (Reigen club, Vienna, Austria): Aleš Podbrežnik
a heartfelt thank-you for all the support goes to Zdravko Grah of the company Concertica, who took care of all the necessary logistics and broke the ice with the band’s management, which let the RockLine crew happily pull off this interview.
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