In 2003 I decided it was time to start writing songs again, having spent quite a few years playing covers in bands and as a solo artist. I first started songwriting in the 70’s with a band called Le Metro - these songs were very much of their time being influenced by artists such as Elvis Costello , The Police, and of course my first love , The Beatles. There used to be a recording studio in Fleet Street, Swindon, called Tudor Studios where we recorded various demos, with subsequent trips up to London to visit the A&R departments of record companies. ‘Close but no cigar’ began the reply from Stiff Records (Elvis Costello’s label at the time) and that pretty much summed up the response from all the other companies as well. New bands were formed, songs recorded, record companies visited with the same result, so I took the easier option and started playing other peoples’ stuff.
In 1983 I joined a band called The Singles, a 60’s pop and rock group. We toured Norway in a converted coach with defective heating, which wasn’t too clever given that our first gig was above the Arctic Circle. On our return to Britain ther followed extensive gigging up and down the country untill we disbanded in 1986. After The Singles I joined up with a Swindon group called Locomotion who are still going to this day and have had enough personnel pass through it over the years to start at least one football team and have several in the reserves.
At this point I was asked to join a band called The Mighty Quintet which featured ex-Manfred Mann singer Mike d’Abo. The band was named after their #1 hit ‘The Mighty Quinn’ and Mike is also responsible for writing ‘Handbags and Gladrags’ which was a big hit recently for The Stereophonics. I went around the world with this group and had many adventures too numerous to mention.
I still work with Mike today, albeit on an infrequent basis, but make my living from playing solo.
Toward the end of the 90’s, whilst still with the Mighty Quintet, I joined another group which was called The Whales. This was a vehicle for writing and recording original songs, set-up by a great singer /songwriter, Paul Griffiths. The main purpose of getting this group together was to play material written by Paul but with contributions from the rest of us as well. The line up also featured Bob Bowles on lead guitar, Kevin Wilkinson on drums and myself on bass. The Whales disbanded after the tragic and untimely death of our drummer, Kev.
I have always written songs ( I remember writing lyrics in the coach during the interminable journeys through Norway) but somehow they never felt right when played. This was probably down to not having a really strong idea of what I wanted in the first place. Songwriting for me is a journey, an evolution, something that can end up in a different place from where it started. I don’t want to write trite, meaningless pop songs but on the other hand I don’t want to get too deep and sound pretentious. Lyrics are all important, their sound , their rhythm and of course their meaning . Good lyrics are almost like poetry, and can stand up on their own.
I write songs on many different topics, including my own life experiences and observations. The musical style is eclectic, influenced by Soul, Rock, Jazz and Blues and is mainly guitar based, although piano and organ feature on several tracks on the album.
The album is not an accumulation of ‘my life’s work’ so to speak, since nothing on it was written more than three years ago - it is a recent outpouring due largely to finally being in a position to own my own small recording studio.
This enabled me to really get to grips with the songs I was writing, to pull them apart, try different tempos or rhythms; all the things I needed to do before but couldn’t do in my head. Songs began to flow out and by the end of that year I had written and demo recorded 25 songs of which about half were chosen for the album.
Earlier this year I spent a day in a studio near Tewkesbury Glos. with my band to lay down the basic drum and bass tracks- we recorded the songs live using the whole band although all I was looking for was a good drum take - any nasty bits on the other instruments could be sorted out afterwards in my studio . To the great credit of the guys involved there were very few of these to fix. I owe a great debt of thanks to Chris Kerridge who played bass guitar, to Owen Howell who played the drums, to Colin Green on keys and to Dik Cadbury on guitar.
I re-recorded the vocals and acoustic guitar parts at home so that I could eliminate the overspill inherent in using microphones in a live situation, this enabled me to clean up the sound a little bit and make mixing easier.
The result is an album of fourteen songs called Degutis- thirteen tracks written and sung by me and one song, Winds of Change, written and sung by Dik Cadbury. I love the whole process of writing and recording songs and hope that others will derive as much pleasure listening to them as I had in creating them.
GMT – GUY, McCOY, TORME IN SWINDON! http://www.myspace.com/gmtrocks SAT JULY 18TH PLUS SUPPORT FROM GWYN ASHTON’S 2 MAN BLUES ARMY www.myspace.com/gwynashtonmusic PLUS MOFO THE FURNACE 73 COMMERCIAL ROAD, SWINDON, SN1 5NX TEL 01793 534238 TICKETS : £8 ADVANCE wegottickets.com/location/1188 DOORS 7PM , BANDS 7.30-10.30PM ( 16+ ) GIG TICKET INCLUDES FREE ENTRY TO AFTER CLUB UNTIL 3AM (18+)
