Artist: Airrace
Date:
1 September 2011
After a 26 year absence Airrace return with their long-awaited second album 'Back To The Start'. We catch up with guitarist and founding member Laurie Mansworth to find out about the new album and what the band have been up to over the past 26 years.
MM - Hi
Laurie thanks for taking time out to take part tonight.
LM - It’s
a pleasure mate.
MM
- And
it may be 26 years later, but what a great album in 'Back To The
Start'.
LM - Oh
thank you, it’s had a fantastic reception taking that we haven’t
done anything in those 26 years as Airrace. We’re very pleased
with the result and how its been received.
MM
- So does the album title tell us this is Airrace back to how you wanted
things to be?
LM -
Yes I think so, this is
really more like the original Airrace sound rather than the sound we had
when we went out to America and worked with Beau Hill the producer out
there. We actually sounded much more like this album before the
'Shaft Of Light' record. We always had a more heavier sound live
and this album represents us better and is more of a true representation
of what we do.
MM
- Yes
I thought that, I caught the band supporting Winger last year.
LM - Yeh we did enjoy that
tour.
MM
- That was my impression, that the band came across a lot heavier live
than what I remembered from the first album, that was of course before
I'd heard the new album
LM - Yeh people
get quite shocked because of lot of people have only heard 'Shaft Of
Light' and have never seen the band live. Because of that they
have this impression of the band in their heads and I think they are
pleasantly surprised, because it still sounds like Airrace, but with a
lot more high energy and we're a lot heavier live than a lot of people
think it's going to be.
MM
- The band had been apart for quite sometime, did you ever worry about
the high expectations fans and the media might have about the
reformation of the band?
LM - Well
you always want people to like what you’re doing. I don’t
think we actually went into it with that in our heads, because the first
time round we signed to Atlantic Records, there was a lot of money
invested in the band and we had a lot more pressure on the band in them
days. This time around Keith and I didn’t feel under any
pressure to make the record, so we just tried to have a really good time
making it and as it sort of unfolded, we thought ... “yeh this
is sounding really good and I think people will enjoy it“. I
knew it was good and if it hadn’t been, I don’t think we’d have
put it out there.
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MM
- When
you did all finally get together for the first time, was the old spark
still there or was there nerves?
We had a couple of new guys in the line-up, with Dean Howard bringing in a extra guitar to the band, that made the sound heavier as we were originally a one guitar band, and we were just really excited at how it sounded. So from the moment on we were like ... "Yes! This is worth pursuing!". |
MM
- Yes
it was quite a shock for me on that Winger show when the band came on
stage and started playing. I was like ... "Whoooah! Is this
the same band?" ... because I'd never heard the re-mastered version
of 'Shaft Of Light' for the 25th anniversary.
LM - The
Rock Candy version, yeh it sounds really good. Obviously it sounds
louder than the original and the re-mastering was done really
well. When I heard it I was very pleased with the result, because
a record from that era does have a specific sound and I think Derek
Oliver did a good job on it.
MM
- I
think the problem with a lot of records from that era was they were
really, really polished.
LM -
Yes and there was a lot
of new technology coming through. There were drum machines and
being able to edit bands better. Yes, I do think 'Shaft Of Light'
is quite polished, but at the time that’s how you made records.
I preferred to be a bit more rock n' roll than that. I’m still
pleased that record is still around some twenty odd years later and
people still are listening to it.
MM
- Yes
there is no doubt, it has stood the test of time.
LM -
Definitely. In the
melodic rock circle it's defined as a classic. A lot of people
still think it is one of the better British AOR albums, so we definitely
have no regrets making that record.
MM
- Did
the band write specifically for the new album or did you go back to some
older material and revamp it?
LM - It
was both really. Amazingly Keith had kept a lot of the old demos
and when we all got back together again, he put them on a CD and there
were some great ideas in there. Also we've had a lot more
experience in our lives, because of where we are right now to make a
record like this. So we basically took a lot of the ideas, some of
them had been written with an eye on the second album, all be it in
1984.
The funny thing is nothing really changes in this business. Classic rock is still a loved music, so is AOR and there has been a whole resurgence of it with Journey and it think it's good that people are still supporting it. The ideas were good so we just updated them and re-wrote them. There were about five old songs and the remainder were new songs we wrote from scratch. The result was kind of a bit of both.
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MM
- The
band made its first appearance together at Firefest, where you surprised
at the reception you got that day?
There were people from Greece and Germany holding the album up above their heads and holding their hearts, because the album meant a lot to them, which meant a lot to us. It was one of the best shows that we’ve done and I hope we get to do it again. |
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MM
- The
band took to the road to promote the reissued 'Shaft Of Light' to great
reviews, did you expect the reaction you got on both the FM and Winger
tours?
LM - Like I
say again, people were surprised at how full of energy we were. I mean
some bands don’t transfer well over that amount of time, it could have
been disastrous, I don’t know what people were expecting, but everyone
seemed to be very pleased of how the band were live and we went down
fantastic. To be honest we never had a bad show and we did the
first time round! (laughs). We seem to have a much more stable
line-up and a more consistent sounding band.
MM
- One
thing that blew me away were Keith’s vocals, they were as strong a
every.
LM - The
thing about Keith’s career after Airrace was that he did a bit with Mama's
Boys and a bit of session work. He hasn’t really been out on the
road so he hasn’t blown his voice, its not like he’s hammered it
over the last 30 years, so it's in incredible good shape, and with a
band like us which relies on having a great vocalist, it’s a very
important part of our sound. I’m really glad it's still there.
MM
- Will
you be taking to the road to promote ‘Back to the Start’?
LM -
We
will be. It's not confirmed yet, but it looks as if we might go
out on our own tour mid November, so that may be confirmed, fingers
crossed. I think a Newcastle date is included in that, but that's
yet to be completely confirmed as it will be with a package of some of
the new AOR bands coming through. We also have Hard Rock Hell in
December.
MM
- The
band came out of the eighties, an era when labels were throwing money at
bands with millions sometimes being spent on albums and videos, but now
things are completely different, so how are you finding promoting the
band and its music in this modern era?
LM - I
think it has always been tough, no matter what. I think it's
better now because the bands that stick at it are the ones doing it for
the love of the music.
I’m
a band manager in between Airrace, I manage my sons band The Treatment,
they're signed to Dante Bonito, an old friend from the days at
Universal. They're about to go on the road with Alice Cooper for
two months. I’ve managed them and produced their album too, so I
know what it's like for the young bands. It's not a lot different
really apart from the fact you can record a lot cheaper and make great
quality albums, which you couldn’t in the same way before. I
think we spent about £100,000 on the Airrace album, whereas now-a-days
with the internet, you can get your band out there a lot quicker.
Then again in some respects everybody else can, so you get all the
rubbish intermingled with it, but I think if you're good enough and
you're dedicated and you really believe in yourself, you can still make
it happen.
MM
- Yes it’s a double-edged sword. If you’re a big band you're
getting your music illegally downloaded, but if you’re a small band
you want your music out there no matter what. Twenty five years
ago you had to post out your stuff and trawl around labels pedaling your
demos.
LM - Yeh if
your demo wasn’t picked up by and A & R guy you were
finished. There was no where to get your music out unless you went
around and handed out cassettes. There was no outlet. You
knew if a major label didn’t pick you up you were over.
LM - The
thing with working with Dante and Spinefarm on The Treatment, they’ve
done a great job and Frontiers have done a great job with the Airrace
record. When you do get the right guys it’s a much better option
than trying to do it yourself.
MM
- It's tough for bands today.
LM - Unfortunately
because of downloads, the money just isn’t there. Probably of
every record that goes out today, about half or more gets downloaded for
free. If you put that into pound notes for each record, it's
humungous. It is bad for a musician to make a living today.
It's going to be difficult for the business to continue if something
isn’t done, no business can be run if they are giving things away for
free.
MM
- I
feel sorry for the up and coming bands who have talent but only seem to
last 18 months and then get disheartened with the business.
LM - Well
it's hard enough going up and down the motorways getting paid £50 a gig
and putting your own money into bands, then when you do put a record out
it's downloaded illegally. If bands are going to make a living
then something has to be done to help them out.
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MM
- If
you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice
what would it be? There are many musicians out there who don’t know about the business and by the time they’ve got a deal, they have to go out and play to make any money. I would also say stick with it, don’t let anyone deter you from your goals, with the Airrace thing we had a lot of politics involved and I think if we had had wiser heads on our shoulders back then, we would have probably still continued. |
MM
- There
has been a lot said about the bands debut album, about how the band
became disillusioned with the label.
LM - The
strange thing is, with some labels it the luck of the draw really.
With Airrace we didn’t have the right team. The guy who signed
us Phil Parsons is a legendary A & R guy, he signed AC/DC and Janet
Jackson to Atlantic. But then just as our album was going to be
released he left and we were left on a label out in America, basically
with people who had their own acts to break. The thing with record
labels, the guys have their own acts to break because their jobs rely on
it, they don’t what to take on an act that someone else has brought to
the label and break them! So we were just disillusioned really.
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MM
- Going
back to the new album if we may Laurie, are there any tracks that
you’re particularly proud of?
MM
- The
album itself on a whole ticks a lot of boxes with the melodic and AOR
crowd and I’ve never seen a bad review.
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MM
- And
it's hard to believe that its been 26 years since the debut album.
LM - Tell
me about it! Obviously I can still remember the first one so well,
it seems like ten minutes ago for me personally. I think it's
great with labels like Frontiers that this kind of music has been given
a second life. The crazy thing is there is a whole generation of
bands that 10 years on from where me and Keith were, that are still
going today.
MM
- There
is a vast amount of talent in this genre that doesn’t get appreciated.
LM -
You have to remember
than when we first started, if you were over 25 years old then you could
forget about it. Now as the fans have grown older, they still want
to go and see the likes of Aerosmith and Uriah Heep, they don’t care
how old these guys are. It goes beyond the physical and what
someone looks like, they just want to hear the music and see the people
that wrote this stuff.
MM
- So
do the band see themselves as older and wiser?
LM - Definitely.
We all compromise a lot more than we did in the day. We never
really argued back. Then it was just a case of we never had
anywhere to go, mainly because the record company didn’t do the job we
thought they would, so it was a
really hard break-up because the band were so young and there was so
much talent in there. But it was badly managed. I’m just
glad we are able to put the record straight and put another record out
and surprised a lot of people, because it is a good record.
MM
- So
will there be a third album?
LM -
Quite possibly next
year.
MM
- Not another 25 years I hope! I couldn’t wait that long! (laughs)
LM
- No, I think if there
is going to be another one it will be within the next 18 months.
MM
- Well
thanks Laurie for taking time out tonight and good look with the album.
Hopefully we’ ll see you again in Newcastle very soon.
LM - It's
been a pleasure.
We'd like to thank Laurie for taking the time out to chat with us this evening and wish him and the band every success with the new album. Hopefully we'll catch them back out on the road later this year.
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