Artist: Pete Jupp (FM)   

Date: 20 September 2011   

MM - You still are! (laughs). It was 1984 when the band were formed and you were actually propelled into the spotlight from '86 onwards with tours with Bon Jovi, Tina Turner and Meat Loaf, to name just a few. 
PJ - Yeh we did do some pretty high profile tours. 

MM - Did the band feel any pressure, being in the spotlight after only been going for two years at the time and then playing with all these mega stars at the time? 
PJ - There was no pressure.  I just think we were very fortunate.  In such a short space of time to be propelled onto those stages.  We were blessed in a way.  We did the Meat Loaf tour before we even had a record deal.  We took over from Airrace and did I think about four or five shows in Germany.  After that tour we came back and signed for CBS. 

The Tina Turner tour was great, but the Bon Jovi tour, now that was THE tour as far as we were concerned.  That tour took us up another level and they treated us so well.  They were a great band to work with.  They had come off playing Arena's in the States as an opening act and had got treated very badly.  They said they didn’t want to treat us the same and so they treated us so well, they couldn’t do enough for us.  They're a great bunch of guys. 

MM - They were on the precipice of stardom with the 'Slippery When Wet' album, it was that tour. 
PJ - Yes it was just as they went global, and it was nice to be caught up in all that.  We were jealous as hell! (laughs).  When they played Newcastle, that’s when they found out it had gone to number one on both sides of the Atlantic.  They were good times. 

MM - I was looking through Rockdetectors A-Z of 80's Rock and the first line of the FM listing says and I quote ... “Often accused of merely being a lightweight sugary AOR act” ... which made me chuckle. 
PJ - Yes we were often perceived as that. 

MM - But that’s not the band we see live, I think the albums of that time were simply more polished. 
PJ - Yes polished.  People used to come up to us after a show and say ...“Wow! You guys can rock” ... We’d say ... “Well yes we can!” ... all fluffy hair and pink suits. 

MM - That was the era, labels were throwing money left right and centre at bands, it was all about the product back then. 
PJ - Yes. 

MM - That’s not the case so much today. 
PJ - Yeh there were obscene amounts of money around, it was ridiculous but that’s what record companies did then.  They thought an album should cost a quarter of a million pounds, or it wasn’t a good album.  It was madness, but on the other hand studios were a lot more expensive those days, technology was different.  I mean now you can do things at home.  In 25 years technology has moved on leaps and bounds.  

The biggest thing is the internet, yes it was around, but it was in its infancy 25 years ago.  We couldn’t have picked a more daft name for the internet.  If you put FM into Google you get a million radio stations.  It was the worst thing we probably have done, but you don’t have hindsight into thinking maybe 25 years from now there will be this thing where you can put in your name.  You can't think like that.  It's mind boggling. 

MM - The album itself was quite unique as the band went to Ibiza to record the album. 
PJ - Yes we started it off in Ibiza. 

MM - That's a bit strange when you picture what Ibiza stands for now. 
PJ - The studio was actually owned by Tom Allom, we blagged it really.  We didn’t work, we’d get up do a bit of sun bathing and then work till ten o’clock at night.  We had this tiny little hire car and six or seven of us would squeeze into it and head off into San Antonio for what ever goes on there!  We could have gone somewhere else, but as I said, we were very, very fortunate. 

MM - The band decided to call it a day in 1995.  Was this a decision that was made lightly by the band or was there a lot of thought behind the reasons for it? 
PJ - Yes, we didn’t just say ... “Hey let's call it a day!” ...  It was just getting harder and harder just to survive and there was also the Grunge thing coming about, that just about killed off our sort of music over night.  Musically we’d become the most unfashionable thing on the planet.  I think we called it a day at the right time.  There was no animosity, we all stayed friends, we all stayed in touch.  Then it was back in 2006 when Kieran Dargen, the guy that does Firefest, he’d been calling Steve for ages saying ... “Come on, get back together.  Come and do Firefest” ... and it had been no, no. 

Then in 2006 he asked Steve again, and he rang me and Merv, and we were like ... its going to be now and never.  If we don’t do it now we never will.  So let's just run with it.  At the time we had no plans to go beyond that one show.  We thought let's do the one show, have a great time, have a few beers and then go our separate ways.  We thought if three or four hundred people turn up, that’ll be great.  Then it was sold out, 1,500 people turn up!  There were people from Greece, Spain, one girl came from Bermuda, people from all corners of the world and it was brilliant.  The love we felt from the audience, when we came off stage, we were simply shell-shocked.  We just thought, we'd have to carry on, we had to do another album.  

We owe it to all those people who’ve been loyal all these years.  And that was it, we did the album and it just steamrolled from there.  We were getting played on national radio.  We've done Download and all sorts of high profile festivals and we’re having such a great time and taking each day as it comes. 

The first time we did Download, when we replaced Ratt, I was just sitting at home on a Thursday having a coffee and our manager phoned and said ... “What you doing Sunday?”.  I said ... “Probably washing the car or something” ... and he said ...  “Are you up for the main stage at Download?”.   I said ... “OK, I’m up for it, saves me washing the car” ... and that was it!  We just keep getting these little nuggets, and we were having a good time. 

MM - I was at that Firefest show and when the band were first announced as headliners for the main day, I was a little apprehensive.  But then when the band came onstage, the whole place just erupted.  It was unbelievable. 
PJ - We were pretty apprehensive as well mate! (laughs).  We didn’t even do a warm up show, which was one of Kieran’s things ... “No, you can't do any warm up shows” ... that was THE first show in God knows how many years! 

MM - 12 years ... 
PJ - We were absolutely bricking it.  I couldn’t believe the way we were.  We were pacing back stage, and it was pretty chaotic, what with the time restraints.  We were not a well oiled machine! (laughs).  We were riding by the seat of our pants, but it was just brilliant.  There were times when I had tears in my eyes.  When the crowd starting singing 'Face to Face' there was a lump in my throat and I was welling up.  I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t know what to expect.  It was beyond our expectations.  It was brilliant and we all felt the same way. 

MM - As part of the audience I noticed that not a single soul left.  Usually people start to peter off, but everyone stayed and after the first song people were just gob-smacked. 
PJ - So were we!

MM - It was just a phenomenal show, the highlight of the weekend. 
PJ - We had some hard acts to follow as well, you’ve never seen five people so nervous in all your life. 

MM - It's not as if you were strangers though, you have worked together through The Ladder, Shadowman and Wildkard, and Steve’s done his solo stuff as well. 
PJ - Yes, there was no problem on a personal level at all, it was just .. can we still do it?  You don’t know until you actually go out and do it.  Rehearsing and doing it live are two very different things.  I think Jeff Beck once said ... “One gig is worth a week of rehearsals” ... and its true.  You can rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, but when you get out on stage, you’ve got nerves.  I can understand when you’ve got these footballers on £100,000 a week and they miss a penalty in a World Cup final and you're sitting there thinking, how did he miss that?  You do it every single day in training, but on the big stage you get nervous and everything goes out the window.  I mean I felt quite weak with nerves.  A rehearsal and a gig are two totally different things. 

MM - How long after Firefest did you begin working together again? I know you did the EP first ...
PJ - It was pretty much straight after.  I mean we didn’t come off stage and go back to the hotel and then start writing! (laughs).  It was in the aftermath, when we were sitting having a few beers and talking on the phone and we thought, we have to do another album.

So we started getting ideas together for songs and stuff like that.  Then we did the 'Wildside' EP, then we did Firefest again in 2009 and the album was supposed to be out for then, but it wasn’t ready and we didn’t want to rush it.  We thought people have waited this long, let's get it where we’re absolutely happy with it and then if anything goes wrong, we can't say we should have done this, or we should have done that.  We thought we better get something out, so we did the 'Wildside' EP.  It was just under an hour, so it was good value for money and it was well received.  All the EP’s and the album's have been well received, so we’ll probably do more EP’s in the future. 

MM - How would you compare 'Metropolis' to 'Indiscreet'?  How has the bands sound changed over the years? PJ - Wow, blimey.  As we’ve went though our career, we’ve kind of went down a bluesy track with 'Aphrodisiac', but then we kind of stepped back a little bit and given a nod towards the 'Indiscreet', 'Tough It Out' times with 'Metropolis'.  Basically with 'Metropolis' we wanted to take all the best elements from each album and try to put that into 'Metropolis'.  If we tried to do an album like 'Indiscreet', it would have sounded a bite dated.  So we wanted to sound current, but at the same time go back to how it all started, which was all about melody and hopefully great songs and big choruses.  The album has been very well received.

MM - I thought it was a stunning album, the best the band have done. 
PJ - We could never go back and do an 'Indiscreet II' I don’t think.  We’re just carrying on, trying to make good music really. 

MM - Are there any plans to re-do 'Indiscreet' for the anniversary, with say bonus track or whatever? 
PJ - Well, never say never.  We haven’t done anything yet.  I’m not going to say never to anything, because I’ll just be proved wrong.  It would be nice to do something, it's getting the time.  We’ve so many irons in the fire at the minute.  We have to get the next album finished, but who knows. 

MM - So are the band currently working on the new album?
PJ - We’ve got about thirteen songs recorded and they're all just about finished.  We want to try and get twenty, well try and have twenty songs finished by Christmas.  Whether that happens who knows.  That’s our plan at the moment.  It's all going well, so I can't see why it shouldn’t be.  Then we have to find out from those in the business when will be the best time to release it. 

MM - With a long career in the business, looking back, would you have done anything differently? 
PJ - There probably is, but I can’t remember what they are! (laughs)

I think one thing that we all would have agreed on, we would not have released 'Takin It To The Streets', but would have released 'Aphrodisiac'.  The weird thing was, we had all the songs for 'Aphrodisiac' all ready to go, but we released "The Streets" as a try out for Music For Nations.  It wasn’t our strongest album.  If we had taken maybe ‘Grapevine' and 'Only The Strong' and put those on 'Aphrodisiac' and released that, as the follow up to 'Touch It Out', that may have been a plan, but you can't tell.  Hindsight’s a brilliant thing.  I might have changed my wardrobe for one thing! (laughs). 

MM - It’s never really gone away, it’s just slipped into the underground a bit and now it's started coming through again.  To be honest I think it's due to the likes of Glee!  If it wasn’t for that and Joe McKeldry doing Journey on the X Factor!
PJ - Yeh it’s bonkers.  Great however if it gets it to the forefront, then I’m for it. 

MM - I don’t think it will ever get to the dizzy heights like it did in the 80’s, but it’s holding its own against the other rock genres.
PJ - Just take Andy Copping putting us on Download.  One of most high profile festivals around.  He must believe in it.  It’s just nice to be around at the right time for a change. 

MM - You’ve had a new lease of life, so where do you see the band going from here?
PJ - I don’t really know.  We are going to go as far as we can take it.  Where that is I don’t know.  We have a good team of people behind us, and we have to make sure this album is as good as the last one or better.  The ball's kind of in our court so to speak.  It would be nice to get to play bigger places, and as I say, getting played on national radio, that was a right shock.

Everyone’s been great though, all those people who we’ve met over the years and they’ve got good memories of the band.  We’ve got this guy Steve Strange and he’s the head of one of the biggest agencies in this country, X-Ray Touring, they do all sorts from Eminem to Coldplay.  He booked our acoustic gigs in Belfast, that’s how he started off.  He was a little promoter who put us on in this pub and now he’s gone on to great things and he still loves the band.  He came to one of our shows and asked if we were being represented by an agency.  We said "No", so he said “You're with me now" ... and it was like blimey! ...  It's great, like I said, lots of things are just coming out of the woodwork and we’re genuinely glad we’re back. 

MM - So where can fans find out more about Indiscreet 25live?
PJ - It's all on the website www.fmofficial.com and any new news will go straight up there.  It's actually got a special page specially dedicated to 25live. 

MM - So any tour dates, they’ll be on there?
PJ - Yes and tour news.  You can also sign up for a newsletter on the website, that way you’ll be able to get the news quicker. We’re also on Facebook, but if you just put FM Official in the search engine, you’ll be able to find us and avoid all the radio stations! (laughs).

MM - Well Pete it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
PJ – And to you. 

MM - Good luck with the next twelve months, hopefully we’ll see you all out on the road.
PJ – We will be.  Thanks a lot and you take care.

We'd like to thank Pete for taking the time out to do this interview with us and wish him and the guys every success with their 25th Anniversary celebrations.  Since we did this interview the band have announced the first of their celebratory live dates.  Check out their website - www.fmofficial.com for more details.

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