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The
former Almighty frontman is now out on the road with a solo career
supporting his latest album 'Belfast
Confetti'. I had a chance to sit down with Ricky Warwick for a
chat before his set supporting Therapy? in Manchester.
MM:
Ok, so how’s the tour been going and what have you got planned for
when it’s over?
RW:
The tour’s been
going fantastically well, we’re about 8 or 9 shows in now and I’m
having the time of my life – I’m on tour with my mates! I’ve known
Andy and Michael (Therapy?) for many years so it’s fantastic. Still a
long way to go, we don’t finish ‘til 8th December, then
wind down for Christmas, then pick it up in the new year.
MM:
Are you going to be hitting Europe after the UK?
RW: Yeah we got like, 5 weeks in Europe after the UK, yeah.
MM:
You mentioned the history with you and Therapy? going back to the
‘Crank’ album in 1994 wasn’t it?
RW: Yeah, Andy contributed to the 'Crank'
album – he played guitar and he sang on it, so yeah, we go back a
long way.
MM:
Is it always special when you get to tour with old mates like you’re
doing at the moment?
RW: Yeah it’s great fun. You get to hang out with your
mates every day so it’s a very easy, relaxed and laid back atmosphere,
no hassle.
MM:
How’s the response been to the new album 'Belfast
Confetti' since it was released?
RW: It’s been really good thanks, yeah. It’s been
really positive, got great reviews and sold quite nicely, no complaints.
MM:
You make no secret that the songs are inspired by your life and your
experiences. Is it sometimes hard writing songs that are that
reflective?
RW: It’s easy writing them, the hardest part is having the
balls to record them. I kept thinking it would seem cheesy, making
a whole album about Northern Ireland and about family and friends from
there, you know? But once I actually started, the whole process was
pretty quick and it was like getting a weight off my mind sitting down
and writing the album so once I got going, it was easy.
MM:
Once you decided to embark on a solo career, what made you decide to go
in a more acoustic direction compared to what you had done before?
RW: Well, there’s no point doing what I’d done before.
There’s no point me leaving the Almighty and starting a band just like
that. The Almighty were a really heavy band, you’d need to go a long
way to try and form a band that’s probably heavier than that, so I
thought if I’m going to do this it has to be different. And I always
enjoyed Johnny Cash and stuff like that so it seemed like a new
challenge for me to go down that road.
MM:
Cool. Well I noticed you recently completed a tour of Israel, how did
that come about and what was it like? It doesn’t seem a place that
many bands tend to visit...
RW: There’s an Israeli artists over there called Izhar
Ashdot who’s a huge rock ‘n’ roll star in Israel and has been for
25 years and he loves Irish music and he has an Irish band that he takes
on the road with him as a lot of his stuff is influenced by that. He
heard 'Belfast Confetti',
loved it and got in touch with me to see if I would be interested in
coming over to do some shows with him, with his band backing me for a
few songs and me doing a couple of songs with him. He brought me
over, we did 5 shows and he looked after me very well. It was
fantastic, I had a great time.
MM:
Was it daunting at all?
RW: Well, for me growing up in Belfast during the dark old
days there, it was fine. I thought it was a chance of a lifetime and
I’d get to see another culture in another country. If you start
thinking about reasons not to go and negative things like that, you’d
never leave the house, you know? I just thought to myself that it’s
going to be fun; it’s going to be great so I should definitely go and
do it.
MM:
As someone who brings their music to people the old-fashioned way by
going out and playing gigs and as someone who’s been doing this for a
long time, what’s your take on how the internet has affected the
industry?
RW: Well, people have always stolen music. Even before the
internet, people used to bootleg stuff quite frequently and in the
1950’s when rock ‘n’ roll first started getting played on the
radio record companies then said it would be the death of music because
nobody would buy records anymore because you could just hear it on the
radio so people were panicking even back then. Every 10 years or so
there’s a change in music, the cycle changes and everybody panics.
People will
always want music and people have always stolen music you know?
Sometimes, I think it’s a bit of an over-reaction. I think a lot of
the record companies were caught off-guard because they’re so old
school and set in their ways and they weren’t ready for artists to
take control of their careers, which I think is only a good thing. And I
think people thought "oh well, that’s it. People won’t go to
gigs anymore, it’ll all be on the internet" and that’s not been
the case at all. It’s actually the reverse – live music is
better than ever. So no, it doesn’t freak me out too much. The music
industry has always changed and it will go on changing.
MM:
It appears that when it all started, a lot of artists and consumers were
on the same side really and it was the record companies that were
kicking up a fuss...
RW: Yeah, the record companies were definitely caught
flat-footed because they weren’t prepared to change and they’d been
ripping off the artists for years anyway with how much they’ve been
taking from record sales and basically it was payback time for them. And
it’s only now that they’ve woken up and thought ‘shit, we need to
change our game plan to deal with this’.
MM:
Of course. Well moving on to the subject of Circus Diablo*, was that
always meant to be a one-time thing or were there ever plans to take it
further?
*Circus Diablo was a
side-project that Ricky was involved in with Brett Scallions (Riders on
the Storm), Billy Morrison and Billy Duffy (The Cult) and Matt Sorum
(Velvet Revolver) and they released one album in 2007*
RW: It was supposed to be a side-project that got a bit out
of hand and became more than it was meant to be, which is good but
suddenly there were people asking for a commitment of giving up solo
careers to concentrate and me personally, I wasn’t prepared to do that
because I’d worked so hard building this up, you know? And it was
often a nightmare trying to get everybody in one place at the same time
because everyone had other things they were doing, so it was an always a
bit of an impossible task in that respect. I enjoyed making the record,
I think it’s a great record and I had a lot of fun playing with those
guys but with regards to touring, to ask people to stop what they’re
doing was a big ask. Once the cards were on the table I had to make a
decision and the solo stuff is always going to take priority for me.
MM:
Ok, cool. Well a question I’m sure you’re sick of answering by now
but one I’ve got to ask, with regards to the Almighty... (Ricky
smiles, knowing what I’m about to say and answers before I get chance
to finish):
RW: Maybe something next year...
MM:
You knew what I was going to say then...
RW: Yeah I get asked that question every day of my life,
ha-ha! Yeah, we might do something next year and we all still get on and
talk to each other. I would love to maybe record something new but to be
honest with you, I don’t think the will and desire is there from all
four of us to get back together and give it a go because everybody is
happy doing what they’re doing. But I wouldn’t rule out the
possibility of doing a few shows at some point down the line.
MM:
Well in regards to new music, are the any bands you’ve been listening
to in the past year or so that you think are really good?
RW: I like the Gaslight Anthem a lot, I like Future of the
Left and I like Seasick Steve, I think he’s great.
MM:
Earlier on, one of the other guys said you’d been out on a 5-mile run.
Is that part of a particular fitness regime you’re on?
RW: Well I’ve always ran to keep fit, I run marathons and
stuff like that, it’s just something I enjoy doing. I still like to
drink beer every now and again and it allows me to do that, ha-ha!
MM:
Ok, brilliant, well I think we’re nearly out of time so good luck for
tonight and thank you very much for taking the time out to talk to us.
RW: No problem, thanks a lot.
Interview by: Adam G. |