Artist: Serpentine  

Date: 30 March 2010  

In a world when good British melodic rock is hard to come by it's nice to hear a bright new young band have taken up the mantle.  We catch up with keyboard player Gareth David Noon from Serpentine to find out more about the band and their debut release 'Touch Of Heaven'.

MM - Hello Gareth, how are you today?
Gareth - I’m fine, thanks for the great review, much appreciated.

MM - It’s no bother at all.  Right shall we start from the beginning, how did Serpentine come together?
Gareth - I went to high school with Gareth our bass player and we sort of harbored dreams of starting a band.  We started writing the odd song here and there, and tried to do our best on how to write songs. Then in 2007 Gareth’s brother mentioned a friend of his who was a guitar player.  Gareth gave Chris a few of our demo’s that we'd put together and then he basically asked if he could come and audition for us.  We said ... yeh fantastic.  

That was where it all started, it was just the three of us then and we spent a good year just writing demo’s before we got a singer or anything like that.  We battered about from genre to genre, we did anything from soft West Coast ballads to Judas Priest metal kind of stuff.  We didn’t have a specific direction because we didn’t have a singer.  If you have a singer in mind, for example if you’ve got someone like Tony, then you can say we’re going to do this, or his vocals will allow you to do that.  So if we’d written an album of melodic rock tracks and got a screaming metal vocalist then it just wouldn’t fit. 

We we’re just rocking around and finding out what we were best at writing.  Then we hooked up with a guy called Greg Flores who's in the band Kamera.  He's based in the States and things didn’t work out due to the distances apart.  He worked six days a week and to get things done took an absolute age.  We were lucky enough by a chance encounter to come across Tony.  It was quite surreal really, because we’ve done a lot of music demo’s, but in terms of vocal demo’s with Greg we'd done about three.  Working with Tony was the absolute polar opposite of that because Tony works so damn fast.  We sent him about ten tracks and said pick the ones you like and if you want more we have some others.  So he picked I think five of the original CD we sent and a couple of others from the other one we sent.  He'd say ... I’ve started on that song today ... and then a few hours later it was ... I’ve finished that song... it was surreal! 

MM - The band have brought in John and Charlie now, so obviously you're looking at the band as just that, a band and not a project.  An actual touring band.
Gareth - Yes sure.  I hate that word project, it seems to get connected to us quite a bit. "It’s another Tony Mill project" and it’s really nothing to do with any of that.  I mean if you look at the China Blue album that was with guys from L.A., State of Rock is guys in Germany and Lasse Dale’s album was with the guy who's from Norway. This isn’t like that.  We're six guys, obviously this is a five plus one situation because Tony is a different kettle of fish compared to the rest of us, simply because he’s a professional musician and he spends his life doing this and he obviously has a lot more experience than we have.  

He’s done a lot of different things but that doesn’t mean just because he does a lot of different things he’s not part of the band.  But we’re very keen to get away from being called a project, because we get together quite a lot and we will be making a second record as the six of us.  

This isn’t just a case of this being a project that belongs to a few guys and the rest of the guys are just hired hands. We are just a load of friends who grew into a band and happened upon a fantastic singer who's become another member of the band. 

MM - I’ve spoken to Tony about the album and he actually wrote a couple of tracks on the album, so obviously he wasn’t just a gun for hire to sing your songs.
Gareth - There are ten tracks on the album, obviously 'Don’t Break My Heart' is a cover.  One of them, 'We Belong' was written by Chris and I and with Greg the original singer, but the other eight the lyrics and the vocal melodies are all written by Tony.  But in terms of bringing other songs to the table, basically as we were doing the album, he called me and said ... I’ve been looking through some of my old stuff and by some manufacturing processing problem, ‘Let Love Rain Down’ was meant to be on the Cruiser album.  If you look at it it’s actually listed as the eleventh track, but isn’t actually on the CD.  Tony said he’s was gutted it never got on to the album as he thought it really suited that record.  So we gave it a listen.  

If you listen to it now it’s more of a hard rock version.  The original version was more like a Bryan Adams sort of acoustic sounding song. So we rocked it up and it became a totally different version.  The same thing happened again when Tony rang me up and said he'd been looking through this old flight case in the loft and he said there were a few tapes in it.  He’d started playing them and heard one of the tracks which he’d written in 1992 with a guy called Mike Cheshire, who again had wrote a lot of the stuff on the 'Cruiser' album with him (Tony).  Once again that was a very rough demo, the bones of the song were there it just needed updating and we needed to make it out own style.  The original was very much along the lines of John Parr, so again he (Tony) brought it to the table and it really worked. 

MM - So how long did the album take to put together once Tony was involved?
Gareth - Well, we emailed Tony I think around November of 2008 and we asked if he'd be interested.  He was in Norway at the time so he said he'd get back to us in December when he returned home.  He said to send him some material and we’d take it from there. We played him the demo of 'We Belong' because we had a vocal on that with Greg singing and Tony said ... "yeh I can do a good version of that" ... so we thought this would be a good test to see if the chemistry was there and if this was going to work.  He played the track at the beginning, you know the "WOAOH OOOH WOAOH" at the beginning that wasn’t on the original version it was just music with a bit of guitar there, and we though wow this is fucking good!  

He did a fantastic job with that song.  Then the next one we co-wrote was 'Whatever Heartache' and when we heard that it was "YES!!! this is going to work!".

So from December 2008 we went to our first meeting in Mad Had studios.  Around May 2009 the album was fully written by that point, so it was a few months of coming together, then we were a few months on and off at Mad Hat recording the rest of the album.  It’s funny it just coming out now because it was finished around September of last year. 

MM - We’ve known Tony for sometime now and we’re always interested in anything he does.  He always has a finger in a few pies and it's always good to hear the things he’s been involved in.
Gareth - He always brings a degree of class to everything he does.  It’s funny because a lot of people have mention this, are you worried that working with Tony, because he does so much stuff, that he’s spreading himself too thin?  But we were always aware he does a lot of stuff and it wasn’t a case of Tony spreading himself too thinly because as I said, the first song he wrote with us was 'Whatever Heartache' and we were blown away with that.  If you look at some of the albums he’s done in recent times, especially the ones that have had more commercial clout with a label behind him, he only wrote about half the China Blue album, and with the TNT material he does about half again.  It's not like he’s going hell for leather writing fourteen tracks per album every two months. He did write the whole State Of Rock album, but he didn’t start that until we'd finished. 

MM - Tony won’t do anything he doesn’t want to, he won't prostitute himself, his words.  He won't do things just for the sake of doing it. 
Gareth - Yes with Tony his day job is TNT and if you’re in TNT then there is a lot of potential criticism that goes with that and if you put your name to a release that isn’t any good, then basically you're damaging your reputation. 

MM - The album has been getting some pretty good reviews, with the band have been hailed as the new saviours of British Melodic Rock.  How do you feel about having that moniker attached to the band?
Gareth - That’s not a moniker we’ve put about.  I mean it’s very humbling for someone else to say that, because at the end of the day we’re fans of the genre before anything else.  It's very gratify when you write an album, it takes a lot of time, the days, the weeks, the years ... it does take a lot of time to put something together so yes it's very gratifying and very humbling as well, I just hope we live up to it! (laughs) 

MM - You just touched on 'Unbreak My Heart', whose idea was it to do that particular song?
Gareth - That was your main man Tony, he came up with that idea.  He said as we were recording the demo and the album, that he thought we could do with another ballad.  He said ... why don’t we come up with a cover album as you're trying to break a new band?  It’s always good to give people something they know and something they can latch on to.  Shy did the same with 'Devil Woman' on the 'Access' album. 

So we said ok and we came up with a list of ballads.  Tony said ... "No, you’ve got to pick something from another genre.  You can't pick a rock ballad, you’ve got to pick something from another genre and make it into a rock song".  So we asked him to choose something as it was obvious he had something already in mind.  He said the two songs he'd always wanted to do was 'Sleeping Satellite' and the 'Unbreak My Heart'.  So we went on YouTube and listened to the original.  

It’s quite freeing to do a song someone else has written because you already know where the song is going to go, you just have to make it your own and play around with different elements.  Obviously it sounds completely different from the original, Tony's really done a great version.  I think you said in your review that song was made for his voice and it is, he really pulled out all the stops on that one. 

MM - Yes, when I first played the album when it came to that song I was like ... I know that from somewhere!
Gareth - That’s what I said.  It’s quite freeing when you're doing a cover version of something because you don’t have to write the song when your demoing it, you can just play around with all the different elements.  This is the chorus this is where it's going, this is exactly what its going to do.  That’s where we came up with the idea of turning it into a piano ballad unlike an acoustic like the original was.  Also the whole string arrangement at the end and the piano bit, adding the guitar solo and things like that.  Because you know exactly where the song is going go it a case. We spent a lot of time on that song as well, it was case of trying out everything to make it our own instead of just saying that’s how the original goes, we’ll do that.

MM - Yeh if you’re going to cover a song why not put your own stamp on it.
Gareth - That’s what Tony said, you can't pick a song from the rock charts.  The first ideas we came up with were covering rock songs and he said that if you cover a rock song, then it’s only going to be inferior to the original, and he had a good point.  Probably pop fans and fans of Toni Braxton will think it's awful, but as far as I’m concerned that songs lends itself nicely to being a rock song.  There are a lot of elements that translate nicely to rock. 

MM - You mentioned Mad Hat Studios briefly, so what was it like working with Mark Stuart and Sheena Sear?
Gareth - Absolutely fantastic.  Mark's the old head, a thousand ideas and they are all good, and you get pissed off by the fact he’s always right! (laughs).  Sheena like wise, she does a lot of the technology based stuff.  Both were just fantastic to work with though.  Chris our guitar player is a music engineer but we were quite adamant that we wanted an outside producer rather than do things ourselves.  Simply because you’ve got someone who can give more constructive criticism.  They haven’t been listening to the same demo’s for years and saying yes, they’re perfect.  

Mark came up with a load of ideas, not so much in the arrangements of the songs but elements of the songs.  Some ideas that went in here and there just for that professional touch.  He did a great job.  We were already aware of him because of the Magnum connection, I mean he did the original demo’s for the 'Storytellers Night' album way back then so anybody with that pedigree has got to be worth having. 

MM - Going back to the single 'Whatever Heartache', the video was shot in the Victorian Baths in Manchester I believe?  Tony mentioned it was rather chilly that day.
Gareth - Yes it was freezing!  It was 4^th December when we did it.  That is an old building, it's pretty derelict at the moment and they’re getting a grant to turn it into a baths again, but at the moment its pretty derelict.  They’ve had a new roof added so that was something, but there is no heating in the building so if you can imagine Manchester in December ... when we got there and they said there was no heating we were like "WHAT!".  It was around minus 4 and when you look at the video you can see, especially on me when I’m doing backing vocals, you can see the breath.  It was very, very cold, but it was a very enjoyable experience. 

MM - Yes when I was talking to Tony he said that you should have maybe done two or three videos, but the cold was so bad that one was enough.
Gareth - If you want to do just a one shot video and you want to have a basic camera set up then that would have been easy to do, but we had a big team.  We had a proper camera set-up with like a zillion camera angles for that video.  We wanted to make it as professional as possible so it was just a case of having either two or three alright videos or one good video, so it was a no-brainer in the end.  Saying that we’re 95% sure we’re going to shoot another video probably sometime around May time so watch out for that. 

MM - What track is it going to be?
Gareth - We’re not quite sure yet. If you want to cast your vote then now’s the time! (laughs) 

MM - You’ve got a few good ones to choose from ... ‘Let Love Rain Down’, ‘Fashion’...
Gareth - Yes, they're both in the mix definitely.  Somebody has suggested 'Unbreak My Heart' but I don’t know!  

MM - Maybe a bonus video on a DVD sometime later perhaps? 
Gareth - Yeh, we should be doing another one and it’s well worth it, it's good fun. 

MM - So Gareth, do the band have any gigs lined up?
Gareth - Well that’s the question, we’re trying to line something up at the moment but it’s never easy with this genre of music.  Unfortunately Tony’s away doing the new TNT album until the end of May but yeh towards the end of May, we’re hoping to do a few gigs.  Even if it’s a case of not getting on tour yet, we’re hoping to do a few low keys gigs.  The band are itching to gig and as I say we rehearse quite a lot anyway.  

Well also, I can't say who it is but there is a pretty big band, it seems like an age away at the moment, but this band is going to be doing a big tour next spring and hopefully we’ll be on that.  It’s not about the money it's about the exposure, that’s why we did the video, that’s why we invested in the video, it’s small things like that. 

A lot of bands these days, take something like the Japanese bonus track, they just record an acoustic version of a track because it doesn’t take a lot of studio time and it’s quick.  We recorded a full track the same way we did the video.  We did the MelodicRock.Com full page advertisement thing, which all costs money but as long as you promote the album that’s the main point.  It seems to have worked so far. 

There are very few Melodic Rock bands that chart at all in Japan these days and we got to the dizzy heights of number 76. 

MM - Well 76 is better than not getting in the charts at all. 
Gareth - Exactly, we didn’t expect to get there at all and Burn magazine were nice enough to give us a 92% review, so that gave us a lot of clout. 

MM - So have you read many of the reviews?
Gareth - Yeh I’ve read about say twelve of the reviews.  I don’t pay massive amounts of attention to reviews, it's just that you’ve got to take the good with the bad.  99% of the reviews have been fantastic to us, people like yourselves, Power Play magazine, Burn magazine in Japan, people like that, it’s been fantastic.  Sometimes Tony’s voice just polarizes people, some people aren’t a fan of his voice but that’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned. 

MM - His voice not only brings the band forward but also puts the band in the spotlight. 
Gareth - That’s another thing in terms of getting the band recognition, obviously we were very aware that of that.  If you’re a totally unknown band, which we were when we were without Tony Mills, there are so many bands out there, if you’re not careful you get swept under the rug.  A few people might say it’s a good album but nobody else gives a damn about it.  Obviously Tony is a bonus but as I said before, we did the video and other things like that to make sure the album isn’t just passing people by.  Just the sheer volume of albums out there, there is a possibility that if you blink you could miss it. 

MM - I really enjoyed the album, not just because Tony’s singing on it, you’ve got to give the rest of you kudos because of the musicianship on it.  It's a solid Melodic Rock album no doubt about it. The British Melodic Rock scene has taken a bit of a hammering over the years to say the least.  If you ask someone to mention a British Melodic Rock band then straight away the only one they can picture is FM. 
Gareth - That’s the thing, FM started out in 1986 and it's now 2010, what happened in between? There are always bands coming out of Scandinavia and Germany but very few British bands, which is ironic because Hard Rock and NWOBHM started everything off. 

MM - Yes, a lot of the reviews I’ve read have hailed the band as the saviours of the British Melodic Rock scene and I thought that’s a hefty millstone to put around a young bands neck.
Gareth - It’s a case of you know you’ve got an album out and you're always going to disappoint somebody. Some people are simply not going to like it and you just have to deal with that.  We’re not bothered about things like that, if people like this record then great.  Our next record will still be in this style. 

MM - There is always that stigma of will the second album be as good as the first ...
Gareth - Actually we’ve already started writing the second album.  We’ve wrote about three tracks, two of them, if they’d been written while this album was being made, they would have been on this album.  Especially one of them which is a bit of an epic.  It’s a really kicking track.  We haven’t really got any worries about the second album though because some bands finish an record and then bask in the great reviews for two years before they think about starting the next record.  We really didn't want to do that. I'd say that last summer when the album was finished we could have easily just sat around and waited for the release date, but we didn’t.  We haven’t put our song writing process into overdrive just yet, but we have started writing.  Our main priority at the moment is to do some gigs. 

MM - Yes, it’s hard not just for new bands but for hardened touring bands to get gigs these days.  I don't think it matters who you are to be honest.
Gareth - Yes it really is.  We’ve tried to get on a few tours this year but have just missed the boat on them.  But we are trying to set up some gigs come May / June time, come hell or high water we will do some gigs! 

MM - Well Gareth, the album has just come out last Friday and I’m sure the buzz will soon get around and the offers will come flooding in.  Good luck with the album, I’m sure the band will go far and look forward to catching the band live in action sometime soon
Gareth - I look forward to seeing you at a gig at some point, thanks again Barry.  

MM - We'd like to thank Gareth for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with us this evening and wish him and the band every success with their new album.  If you haven't heard their music yet then be sure to check them out, some say they are the saviours of British Rock but the only way you'll find out if that's right is by listening to their music and making your own mind up.  

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