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Shortly
before their show at the Newcastle 02 Academy, we catch up with Mike
Vanderhule, John Nymann and Phil Kennemore of Y&T. Three of
the most genuine and good humoured musicians around to find out how
things have been going on the tour and whether the rumours of a new
album are true ...
MM
– How’s the tour been going so far?
Mike
–
Fantastic, really good.
John
– We’ve had good attendance at all the shows so we’re really happy
about that, especially in these times of a drained economy.
Mike – Yeh, in the places we’ve played before we’ve been
getting a lot more people than ever before and also the new clubs have
been doing really well too. I
just need more sleep!
MM – Need more sleep !?!
That’s not very rock n’ roll now it is!
Mike – Well we’re up all night
rockin’ & rollin’ and that’s why we need more sleep during the
day, 'cos we're staying up way too late into the early hours! (laughs).
MM – I’ve heard a whisper that
there’s a new Y&T studio album in the pipeline, what can you tell
me about that?
John – We’ve been writing for it
and we’ve got about 25 ideas going on right now towards it.
We’re going to whittle them down and see what happens.
We hope to have something out by early Summer 2010.
Mike - I think our deadline is Spring, so you should see it by
Summer.
MM – Can you tell us anything about
the vibe the album will take this time?
John –
It’s hard to tell right now as we have all these ideas that are still
developing and until we decide which ones we’re going to leave in and
which ones we’re going to throw out, we don’t know what we’re
going to end up with.
Mike – We’ve got a little bit of everything in there at the
minute. We have the classic
Y&T type sound, some new sounds, some bluesy type stuff, some rock
stuff ... we’ve got a little bit of everything going on at the moment.
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MM
– What made you decide after all these years to do another
studio album now?
John - Well the two of us (John
& Mike) always wanted to do
a new studio record, but the two of them (Dave
& Phil), having done this
for 35 years and had 10 - 11 studio albums out, they just felt
in the two hours that we play each night when we go out on tour,
we can’t play all the songs the fans want to hear as it is.
If we put out another new album then it’s just gonna
get lost in the shuffle.
Also we didn’t know a few years ago whether the band would
still be going at this point.
Our old manager said we had maybe 3 years left and then
we’d be done and that no-one would want to see Y&T again.
Thankfully this has proven wrong. When we come back
the attendance gets better and we’re playing more countries.
It doesn’t seem to be dying out so ... hence the new
album. We said
well, we’re still here so now we’re going to do the new
album.
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Mike
– Plus it opens up a lot more doors when you have a new album
out, there’s a lot of the festivals like you to have a new
product out. Creatively
I think we are just at that point where we want to do it.
Everybody’s itching to record something new now.
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MM
– Well I think this is what the fans have been wanting for the past 10
years plus, a new album. We
were just saying early on the way through that it doesn’t matter which
rock night you go to in the UK, there’s always a Y&T track played
over the course of the night and everyone always gets up to dance to it.
For a band to still be going after all this time and to have so
many proper classic tracks that have stood the test of time, and can
still fill a dance-floor, that’s a massive testament to you guys and
the songs you’ve done over the years as a band.
Mike – Worldwide the band are still relatively unknown but yet
they still have this cult following that keeps them going.
We have some truly dedicated fans out there, writing on the forum
and chittering and chattering, following us around from country to
country. People we saw when
we first got here in Ireland were at the show last night (in Scotland)
and they said they were coming to London as well.
John – Yeh, we have people from
Germany and Norway flying over to London to see the shows, it’s
amazing. They can’t get
enough ...
MM – Yes ... they’re called stalkers! (laughs)
Mike – Ah well we’d better not tell you about the ones
hanging around our fire escape then ... (laughs).
MM – How does it feel when you’re
out there playing and you see 2 or 3 generations of fans actually out
there looking back at you?
John – Yeh seeing all the kids out
there as well as our older fans is great.
Mike – I love to see people really getting into it.
It’s so funny because you ask the kids how they got into us and
most of the time it’s their parents records, but every once and a
while you get these kids who were just listening to rock on the radio
and they found a station that were playing us and liked what they heard.
MM – Touring obviously can take it’s
toll on you (Dave unfortunately is locked away up in his room resting
before the show as he's suffering from a bad viral infection at the
moment), how do you prepare before you go out on tour?
Mike –
Well I always say that I can’t wait to go out on the road so I can
relax. There’s just so
much to take care of before you go out on tour at home, your family,
your friends and everybody just wants everything done before you leave,
so actually I’m glad to get out on the road for the rest! (laughs).
John – We have so much fun on tour that we need more sleep
because we’re enjoying our time off so much and tend to stay up for
hours after the show. It
does get easier every year though, I remember the first time I came to
tour over here and the jet-lag just tore me up, but now mostly I throw
myself straight into it.
Mike – Plus we tend to jog around 10 miles every day when
we’re on tour as well to keep us in peak form ... (laughs). There’s
nothing but fruit and vegetables all day long ... (laughs).
John – We’re pretty much on automatic pilot at this point,
it’s just so easy to get together and put it all together.
We don’t prepare that much at all, we just say .. hey you wanna
go out and play these songs and that’s what we do.
We really don’t need to plan ahead too much because we work
together so much throughout the year with shows and during rehearsals,
writing songs etc, that there’s not much to prepare for, it’s just
what we do. I don’t want to make it sound easy as it’s not, we just
don’t forget things because we’re doing them all the time.
MM – What’s the best and worst part
of being on tour?
John – Trying to find a laundry-mat
is probably the one hardest thing when you’re on the road because
there just never seems to be one conveniently near to where you're
staying.
Mike - You know what’s great
though, this hotel we're stopping in tonight has those radiators where
you can dry your things on them. Those radiators are great for socks and
underwear. One thing you
learn pretty quickly is those things are way faster than those dryers
are, it takes like 2 hours in the dryer! (laughs).
John – Yeh, trying to find the laundry-mat is definitely the
worst, that and if you have too many flights close together that can be
tiring.
MM – Someone once told me that bliss
on tour is a fresh pair of socks ...
John – Oh yeh, a fresh pair of socks
feels great. You learn to
bring the real thin ones as they wash out in the sink and dry faster
than those big heavy white ones. You
don’t want any of those when you’re out on tour! (laughs).
Very thin underwear as well is good.
(At this point John flashes his knickers at us to prove this
point).
MM – So if your fans want to give you
a present while you’re on tour then knickers and socks would be a good
present to choose huh?
John – Yes definitely!
Mike – It’s also hard being away from the people you care
about, your family that are back home.
Thankfully we have the internet and Skype now so that makes it
easier.
John – Yeh these days when I’m out on tour I can see my wife
and kids everyday on the computer screen and talk to them and that makes
a whole lot of difference, it’s great.
MM – As a band do you feel you have
achieved everything that you want pretty much want to achieve?
Mike –
Well I hope not because if we have then I’m out of a job! (laughs)
John – Well sure it would be nice to have all the money and the
success but then there’s the other side of it which is real life and
we are a band that have stood the test of time without having all that.
A lot of bands who have had that, the ones that had the one big
hit and made all the money on that one big hit have now disappeared and
nobody cares about them any more. Y&T
have never had that and we know our fans still really care about us and
that feels good. I’m sure
for Dave and Phil to have that after all these years it’s gotta stand
for something. Sure you’d
love the money, it would make it a lot easier and a lot more comfortable
but we’re happy.
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MM
– Going back to when were much younger chaps, what influenced
you to play an instrument and become a musician?
John – For me it was the
first time I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
I said ... I think I’d like to do that, to play guitar.
I think that was the start of it all for me, getting that
interest in being a musician.
I was around 10 at the time, so that must make me about
75 now! (laughs). No,
folks just always think that if you saw The Beatles on Ed
Sullivan then you must be really old! (laughs).
Mike - Who the hell’s Ed Sullivan? (laughs). I can't
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remember
exactly, I just remember how cool it sounded when I smacked a
coffee can with a wooden spoon.
I was just a little kid and I remember how great it
sounded, I was really attracted to the noise it made.
I would learn how to play along to records when I was
little and I'd be setting up stuff in my room and be hitting it.
I played trumpet for years also when I was at school.
Then I saw a picture of Phil and I said ... God I wanna
be just like him! (laughs) ... so I took up smoking and it all
went from there! (laughs). (At
this point Phil has just joined us)
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Phil
– Mine was the same as Mike’s and everyone
from my generation, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, that’s what did it for
me. Then the next
generation I know who caused the same hoo-haa was KISS. Isn’t that
sad? They’re really shit! (laughs).
They’re a fun band but they’re certainly not The Beatles.
Good show, but shitty band. (laughs).
You better ask me a new question or I’m gonna get me in
trouble! (laughs).
I love KISS, Gene Simmons is my hero, I wanna play bass just like him!
(laughs).
MM – Can you remember your very first
instrument?
Phil –
It was guitar and the first band I was in had like 6 or 7 guitar players
and we couldn’t all do it, so I just took 2 strings off and played
like that for many years until I could afford a proper bass. That’s
what I did. I didn’t care
about playing, I just wanted to be in a group.
I just wanted to be cool man, it took me a long time. (laughs).
I’m not the best player and in a lot of bands it’s not
necessarily the best player who stays with the band, it’s the one who
shows up and keeps showing up that ends up playing.
John – Mine was a guitar.
It was lying around my house because my dad played guitar and my
brother played guitar so they were readily available.
Phil – Oh I can tell you something for Dave as he’s not here
to answer your question! He
played accordion. That was
his first instrument and then finally about the time that Hendrix came
out he just went totally crazy for the guitar.
He played accordion and he had these little horn-rimmed glasses
and he was a totally different creature the Dave back then, the guitar
totally set him free.
MM – Well Mike I guess yours was your
pots and pans eh?
Mike – Yeh! (laughs).
I used to play a little drums and I also played trumpet
throughout second grade and all the way through to high school.
Then the drums just became natural and took over.
I’m working on bass so I can be cool like Phil.
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MM
– Phil, we asked the guys earlier if the band had achieved
everything that they’d wanted to achieve?
Phil
– In the greatest sense yes, because what we wanted to achieve
was to be able to keep doing this and so in that sense as long
as we can keep doing this and people come to see us and we keep
making enough to keep going with this kind of life, then
that’s all we’ve ever wanted.
Yes it would be nice to have all the money, but this is
not bad at all. To still be able to keep doing this after
35 years and to be able to go out and still do it just feels
great. That’s my
achievement.
MM
– Well I’ve been following the band’s shows for 20 plus
years and nearly every show I’ve been to have been either
sold-out or close to sold-out shows, yet I can go to see other
bands and it’s only half full.
Phil – You’re talking about
here in the UK right? Well God bless you all here in the UK
because you got us right from the very first tour, particularly
up here in Newcastle, which we did as one of our very first
headline tours. London
is a bit like LA and New York, it’s so metro. Up here
people are a little bit more real.
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I remember playing here some years ago and then seeing some guys
on the street the next morning and they shouted over to me ...
“I need a fuckin’ can of oil for my neck!” ... I said...
“What did you say?”... I thought that was fuckin’
brilliant! It was
also the first place ever that I heard like a football song for
an encore, I was like ... “What the fuck!”... (laughs).
The attitude is wide open and the fans keep on coming
back.
I’m so grateful for that because we hear from a lot of bands
that do these ... well we call them danger kitty gigs where you
go out and you have a 1,000 seat hall with like 52 people in the
crowd. It’s not
happened to us yet so I’m just so grateful for that.
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MM
– Any comments on the new album?
Phil – Well we're not into being
heavier, we’re into writing better songs, that’s all we care about.
With Y&T you’re always going to get melody, you’re going
to get some hard edged stuff, you’re going to get some ballads and
I’m not planning on changing that to compete with fuckin’ Motorhead
or something. God bless
Motorhead, we’re not them and they don’t wanna be us! (laughs).
MM – Is there anything you’d like to
say to all our fans out there?
Phil
– Thank you to everyone who’s ready this.
If you’ve happened to come across this interview and you
don’t know who Y&T is then look on your keyboard and punch in ...
‘Y’ ... ‘&’ ... that means and ... and then ‘T’ and surf
look us up. Anyway I hope
you like what you find and thanks for your time.
MM
- We'd like to thank John,
Mike and Phil for taking the time out to chat to us this afternoon and
wish Dave a full and speedy recovery. Now remember ladies (or even
gents if you're so inclined), if you want to give the band a little gift
while they're on tour, a clean pair of knickers or socks would go down a
treat, just make sure they're thin ones so they can dry 'em on the
radiator! |