EXCLUSIVE: Galahad interview (Part Two)

Our conversation with Stuart from Galahad continues, as we discuss the other releases that are planned for this, the most busy year they have ever head...

Jon: I see you’ve got something called ‘Live Archives Volume Two’ coming out. Is ‘Live Archive Volume One’ coming out with the book?

Stuart: Strangely enough it’s not. ‘Live Archives Volume Two’ is already out. That was a Whitchurch concert we did in the '90s. We called it Volume Two because the first volume we called Classic Rock Lives which was a concert recorded in Rotherham many years ago and which then put out another concert we recorded locally, so the idea is to try to find some of this older stuff to actually put it out as opposed to it just sitting on the shelves gathering dust. You are not talking a lot of people but there are a few hundred people out there who would be quite interested in it. And it’s just nice for it to see the light of day.Battle Scars is coming out on vinyl as well in a couple of weeks.So how did you know Rob in the first place then? What is it they say? Being young is wasted on the young. Or something like that anyway

Jon: Do you have a newsletter or anything?

Stuart: We don’t have a newsletter as such, but I do tend to keep the website up to date. I tend to put news items on the website pretty much as and when they arrive so you can always check out that. We’ll be doing a newsletter obviously when we release the album and things like that, when we’ve got a few more things to talk about.

Jon: If you don’t mind if I pinch stuff off your website

Stuart: I actually built the website last year because the old site was getting so out of date – It’s not a particularly pretty site but it’s functional, and I’ve tried to put as much on there as I can relating to the band and the history because obviously there’s a lot of history as we’ve been going for 27 years so all the sort of anoraky kinds of things are on there, all the gigs we’ve done and there’s lots of photos, the discography, biography everything is on there, and to be honest I think the first we did with Rob was probably in about 1992/93?

It wasn’t that long after he had gone off on his own and the reason we sort of met each other was partly through Tony Arnold...I don’t know if you’ve heard of Tony, who used to work with Robert Fripp quite a lot and did a lot remastering of various albums. He also used to remaster a lot of albums that Rob put out I think back in the 90s. It’s been a fairly loose, fluid sort of relationship, but it seems to work.

(changing the subject completely)

'Battle Scars' is coming out on vinyl in a couple of weeks..

Jon: Oh that’s nice. Even though I don’t have a record player anymore it’s nice to know they still come out.

Stuart: Well yeah, there’s been a resurgence in interest. I was talking to a distributor the other day and he was saying that their sales are like up 50% on the previous year. And a lot of bands are going back to vinyl. I think it’s just this tangible thing you know. It’s nice to have something big and you can look at it and touch it and play it. It’s quite a different sort of sound. I’ve got the test pressing and it’s a lot warmer. With a CD there’s a lot of high frequency and high top end stuff and low stuff, whereas the records are more in the mid-range as it were. But no, we are pleased with it and hopefully that will be out in the next couple of weeks. It’s a limited edition, there’s only 300 copies, but we’ve sold most of them pretty much already actually.

(Changing the subject again)

How did you meet Rob then?

Jon: I ran a little psychedelic fanzine back in 1987 and Rob was running the Gong fanclub and I went to interview Daevid Allen and I met Rob, and I got on better with Rob than I did Daevid and Rob and I have been friends ever since

Stuart: Fantastic. I think I saw Daevid Allen in Boscombe Academy a while back and ... yeah he’s getting on now.

Jon: He’s 74 I think

Stuart: That’s unbelievable. Ii think Dave Brock is 70 odd isn’t he?

Jon: It’s really weird when you think this year Ringo Starr will be 72. The idea of pensioner Beatles just doesn’t seem right.

Stuart: No it doesn’t. It’s like rock and roll is really quite old now isn’t it. That’s quite bizarre

Jon: Well I think it surprised everyone by lasting because most art forms – I don’t know much about art history – but I bet cubism or something only lasted 15-20 years

Stuart: Yes that’s true actually. I guess it kind of keeps re-inventing itself and then people go back to the original to compare it or what have you, and you’ve got all these youngsters these days who get into the late 60s early 70s bands and they’re all sort of Led Zeppelin freaks or something and I am thinking that’s weird because when I was their age I wouldn’t have even thought about listening to the music that was recorded 30 years before I was a teenager. I certainly wasn’t interested in any of that stuff.

Jon: My parents would listen to stuff like Glenn Miller or whatever and the idea of listening to my parents’ music would just not have occurred to me.

Stuart: No it’s bizarre isn’t it? Although all the youngsters these days. I haven’t got children, but most of my friends have and their kids, they actually listen to their sort of music. And what’s even stranger is the fact that the parents seem to have more spirit than some of their kids as well. I remember them being far more, shall we say misbehaved more when we were teenagers and younger than their actual children do. It’s bizarre

Jon: There was an interview with Neil Young a couple of years ago when he did the Living with War album when he said that he was waiting for some young protest singers to come out and write songs about the Iraq war and he was disgusted that it was left to a bunch of pensioners to do it.

Stuart: Yeah, it is. I don’t know whether it’s just the society in general, but there seems to be a complacency amongst sort of younger people. They don’t seem to have....well maybe it’s just us, we don’t get it, I don’t know, but they don’t seem to have the spirit that we had when we were younger. There was a lot less to do when we were younger as well. And they are always complaining about being bored, or don’t know what to do blah blah blah. It’s like hang on a minute you’ve got more to do that we ever had. It’s very strange. And yeah, it’s quite bizarre. Especially when I go around a friend’s house and we’re listening to some ACDC and we got the children coming downstairs – teenagers coming downstairs – saying 'can you turn the music down, we’re trying to sleep'. Role reversal isn’t it?

Jon: Well I was talking to Michael des Barres last week and I was so proud of him because he took the re-formed Silverhead back to Japan and they’re all in their 60s and they got into trouble at the hotel and were told to turn the noise down.

Stuart: What is it they say? Being young is wasted on the young. Or something like that anyway

Jon: Well you’re still a youngster - you’re in your 40s.

Stuart: Yeah I’m 48 so I’m almost 50. Not far away. But yeah I think we all feel the same and the music as well – it does keep you young I think. Young at heart. And obviously there is still a slight sort of rebellious streak I guess when it comes to music – not so much rebellious but self-expression I suppose and especially what you do with your own stuff particularly, but no we love it and hopefully, you know, we can keep on going till whatever. I can’t say until we drop because we’ve lost Neil, but I’m sure we’ll keep going for a while yet.