I have to admit that I had never heard of Galahad until, one evening earlier this year my adopted nephew Max and I played their album Battle Scars which arrived together with a heap of other groovy Gonzothings. It was an epiphany, and soon after I interviewed Stu Nicholson, the singer, who is a really nice bloke. Now there is a second album of the year, which is even better. Once again I interview Stu, and enjoyed the experience very much...If you missed them, check out Part One and Part Two
JON: Is there any more news about your
biography?
STU: Yes it’s 99% there. Andy Wild, who has written it is just adding
a few extra bits, because it did finish at one point when Neil had died pretty
much, and we thought well actually we would like to keep it going maybe for
another year, again to show the positive afterwards ie the two albums coming
out, and the gigs and the fact that things are picking up and we’ve managed to
sort of deal with it and look forward to hopefully a brighter future and what
have you, and again I am sure Neil would agree with that as well. So we’ll probably take it up to the end of
this year and then hopefully publish next year. To be honest it’s down to
finances. We’ve had the two albums, gigs, a live
album and DVD this year.
JON: I didn’t know about the live album
STU: Yeah, what it is we played a festival in
Whitchurch back in the early ‘90s and it was recorded sort of on the desk and
they also videod it on an old Super 8 or something like that. One of those old
mini cassette things and it doesn’t look too bad. So we got Oscar in Poland
JON: That’s nice
STU: Again, it’s very much a bootleg, you know,
it’s not perfect quality – not the best live recording in the world.
JON: I like bootlegs
STU: Yeah, but basically, you know, it’s for
fans to be honest. It’s just a sort of fan thing.
JON: There’s something about bootlegs. They’ve got an integrity that glossy and
heavily produced and over-dubbed live albums don’t have.
STU: Well definitely yeah, it’s real and you can
tell; there’s lots of mistakes on it. <laughs> I’ll send you one, and I’ll send you the
re-issue of Year Zero as well which is basically the album Year Zero which will
did in 2002 – it’s like a tenth anniversary and again there’s a sort of bootleg
with it – you get Mr Kyps which is about only
one of the five or six times we have played it live and again it’s pretty raw
and it’s a bit cringey at times when I listen to it, but, you know, it’s real
so that’s like a double CD – you know the original album plus…
JON: Oh yes please…..thank you So what happens next?
STU: Well as you just touched upon, we want to
try to get the band biography published next year, we’ve got some live material
that we are thinking of putting out as well next year. And then start writing
basically. We’ve got a few ideas so we’ll start on that and Neil has left a bit
of a legacy as well – there are some unused recordings that he made while he
was still alive which are on his computer which we need to sort of get off his
computer somehow and we’re thinking of either doing an EP or an album if
there’s enough of his material and putting that out on his behalf. But
obviously it will be Galahad related and we might have to re-record some bits
and pieces and the idea also is that if we
can put that out hopefully, if there’s enough, we can maybe help his
widow, Jo, and maybe give her some money from it, because I think she is
struggling. Because he did leave three young kids – under four in fact so Jo’s
left looking after the kids and of course she can’t really work because she’s
got to look after the kids. So that’s
quite tough on her and in fact we are going up to see her I think next weekend
which will be nice. Sort of say hello.
And of course any royalties that we can get from the albums are making sure I’m
giving her his bit.
JON: That’s really good
STU: So I think it’s just fair really. Because she’s struggling, so yeah, there are
things in the pipeline, but I don’t think we’ll release a new studio album
probably for a couple of years or so ‘cos we’re quite slow at that <laughs>
JON: Never mind, it gives us all something to
look forward to
STU: Well yeah, we’ve done quite well this year.
I can’t believe we actually managed to do it. And we’re also releasing a vinyl
version of Euphoria in a few weeks. It’s going to be an album and an EP
basically, so you’ll have the main album on a red LP, and a 12-inch sort of
single on an orange record. It’ll look really good and I think the artwork will
look stunning on an LP and we’re going to put the extra tracks, on both Battle
Scars and Euphoria as well as All in the Name of Progress on the EP ‘cos you
can obviously only get 40-odd minutes on an album and I just think I will be a
nice package.
And that is about it. We will be back with Stu and Galahad very soon. In the meantime check out what is available from Gonzo..
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