EXCLUSIVE: Galahad Interview (Part Two)

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 feel very privileged to have been privy to the conversation that follows.

If you missed it, check out Part One

JON: Have you been writing since Neil died?  

STU: Not really no.  Because obviously the last year has been basically spent putting recordings, or getting these albums finished, and getting them mixed and getting them out to the masses as it were and also sort of promoting them.  So no we haven’t written any new material to be honest. But obviously that is the next stage and because the other reason being that we – obviously there is only four of us – and we’ve got Mark Spencer who has been playing in Twelfth Night and he’s been playing bass for us at the moment for all the live gigs. And it’s very difficult as to whether he will become a permanent member because obviously Neil is not with us, and it’s not like we got rid of him, you know, we didn’t want him to go, so it’s quite an emotive subject. So I’m not quite sure how the line up is going to be in the future as it were. Mark has fitted in really well so we are hoping that at some point he will probably become a permanent fixture.

 

JON: This is a leading question, I hate leading questions. But I can’t think of any way of phrasing it so that it’s not a leading question.  Do you feel that Neil is still around?

STU: Yeah.  Actually in some ways. Definitely.  I mean we haven’t played that much since he passed away, but whenever we are on stage we always think about him and he’s always in the background there.  You know, when we’re rehearsing and I’m sure he will be when we start writing again.  But certainly at the gigs. And I have mentioned him at several of the gigs as well because the other thing is, he has actually been playing with us at gigs. I know that sounds odd, but what we did on some of his songs, we actually got Mark to play additional  guitar and we are playing to a click, and we are playing to a click which includes Neil’s bass guitar.

 

JON: That’s fantastic.

STU: So we manage to play live with Neil performing with us on bass in the background although he’s not physically there.

JON: That’s lovely, that’s really nice

STU: Yeah, and we just thought that was a nice way of him being with us. In spirit as it were, and the other thing I did – and I did ask his wife first – do you mind if we get a big cut out of Neil?   And I’ve actually got a life-size cut out in my music room of Neil from a photo that we had taken at Lorelei a couple of years ago at the festival with him, and it was his last gig and one of the last photos taken of him as well with his guitar and everything and the plan was to use that and put it on stage.  Unfortunately we haven’t done it yet, because it’s so big I couldn’t get it in my car! <laughs>  He’s about six foot something so we had to sort of cut it in half and a local picture framer actually put it together for me but it’s great you know.  Again, he’s always there, he’s always in our thoughts, and he’s sort of irreplaceable in a way.

 

JON: I was thinking of you the other night because I was watching the George Harrison DVD that Martin Scorcese did – I don’t know if you’ve seen it – there’s two bits on it – there’s bits when they were recording the Beatles without John Lennon with the song when Lennon was in the studio but he wasn’t and the bit when they were doing the second Travelling Wilburys album without Roy Orbison and during both bits I was thinking about you guys and Neil.

 STU: It is quite strange and obviously we’ve got a lot of photos, we haven’t even had any photos taken since Neil went as well so I don’t know… we will at some point but we have to move on and I know that Neil would want us to move on and in a way the irony is we’ve actually been very productive this year with the two new albums, so something positive has come out of a big negative,  and the albums have done pretty well, and the last one is more of a positive sort of statement – you know very colourful and everything else. And hopefully the future is bright, as they say.

This interview concludes tomorrow, with Galahad's plans for the future. Thank you, BTW to Stu for these pictures of the band with Neil on bass..

Check out Galahad at Gonzo