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Hi Aaron. The special edition of “The Man With Stars On His Knees” is now available. From a personal point of view, how does the new album look on long-awaited vinyl? “We haven’t got it yet!” No! “I haven’t seen it yet, sadly. We are on a European label now, and it’s all a bit new. I’d imagine it would look bloody beautiful! There are two versions, transparent red vinyl and solid turquoise, which will be really nice. We produced the artwork for the album because we wanted it to be on a larger platform. It’s going to look great” I believe that the new version was mastered at Abbey Road? “Yes, Christian Wright at Abbey Road liked the record, said he would give us a good deal on it, and lo and behold, it ended up being mastered at Abbey Road, which is a nice touch.” Some people might call it Facebook stalking, I call it research… you posted recently about how humbled you were that so many people had pre-ordered the album. That must have been heart-warming for you? “Yeah, you put a re-release out, two years after the original and you expect it to hit the media. We do our little thing, and just use it as a stepping stone for the next album… but it’s not been like that at all! The figures are fantastic. We are selling hundreds of copies a day, which is ridiculous! And to an extent, unheard of in the modern age of music now.” What do you think it is about ‘The Man With Stars On His Knees’ that so many people identify with? Can you put your finger on it? “I don’t know. I guess that I do, and I don’t know. It’s been a slow burner of a record the whole time that it’s been out. Every day, I see more and more people adding us on social media, lots of new faces getting onboard. It started off as the Heaven’s Basement fanbase, but it’s reached far beyond that now. We are one of those bands who will go on tour with a pop outfit like Royal Republic, and then we’ll go out on a sludge tour with a band like Life Of Agony. Yeah, it is humbling, the response to the record. It’s a freedom record. It was uninhibited by a record label or management, really. It was just us in a studio and that was it, nobody else, so perhaps it was something that some people haven’t heard in a while? Most records are put together in a clean and polished way. Although this has good production, the sentiment was to make us happy before anyone else. If people enjoy it ,then great… and if they don’t, then fuck them!” Yeah, fuck them! Had you put the album to bed before Listenable Records became interested? “Yeah, I was kind of ready to put a new record together, and seeing what the next stepping stone was for the Cult Classics… but then that label came in at the eleventh hour, we had other deals offered to us. A lot of bands get this ideology into their heads that getting signed is the best thing in the world, but it’s really not, as sometimes you can do a better job yourself. We went with Listenable Records as they have acts like Gojira on their roster, and they said that they were wanting to expand and branch out.” Listenable Records are mostly renowned for a roster of Death Metal bands.Similar labels like Nuclear Blast and Earache Records have came in for a bit of stick from keyboard warriors for daring to sign bands that were a bit different. “Yeah… I’m pretty sure that Earache quoted us £200,000 to sign with them, and that wasn’t them giving us £200,000, it was them wanting £200,000! I don’t have time for people like that, so the less said about them, the better!” Back to the album reissue then, and in particular the two new tracks. ‘Fire In The Fields Of Mayhem’ will be familiar to anyone who has caught the Cult Classics live, but what about ‘Undertow’? How recent is this one? “It was recorded literally only about three or four months ago. It was a very last minute thing. It’s the first song where all five members of the current Cult Classics line-up have recorded together.” If the Cult Classics were to release a brand new album tomorrow, is ‘Undertow’ indicative of what it would sound like? “No, I don’t think so. I think it’s an all right song. I mean, I like it, but the next album, there will be some real metal on there. I want there to be some real metal on there. That was the music that I grew up on when I was a kid. My first gig was Slayer and Slipknot!” Nice! On that subject, the Cult Classics are playing Download in the Summer… on the Sunday, I believe? The same day as Tool, Slayer, and Smashing Pumpkins! Probably the most eclectic day ever seen at Download? “I requested not to be playing on the Friday.” The Def Leppard day? “Yeah, I don’t like Def Leppard! We were very close in Heaven’s Basement to be getting lumped in with that scene, and I didn’t want that. That’s not want I’m here to do. I just want to express creative integrity, allow me the freedom to do so. Do that, and we end up like it was about ten years ago, when there was a scene… bands like My Chemical Romance and Paramore. Inspiring kids to dress differently, communicate differently, dance differently. Something that hasn’t been done since. I really do want to try and tap into something what I feel is a little bit different. Away from what everyone is into at the minute… the whole “Classic Rock” thing.” Paramore went way up in my estimation the year they played Reading, I think it was, and the power went out and they broke out the acoustic guitars. “I was there! It was incredible!” Many bands would have just left the stage until the power came back on, but full marks to Paramore for having nerves of steel in pulling that off. Back to Download though… will you be able to catch the likes of Tool and the Pumpkins? “Oh yeah, definitely. I will be catching Tool, I’ll be there with a beer in one hand and a fag in the other! I’m a massive fan of Smashing Pumpkins. There’s a big Smashing Pumpkins influence on ‘The Man With Stars On His Knees’. ‘The Man With Stars On His Knees’ has a lot of anger on it, but would you say that it also has a lot of heart? “Well, the thing was, I wrote that album and submitted every song to Heaven’s Basement and they didn’t want them. And when I think about it, part of the reason that they didn’t want them, was that they were written about them. I didn’t tell them that, but it totally was. It infuriated me, then it got to the point that I wasn’t even angry anymore, just upset… so I quit. I had to put the Cult Classics together so that Heaven’s Basement was not the only thing that my name was remembered for.” No disrespect intended, but for a while I actually forgot that you were in Heaven’s Basement! And that sounds stupid, because I caught the band when you toured with Halestorm! I had listened to ‘The Man With Stars On His Knees’ a few times before someone pointed out the Heaven’s Basement connection! “Haha! Brilliant!” Moving swiftly along! You are, of course, a massive fan of Queen. So, from a fan’s point of view, what did you think of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie? “I enjoyed it. The work that Rami Malek did, the work that Brian and Roger did in getting the movie together, and the work that the writers did, was very, very good. I think that anyone that can stand there and think, “Bollocks! They’ve only scraped the surface!”, well all right then, you do a better job. You’ll end up with a movie that is a week long. You’ve just got to try and compact the best moments. It’s Hollywood as well, remember. The job that movie does, is making people remember Queen and Freddie, keeping him in the legendary status, and that’s the best you can ask for.” Matt Lucas recently shared some of the tabloid headlines surrounding Freddie’s death. It was horrific what was written about him. It’s hard to believe that was only in 1991! “Well, yeah. There was the song that Queen wrote called ‘Scandal’. That was all about how the media was pursuing Freddie, the paps wouldn’t leave him alone. They knew exactly what they were doing. Having done fuck knows how many thousands of interviews now, I kind of know when people are pressing questions that they shouldn’t be asking. I’m more outspoken than I’ve ever been, but not about things that don’t need speaking about. The press were horrendous to Freddie, the press in general, the ones that make a buck out of a really bad picture, are pretty horrendous people.” So who at the moment are you listening to? What’s on your playlist? “Emmmm… Crikey! Now you’ve put me on the spot! The tour that I really enjoyed the most recently was when we were out with Royal Republic. They are going to be the next stadium headliners, they are an exceptional band, very well trained musicians, and excellent songwriters. No egos either, they are just good at what they do. I’m sure that there are more, but off the top of my head, I’d say Royal Republic. There are not many bands that get me going.” What are you like when you are off the road? I can’t imagine you dealing well with periods of inactivity well! “Haha! Well, I’m a qualified motorsport racing director, which is literally what I’m doing now: making sure that people out on the track aren’t killing themselves! So, I do that, and I have a boat; a twenty one foot boat that I sail about on, and I generally like going to the pub and drinking beer! I’ve got my piano in my bedroom, I’ve got a luxury little life. I have a job that gives me a social life. Even if I had a million bucks in my pocket, and I’ve had times when I’ve been reasonably rich, not now though… I’d still have something that kept me going. I get bored. I’m one of those lonely souls, I guess, I’ve never really found a partner that I would be with long term. I’ve had one true love in my life, and I was with them for two and a half years. After that, I’ve never found anybody to replace them. I just need to keep myself around people, and that’s one of the reasons that I did Cult Classics.” On the subject of the band, one thing that I picked up on was that the Cult Classics are a band in the true sense of the word. “Oh yeah, the next album will not be under my name. I want it branded as Cult Classics, and that will be it for the future… and Cult Classics will be the last outfit that I will ever do, unless I went on to join some other band that has had success and will put some coin in the pocket! I don’t go out on the road for nothing. I’m at the point in my life where I like earning money. I like doing shows, but I’m not going out onstage for £50, those days are over. I’m too old and set in my ways! I had the agent today put through about five or six show offers, and I’m not doing them, not for that money! If you want me to play, I will bring you a production, and I will make sure that the show looks great, but if the promoter doesn’t want that, and just wants us to get on stage and play, then I’m not interested in that! Bye-bye! A couple of promoters don’t like me for that, but I don’t care.” And there you have it. If you have yet to discover ‘The Man With Stars On His Knees’, now is the perfect time. What is a classic, modern sounding debut album, has been made even better. Do check it out here. Interview: Dave Live images – Rob Wilkins ]]>
