Interview: Magnum (Bob Catley, Wally Lowe/ Tony Clarkin)

Hot on the heels of the release of their new live album, entitled The Spirit, Britain's finest, MAGNUM, take to the road for an extensive UK tour. Number one fan Lyn Guy flaps her wings and takes flight to Ritch Bitch Studios in Brum to sample their vintage.

Bob Catley and Wally Lowe

THE SPIRITUAL FEELING

I doubt that there's a rock fan alive who can claim not to have a favourite band, an act they follow with religious devotion, year after year. Surprising though it may seem, us journos are often guilty of the exact same thing, not least yours truly. And I am proud to say that the band most often to be heard on both my in-car stereo cassette player and my in-house studio system is the thoroughly British Black Country quintet Magnum.

With almost 15 years behind 'em (nigh on 18 if you count their pubbin' cover version days), these hard working, hard rocking guys are as accomplished and experienced a unit as you're likely to find in the 90s, a fact they are about to illustrate with the release of a long overdue live album and a ten-date UK tour. Which is why I'm speeding northwards on a British rail sprinter with "Vigilante" blasting through my Walkman headphones.



My destination is the Rich Bitch studio complex in Birmingham. Where Tony Clarkin, Bob Catley, and Wally Lowe are fully occupied in laying down demos of various new songs destined for a studio LP due next spring. But I'll return to that subject later

After a brief tour of the complex, I sit down in a quiet corner with Wally and Bob and prepare to fire my first question, namely, bearing in mind some of the inexplicable video storylines present on last year's "From Midnight to LA" singles compilation release, how do Magnum feel about making concept videos?

Bob bites the bullet:

"The band had very little to do with putting together those early videos. I'd rather see a good performance from a band."

"I think the days of us doing concept videos are over," continues Wally, "as there's no point in spending a lot of bread on something that leaves you wondering what it's about. You're totally giving the ball to this producer, who comes up with a concept and the way he wants to film it, and you end up with something that you don't know what you've got until you have the finished video in front of you. The only option you've then got is to say 'shelve it' or 'edit' it. Anyway," he adds, "we're not going to throw it over totally to someone who's totally outside the band, who imposes what they think again. As Bob says, we'd rather just do a performance video with maybe one or two inserts to reinforce the feeling of the song."

A wise move methinks, as personally I don't feel complex storylines sit well on the five pairs of shoulders involved. Give me the "Wings of Heaven" live video any day of the week. Single videos tend to be associated primarily with the inescapable record company promotional machine, as it is; though that can be disastrously unreliable, which Magnum have discovered to their cost. Earlier this year Tony announced on MTV's 'Headbangers Ball' that the band did not wish to remain on the American branch of the Polygram organisation. Currently their stateside options are open, with Goodnight LA perhaps their most US-friendly opus to date, still awaiting release.

"We're quite pleased about that," states Wally, "inasmuch as 'Wings of Heaven' was just released without any promotion.

"It just got lost, ads Bob, "and we didn't want that happening again. When you put a lot of work into an album and you are proud of it, you want it to sell a few copies. Otherwise, why bother doing it? But for it to be just released and forgotten, that's crap, and we didn't want that ever happening again. So we'd rather be able to look around."

Even so, without adding the admittedly huge and highly lucrative American market, the Midlands-based quintet are doing very nicely, thank you, both here and across an ever-growing expanse of Europe. Take Austria for example...

Bob:

"We did a tour there in April with MAMA'S BOYS supporting. We did 8 shows and I nearly lost my voice, but Mama's Boys' singer gave me this throat spray for my voice, and that saved my life. It brought my voice back and it got me through all the gigs without croaking."

"Yeah, we had a great time with them," Wally adds. "It's a real good healthy rock place. We're planning to go back to Austria twice a year because you can make, like, 'attacks' into the country easily. It's like going back to basics really. The smallest gig you do is about 600 or 700 kids, up to about 2000 in the bigger cities."

No doubt Austria will be one of the many places Magnum will visit during a month long trek around Europe immediately after they finish delighting British audiences with the show that is currently set to include two-or-three brand new songs.



Straight after the Austrian 'attack', Tony began the long process of writing fresh material, an activity which is still ongoing. Indeed, as Bob and Wally bravely withstand my intensive interrogation, he is absorbed in laying down guitar tracks elsewhere in the studio complex. Another reason for the band's ensconcement at Rich Bitch is the task of making the necessary final adjustments to the imminent live album. Has this involved a great deal of work?

"Yeah," affirms Wally, "there was a lot of ploughing through material because we recorded so many shows. As it happens, we've got to get it down to 78 minutes for the CD, and the vinyl will actually be longer. We're at the very painful process of chopping it down, and we've had to shorten all the audiences down to the bare bones in order to get the songs on. So we're a bit peeved about that."

Though the title is, as I'd anticipated, The Spirit, much of the material used was actually recorded during the European segment of the Goodnight LA Tour. So, listen out for Bob speaking German on one of the tracks. However, a couple of songs were recorded at Hammersmith Odeon during last November/ December's Spirit UK Jaunt and I have it on good authority that the London crowd was the loudest. Partisan lot, us Brits!

But hang on, Wally hasn't finished yet...

"We are very pleased with the sound quality of the recording. You get some live albums and the sound quality, erm, is not very 'separated.' On the recordings we've managed to get, hopefully, you can hear everything. On a lot of things you use a lot of the ambiance from the hall, and we've done this for the drums. You usually get the guitars grinding over everything whilst the singer is a little bit low, but we've managed to avoid that."

Putting his promotional hat on, Bob adds:

"We've tried to get an album quality to it, so it's not just a live album, but treated as a proper album like 'The Best Of...' live. What doesn't end up on the album will be used for B-sides, so, after a time, everything will have come out of the record in one form or another. We are very pleased and proud of it, and I'm sure everybody will like it who buys it. It's worth having as a collector's item in this day and age of mass music, and it's nice to be able to say I was there."

And it's a damn good job you were too, Bob!! On the last date of the Spirit Tour Mark Stanway had confided in me that plans were afoot to build a studio in Birmingham specifically for the purpose of making the next LP a true home-grown affair. Are you still going ahead with this course of action?

Wally:

"What's actually happening is that there's a studio in Birmingham that we're going into partnership on with the guy who owns it. We're updating it all, making it all 'super duper,' and that should be ready in September. It will be a totally Magnum effort. At this stage there's not going to be any one else involved. We're being very indulgent in giving ourselves the time to do exactly what we want and not compromise our ideals."

Fair enough. To take the subject further, a little later I ask Tony Clarkin if the underlying reason surrounded Magnum's decision to use their own studio is that they felt they were losing control of their musical creativity to outside forces.

Tony Clarkin

"Um... a little bit. There is always an element of compromise when you work with anyone, really, but you can diminish the compromises you make, like you say, by buying your own studio. That really isn't the main reason, to be quite honest. I wanted the band to buy a studio because I'd like to record other people. People send songs to us and I like to hear great singers and people who write songs and make records. It just seems like a very logical step to make to have a studio."

As if to substantiate the band's obvious desire to make their next studio outing a 100% Magnum product, Tony is once again solo composer, as he explains:

"I learnt a lot of things from writing with other people, but, as you know yourself, we did get a backlash from people about it. I wasn't very keen at all, to start with, but, as it happens, I met some really nice people that I worked with, and they were great writers as well. This time, I've got, like, a small studio thing in my house, so I've been working away like crazy, and I did feel that I wanted to continue by myself, really. That's not to say I'll never write songs with anyone else again," he adds. "I think I would like to write with other people again. But I don't think for Magnum."

So how do you manage to come up with fresh inspirations and ideas for Magnum songs time after time and year after year?

"I always try to make it different. Everyone in the band appreciates that, probably, I get bored quicker than anybody with the songs, because I write the damn things, I live with them for such a long time. Very often when a new album comes out people will say, 'Where's the 'Jerusalem' track? And I'll say, 'Hang on a minute, I've already written that.' I don't want to keep writing the same things. Mostly we seem to get away with it, of which I'm glad, because otherwise you'd go nuts trying to go over the same ground. For the next album all the songs are separate entities," he continues, warming to the topic in hand. "When I was working with Russ Ballard, he really put it into a nutshell, talking about how you have to write about the same subjects, but, every time you do it, you have to find a new way. Now that's really difficult. In the past I have written songs covering a much wider subject matter. This time I decided to try and cover the relationship thing, but not like the 'lovely dovey' type thing; just what people think about each other. I've tried to approach it in a different way, rather than the usual 'come on baby, I'm gonna get yer tonight' kinda thing. So far, it's worked, and I hope it continues to do so. The album will be more situations with people rather than world events. It really is hard work, and I found it a bit of a challenge."

To which he is rising admirably. As a fan of this most enduring and endearing band the aural threat of being parked mid studio in front of two sets of powerful speakers to hear six newly demoed tracks is unspeakably appetising. From potential 'top twenty' commerciality through classic balladry to hot rockin' power cuts (sic) and beyond, the songs I hear are all typical Magnum fare, with strong melody lines and choruses, plus enough musical muscle to provide the heady promise of a highly intoxicating brew. In particular, a song currently titled "Stormy Weather" uses all the grandiose style of a traditional Clarkin epic to paint a moody atmospheric musical seascape.



Stirring stuff indeed. So, maybe I am racing ahead a little too fast here. Recording isn't due to commence until November. Just make a note in your diaries (or on your Rodney Matthews calendars) September 2nd The Spirit is released. And I'll leave the last word to Bob:

"I just want to say that we're looking forward tremendously to coming round this September. Be there or be square and we'll see as soon. All right!"

Lyn Guy
Riff Raff
September 1991

Share on Google Plus