Interview, Danny Bowes & Luke Morley, Thunder

Bowes and Morley

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

Apart from the phenomenal global success of DEF LEPPARD, the UK has failed to come up with a mega successful heavy rock act to match them. However, recent EMI signings THUNDER could well be the band to do just that! With an extremely solid debut album in the racks and an extremely loyal following of fans - ever growing - it would appear that the time has never been more right for this band. Backstreet Symphony has all the trademarks of quality British rock music, drawing its influences from great English bands such as FREE, BAD COMPANY, and of course LED ZEPPELIN.

They have the task of opening the "Monsters of Rock" festival this year, along with those guys on the opposite page.

Riff Raff met up with guitarist Luke Morley and vocalist Danny Bowes pre-Donnington for a brief chat:

Morley: "We're all very proud of our first album, and we don't see any reason to change a winning team! The combination of our producers Andy Taylor and Mike Fraser for the album was just right, and as a bunch of people we all got on fine. If you don't enjoy working in a studio you might as well work in an office!"

It must be very difficult to capture that live field on record.

Bowes: "Not if you've actually played live!"

Morley: "We actually played live on the record, to be honest. With Backstreet Symphony we'd played the majority of the material in a live situation long before we recorded the album. 'Gimme Some Lovin' for instance was a complete fucking accident! We had no intention of putting it on the album at all."

Bowes: "So that is in effect a live basis."

Morley: "A lot of bands will make a record and they'll go out and play it live - straight. We try to have a very spontaneous attitude to what we play live! There's nothing worse than watching the same band playing the same set the same way night after night. If we did that we wouldn't be doing our job properly!"

What songs do you enjoy playing the most live?

Morley: "It depends. Some nights you enjoy some numbers, and some nights you don't! We try and make 'Dirty Love' sound different every night - we're not too rigid about what we do. I was lucky enough to see Zeppelin when I was a kid, and they always had the ability to say 'Fuck it, let's do it!' I admire that attitude. After all, if you are charging £6 etc for a ticket, the fans deserve something more than just a reproduction of the record."

Bowes: "Things have changed so much since the 70s."

Morley: "In the old days, actually seeing a band was an exclusive thing. These days, with video, it's more of a multimedia thing! When you go and see them live, you expect that little bit more from them."

I take it you're looking forward to opening Donnington.

Morley: "We can't wait. It's going to be a great day for us! We are well keyed up, believe me."

Future plans after Donnington?

Morley: "After Donnington we'll probably be playing in Europe for quite a lengthy spell. We'll be coming back to do a tour of the UK too!"

What do you think is so special about the festival?

Morley: "What's interesting about this one is the mixture of bands on the bill this year. All the bands are quite different in their own way. If we weren't playing Donnington this year I'd still go!"

Mark Crompton
Riff Raff
July 1990

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!