Interviews / Articles / Rumour & Gossip

November 4th 2001
by Tez Durrant

So what have you been doing since the last tour ? Did you manage to have a break after the those hectic 28 dates ?

No actually we didn't. We got straight into recording "Far Beyond The World". All the material was already written, so it was just a case of getting that sorted out, getting it recorded in various sections. Obviously out December 10th 2001, we originally thought it was going to be January 12th 2002, but its been brought forward by Frontiers and re-shuffled no less, to accommodate their tastes a little bit more I think, so fair enough, its their prerogative.

So what is the order now ?

I think it begins with Glimmer Of Evil now, followed by Strange Land, High Tide, What About Me ?, Last Of The Lovers, Outlawed And Notorious, Scarlet And The Grey, Heart Like A Lion, Black Shadows, Who Do You Want To Love ?, Far Beyond The World. Its not my originally preferred order, then again you have to take into account the record companies, they do like an input. The version how we planned it will be the version released in Japan.

So on this album you've not drawn on the fantasy/historical influences ?

Just one song, The Scarlet And The Grey, which is based on the legend of "She", you know the book "SHE" (An immortal princess who waits for the rebirth of her lost love only to loose her immortality when her lover gains his own immortality). Apart from that, everything else is a love song.

Any reason for the change ?

Just that we tried to move away, with the cover and everything, we tried to move away from the Dungeons And Dragon thing, which we think we’ve done to death, and everybody else is doing to death. And we wanted to move back to something simple and effective like the first album. I still like the simplicity and effectiveness of that album and John’s done us a great cover, just a basic shot of part of the earth, very blue, TEN in blue, makes for great merchandising. The CD is a the picture of the whole earth.

Yes I’ve seen that picture its going to make great logos for the websites, I know I’m already playing with it.

Yeah it should be really good .... I’m really really pleased with the mix. Tommy Newton is a fantastic mix engineer, great friend of mine now as well.

The album appears to be quite sonically crisp & sharp ?

Definitely something we went for, crisper, more definition. Really pleased with it.

Did you pick up lot of useful tips & tricks from Tommy ?

Oh Yeah, with each of the great mix engineer/producers that I've worked with, when you are actually working with somebody, you’d be a fool not to learn and spend time with them, almost sit on their shoulders. Mike Stone is fantastic .. a legend, Rafe McKenna’s making himself legendary, and Tommy Newton will be, give the guy five years, up there with them. He’s as equally as talented and diverse in his approach. What the beautiful thing about all three of those producers is that they always manage to think about the song first. They mix the song with regards to the way the song is, not that it has to sound a certain way or contrive it a certain away. The fact that these guys can think about a song first makes a difference to me as a songwriter.

There's quite a range of songs on it from Black Shadows to Who Do You Want To Love ?, quite an interesting mix ?

There's plenty of what I would call AOR in there this time, a couple of nice ballads in Far Beyond The World & What About Me. One of my favourites on the record is Heart Like A Lion, and its very off the wall for us , quite like Chris Rea when its starts ?

Yeah its very low in your vocals ?

Well it was like Tommy said to me, god listen to that voice and how low ... and I said well I just thought why not... and he said yeah, just put that in the CD booklet, 'because I can'. Everybody's too bothered , I think especially in rock, there's a whole range to the voice, it doesn’t have to be screaming. And you know there could be plenty of screams on this record as well , but you know why not !

Mieko tells me that Black Shadows has been getting Japanese airplay ? Do you you know how its going down in Japan

Oh brilliantly, its due out there on the 21^st November and a great friend of mine Koh Sakai who has something like 29 FM radio stations across Japan, and is also my sub-publisher has been airplaying 9 of the 11 songs on the record on his show in heavy rotation, and his shows are syndicated across Japan. He started off the first week Who Do You Want To Love & Strange Land, and since then he’s been playing two each week. By the time the album comes out, he’ll have actually airplayed nine tracks off the album more than once. So we can’t wish for any more, we’re hoping that we’ll go right back up there in Japan again.

Is there going to be an EP out there again?

I don’t think so, its our first album with JVC so they’re testing the water. Who know we’ll see

I have to ask you ask this, as a couple of people have mentioned it . On Who Do You Want To Love its been commented on that the verse's lyrical style is a bit Nik Kershaw like ... especially when you drop down a line.

I say that's a great compliment, he's a great writer. To be quite honest with you, as I sit here doing an interview with you now, he's probably not even in the list of the top 1000 songwriters that I thought you might possibly mention but a great songwriter, Yeah. Taking me back to the 80’s with that thought. He did some great stuff with Chesney Hawkes, amazing rock songs really.

So Paul is a full time member of the band now ?

Yeah fully paid up, fully contracted member of the band. He's been the missing piece of the jigsaw really for us, and a nicer guy you couldn’t possibly wish to work with. And I don’t say that lightly, I’ve worked with some assholes. He is not one of them. He’s great. We’ve got a complete line-up, the band the way we see it, works great live.

He did a really good job for you live, you even got him to sing !?

He’s a great vocalist in his own right.

I hadn’t noticed his voice before until I heard him on the backing vocals of "Name Of The Rose" on the last tour.

In fact its a shame that he's singing backing vocals really, because he's a great lead vocalist.

So what's next ? ... A tour ?

The Arthurian Project, that's what I’m programming at the moment. The scale is going to be large, lets just say. I can’t possibly get it all onto one CD, there still some debate whether I’ll get it onto two, and still tell the story correctly. I’m staying away from the Hollywoodisms, Big Camelot ... You know, sticking at close as you possibly can do to the historical base facts

So have you got everyone contracted up for the vocals ?

Well, I’ve actually asked my wishlist who have all said yes. But at the moment I’m in the process of getting the funding for it. I’ve already spoken to Mark Ashton about Now & Then doing the project. We’ll just have to see what happens. You know its a big investment for any company really. You are looking at the best part of 2 or 3 albums and it all has to be recorded at the same time so that it all has that common thread, and also the guest vocalists could appear on CD1 & CD3, or CD3 & CD2 so to get everything I need vocally out of the singer on 1 or 2 day sessions they have to all be done at the same time. I can’t do everything for a certain singer for CD1 and then hopefully get them available again when I need to do CD3. Also for it to fit together as a 2 or 3CD set, they’ll have to be mixed at the same time so that it feels like same. A big investment, so we’ll see.

What about "Tall Ships" then ? Is that ever going to see the light of day ?

No, Never ! Have you got a copy of one then ?

No I haven’t.

Believe me you don’t want one ( laughs ) … Its on 4 sides of C90 cassettes. Would have been four CDs. Much too epic, and not really indicative of the type of material that I’m doing at this stage of my career.

So back to TEN, what about the tour next year ?

This time it’s going to be six weeks, done in two stages. The first stage will take in Europe with possibly a few dates in England, finishing maybe in London. Then 4-6 weeks later, the second half of the British tour, another three weeks in the UK. Hopefully we’ll have some reviews in the magazines from the first set of dates before out we go again.

I’ve heard names such as Pride & House Of Shakira as supports acts ?

Pride, that would be good. I'm great mates with Ivan Gunn. A good chap, a very straight chap, and I hope that it works out. Whether it can, I'm not sure. It may end up being too expensive for those two bands, I don't know. It would have to be done on a cost sharing basis and unfortunately Ten ... lets just say we don't tour in a sharabang. I mean I don't mind touring when its not hotels, but I'm not prepared to get back in the back of a transit van. So it means nightliners, it means 'touring', so it's expensive. So we'll see who can actually, you know, who comes up with the 'ackers' at the end of the day to join the tour. But I think it would be a good outlet given the audiences we're expecting. It would be a good outlet for either of those bands yeah.

Touring Japan as well ?

Oh Yeah, February ... looks like sometime in the 20's of February. Paul Collis, our tour manager / sound engineer / all round good dude is organising all that for us and I'm sure he will let me know when its all finalised.  But yeah definitely. Which will please probably a lot of Japanese fans and us.

Its been a while ?

Well considering that we tried to tour after Spellbound & Babylon, but did not get backed by promoters in Japan. Finally we get a chance to go out and show metal again.

Are we ever going to see a Gary Hughes solo tour ?

Well Yeah ... I think it would have to take more of a form of "an evening with ... " I suppose.

That's a good idea.

 I mean there's a lot of romantic stuff flying around. And I'll never forget seeing a show of a great idol of mine ... Coverdale when he'd just left Deep Purple ... an he did a show on his Northwinds album & it was that wonderful bluesy stuff. It was him & a band & a stool half the time, but wailing some of the stuff off Northwinds. One of the most memorable concerts in my entire life ... even now. And it was in '79 or something like that. I remember it because it was my first ever gig and I was sneaked in cause my Dad knew one of the bouncers. I was only early teens at the time, shouldn't even have been in a club ... outrageous.

Are you going to be doing any more song writing / production work for anyone else ?

I'm open to offers.

But nothing on the books ?

Yeah nothing at the moment ... but that's really because of the Arthur project, as I don't know how long that'll take. And definitely not the next Bob ( Catley ), not because I don't love the guy, just because when the scheduling came for it I wasn't prepared to rush an album out which would have basically meant that because of his Magnum scheduling, having his bits done before Christmas. I couldn't have done him justice or me with that arrangement, so I had to decline gracefully. But I wish him all the best, I love the guy so I do wish him all the best. And in a way with the three albums I've done with Bob, we've left it on a real high. Middle Earth got the best reviews of anything.

City Walls is a great track.

So its a nice place to leave it for now. And who knows in the future ... but he's a busy lad.

I was just wondering how did the Greek thing with Dimitrius go ? Its one that I've never managed to get hold of ?

The production on it I think is really good, he's not the best singer in the world. That was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, should we say, putting the vocals together. But again a nice guy, and he still loves his album. He's never made another one. Musically it sounds great, vocally its OK, but its a good album for him.

At this point we started to talk about John Halliwell's solo project. Click here to read.