of the TIMES
John Halliwell first came to prominence with Ten
seven years ago, but during the past few years he has been beavering
away relentlessly on his own album, now released under the Enzign
banner.
Kieran Dargan hooked up with John and vocalist Mark Sumner
recently to get the background story, and began by asking why the
album suddenly appeared as if from nowhere.
John: It’s been underway for about the last three years
really, it’s just we didn’t really publicise it , we just kept
working away quietly until it was finished.
Has any of this material evolved out of your old band, The Cage?
Two or three tracks only, but to be honest they have been
changed beyond recognition.
You’re best known for your work with Ten. Why did you put this
band together, is it an outlet for your own writing outside of Ten?
Well, to be honest, it’s the first time I have had a bit of
time to do anything. There has been a bit of a gap between the Ten
albums and with not touring at the moment it has given me the
opportunity to work on this album. We have basically been working on
it every weekend for the last three years, but more recently we have
been able to finally get the time to finish it off properly over
the course of a few weeks.
I’ve listened to the album a few times and I have to say the
opening track ‘Cast the First Stone’ could have been on any Ten
album. Is this type of song your own natural writing style or is it
something you had in mind for Ten at any stage?
John: It’s actually quite an old song that Mark (Sumner)
wrote. We tried to vary the styles of rock on the album, you know just
to see what we both could do, stretching ourselves a bit.
Mark: There are some tracks that have a Ten feel , obviously
with John being involved with them that will come out , but it’s
what comes out.
John: Well funny thing is, we write on acoustic guitars. We may
come up with a melody, a chord progression or a vocal melody and then
we work on that. Other times we have a whole song lyrically with no
music. The whole thing is done acoustically, no electric guitars, just
vocal ... not even a drum machine.
I have heard it said already that the Enzign album will plug the
gap until the next Ten album, which might be a little unfair. What
would you say to somebody to counteract that?
I can see that, honestly. I mean I went to the label and said
look, Ten aren’t doing anything, lets put it out. But this material
has been around for quite some time. We still write constantly but the
batch of songs that are on the first album were finished for at
least eighteen months. It certainly has a Ten influence. I have been
in the band for seven years so I’m not going to sound like Metallica
or Slipknot - it has that British thing like Lizzy or Whitesnake,
it’s what I do. But I am very proud if we are being compared to Ten.
Taking everything into consideration Ten have sold a lot of records
and are fairly popular so I don’t see anything wrong with that at
all.
Does this album afford you more of an opportunity to showcase your
guitar playing, considering you are the only player on this album ?
In Ten I’m the rhythm guitarist. I play all styles of guitar -
I’ll play bass, I’ve played the lot but it’s nice to get the
opportunity to play the material you have written, but I’m not doing
this to say 'Wow, look at me! I’m great.' I’m doing it because
Mark and I put the band together, and I’m the guitarist.
So Mark, tell us a little bit about your background. You are a
unknown quantity to most of us?
Well, I have played in a variety of bands around the northwest.
I played in a band with Ged Rylands (ex Ten keyboard player). That’s
really how I got involved with John. The singer they had [in Enzign]
let them down, so Ged gave me a call and I went in and did four tracks
which sounded really good. We just took things from there really. John
could have done this album as an instrumental and widdled his way
through it but he’s really very song orientated and I think we work
well together as a writing team.
So do you both come from a similar musical background then?
John: No, not really. Mark is into a lot of different things
like Iron Maiden, Saxon ... the whole NWOBHM thing as well as some
stuff like Gray Numan and Killing Joke, but we do share a lot of
common ground too like Queensryche and Megadeth.
Mark: I think I bring in a lot of the darker edge, particularly
on a song like ‘Sixth Sense’, it’s got some weird stuff in there
John: On the ballads Mark brings a bit of George Michael and It
Bites in. It’s completely different style to his rock singing. A lot
of singers have a problem singing in that breathy way but Mark handles
it no problem at all.
The album was recorded over a long period of time, but in real time
recording how long did the process take you?
About three months in total, but that was a total of twenty
songs which we have whittled down to eleven for this album.
If you were to say something to say something to the general album
buying public, who didn’t know anything about your background, what
would it be?
John: I would say it’s good, classic British rock. That’s
what I’d like to call it, in the typical Whitesnake style. I don’t
like making comparisons because you can’t do that, but people
that have heard it have said it does have a Queensryche edge to it .
It wasn’t apparent when we were writing and recording it, but
listening to it now as a fully completed album I can see what they mean.
Now that the album is completed, has it turned out exactly as you
hoped it would?
John: You know, when you are so close to the material sometimes
it’s hard to be objective, but overall I’d say yes. I mean for
'Sixth Sense' I laid the riff down in A and G, and when Mark went to
sing it we didn’t know which key to do it in, so he said bollocks,
I’ll sing to them both. So if you listen really closely the guitars
are actually out of tune, but it sounds very like Megadeth which is
cool.
Mark: In a day when ‘real’ singing is being forgotten and
more and more bands are using samples and computer to do the vocals,
every single backing vocal, every lead vocal is done in real time. No
cutting and pasting either. I watched John play eight rhythm guitars
through the track. It’s real, not guitars being DI’d into a mixing
desk. It was a Marshall at a million decibels, it’s very very real
and you can hear that .
So have you handled all the production on this album yourselves as
well?
John: Yes, for the most part between both of us, but we had a
lot of help from Billy Churchill who owns the studio in Southport. But
we did almost everything ourselves, even setting up the the
microphones, measuring the distance from the cabs, the heights, the
angles ... everything.
Given the current state of melodic rock, do you think you will get
the opportunity to play out live at all?
John: We’d love to but we’ll obviously have to round out the
band a bit more from the core three. There’s not enough of us to
make that amount of noise. There’s a lot of overdubs on the album, a
lot of harmony guitar. Mark is a very competent bass and guitar player
as well, but it’s up to him as to what he can handle live along with
the vocals. We’ll have to see how things turn out. We have a lot of
friends so we’ll be calling on a few of them to help us out. We were
offered the LA Guns support slot but we just didn’t have the time to
put everything together, but we definitely want to get out and play as
soon as we can.
You mentioned that you did twenty tracks in total for this album,
yet there’s only eleven on the album. What’s going to happen to
the other nine?
Well we’ve handed over another few of those to the record
company and they could make their way onto various compilations as
well as maybe a bonus track or two for Japan, but we’ll have to wait
and see.
There’s an old saying that you have a lifetime to write your
first album. Now that it’s out and the label will be looking
for a second album next year, will you be under pressure to come up
with the goods in a given time period?
John: No, not at all. Once we get in the studio it’s really
easy. The problem is actually getting in there in the first
place. We have loads of ideas, it’s just finding the time in between
my commitments to Ten, which is obviously my priority.
Is there anything you would like to add?
John: Just a big thanks to everybody who has helped us out so
far , we hope you enjoy the album and we are looking forward to
getting out to playing live, everywhere and anywhere.
Mark: Yes, we hope it will appeal to hard rock fans everywhere. We’ve
done our best and we’re very proud of it. We think it’s a
really strong album and we hope that the rock fans out there will give
it a spin.
