Classic Rock Revisited Interview with Andy
By Jeb Wright (http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/)
Andy Powell and Wishbone Ash have delivered big time with their latest release, titled Elegant Stealth. The album is a return for the band to their trademark twin guitar leads and songs that are both musically impressive and lyrically deep. Wishbone Ash have created an album that stands easily amongst the best they have ever made.
The band, which has been ongoing since 1969, is led by Powell, who is the only original member. That said, the current lineup of the group is most impressive. The band members are well versed in all styles of music and are not afraid to show off their chops. Wishbone Ash fans will receive this album with open arms and tout it as one of their best.
Read on as we discuss the new music in-depth, as well as some of the high points of Andy’s amazing career. Learn how the twin guitars came to be, how Andy decided upon playing a Gibson Flying V and a murder that occurred over a hotdog.
Jeb: Classic Rock Revisited has been around since 1999 and I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I have interviewed you. I feel terrible we have not shown you more support but I am so glad I am talking to you know because the new album is fantastic.
Andy: That’s okay, we appreciate it. I have seen the site; it is great.
Jeb: Thank you. I love the new album. This is some good shit!
Andy: That’s really great, man, you’ve made my day.
Jeb: It is not a throwback to the old sound but, Andy, there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of guitar solos.
Andy: On this one, we’ve paid attention to what the fans are saying. We are a live act and we open up in a live arena and we extend things a bit. We decided that we should do that on the record as well. We let it roll; there is nothing too contrived with the guitar solos, it is from the hip.
Jeb: Let’s talk about some of the new songs. I really enjoy “Reason to Believe.” You have the twin leads on there that I never get tired of hearing.
Andy: I wouldn’t be still doing this if it didn’t still excite me. When we first hit upon the twin lead thing it was instant ear candy and it has remained that way. We try to vary the ways we use it. Sometimes we integrate the harmony deeper within the structure of the songs than we used to when we first started out; it is a little more sophisticated.
A couple of years ago, we started some writing sessions in an old manor house in Normandy, France. We videoed the actual writing sessions like a fly on the wall type of thing.
Jeb: Are you talking about the DVD?
Andy: Yes, I am glad you’ve seen it. You can see that “Reason to Believe” started out as a bit of a jam on the DVD. Bob Skeat, our bass player, who is not a person who has come up with many lyrics for the band, although he is an integral part of the writing process, came up with that line, “Reason to Believe.” To me, that sums up who we are as a band. We play all over the place and it takes a lot of faith to do this. That statement sums it all up for us. A dear friend of mine, Ian Harris, wrote the lyrics. It is a really good opener for the album, as it is very upbeat.
Jeb: The one that follows it isn’t too shabby. Lyrically “Warm Tears” is pretty deep.
Andy: All of the songs come from a real experience. That one comes from the heart and is triggered from real life. I put that one second on the album because the solos on that one, as you say, ain’t too shabby [laughter.] When Wishbone Ash gets going we really fly. That track, the guitar soloing, we go back and forth and it really flies. We captured it nicely on the recording.
Jeb: “Man with No Name” has great lyrics and great solos as well. I think the fans are going to go nuts over that song.
Andy: The thing I like about that one is that the song is based around a 12-string acoustic guitar, so it is really written in a rock way as it builds. The drumming on that is awesome; Joe Crabtree did a great job on that track. The song structure is really great and the lyrics are really interesting. I was listening to it today and I thought that the lyrics are really a metaphor for all politicians. We are all slaves to these people who come on the TV and tell us what they are going to do for us. I didn’t start out thinking of the lyrics in that way, but when I was watching CNN, and I thought of them in the context of how the world is falling down around us, and all these politicians keep running their mouths, I saw the metaphor for that in our song. A listener can really put meanings that are applicable to you to lyrics that perhaps the songwriter didn’t even intend. I am really proud of that song.
Jeb: You said something that is very true. Wishbone Ash fans do that to your songs; we make our own meanings to them. It is neat to hear you do that to one of your own songs.
Andy: I’m a fan of music. I purposely didn’t listen to this album for about three weeks. Just the last couple of days I have been recently listening to it in the background, like a person might be listening to it while they are working. I wanted to see if there was enough interesting stuff going on that it would grab you even if you were just listening to it in the background. I have to say, and I don’t always say this about albums, but, yeah, we did some good work there. I try to put a different hat on and try to listen to it as a fan. After the recording and writing of the songs, you’re so close to it and you have really rammed it into the ground. You’ve worked on every little factor on it from the songwriting, the playing, the mixing and the editing and you’ve got to take a break and get away from it, which is what I did.
Jeb: I love the groove to one of the songs…
Andy: “Migrant Worker” is the grooviest track, is that it?
Jeb: Actually, I’m talking about “Heavy Weather.”
Andy: We kind of went with a Pink Floyd mindset on that one. We wanted a pulsating, insistent groove on that. You can see us jamming on that one on the DVD we were talking about. We started the jam around a bass guitar riff. We are known for developing songs from a slow groove to a more syncopated thing. “Heavy Weather” does that and it is an extended arrangement. I wrote the lyric on that one because, as you know, we have had crazy weather this year. I used the idea of “Heavy Weather” as a metaphor of a relationship and bringing kids up. I’m an immigrant from the UK and I have lived in the USA for 27 years or something. I’ve never had a year like this. I was walking around my property clearing things up from Hurricane Irene a few months ago, and then we had the earthquake and a nor'easter. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Jeb: Talk about “Migrant Worker.” I don’t think that is a typical Wishbone Ash song.
Andy: You’re right. We started out as an English band and we (Brits) just don’t swing like American bands do. “Migrant Worker” does swing, though. We really pulled it off. You’ve got one guitar player (Muddy) playing a wah-wah funk like thing and then I come in behind him on the old vintage Telecaster; everything locks together. The lyric is dear to my heart as I am a migrant worker. I leave home and go to foreign countries and we earn our bread. In other terms, it is really talking about the kinds of things we can all relate too. When you walk out in your neighborhood you see migrant workers everywhere. Do Americans do any real work anymore?
I am a migrant worker who moves from state to state, so this is not a put down at all; it’s more of a statement of how we now have a global economy and this is how we work. We are moving around and hustling our butts off. Any musician can relate to that.
Jeb: I feel funny even saying this as you’ve had such a long career but I this one really is great. It’s not Argus but it stands up next to any album you’ve put out in your past. I think it has to do with the current lineup of this band.
Andy: It’s great to hear you say that because we feel it. We have all been secretly winking at each other saying that we really did some good work on this album. Its early days yet, as you are one of the first people to actually review it and talk to me about it. I am quietly excited about this because I haven’t had this conversation with anyone. The people that I’ve played the album for have been giving me big smiles and thumbs up.
Jeb: You are the last man standing from the original Wishbone Ash.
Andy: Yes, I am the last man standing.
Jeb: I have talked about this with my friend Mick Box, of Uriah Heep, who is in the same position. With band members coming and going, how do you know you’ve got the right men for the job?
Andy: To be a bandleader, you’ve got to be a bit of a pragmatist. Mick Box is like me, as he says 'never say die'. There are things that can cloud your opinions. There are times when you want to change directions, or you know you have to do something about this person, or that person.
Forming bands, and managing bands, which I do with Wishbone Ash, I hope I am getting a bit more disconcerting and better at it. Luck also plays a part in it. I am very lucky to be working with the guys who are now in the band. On a musical level, they each bring something to the table. In Wishbone Ash, it is very important to have that happen. Even with our drummer Joe, who is only thirty, you can tell he has listened to, and learned, music from all eras. I am not just talking rock music. You have to bring knowledge of jazz to the table and other genres as well. We can sit around in a coffee shop, as a band, and talk about all kinds of music from all genres, which can be very intimidating for someone who has not really done their homework. All the guys in Wishbone Ash know their music, whether it be jazz, rock, blues or you name it.
Jeb: What you said reminds me of another song on the new album, which is “Searching for Satellites.”
Andy: We went out on a bit of a limb on that one, vocally. I became the vocalist by default, really. I always sang some in the band but I could rely on others to sing as well, in the old days. I knew that one was one that I would have to feel. It is a slow tempo song and we really went for it. I always imagined the gospel choir on that one. You have to have the balls to sing a song like that and I think I did it. A couple of albums ago, I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out and sung on a song like that.
I think that is one for the fans, as it is really a lot like an anthem. I have been told by people that they could hear this song at the end of a movie; it really has that kind of feel to it. I love that song, actually. I think the way we arranged it made it come out really well. Sometimes, as a rock band, you can go into that sentimental vibe on a song and you can blow it, but I think we felt that one and we got along fine on that track.
Jeb: That was the working title of the album at one time, wasn’t it?
Andy: At one time it was, as it was one of the first songs we worked with. I don’t think we all thought it would end up the actual name of the album but for a long time we did refer to it as that.
Jeb: Elegant Stealth is the title to the album and it is a very different title. What does it mean to you?
Andy: Elegant Stealth is where we find ourselves as a band. Wishbone Ash had their greatest amount of success in the 1970’s. When I was 22 years old I had more success than I could have ever dreamed of having. We had a ten year long period where we did well in America, Europe and Japan. Now, a lot of people see us as a cult band in a lot of areas. We have become very refined in what we do; we are very slick. I think that is the ‘elegant’ side of the title. The ‘stealth’ thing comes because we don’t get a lot of coverage from the media. You started out this interview by saying how you had never covered us on your website. That’s fine but in a way, I’m kind of digging that because I’ve got nothing to prove to myself, and the band has done everything, really. What we can afford to do these days is live a very rock star style life but do it very much under the radar. We do what we do well, we get around the planet and we put out DVDs and CDs but you’ve got to search for it, hence the name.
Originally, I wanted to do a very rock kind of sleeve and we were looking at pictures of stealth bombers and things. I was working with this young designer and he said, “No, no, no, look at it another way: Butterflies.” I was like, “Butterflies? That is not nearly rock enough.” He came up with the design and he explained to me the way he saw it. He took the idea of elegant stealth and a butterfly sums it up perfectly. They just fly around and sometimes one will just come up to you and land on your shoulder and you will go, “Wow, how amazing is that.” I thought it was a great metaphor for the band. I’m very comfortable in our skin right now, as a band. It has been a long haul. We get around in a stealth manner and, hopefully, we do it in an elegant manner.
Jeb: I looked at live pictures of you on your website today and you were smiling in all of them.
Andy: Where that comes from is from working. I am not sweating the small stuff. Writers have to keep active and I am doing that, which is a wonderful thing. I like to keep busy and get down in the dirt and meet the fan base because they are the ones that make it all happen. It is such a joy to get out there. These days you can get a lot closer to the fans than you used to be able to because there are no pretensions anymore. You meet some wonderful people out there.
Jeb: I have heard that you made your first electric guitar. Is that true?
Andy: I made a couple of guitars and I made them on the dining room table. The first few years Wishbone was in existence I played a homemade guitar. We were poor. In the late ‘60’s it was hard to even buy good gear. We take it for granted these days that you can go out and buy a Fender guitar. We were making our amplifiers and our guitars. I think that is where the passion and commitment to it all comes from. When you fixate on a guitar at age 13 it is very powerful mojo but when you make the thing then it is something else.
My son went to Africa and started drumming with people there. He said one of the prerequisites to being a drummer that plays drums for the tribe, which is a big honor, is to, when you ‘re like seven years old, go out and kill the antelope so you can get the skin for your drumhead. You chop down the right kind of tree and hollow the tree out and set that skin over the trunk and then, and only then, can you take on the position of learning how to play drums. He said when he was there studying drumming, he’s a pretty good drummer, he was a Berklee school drummer at that time, who had a scholarship from Zildijan…he said when he was learning these African rudiments, and he would get it wrong, these kids, who were seven, eight and nine, were beating the rhythms into his back. I thought about that and I realized that if you’re a guitar player and you want to know how the bloody thing works, then the best thing to do is to make one. I feel blessed and fortunate that I went down that road, as even now I love hanging out with guitar makers.
Jeb: You play many types of guitars but you are most famous for playing a Flying V. Why the V?
Andy: When I made enough money to buy a new guitar, I bought two V’s. It wasn’t a popular guitar; it was a dog, really. Fender had come out with the cool guitars with the cool names like Stratocaster. Gibson was really struggling to come up with something to compete with them. I went to a music store in London and there were two of them, which had been imported from the States, both were still in their packing cases and they were from 1966 or 1967. This was 1972, they were brand new guitars that had never been played. I picked one of them up and I was a really skinny kid back in those days. In English terms, I was about eight and a half stones, which translates to about 120 pounds. I picked up this guitar, which was huge compared to my size and I loved the way it looked. When I started playing it, I was really taken with it, as it had so much vibrancy to it. The Flying V’s really have a unique sound, as they have a lot of wood in the body.
I bought (one of) the guitars and started playing it onstage. It was quite unwieldy but being so angular myself, I sort of wrapped myself around it. Basically, I kind of became one with the guitar. I used to balance the thing on my knee and it became part of the onstage mojo. I’ve played many different guitars over the years but the V is the one that I’ve always come back to.
Jeb: Talk about the twin lead sound that Wishbone Ash did. You had the Allman Brothers at the same time as you. Later you had Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden doing it but Wishbone Ash was different. Do you take credit for being the first band to specialize in harmony, twin lead guitar playing?
Andy: In a way, I do. We’ve influenced bands. What made us different was that we were English. We discovered the Allmans when we came to America and we were put on the same bill as they were. They were more of a southern thing whereas we approached it from an English, folk, blues background. The thing that set us apart from bands like Lizzy and Maiden was that the bass guitar was the third component. You may not have always been aware of that. We often had the bass moving in a counterpoint from the guitars, which would give it added ear candy.
The Allmans and Lizzy would stick with thirds where we would go fourths and fifths. We were a bit more adventurous than they were and that gave our sound a little more flavor.
I would say that as soon as we hit on this harmonizing thing as a group we really couldn’t get enough of it. We were treating the guitars like a horn section, in a way. We didn’t write it out on sheet music; we were composing on the fly. We would work it out and then work with each other. One of the first songs we wrote was “Blind Eye” and if you listen to the riff in that, it is a horn section. For example, when Keith Richards wrote “Satisfaction” he always imagined the main riff was a horn line. A lot of English bands were loving the stuff coming out from the States with the horns but they didn’t have the money to carry around a permanent horn section with them so they would do these lines on guitars.
Jeb: Did Ritchie Blackmore help Wishbone Ash get a record deal?
Andy: In a roundabout way he did. One of the early gigs we got was supporting Deep Purple. One day I was setting my gear up while he was sound-checking. He would play a riff and I would cheekily copy the riff. We started this “Dueling Banjo’s” thing. He looked over his shoulder like, “Who the hell is this guy?” He came out and watched our show. Afterwards, he came up and said, “You guys were great. Do you have a recording deal because you should have one.” He gave us the name of the producer Derek Lawrence, who produced their first single, “Hush.” We called Derek and he hooked us up with Decca, who became MCA. The next thing we knew we were signing with the label out of LA, which was unheard of in those days. We had an American manager who really wanted us to be an international act.
Jeb: Are you talking about Miles Copeland?
Andy: Yes, Miles Copland, who went on to manage the Police and REM. We were probably his first act that he ever signed.
One of the first acts we opened for on tour was another Decca act called the Who, which was very cool. We went straight into stadium rock. MCA tuned out to be a very good label for us. We went to Atlantic for a couple of years but then returned to MCA.
Jeb: Are you still dealing with the “other” Wishbone Ash, with Martin Turner in it?
Andy: Firstly, we don’t ever refer to that band as “the other Wishbone Ash,” I will have to stop you dead in your tracks. We don’t refer to them as that because Wishbone Ash never broke up. We have been together since 1969. There are bands like us, though. Look at Uriah Heep, who you mentioned before, or Jethro Tull. Mick Abrahams was Jethro Tull’s first guitar player. He played only on one album. If Mick were to suddenly call his band Mick Abraham’s Jethro Tull then people would think that was really cheesy.
In my book, you may have done some wonderful work in the band but you left. The band has changed over the years. Some former band members have come out of the woodwork, and have not been in the band for nearly twenty years and have decided to use that designation and it has created some confusion. I’ve got nothing against former band members going out and playing the band’s music and doing whatever they are going to do but there is a bit of cynicism in it when you confuse people in that way. It is not the way it went down.
Jeb: It really takes music away from what music is supposed to be.
Andy: It is very draining and you end up talking to lawyers and trademark and copyright people, all of which is very anti music. I am so pleased that I’ve been able to surmount it and be able to get on with the job at hand, which is creating Elegant Stealth. Most people know what the deal is and that the band has been an ongoing entity and that we’re still on the circuit. I don’t like to get too involved in it but it can get a bit debilitating.
Jeb: If the DVD, that we talked about earlier, doesn’t show that Andy Powell and Wishbone Ash are not in it for the right reasons then you’re blind.
Andy: It’s a real band. When you’ve got three cameras on you 24/7 then you can’t get away from it. You will notice in the first few shots, we all look a little bit nervous as we had never been through anything like that. After a few hours, you start to get into it and you forget that the cameras are there. Those French filmmakers don’t let you get away with much. If you look at the French tradition of documentary making, they want to see it all. They won’t shy away from showing you your worst side. Overall, once I got into the flavor of it, I must say that it was great and it is all there, warts and all, and it is as honest as you can get. You can see me working out chord progressions and barking out orders. You can see, on the DVD, that we are just pulling music out of the air in real time. It is a legacy that I can pass on to my kids. When I’m gone they can look at this DVD and say, “So that’s how the old bastard did it.”
Jeb: Did you really see a fan get shot to death in a concert?
Andy: One of our very first dates in Texas was playing an open-aired show and sure enough there was some kind of an altercation between a guy and one of the vendors on the perimeter of the open-air show we were playing. It wasn’t a huge show but there were a couple of thousand people there. All of a sudden, we see an entire section of the crowd just move away from this one area really fast. We didn’t hear the actual shot but apparently there was an altercation. Believe it or not, I think it was about a hotdog. It was pretty shocking. We really only learned the real circumstances about it after the show. Months later, we put pen to paper and wrote a tribute to the situation, which we called “Rock n Roll Widow.” That was ‘Welcome to America’ as it was one of our first events. We were really in the Wild West.
Jeb: Wishbone Ash fans love it when music is discovered from the past that has never been released. You’ve had this happen a few times over the years. I have to ask, is there a Holy Grail for Wishbone Ash fans still in the vault?
Andy: There are a couple of stashes of tapes that were recorded around the most successful album we ever did, which is the Live Dates album. A lot of people don’t realize that we sold more copies of that album than we did of Argus.
There were not a lot of live albums out at the time. You had the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore and you had Live at Leeds by the Who. Live Dates was done with the Rolling Stones mobile. It was one of the biggest at the time. Later on, Peter Frampton came out with his successful live album but back then it was a small field concerning live albums.
One of these days I’m going to get out the twenty four tracks and have a listen to them. There could be some gems in there for sure.
Jeb: Last one: When does Elegant Stealth come out and where can fans buy it?
Andy: It comes out November 25th and it will be on Amazon.com and it should be in all the usual outlets. We will have it for sale at www.wishboneash.com which should be your first port of call. The best thing to do is to check with the website.
Jeb: Am I wishing too much to hope Wishbone Ash will do a major USA tour?
Andy: We are going to tour starting in April of 2012. We are going to tour the entire United States. If you see us touring then come along and say hello. I would love the chance to meet you.
Andy Powell and Wishbone Ash have delivered big time with their latest release, titled Elegant Stealth. The album is a return for the band to their trademark twin guitar leads and songs that are both musically impressive and lyrically deep. Wishbone Ash have created an album that stands easily amongst the best they have ever made.
The band, which has been ongoing since 1969, is led by Powell, who is the only original member. That said, the current lineup of the group is most impressive. The band members are well versed in all styles of music and are not afraid to show off their chops. Wishbone Ash fans will receive this album with open arms and tout it as one of their best.
Read on as we discuss the new music in-depth, as well as some of the high points of Andy’s amazing career. Learn how the twin guitars came to be, how Andy decided upon playing a Gibson Flying V and a murder that occurred over a hotdog.
Jeb: Classic Rock Revisited has been around since 1999 and I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I have interviewed you. I feel terrible we have not shown you more support but I am so glad I am talking to you know because the new album is fantastic.
Andy: That’s okay, we appreciate it. I have seen the site; it is great.
Jeb: Thank you. I love the new album. This is some good shit!
Andy: That’s really great, man, you’ve made my day.
Jeb: It is not a throwback to the old sound but, Andy, there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of guitar solos.
Andy: On this one, we’ve paid attention to what the fans are saying. We are a live act and we open up in a live arena and we extend things a bit. We decided that we should do that on the record as well. We let it roll; there is nothing too contrived with the guitar solos, it is from the hip.
Jeb: Let’s talk about some of the new songs. I really enjoy “Reason to Believe.” You have the twin leads on there that I never get tired of hearing.
Andy: I wouldn’t be still doing this if it didn’t still excite me. When we first hit upon the twin lead thing it was instant ear candy and it has remained that way. We try to vary the ways we use it. Sometimes we integrate the harmony deeper within the structure of the songs than we used to when we first started out; it is a little more sophisticated.
A couple of years ago, we started some writing sessions in an old manor house in Normandy, France. We videoed the actual writing sessions like a fly on the wall type of thing.
Jeb: Are you talking about the DVD?
Andy: Yes, I am glad you’ve seen it. You can see that “Reason to Believe” started out as a bit of a jam on the DVD. Bob Skeat, our bass player, who is not a person who has come up with many lyrics for the band, although he is an integral part of the writing process, came up with that line, “Reason to Believe.” To me, that sums up who we are as a band. We play all over the place and it takes a lot of faith to do this. That statement sums it all up for us. A dear friend of mine, Ian Harris, wrote the lyrics. It is a really good opener for the album, as it is very upbeat.
Jeb: The one that follows it isn’t too shabby. Lyrically “Warm Tears” is pretty deep.
Andy: All of the songs come from a real experience. That one comes from the heart and is triggered from real life. I put that one second on the album because the solos on that one, as you say, ain’t too shabby [laughter.] When Wishbone Ash gets going we really fly. That track, the guitar soloing, we go back and forth and it really flies. We captured it nicely on the recording.
Jeb: “Man with No Name” has great lyrics and great solos as well. I think the fans are going to go nuts over that song.
Andy: The thing I like about that one is that the song is based around a 12-string acoustic guitar, so it is really written in a rock way as it builds. The drumming on that is awesome; Joe Crabtree did a great job on that track. The song structure is really great and the lyrics are really interesting. I was listening to it today and I thought that the lyrics are really a metaphor for all politicians. We are all slaves to these people who come on the TV and tell us what they are going to do for us. I didn’t start out thinking of the lyrics in that way, but when I was watching CNN, and I thought of them in the context of how the world is falling down around us, and all these politicians keep running their mouths, I saw the metaphor for that in our song. A listener can really put meanings that are applicable to you to lyrics that perhaps the songwriter didn’t even intend. I am really proud of that song.
Jeb: You said something that is very true. Wishbone Ash fans do that to your songs; we make our own meanings to them. It is neat to hear you do that to one of your own songs.
Andy: I’m a fan of music. I purposely didn’t listen to this album for about three weeks. Just the last couple of days I have been recently listening to it in the background, like a person might be listening to it while they are working. I wanted to see if there was enough interesting stuff going on that it would grab you even if you were just listening to it in the background. I have to say, and I don’t always say this about albums, but, yeah, we did some good work there. I try to put a different hat on and try to listen to it as a fan. After the recording and writing of the songs, you’re so close to it and you have really rammed it into the ground. You’ve worked on every little factor on it from the songwriting, the playing, the mixing and the editing and you’ve got to take a break and get away from it, which is what I did.
Jeb: I love the groove to one of the songs…
Andy: “Migrant Worker” is the grooviest track, is that it?
Jeb: Actually, I’m talking about “Heavy Weather.”
Andy: We kind of went with a Pink Floyd mindset on that one. We wanted a pulsating, insistent groove on that. You can see us jamming on that one on the DVD we were talking about. We started the jam around a bass guitar riff. We are known for developing songs from a slow groove to a more syncopated thing. “Heavy Weather” does that and it is an extended arrangement. I wrote the lyric on that one because, as you know, we have had crazy weather this year. I used the idea of “Heavy Weather” as a metaphor of a relationship and bringing kids up. I’m an immigrant from the UK and I have lived in the USA for 27 years or something. I’ve never had a year like this. I was walking around my property clearing things up from Hurricane Irene a few months ago, and then we had the earthquake and a nor'easter. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Jeb: Talk about “Migrant Worker.” I don’t think that is a typical Wishbone Ash song.
Andy: You’re right. We started out as an English band and we (Brits) just don’t swing like American bands do. “Migrant Worker” does swing, though. We really pulled it off. You’ve got one guitar player (Muddy) playing a wah-wah funk like thing and then I come in behind him on the old vintage Telecaster; everything locks together. The lyric is dear to my heart as I am a migrant worker. I leave home and go to foreign countries and we earn our bread. In other terms, it is really talking about the kinds of things we can all relate too. When you walk out in your neighborhood you see migrant workers everywhere. Do Americans do any real work anymore?
I am a migrant worker who moves from state to state, so this is not a put down at all; it’s more of a statement of how we now have a global economy and this is how we work. We are moving around and hustling our butts off. Any musician can relate to that.
Jeb: I feel funny even saying this as you’ve had such a long career but I this one really is great. It’s not Argus but it stands up next to any album you’ve put out in your past. I think it has to do with the current lineup of this band.
Andy: It’s great to hear you say that because we feel it. We have all been secretly winking at each other saying that we really did some good work on this album. Its early days yet, as you are one of the first people to actually review it and talk to me about it. I am quietly excited about this because I haven’t had this conversation with anyone. The people that I’ve played the album for have been giving me big smiles and thumbs up.
Jeb: You are the last man standing from the original Wishbone Ash.
Andy: Yes, I am the last man standing.
Jeb: I have talked about this with my friend Mick Box, of Uriah Heep, who is in the same position. With band members coming and going, how do you know you’ve got the right men for the job?
Andy: To be a bandleader, you’ve got to be a bit of a pragmatist. Mick Box is like me, as he says 'never say die'. There are things that can cloud your opinions. There are times when you want to change directions, or you know you have to do something about this person, or that person.
Forming bands, and managing bands, which I do with Wishbone Ash, I hope I am getting a bit more disconcerting and better at it. Luck also plays a part in it. I am very lucky to be working with the guys who are now in the band. On a musical level, they each bring something to the table. In Wishbone Ash, it is very important to have that happen. Even with our drummer Joe, who is only thirty, you can tell he has listened to, and learned, music from all eras. I am not just talking rock music. You have to bring knowledge of jazz to the table and other genres as well. We can sit around in a coffee shop, as a band, and talk about all kinds of music from all genres, which can be very intimidating for someone who has not really done their homework. All the guys in Wishbone Ash know their music, whether it be jazz, rock, blues or you name it.
Jeb: What you said reminds me of another song on the new album, which is “Searching for Satellites.”
Andy: We went out on a bit of a limb on that one, vocally. I became the vocalist by default, really. I always sang some in the band but I could rely on others to sing as well, in the old days. I knew that one was one that I would have to feel. It is a slow tempo song and we really went for it. I always imagined the gospel choir on that one. You have to have the balls to sing a song like that and I think I did it. A couple of albums ago, I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out and sung on a song like that.
I think that is one for the fans, as it is really a lot like an anthem. I have been told by people that they could hear this song at the end of a movie; it really has that kind of feel to it. I love that song, actually. I think the way we arranged it made it come out really well. Sometimes, as a rock band, you can go into that sentimental vibe on a song and you can blow it, but I think we felt that one and we got along fine on that track.
Jeb: That was the working title of the album at one time, wasn’t it?
Andy: At one time it was, as it was one of the first songs we worked with. I don’t think we all thought it would end up the actual name of the album but for a long time we did refer to it as that.
Jeb: Elegant Stealth is the title to the album and it is a very different title. What does it mean to you?
Andy: Elegant Stealth is where we find ourselves as a band. Wishbone Ash had their greatest amount of success in the 1970’s. When I was 22 years old I had more success than I could have ever dreamed of having. We had a ten year long period where we did well in America, Europe and Japan. Now, a lot of people see us as a cult band in a lot of areas. We have become very refined in what we do; we are very slick. I think that is the ‘elegant’ side of the title. The ‘stealth’ thing comes because we don’t get a lot of coverage from the media. You started out this interview by saying how you had never covered us on your website. That’s fine but in a way, I’m kind of digging that because I’ve got nothing to prove to myself, and the band has done everything, really. What we can afford to do these days is live a very rock star style life but do it very much under the radar. We do what we do well, we get around the planet and we put out DVDs and CDs but you’ve got to search for it, hence the name.
Originally, I wanted to do a very rock kind of sleeve and we were looking at pictures of stealth bombers and things. I was working with this young designer and he said, “No, no, no, look at it another way: Butterflies.” I was like, “Butterflies? That is not nearly rock enough.” He came up with the design and he explained to me the way he saw it. He took the idea of elegant stealth and a butterfly sums it up perfectly. They just fly around and sometimes one will just come up to you and land on your shoulder and you will go, “Wow, how amazing is that.” I thought it was a great metaphor for the band. I’m very comfortable in our skin right now, as a band. It has been a long haul. We get around in a stealth manner and, hopefully, we do it in an elegant manner.
Jeb: I looked at live pictures of you on your website today and you were smiling in all of them.
Andy: Where that comes from is from working. I am not sweating the small stuff. Writers have to keep active and I am doing that, which is a wonderful thing. I like to keep busy and get down in the dirt and meet the fan base because they are the ones that make it all happen. It is such a joy to get out there. These days you can get a lot closer to the fans than you used to be able to because there are no pretensions anymore. You meet some wonderful people out there.
Jeb: I have heard that you made your first electric guitar. Is that true?
Andy: I made a couple of guitars and I made them on the dining room table. The first few years Wishbone was in existence I played a homemade guitar. We were poor. In the late ‘60’s it was hard to even buy good gear. We take it for granted these days that you can go out and buy a Fender guitar. We were making our amplifiers and our guitars. I think that is where the passion and commitment to it all comes from. When you fixate on a guitar at age 13 it is very powerful mojo but when you make the thing then it is something else.
My son went to Africa and started drumming with people there. He said one of the prerequisites to being a drummer that plays drums for the tribe, which is a big honor, is to, when you ‘re like seven years old, go out and kill the antelope so you can get the skin for your drumhead. You chop down the right kind of tree and hollow the tree out and set that skin over the trunk and then, and only then, can you take on the position of learning how to play drums. He said when he was there studying drumming, he’s a pretty good drummer, he was a Berklee school drummer at that time, who had a scholarship from Zildijan…he said when he was learning these African rudiments, and he would get it wrong, these kids, who were seven, eight and nine, were beating the rhythms into his back. I thought about that and I realized that if you’re a guitar player and you want to know how the bloody thing works, then the best thing to do is to make one. I feel blessed and fortunate that I went down that road, as even now I love hanging out with guitar makers.
Jeb: You play many types of guitars but you are most famous for playing a Flying V. Why the V?
Andy: When I made enough money to buy a new guitar, I bought two V’s. It wasn’t a popular guitar; it was a dog, really. Fender had come out with the cool guitars with the cool names like Stratocaster. Gibson was really struggling to come up with something to compete with them. I went to a music store in London and there were two of them, which had been imported from the States, both were still in their packing cases and they were from 1966 or 1967. This was 1972, they were brand new guitars that had never been played. I picked one of them up and I was a really skinny kid back in those days. In English terms, I was about eight and a half stones, which translates to about 120 pounds. I picked up this guitar, which was huge compared to my size and I loved the way it looked. When I started playing it, I was really taken with it, as it had so much vibrancy to it. The Flying V’s really have a unique sound, as they have a lot of wood in the body.
I bought (one of) the guitars and started playing it onstage. It was quite unwieldy but being so angular myself, I sort of wrapped myself around it. Basically, I kind of became one with the guitar. I used to balance the thing on my knee and it became part of the onstage mojo. I’ve played many different guitars over the years but the V is the one that I’ve always come back to.
Jeb: Talk about the twin lead sound that Wishbone Ash did. You had the Allman Brothers at the same time as you. Later you had Thin Lizzy and Iron Maiden doing it but Wishbone Ash was different. Do you take credit for being the first band to specialize in harmony, twin lead guitar playing?
Andy: In a way, I do. We’ve influenced bands. What made us different was that we were English. We discovered the Allmans when we came to America and we were put on the same bill as they were. They were more of a southern thing whereas we approached it from an English, folk, blues background. The thing that set us apart from bands like Lizzy and Maiden was that the bass guitar was the third component. You may not have always been aware of that. We often had the bass moving in a counterpoint from the guitars, which would give it added ear candy.
The Allmans and Lizzy would stick with thirds where we would go fourths and fifths. We were a bit more adventurous than they were and that gave our sound a little more flavor.
I would say that as soon as we hit on this harmonizing thing as a group we really couldn’t get enough of it. We were treating the guitars like a horn section, in a way. We didn’t write it out on sheet music; we were composing on the fly. We would work it out and then work with each other. One of the first songs we wrote was “Blind Eye” and if you listen to the riff in that, it is a horn section. For example, when Keith Richards wrote “Satisfaction” he always imagined the main riff was a horn line. A lot of English bands were loving the stuff coming out from the States with the horns but they didn’t have the money to carry around a permanent horn section with them so they would do these lines on guitars.
Jeb: Did Ritchie Blackmore help Wishbone Ash get a record deal?
Andy: In a roundabout way he did. One of the early gigs we got was supporting Deep Purple. One day I was setting my gear up while he was sound-checking. He would play a riff and I would cheekily copy the riff. We started this “Dueling Banjo’s” thing. He looked over his shoulder like, “Who the hell is this guy?” He came out and watched our show. Afterwards, he came up and said, “You guys were great. Do you have a recording deal because you should have one.” He gave us the name of the producer Derek Lawrence, who produced their first single, “Hush.” We called Derek and he hooked us up with Decca, who became MCA. The next thing we knew we were signing with the label out of LA, which was unheard of in those days. We had an American manager who really wanted us to be an international act.
Jeb: Are you talking about Miles Copeland?
Andy: Yes, Miles Copland, who went on to manage the Police and REM. We were probably his first act that he ever signed.
One of the first acts we opened for on tour was another Decca act called the Who, which was very cool. We went straight into stadium rock. MCA tuned out to be a very good label for us. We went to Atlantic for a couple of years but then returned to MCA.
Jeb: Are you still dealing with the “other” Wishbone Ash, with Martin Turner in it?
Andy: Firstly, we don’t ever refer to that band as “the other Wishbone Ash,” I will have to stop you dead in your tracks. We don’t refer to them as that because Wishbone Ash never broke up. We have been together since 1969. There are bands like us, though. Look at Uriah Heep, who you mentioned before, or Jethro Tull. Mick Abrahams was Jethro Tull’s first guitar player. He played only on one album. If Mick were to suddenly call his band Mick Abraham’s Jethro Tull then people would think that was really cheesy.
In my book, you may have done some wonderful work in the band but you left. The band has changed over the years. Some former band members have come out of the woodwork, and have not been in the band for nearly twenty years and have decided to use that designation and it has created some confusion. I’ve got nothing against former band members going out and playing the band’s music and doing whatever they are going to do but there is a bit of cynicism in it when you confuse people in that way. It is not the way it went down.
Jeb: It really takes music away from what music is supposed to be.
Andy: It is very draining and you end up talking to lawyers and trademark and copyright people, all of which is very anti music. I am so pleased that I’ve been able to surmount it and be able to get on with the job at hand, which is creating Elegant Stealth. Most people know what the deal is and that the band has been an ongoing entity and that we’re still on the circuit. I don’t like to get too involved in it but it can get a bit debilitating.
Jeb: If the DVD, that we talked about earlier, doesn’t show that Andy Powell and Wishbone Ash are not in it for the right reasons then you’re blind.
Andy: It’s a real band. When you’ve got three cameras on you 24/7 then you can’t get away from it. You will notice in the first few shots, we all look a little bit nervous as we had never been through anything like that. After a few hours, you start to get into it and you forget that the cameras are there. Those French filmmakers don’t let you get away with much. If you look at the French tradition of documentary making, they want to see it all. They won’t shy away from showing you your worst side. Overall, once I got into the flavor of it, I must say that it was great and it is all there, warts and all, and it is as honest as you can get. You can see me working out chord progressions and barking out orders. You can see, on the DVD, that we are just pulling music out of the air in real time. It is a legacy that I can pass on to my kids. When I’m gone they can look at this DVD and say, “So that’s how the old bastard did it.”
Jeb: Did you really see a fan get shot to death in a concert?
Andy: One of our very first dates in Texas was playing an open-aired show and sure enough there was some kind of an altercation between a guy and one of the vendors on the perimeter of the open-air show we were playing. It wasn’t a huge show but there were a couple of thousand people there. All of a sudden, we see an entire section of the crowd just move away from this one area really fast. We didn’t hear the actual shot but apparently there was an altercation. Believe it or not, I think it was about a hotdog. It was pretty shocking. We really only learned the real circumstances about it after the show. Months later, we put pen to paper and wrote a tribute to the situation, which we called “Rock n Roll Widow.” That was ‘Welcome to America’ as it was one of our first events. We were really in the Wild West.
Jeb: Wishbone Ash fans love it when music is discovered from the past that has never been released. You’ve had this happen a few times over the years. I have to ask, is there a Holy Grail for Wishbone Ash fans still in the vault?
Andy: There are a couple of stashes of tapes that were recorded around the most successful album we ever did, which is the Live Dates album. A lot of people don’t realize that we sold more copies of that album than we did of Argus.
There were not a lot of live albums out at the time. You had the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore and you had Live at Leeds by the Who. Live Dates was done with the Rolling Stones mobile. It was one of the biggest at the time. Later on, Peter Frampton came out with his successful live album but back then it was a small field concerning live albums.
One of these days I’m going to get out the twenty four tracks and have a listen to them. There could be some gems in there for sure.
Jeb: Last one: When does Elegant Stealth come out and where can fans buy it?
Andy: It comes out November 25th and it will be on Amazon.com and it should be in all the usual outlets. We will have it for sale at www.wishboneash.com which should be your first port of call. The best thing to do is to check with the website.
Jeb: Am I wishing too much to hope Wishbone Ash will do a major USA tour?
Andy: We are going to tour starting in April of 2012. We are going to tour the entire United States. If you see us touring then come along and say hello. I would love the chance to meet you.
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