features

Two features this month - interview with Beyond All Reason, plus Classic Album no. 3 - TROUT MASK REPLICA - CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND

So, for all those who don't know you, who are you, and what's your music all about?

I am Venno and I sing and play guitar in Beyond All Reason. Our music is about rock n roll and constantly trying to write the best song in the world. We have the standard rock band line up with me on lead vocal and guitar with Russ on guitar and backing vocals, Nick on bass and backing vocals and Mark on the drums.

Your first demo track was played by Zane Lowe on Radio 1 who's been somewhat of a champion for your band. How did this exposure come about?

Well we recorded our E.P the line we draw between, and at the time had no idea that the songs on there where going to generate the interest that we got. Some one who was working with us had got a copy of the ep to Zane and he loved it. (this was a while ago so my memory of how it came about is a bit shady),anyway I remember getting a call from our manager saying we were gonna be played on radio 1.

Eventually you won the 'Fresh Meat' Zane Lowe competition, what did this see you winning? What do you think it is about your style that has the mass appeal?

Yeah I think it was the week after our first radio play and we were told that Zane was going to play us again cos people had been emailing in asking for our track 'This September'. I didn't even realise at the time that it was gonna part of his Fresh meat competition. I was a bit worried cos I didn't want us to lose but we won. We didn't actually win a prize but we didn't care cos we had just won a competition on radio 1 and got shed loads of exposure.

Our sound has changed quite a lot since then but I think people like to hear a good song with vocal parts that stick in your head. Its the most important part of any song, you need the hooks and catchy parts and that's what we go for. I think people like that we are just four guys playing good music that anyone can appreciate. We have a lot of fans who say they didn't listen to rock until they heard us. We are like a contagious rock n roll disease that has only good symptoms.

Support has come from Funeral from a Friend-are these a band you aspire to musically? What bands do you respect musically?

We met the funeral boyos when we were lucky enough to get a support slot with them at Fibbers. They really liked us we thought they were amazing. This was before they were widely known. We watched them go from a small band on what is known as the toilet tour circuit to being an internationally successful band. We have always looked up to them cos they are so professional and have stayed the same lads we met years ago. Our musical direction is quite different to theirs but we both share the ambition to write the best songs we can and to constantly develop and improve what we do .

Are you surprised by the amount of attention gained by your debut album? Were you anticipating this reception or has it come as a shock?

I am quite shocked by the attention we got from that album. Obviously we hoped it would be well received but I think its always a pleasant surprise when your songs are getting national recognition. We have got a lot out of 'Words of Betrayal' ( our debut album) Two videos have been played on kerrang TV and scuzz. The song Love crossed pistols has been the favourite of fans and the industry and has been on the cover cd for most of the major rock magazines and has been getting plays on the rock TV channels for about two years. We have had about four of the tracks from that album on cover cd's for kerrang , rocksound and metal hammer.

I think the best thing to come from that record was getting invited to play at download festival last year. We played to a full tent which is about five thousand people I think, most of them singing our songs back to us, That was a big shock but one of the greatest moments of my life.

You're currently working on new material-how's this going? How do you anticipate this to be received?

The new stuff is coming on really well. For the last six months we have been writing like crazy and coming up with our best material to date. I am quite confident that it will be well received, We have learned a lot more about writing songs and also really pushed our selves as musicians.

What can we expect from it? If people have heard your first album (Words of Betrayal-2005) is it more of the same or aiming for a different place?

We have streamlined our sound a lot. The last album was really metal in places and really soft in others, to the point where it was difficult to actually tell what genre we were. I wouldn't say we are a metal band anymore, we do have heavy elements but they are not achieved by me screaming down the mic any more. it's a lot more about the songs and the melodies and not about us trying show off how heavy we can be. The sound is a lot more rock, I think of it as bridging the gap between classic rock and modern rock and hopefully paving the way for future rock. Despite the changes in sound we still aim for a big sing along chorus and bits to get the crowd going nuts. I think of the new material has all the best parts of how we sounded on the first album but refined and improved and has a lot more direction.

Original band member Toady left in October...what happened? How were the auditions for his replacement? How's the new drummer fitting in to the band dynamic and sound?

Towards the end of summer last year Toad told us he was becoming a father and due to us only being a small band with little financial backing we can only work part time to allow us to tour. Toad made the decision to leave the band cos he knew how demanding the band was going to be with a new album to write and touring to do. Being in a band takes over your life and doesn't really let you have a normal life like everyone else, your part time wage will just about cover your food expenses while on the road and not much else. He was upset about leaving cos he stared this band with me twelve years ago and had poured his heart into it but we all know he made the right decision.

Auditions were interesting, I've never had to try out new band members before cos it had been the same line up for about 6 years.

We put an add on our myspace saying we were looking for a new drummer, some were local so we tried them straight away and some were in bands in different cities so we listened to their bands on myspace. In the end Mark got in touch and we knew him from his previous band 'Mishkin' who we did loads of gigs with in the past, everyone should check out Mishkin at myspace.com/mishkin1. Anyway he was interested in drumming for us and we knew he would be perfect, he came and had a jam with us and it just felt right. The sound has changed a bit since he joined. He spent a few weeks getting to grips with it and then we went on tour and straight away he was putting his spin on the tracks. He's quite a technical drummer and has pushed us to do new things we hadn't tried before. He's had a massive positive affect on the bands sound. I think cos we were mates with him before it made it very easy for us to communicate and just get on with things.

You've toured extensively and supported a number of big name bands. Who was the most fun to tour with? What bands would you most love to work with? (current or in history)

Touring with Coheed and Cambria was really good. It was our first tour with an established band and was so much fun to play to crowds ten times bigger than we had ever done before. There are tons of bands we would love to tour with. Iron Maiden would be at the top of the list I think, Aerosmith would be great. They really have lived the dream and experienced so much.

You've just completed a headline tour of the UK, how'd it go? Best gig? Any funny tour stories?

The tour was really good, every tour we see the crowds getting bigger and people are singing our songs back to us at every gig. The best one is always back at home in York, We usually save York for the last gig of the tour cos we know its gonna be really busy and our home town fans are such a good bunch, they get really into it and makes us give it everything we've got and put on an even better show. Lots of funny stories, police removing us from our hotel, van breaking down nearly every day. Its all part of it though.

How do you think the York scene has helped/hindered your success so far? What do you think of the York scene-what other local bands do you rate?

Its pretty hard trying to get noticed up here really. Bands from York have got it hard, you have to really work hard and get gigs in other towns and cities if you wanna make it. On the other side there are a lot of people in York who are very passionate about music and who want to help the bands and musicians. There is a huge music community in this city and it crosses all genres. I think cos it is so hard to make it in the music industry everyone works together and helps each other out regardless of musical styles, I think York is quite unique in that respect. Check out 'The Fallen', 'Boss Cain' and 'Glamour of the Kill' we love these guys.

What's next for the band, upcoming tours etc, and where can people hear your stuff?

We are taking a break from touring to concentrate on the next album. We will hopefully have something ready by late September but this depends the availability of producers and studio time. We do have a demo version of one of the new tracks along with some tracks off the previous album on our myspace (myspace.com/beyondallreason).

What ' s your message for the listening public of York?

Keep your ears to the ground, our next album is going to be a rock n roll monster and there will be nowhere to hide.

CLASSIC ALBUMS   #3 :

TROUT MASK REPLICA - CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND

If you've never listened to Captain Beefheart, why not?   If you've never heard of him, that's a pretty reasonable excuse but if you've always avoided his music, I'd like to encourage you to give it a try. Captain Beefheart has not recorded for over twenty-five years, but his influence can be heard in everyone from Tom Waits to Gnarls Barkley. His last proper album was 1982's "Ice Cream For Crow", after which he retired from the music industry to pursue an extremely successful career as a painter, under his own name, Don Van Vliet.

I find the way Beefheart is sometimes lumped in with Frank Zappa irritating. To my ears Beefheart has what Zappa's otherwise impressive oeuvre lacks: soul.   The Captain has it by the bucketload, it oozes through his mighty Howlin' Wolf rasp of a voice. I think there is something in the Beefheart canon to suit all but the most determinedly narrow of tastes, from the acid-fried swamp blues of "Safe As Milk" to the twisted sun-kissed pop of "Bluejeans and Moonbeams". Just don't start with his most celebrated recording, 1969's barking-mad double album, "Trout Mask Replica".

The question most people ask me about this sprawling bug-eyed wigged out monster of an album is do I really like it? The answer is yes, but I can't say I'm sure why. I've always liked Beefheart's claim to have written the entire album in one eight and a half hour stint at the piano. When asked, sarcastically, by an incredulous journalist why it had taken him so long, the Captain replied that he had never played the piano before, so it took a while to work out the fingerings.

"Trout Mask Replica" opens with "Frownland", a kind of cubist blues experiment, one part work of art to three parts runaway train. Its shambling structure is made up of dislocated grooves and shards of noise overhung with Beefheart's extraordinary baleful blues-growling.  

Although fairly typical, "Frownland" is by no means the whole story. Trout Mask Replice is studded with moments of sublime beauty and moments of epic silliness. It features caustic slide guitar riffs (Moonlight on Vermont), earthy low-down country blues (China Pig), strangely addictive stream-of-consciousness babbling (The Wind Blows Forward and the Wind Blows Back) and disturbingly disjointed instrumentals by the wheelbarrow-load.

It took me a fair few listens to start to unpick its tightly wound threads but once begun it quickly becomes addictive. The worrying thing is that after a while it actually starts to make sense. The seemingly opaque slabs of skewed noise begin to reveal themselves, much in the way an orchestral work does.   Fragmented tunes can be discerned, repeating themes rising from the morass only to be dragged under again by the churning currents of the music. You find yourself humming snatches of twisted melody and wondering where they came from.  

Although it's not something I listen to every day, there's rarely a week goes by where I don't employ the phrase "Fast and Bulbous". That's right, the Mascara Snake, "Fast and Bulbous!".

pete mitchell