Having launched their eleventh studio album, Love Over Concern in 2020. Prog talked to the band’s Nick Barrett concerning the highs and lows of Pendragon’s profession and finds out why he considers the band to be an open marriage.
On Who Actually Are We?, the penultimate observe of Pendragon’s new album Love Over Concern, Nick Barrett sings, ‘To my thoughts it’s a miracle we bought this far.’ He’s speaking primarily concerning the human race and humanity’s capability to be its personal worst enemy. But it surely might additionally apply to Pendragon themselves – a band that shaped on the peak of punk’s reputation (and the start of prog’s lengthy residency because the love that dared not converse its title), who missed out on the success and profile the neo-prog scene promised. The band additionally needed to cope with poverty, bitter divorce, label and administration turmoil, and see-sawing fortunes in addition to the regulation line-up adjustments, but they managed to carry their very own creatively and commercially. Nonetheless retaining a robust following overseas, Pendragon endure, with final yr’s belated field set, The First 40 Years, providing a part-live, part-remixed assortment of songs from their previous 10 albums.
Barrett not too long ago relocated to the coast of Cornwall close to Bude, the place he and his girlfriend Rachel run a small however extremely rated B&B, The Barn (“surfers and bikers particularly welcome”), which advantages from gorgeous views of the countryside and out to sea at Widemouth Bay.
These new environment appear to have had a robust affect on Love Over Concern, which is very often effusive concerning the revitalising results of being nearer to nature.
“Peter [Gee], our bass participant, mentioned, ‘You may virtually really feel the ocean’,” Barrett reveals, “and I undoubtedly suppose the album has an uplifting really feel. There’s in fact some darker underlying stuff, however general it’s bought a extra uplifting really feel.”
That’s actually true, from the upbeat rhythm that opens the set with Every part to the Waterboys-esque folk-rock of 360 Levels, by which he asserts ‘I don’t care if I’ve bought seaweed for hair’ and ‘all aboard the carpe diem, love over concern’. On Water, the eager surfer additionally writes ‘I am going right down to the water when the wolf is at my door, she wraps her waves round you and makes you’re feeling beloved as soon as extra.’
The album culminates in Afraid Of Every part, urging us to ‘stay the second to the final’.
“It’s about how life just isn’t all about having a pension to all the time preserve this security web. It’s about embracing the concern. With browsing generally it’s fairly scary whenever you go off the highest of an even bigger wave, however you must discover a means of creating that work.”
All the above are enveloped in a few of Barrett’s most irresistibly anthemic melodies, punctuated by some strikingly emotive guitar work, together with some much less standard instrumentation, reminiscent of violin and organ.
However there’s additionally an plain yin to the yang of these songs, which is the frustration expressed at a world more and more ruled by (as Barrett sees it) ill-informed social media-based opinions and a tradition of self-obsession.
Barrett’s views have all the time been tough to pin to any specific level on the political spectrum. On considered one of his most outspoken compositions, 2011’s This Inexperienced And Nice Land, he raged in an apparently left-leaning style, at how ‘hospitals are simply one other marketing strategy’ and previous battle heroes have been dying alone in chilly flats whereas ‘British Gasoline and their shareholders are getting richer, getting fats’. However elsewhere in the identical track he made the form of faintly ludicrous complaints which can be beloved of proper wingers in all places: ‘Christmas is a phrase you’ll be able to now not say’ (apparent response being: “Nicely, you simply did!”) and ‘It’s not authorized to say what I feel anymore as a result of I don’t imagine in Sharia Legislation.’
In the meantime he prides himself on a variety of studying from Solzhenitsyn and Russian historical past books by to the, erm, controversial works of David Icke.
However don’t tag him, of us – it is a man who places his religion within the printed phrase much more faithfully than the forked tongue of social media. As befits a person who’s been slicing in opposition to the grain since he shaped Zeus Pendragon all these years in the past. Which is the place we start our dialog.
You spent your adolescence in Stroud, Gloucestershire. How was that for an aspiring musician?
It’s very, very West Nation, and a tough place to get a band off the bottom. I keep in mind going to the financial institution and asking for an overdraft. He mentioned, “What for?” And I mentioned, “We’re a band, we wish to make a report.” He mentioned, “Oi dunno a lot about data… In case you wished a cowshed, I might most likely ’elp yer!” I believed to myself, this isn’t gonna be simple!
You shaped Zeus Pendragon in 1978, left college at 15 and performed your first gig the identical night time…
I simply couldn’t think about something in life might be higher than that. I got here residence from that gig and I simply couldn’t sleep, I used to be going over each single second of the gig. One of many happiest moments of my life.
The story goes that you just burned your college books that day too…
Sure, sir. I wasn’t actually a faculty individual. I informed my careers trainer, “I wish to be a rock musician, a guitarist.” She mentioned, “Are there any programs you could possibly go on to do this?” And I mentioned, “Keith Richards didn’t go on any school programs!” So I used to be within the no-hope bucket.
Was 1978 a bizarre time to be taking part in prog, simply as punk was going overground?
It was. With a few of my mates it was like Invasion Of The Physique Snatchers. Their souls had been taken! One man would simply stay for Sure, every part was about them and all of the sudden inside per week he was like, “Oh, I hate all that shit! I’m now into the Useless Kennedys.” Look, dangle on, Dave! Are you in there?! Dave, don’t let this imposter take you over! I believed, no, I’m sticking to this, I really like Genesis and that’s remaining!
It will need to have been robust to get the gigs then?
Yeah, and virtually each gig we performed was utterly inappropriate. I keep in mind one of many first ones we did outdoors the Stroud space was at Redditch Faculty. It was a mix of punks, skinheads, just a few metallic youngsters, two prog-looking folks, and nobody knew who we have been. There was an infinite window about 15 foot by eight foot on the entrance of the lobby of the faculty and somebody smashed that. It was absolute chaos, and everybody hated us. However we plodded on.
Then round 1982, the neo-prog scene started to take form. Was that the primary time you felt any belonging, or was that scene fairly aggressive?
Funnily sufficient, it was each. After we performed with Marillion for the primary time in London we couldn’t imagine it – there have been 500 folks going utterly nuts, with the greasepaint on like Fish, jackets with all of the bands on, and but there have been additionally folks there with mohawks, and it was actually fairly one thing. With different bands doing an analogous factor we did really feel a part of one thing, and that did develop into competitors – not with Marillion as a result of there was no contest: they have been signed to EMI they usually clearly did brilliantly. It simply pushed you a bit more durable. If somebody bought two gigs you’d attempt to get 5 gigs.
Marillion’s supervisor, John Arnison, then signed you to his label Elusive for the Fly Excessive Fall Far EP (1984) and your debut album, The Jewel (1985). How was that have?
Wanting again on it, you could possibly have a look at what we signed and suppose, “This contract’s horrible, you’re by no means allowed to breathe once more!” However he by no means actually caught to it and it’s unimaginable he took a threat with us to do this. With out that we’d have by no means bought a leg as much as make any data. So we’re nonetheless grateful for all the assistance we had.
You then made Kowtow, by the use of showcasing each side of your music: accessible radio-friendly rock and adventurous sounds.
We all the time had a industrial facet of our sound, and I’m pleased with that. It didn’t really feel like a compromise – it was simply one other factor that we do in addition to the lengthy instrumentals.
However you ended up in direction of the tip of the 80s with no main label deal and, like a lot of the neo-prog scene, at a fairly low ebb…
Nicely, we couldn’t get a report deal. We have been feeling fairly sorry for ourselves, administration determined they didn’t wish to do it anymore, it was extremely demoralising. We had no cash, no report deal, an entire load of debt, we have been renting a room, driving a crappy previous Ford Cortina with a burnt-out head gasket,
no girlfriend, it was only a shit sandwich. You’d be standing on the onerous shoulder at three o’clock within the morning, freezing to loss of life with a broken-down van, no cash for meals, and also you’ve bought a gig to get to in Manchester then one other one in Southampton, and also you’ve bought to make it work.
However I had Clive [Nolan, keys] and Peter with me, and we have been all fairly decided. So when one was down the others would say, “Come on, let’s give it one other go.”
You look again on these issues they usually’re truly alternatives. After we couldn’t get a deal it additionally pressured me to say, “Proper, we’re not getting any curiosity, let’s begin our personal report firm.” And it was one of the best factor we ever did.
And whereas the early 90s have been a wrestle for lots of prog acts, you’re feeling in any other case, don’t you?
Yeah, effectively after we launched The World, we have been pondering we’d repay the
payments and see what occurs however we bought 12,000 in per week. We began
to get some cash coming in, we might promote, tour extra, we might begin our fan membership, The Mob, and distribution bought higher. For us the early 90s have been simply magical.
Was that partly a results of trying additional afield?
Yeah, I’d be faxing folks abroad in the midst of the night time as a result of it was cheaper. I’d determine, “Okay, I’m going to hit Japan tonight.” And I faxed all these folks all night time lengthy, went to mattress and got here again the subsequent day, and possibly there could be one individual faxing in return saying, “We’ll have a field, sale
or return.”
Evidently, fairly just a few unlikely followers got here out of the worldwide woodwork…
Yeah. In round 1994, on the Window Of Life tour, we bought a name out of the blue telling us an agent in Poland wished to place Pendragon on over there. It turned out our data had been smuggled in below these lorries all through the 80s and performed on the radio so we truly had fairly a giant following over there. We constructed a great following in France by contacts there, and the identical in South America. Inside two years we’d bought out nights in Buenos Aires and Chile.
And by the point of 1996’s The Masquerade Overture you have been doing fairly effectively, weren’t you? Actually, you may have beforehand talked about that interval providing you a style of the rockstar life-style: ladies, Jacuzzis, a giant home in
the nation…
Sure, sir.
Aaaand then you definitely bought divorced and misplaced the home…
On the time it was a whole and utter nightmare, however you simply have to hold on. And it has fuelled me to maintain being artistic.
So it appears, if we rely Not Of This World (2001) as your heartbreak album…
It’s, and it’s considered one of my favorite albums. In case you breeze by life, your will to create simply dwindles. The inspiration to consider life, the universe
and every part is much less urgent.
The motivation for older musicians turns into earning profits, and the artistic impulse sinks to the underside.
You additionally started to introduce some extra modern sounds on the albums that adopted – 2005’s Consider, Pure in 2008 and Ardour in 2011 – from nu-metal to hip-hop. What impressed that improvement?
My son and I are actually into motocross and when he was very younger he’d get all these motocross movies for us to look at. Among the music on it was American school rock, emo or nu-metal, and you realize, the singers aren’t basic vocalists, however they’d this vitality and the sounds of the songs have been so melodic. Bands like A and Trapt had these improbable songs with a metallic edge. So on stuff
like Comatose (II. House Cadet) on Pure that’s one of many issues that’s come out: this grungy, punky edge.
Inevitably, it bought some polarised responses from followers…
Yeah however then I used to hate opera, and that was my downside, not opera’s. I keep in mind when The Lamb Lies Down… got here out, I simply thought, “What the heck is that this? These two albums, it’s simply so wordy I can’t get my head spherical it!” However I began to play it many times and after the penny dropped listening to The Carpet Crawlers, I realised it was one of the best music I’d heard in my life. I imply, so many individuals say, “I hate jazz!” That’s their opinion however they’re making their world a lot smaller.
This album and 2014’s Males Who Climb Mountains have been extremely melodic, anthemic affairs. And this one even appears to have a robust back-to-nature theme…
I by no means actually decide a theme and suppose, “I’ll make an album about that.” It’s not an idea album as such. It simply slowly unfolds possibly from one or two lyrics. The track Water, as an example, began as one or two phrases. I feel I got here up with: ‘That is my component, time is irrelevant’ and it went from there. Once I moved right down to Cornwall I stood the place we stay, and I believed, “Nicely there’s sea there, there’s fields there, there’s sky there, blue and inexperienced in all places round – it’s an unimaginable factor, and… you don’t get that in Swindon!” It impressed the track 360 Levels, which simply needed to be an uplifting factor.
On the similar time, there’s one other extra topical theme of the malicious affect on fashionable lifetime of the web and social media. Fact And Lies,
as an example, appears to reference a mendacious fashionable age of faux information and “various info”…
It simply struck me the shortage of curiosity within the fact in issues is simply monumental in the meanwhile. It’s unimaginable folks don’t search it. And sure, the track Every part
is about social media, individuals who know every part however know nothing. Every part appears to be trial by Fb and other people by no means go away and do any analysis. I say issues to folks like: “Donald Trump is the primary Republican president to carry up the rainbow [LGBTQ] flag” [in 2016. His administration has since denied embassies the right to fly the flag – or so it says on the internet] and persons are horrified, they don’t wish to imagine it. Some form of various mind-set is on the market, however they don’t wish to do their analysis. In order that’s the place Fact And Lies turns into an inspiration and I wish to write about it.
However I’m glad the lyrics are slicing by since you by no means know, actually. Me and Clive used to speak about “Dusty Bin” lyrics. Do you keep in mind Dusty
Bin from the TV present 321 [who would offer ludicrously impenetrable cryptic clues to baffled contestants]? With some lyrics you simply couldn’t have a hope
in hell of unravelling what they’re about.
One other theme appears to be the period of self-obsession… ‘Don’t fill your snowflake head with how stunning am I.’ ‘Snowflake’ is a little bit of a loaded phrase – what does it imply to you?
This can be a huge topic so it’s onerous to say issues in just a few sentences. Individuals react very emotionally to issues the additional away from the reality they get, and due to that emotion I feel persons are overly delicate to issues. They will’t cope with their very own lives.
I discover from the Musicians Union I’m getting tons and tons of mailouts about psychological well being and how one can discuss to folks, and sexual harassment… there’s nothing about getting musicians a greater deal on Spotify which is what we actually want. I imply, I believe one of many explanation why they’ve bought psychological well being issues is ’cos they’re not getting paid for his or her work!
I feel there’s an terrible lot of narcissism created out of social media. Everybody’s preoccupied with “What’s everybody saying about me immediately?” It’s turn into completely insupportable.
How totally different are you now as a artistic individual than you have been when Pendragon began?
I get increasingly more immersed in doing issues correctly, extra intently and extra severely. Whereas after I was 25, I’d sit round smoking and doing bugger all. This music has taken practically six years, and I might spend per week working a keyboard sound after which determine I don’t prefer it and bin it. That phrase “youth is wasted on the younger” appears true to me; after I bought the vinyl of this album I will need to have listened to it 50 instances listening to each single second checking it was nearly as good because it might be. I’d return to Karl [Groom, producer] and say, “Can we transfer that hi-hat one decibel? It’s not fairly proper.” I’ve to present it completely every part.
In the meantime, Pendragon continues as one thing of an open marriage, provided that Clive continues to be among the many hardest-working males in showbiz, with Enviornment, the Caamora Theatre Firm, solo initiatives and what have you ever. How does that work?
Principally, it’s stay and let stay. You may turn into the jealous husband or you may get on with it. We get a bit previous and offended with one another – “I didn’t know you have been touring then, you by no means informed me!” – however we often simply work it out. “You going out April, Might? We’ll exit October, November.” It’s labored itself out through the years. And that is the explanation bands like Pendragon have survived. Individuals really feel they produce other artistic retailers some place else. When Clive first joined Pendragon [in 1986] I mentioned, “Look, we’re probably not searching for any extra writers right here.” And he mentioned, “That’s high quality by me.”
All of us realise how frail this complete existence is. We realise how necessary it’s for Pendragon that these different bands have a way of surviving nonetheless. It’s necessary that there’s a style and there’s quite a few artists doing it. If there was only one band there wouldn’t be a Prog Journal! [Laughs.] So it’s necessary that there’s a little bit of a brotherhood happening. And it’s a fantastic, fascinating factor to be a part of.
