After a winter of discontent that lasted over twenty years, symphonic rock pioneers The Enid sprang again into life in 2010 with a brand new line-up, a brand new album and a brand new angle. Mastermind Robert John Godfrey talked Prog by way of a few of the earlier highs and lows.
Like most individuals at his stage of their lives, Robert John Godfrey is comparatively snug in his personal pores and skin. Having been out of the highlight for greater than twenty years, he’s come to phrases with the individual that the previous 63 years have contrived to make him – by way of the ups and downs of his group’s profession and the shortcomings of a lower than balanced character.
“I’ve struggled drastically with medical despair, so making a brand new album with The Enid has enabled me to regain some confidence in myself as a composer, which I misplaced after The Seed And The Sower,” says the all-round guiding drive in a revealing opening gambit, referring to the final bona fide album he recorded with co-founding guitarist Stephen Stewart again in 1988.
As an overtly homosexual man, a musician with an upper-class background and an artist whose work was by no means prone to attain the mainstream market, RJG has felt like an outsider for just about each step of the way in which. “Promoters, report label folks, journalists – I’ve upset all of them by not tolerating fools gladly and refusing to do a little bit of brown-nosing,” he admits. “Ideas like ‘networking’ I’ve been unable to partake in.”
This author first witnessed The Enid at considered one of their many Studying Pageant appearances of the early Nineteen Eighties, the stirring climax of which noticed Godfrey conducting each band and viewers by way of Elgar’s Land Of Hope & Glory, on the lookout for like some Patrick Moore-esque loony. Which is strictly what he’s, in fact. “Aaah, sure,” he reminisces warmly. “It had been pissing with rain all day and I stated, ‘Solar, present your self!’ Lo and behold, out it got here!”
Assembly him The Enid’s Lodge studio in Northampton, he’s precisely as you’d think about, save for the current shedding of two and a half stones in weight (“to keep away from dropping useless earlier than I end the job”). All bushy beard, open-toed sandals and sporting a jacket presumably bequeathed to him by a schoolteacher from the Sixties, he’s outspoken and at instances refreshingly candid. Frustratingly, he solely discusses sure essential issues with the tape switched off.
As we take heed to The Enid’s comeback album, Journey’s Finish, he sits with eyes closed, stroking his canine Elsa. Prog, in the meantime, is equally misplaced in wonderment at its crescendos of mellifluous, symphonic sound. Godfrey explains that the report makes use of vegetation rising and withering on the vine as a metaphor for the equally non permanent existence of humankind. “It’s,” he says with finality, “one of the best factor I’ve ever been concerned with. And that’s as a result of it’s not simply the Robert John Godfrey present.”
To contextualise his assertion, we should journey again to 1967, when he deserted a profession as a live performance pianist, dropping out of the Royal Faculty Of Music to grow to be Barclay James Harvest’s resident musical director. He oversaw the mixing of a symphony orchestra to the rock music of 1970’s Barclay James Harvest and the next 12 months’s As soon as Once more.
He’s extraordinarily proud to have been a pioneer. Requested if he was combining classical and rock earlier than the emergence of such perceived contemporaries as The Good, his tone escalates. “Oh, I used to be doing this lengthy earlier than them,” he bristles.
“Deep Purple made some kind of effort [with Concerto For Group And Orchestra, 1969] however that was a hotchpotch concept. With Barclay James Harvest, I used to be the primary to really combine the 2 kinds of music – versus utilizing an orchestra like some glorified keyboard. Adopted shortly thereafter by Procol Harum.”
His fallout with Barclay James Harvest was fractious, although nothing in comparison with the authorized storm of a few years later when Godfrey claimed each co-credits and monetary reimbursement for six early compositions together with Mocking Chook, Galadriel and Darkish Now My Sky. A decide would grant the credit (albeit acknowledging various levels of accountability for every track), however because of the extreme size of time that had elapsed, overturned the money name.
Had Barclay James Harvest stayed along with me in it, we’d have been as large because the Pink Floyd
“It was a curious state of affairs, however I felt a powerful sense of vindication,” admits Godfrey. “Even though they deserted that path, my work helped to ascertain Barclay James Harvest. These albums are those which might be most fondly remembered. Had Barclay James Harvest stayed along with me in it, alright, there wouldn’t have been an Enid, however we’d have been as large because the Pink Floyd. All of the substances had been there. That marriage ought to have continued. I nonetheless really feel extraordinarily damage.”
With the assistance of guitar gamers Steve Stewart and Francis Lickerish, The Enid had been born in the summertime of 1973, the identify taken from a fictitious girlfriend from Oldham. Their plan of including a frontman, Peter Roberts, was torpedoed by his suicide on New 12 months’s Day 1975, however the group persevered as an instrumental entity.
Godfrey claims he was pressured to scrap The Enid’s debut album title, the idea of which was primarily based on the tarot playing cards, after telling Charisma Data’ Tony Stratton-Smith that it could be known as Voyage Of The Acolyte. When Steve Hackett launched a report of the identical identify on Charisma in 1975, there was a whiff of thievery. The Enid’s title grew to become In The Area Of The Summer time Stars. “Voyage Of The Acolyte was a silly title anyway,” he theatrically huffs, “so I’m glad it ended up with Steve Hackett.”
He remembers the band’s early years as “turbulent” – though throughout an look at 1976’s Studying Pageant, they had been known as again for six encores. Their second album, Aerie Faerie Nonsense, arrived with punk-rock nonetheless reigning because the period’s fad. Amazingly, claims RJG, the extra clever spiky-tops appreciated the sheer anarchic absurdity of releasing an idea piece a couple of younger knight known as Roland in 1977.
Throughout the next decade, a row with the report firm and the disloyalty of a trusted companion would drive the band to take cost of its future. “The label stated, ‘Robert, we have to promote some information. It’s essential to get a frontman and write some business songs.’ I replied: ‘Fuck you.’ And that was the tip of all of it.
A corrupt band affiliate was operating up money owed on our behalf. The financial institution supervisor turned advised us we owed £90,000
“The man that had signed us for some huge cash then left the corporate, Francis Lickerish left the band and I used to be on their own on the helm.” Godfrey erupts with laughter: “Which, in fact was absolutely the worst factor that might have occurred!”
That wasn’t all:“A corrupt band affiliate was operating up money owed on our behalf. The financial institution supervisor turned up on the doorstep saying we owed £90,000. So we obtained a transfer on and completed an album, which was One thing Depraved This Manner Comes.”
He displays: “I needed to develop up fairly quick, however the expertise supplied The Enid with a brand new, staunchly unbiased, self-supporting and really artistic lease of life that lasted for almost a decade. Had that affiliate been a very good boy, there’s each probability we’d have ended up with no additional profession.”
The group’s affect would unfold wider than its gross sales – based on Godfrey, MI5 truly started to research them concerning the controversial One thing Depraved This Manner Comes, after he’d ‘outed’ Thorn EMI for alleged hyperlinks with nuclear weaponry as he fought to regain the rights to their early albums. “It’s all anecdotal, however I imagine it to be true,” he states, including in a downcast voice: “And it didn’t work, as a result of we’ve nonetheless not fucking obtained again these albums. Although we nonetheless would possibly.”
In November 1988, The Enid break up up after taking part in two sold-out reveals at London’s Dominion Theatre. “All I’m ready to say is that there have been excellent the explanation why each Stephen Stewart and I needed to transfer on,” Godfrey explains. “Issues had come to a pure finish.” He continued to launch music sporadically, typically beneath the banner of The Enid however with out path. When reminded of a foray into acid-house with Tripping The Gentle Unbelievable in 1994, he merely replies: “This was the start of my insanity.”
After an extended winter in anyone’s life, it’s solely pure there can be a spring
It’s an period he has beforehand known as a midlife disaster. “Precisely. I had no concept who I used to be and felt like every little thing I’d achieved was shit,” he says. “I suffered from author’s block.” A part of the issue was Stewart’s absence. “I had trusted him to cease me obsessing over element; engaged on two or three bars of music for as a few years. Numerous variations of The Enid sprang into existence, simply because somebody stated, ‘Let me be your guitarist – I’ve obtained cash and I’ll purchase gear.’ They felt like drunken shags. I gave in, however I hated myself for it.”
Godfrey is unable to place his finger upon what modified so as to facilitate the band’s real rebirth, topped first by final 12 months’s triumphant comeback gig at London’s Bush Corridor and the recording of Journey’s Finish. “After an extended winter in anyone’s life, it’s solely pure there can be a spring,” he shrugs impassively. “That first gig felt like strolling as much as the entrance door of an amazing mansion. The 21 wasted years washed away.”
Communication is restored with each Lickerish and Stewart – the previous having agreed to make some visitor reside appearances and the latter probably set to do likewise. Nevertheless, neither was thought of for a extra everlasting return to the fold.“We’ve all moved on,” says Godfrey dismissively. “Moreover which, I’m firmly dedicated to the folks that at the moment are members of the band.”
Over the following 5 years the line-up – accomplished by vocalist/bassist Max Learn, guitarist Jason Ducker and authentic drummer Dave Storey – plan to re-record all of the band’s earlier studio albums “with enhanced preparations and in 5.1 encompass sound.” They’re decided to headline the Royal Albert Corridor in 2011.
“I’ll tour till I drop. Individuals are seeing us now and saying, ‘My God, I by no means knew music like this existed!’” marvels Godfrey. “All we’d like is an opportunity. It might not materialise in Britain, however I imagine it’s going to come. Someplace.”
