The Truth (And How To Tell It)

I was asked to take part in an interview yesterday about Frost* and I thought it might be a good idea to finally tell it how it T-I- Is.

1) Do you think Frost is a Prog band?

Yes, definitely. Prog in the sense that we had long songs, complicated musical sections, abstract lyrical concepts and so on. Unfortunately, the term "prog" has come to mean a genre rather than music that progresses and pushes musical concepts and boundaries. There are even sub genres within it; I think Frost would have come under Neo Prog. A lot of prog bands seem to get very upset by being called Neo Prog. Whatever. Personally, I don't give a toss. ;-)

2) What do you think about Prog Rock?

Ah, now if you'd asked me that 6 months ago, I'd have said that I really enjoyed it. Now though, I've had a bit of a personal epiphany about prog. Not so much about the music, although I do think that a lot of progressive rock is lazy, predictable, unimaginative shit. My problem stems more from the people that populate some corners of prog rock. The bedroom cynics. On one hand they moan about prog not being the global music force that they want it to be, but then they accuse bands of 'selling out' if they actually do manage to shift some records. By being so possesive with it, they deliberately keep it small and under nourished. Then they wonder why the bands split up. It's because they can no longer afford to continue making music for no meaningful financial return. Add to that the illegal downloading issue and it's a wonder any prog band makes any money at all. The end result is seriously demoralised musicians wondering what the point of all their effort is really is. They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

I got lots of criticism for my actual career (writing and producing pop songs) while I was doing Frost. My response was (and is) "Fuck YOU! My life is my own and I'll do what I like with it thank you very much".

Some of it was just people poking their nose about and moaning about 'manufactured' pop music out of boredom probably, but some of it was thinly disguised envy actually which is the ugliest emotion of them all. Over the course of last year, I got quite a few emails from prog "notables" firstly saying, "I don't really like you or your album”, but then they’d end the mail by saying, “By the way, I've written some pop type songs that I want you to hear. I think it would be great if they were sung by..." As if I’d just ignore the insults and then suddenly move heaven and earth to get their songs placed.

It’s rather sad really.

In the end, I did a simple equation:


Effort + Investment (time, love and money)
_____________________________________ = Fuck it.

Results + Cynicism + Politics + Stress


I already have a music career that requires a huge amount of the above equation. I fight like hell to make that one work as the rewards largely justify the pain. But with prog, I'm afraid the stress and games that people play for what is (in global terms) an insignificant corner of the music industry killed my passion for it stone dead. Prog's not worth losing one’s sanity over.

3) Do you think Prog should be "true progressive" or a copy of "Yes", "ELP" and so on...?

Definitely "true progressive". Unfortunately, I'm in the minority. Lots of prog that gets released is still "old man's music" as somebody recently called it. Music pretending it's still 1974 really. It's still littered with Mellotrons, keyboard solos, and 12 string guitars...

This is the main reason that it's become such a pariah to modernity.

If you look at mainstream rock music, that is actually what’s become "progressive" rock. Think of how it's evolved even in the last 20 years, never mind from Buddy Holly to The Beatles. From bands like The Police, to U2, to Nirvana, to Nine Inch Nails, to Foo Fighters, to Radiohead, to Muse etc... Every couple of years something new happens to it that pushes it on and makes it evolve still further. And it’s just getting better and better.

Meanwhile, prog is singing twee little operettas to itself about a wizard who has to descend to a deadly platform of death in the underworld. Armed only with the mighty crystals of the mystic woman of Orcnoc-laa, he confronts the Gorgon of justice etc etc....Yawn.

Even I came a bit too close with the concept behind the song Milliontown. If I had my Frost time again, I’d have done what Mike Skinner did with “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” and made it about shagging and gratuitous drug taking. ;-)

4) How did the band get together?

Very simply. I emailed John Mitchell and asked if he'd like to play some session guitar on my project. He emailed back and said yes. He then put me in touch with John Jowitt who from there put me in touch with Andy Edwards. They did enjoy the music I hope, but those who played on it were paid a fairly decent session fee too let’s not forget. Something I gather that doesn’t happen that often in the UK prog scene.

5) Tell me anything about the writing process of the album...

The recording took about 24 months from start to finish. I write and record at the same time generally so it was just a case of building everything up as I went along whenever I had some spare time in my diary.

6) What's "the idea" of the album?

Honestly? There isn't one! :-) It's just a bunch of songs.

7) What's the idea of Milliontown (the song)?

It's based very loosely on a book called The Apprentice by Gordon Houghton. It’s about a dead bloke who gets dug up by Death and made to kill people. In the end he runs off and goes and sits under a tree having beaten Death at chess. In truth, the lyrics I was writing initially were unrelated, but the general mood of the song happened to tally quite nicely with the story in the book when I thought about it. So I did a bit of editing to make them a little more relevant, made up some titles that could mean one thing or the other and... BINGO!

8) Please tell me a bit about the book (The Apprentice) and Milliontown...

I went through a phase of reading a lot of books when I used to commute to London everyday for my old job. One of them was The Apprentice, which I was very taken with. Another book I loved at the time was called "The Astrological Diary Of God" about a retired Kamikaze pilot who thought he was God. Milliontown could so easily have been about that actually...As for name “Milliontown”. I nicked it from a William Orbit album that I love called Hinterland. I just liked the sound of it. I’ve got a book choc full of words and phrases that I like. The album was nearly called “Dead Brothers and Others” at one point.

9) Your first Frost live show (Essen, Germany)... How was it?

The whole thing was quite funny in hindsight actually because I'd been so busy with rehearsing and getting ready for the show, I'd had no time to actually think about what it was i.e. my first proper live gig in nearly 14 years. It was only when I was halfway through Milliontown that I suddenly realised. It was then that I became totally overwhelmed with nerves. I literally couldn't move! When we finished the set, I just ran away. It was very funny.

10) What was your favourite live show?

I think the gig at Helmond was the best in terms of performance. We had such a laugh onstage. I also really enjoyed the gig at The Boerderij. I had a t-shirt made that said "Mellotron SUCKS!" which I wore for the show. We were playing at a prog rock festival and I could actually hear the gasps of horror from the front row of the audience when I walked on. They got the joke in the end though.

11) Tell me anything about being onstage/ontour with Frost (and not being just a producer, hidden somewhere in a dark cave...)

There are too many! And this being prog, none of them involve girls sadly! :-)

12) Any funny/special story, Frost-related?

John Mitchell can fart at will. Andy Edwards catches cold really easily. John Jowitt got told off for punching the TV on the tour bus really hard when he was drunk.

13) The end of Frost. Why? definitive end?

It cost me £10,000 to make Milliontown and it took 2 years to make. First off, I was absolutely knackered by the end of it, secondly, £10,000 of one’s own money is quite enough to spend on a hobby in a lifetime, let alone 24 months. I had (and have) no plans to haemorrhage any more cash into the black hole of prog rock for the sake of my “art”.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I simply realised that my project had run its course. I’d started the whole thing to have a break from pop music, make a fucking good prog rock album and blow a few cobwebs off a few old gits in the process, get it signed and released, be able to buy it from Amazon and download it from iTunes, do some gigs, get drunk, smoke some cigarettes, take some drugs, sleep on a tourbus and have a laugh along the way. I’m very proud to say that I did every single one of those things and more besides.

Is it selfish? Hell yeah! But I’ve always maintained that I make all my music for myself. There’s no apology to make really. I have a CD full of very happy memories when I look at Milliontown. As far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t do another Frost album if the mood grabbed me, but it would be very different to the first one. Very very different. What’s the point in doing the same thing again?

Another thing that got me down was the politics, I really wasn’t prepared for it. I thought prog, being such a small little thing, was everyone together supporting each other and being friends….How wrong was I?

There was SUCH a lot of haughty sniffing when I showed up. The feeling from some people was that I’d wandered in with my shiny pop hat and a big bag of cash, cherry picked all the best talent from everybody else’s bands and made my own “Instant Superband!” In truth, there was no band. I was advised that people don’t warm to a one man project as much as a band so, for PR purposes more than anything, we made it a band in the eyes of the public. I do know that when I called time on it, there was a certain amount of “I told you so” privately shared around the prog community. But that’s fine. In truth, they were probably right, but for the wrong reasons that’s all.

On a positive final note though, I did meet some true gentlemen (and women) along the way who made the whole thing a lot more bearable. I hope to remain in touch with them whatever happens.

14) Future plans (in general)

Currently, I’m waiting for my family to expand by 1. I’m also refitting the studio with shiny new things and getting ready to start work on my new project called The Accidental in the spring. Musically, it’ll be somewhere between U2 and John Barry. The lessons I’ve learned with Frost will be very useful actually. I now have a list of how to and how not to do things on self funded projects. If it’s signed, it’ll be released in 2008 and if it’s not, it’ll be available on the inteweb sometime before that.

15) Other bands? (as producer/songwriter and as musician)

Currently, a song I wrote for a band called XYP is number 1 in Holland. I wrote it with Karen Poole (ex of Alisha’s Attic) and Martin Terefe (who produced KT Tunstall’s album amongst others). I’ll also be working on some collaborative projects later in the year too and seeing what happens after that.


With thanks to Angelika Sommer for posing the Q's.