After Chris left the band in early 2006, he came back for what was to be a one-off performance in Glasgow last September. What prompted this line-up to get back together again in the summer of 2007 to make The Harsh Reality?
Well, virtually all of the last tour was a shambles from start to finish, apart from Newcastle and Glasgow. For one thing, Pete wasn't well - and that wasn’t due to alcohol. He had just had his ‘Artery Malfunction’ operation and was not on top form throughout. ‘I’ve got no veins left’ quoteth The Wild One! If anyone wants to donate one or two I’m sure he would appreciate it!
Also, we knew at the first rehearsal with Robin ‘I thought it was a jammin’ band’ George that Robin hadn’t done his homework and learned the fuckin' songs. We thought as he had been around them for so long in the production of Back From The Dead and Organised Chaos he would’ve known what Waysted are about, which is No Nonsense Kick Ass ROCK!!! Sadly though it wasn’t to be, hence the tour took on the moniker of ‘The Awesomely Mince Tour’. Robin comes from a completely different school of rock to us, he is ‘pop people’ and he just didn’t fit in. But we didn’t want to cancel at the last moment and piss people off (promoters, fans, etc) so we went ahead hoping Robin would get it, but he didn’t. He did a bit in Newcastle but the damage had already been done. One example, in the dressing room before one of the shows we thought we would stick in Framed. I ask him if he knows it, play him the riff and then say, ‘just follow me’ and he says ‘where?’ - nuff said! So as we wanted the Glasgow gig to work we asked Chris if he would play it - with Robin to start with - but when Chris arrived it was obvious Rob didn’t want to do that. Off he went with his guitar tech back to the hotel saying he was cool about it all and would see us in the morning as we had two more shows to do. When we surfaced he had put all his toys back in his pram and had gone home.
On top of that, Pete's health had taken a turn for the worse and we had to cancel the last two gigs. We were not happy about that, to say the least! The Glasgow show was great though. Chris was on top form and the lasting impression on him was of myself, having shed the old ‘killer in a can' Fin, to the new ‘let’s do this right’ Fin. All he was waiting on was the call and when he got it he was back. We did try out a couple of other guitarists, most notable being Neil Wilkinson who is a good player and is credited on a couple of songs on the album. But Chris was always going to be the right man for the job.

The smooth way this album has come together is in stark contrast to Waysted's last studio album Back From The Dead. Tell us how the recording sessions went - i.e. the time-span, the focus, Fred's studio, the attitude of all the players etc.
I’ve never known anything like it. We had a meeting at Cargo Records at the end of June, and the next thing we are gathered at The Gander (more about The Gander later) in Bournemouffff, jammin’ ideas, playin’ some of the old tunes, gelling and having a ball. The difference when Chris is involved is night and day, chalk and cheese, etc. I love his style of playing and he is also a good sounding board for melodies, being a very melodic player himself with a great feel and sound, and isn’t out to impress with how many notes he can stick in. I had some lyrical ideas and so the writing process had begun.
Then we went to Trinity Heights in Newcastle at the beginning of August for the first of two weeks of recording. We were all on such a high from the way things had gone in Bournemouth that we just set up and rattled through the songs - a wee tweek here and a wee tweek there and the basic tracks were done. Inspector Fred and the band gelled straight away. He comes from the same stock, and he is also not afraid to let you know if he thinks there is a better take in there tryin’ to get out.
The studio had a great vibe; you wouldn’t know you were in the middle of Newcastle (nothing wrong with being in the middle of Newcastle, whey aye!), with its panoramic views of the countryside from the control room and lounge; it is very conducive to being creative. At the end of the first week we had virtually all the songs finished apart from vocals on six of them, which is cool as songs are always ‘work in progress’ and it’s good to take them away and live with them for a while.
Back we went at the end of August for the second week to finish recording and mixing, with Fred coming into his own here. We would leave him to sprinkle his little bit of Fredster Dust over each track (birds, cannons, reedy mic effect, etc.) then we'd all go down have a listen and be blown away. He has a great pair of ears does Fred. We will be back… Next visit we may well look at re-recording a few tracks from Back From The Dead to get the production to the same standard as the new album we've produced at Trinity Heights.

In the photos you look really fit and you all look like you're having a lot of fun. Great photos too, taken by Jason the bass-tech. He sounds like a good person to have on the team?
Yep, Jase is a top man. I met him not long after I moved to Bournemouffff and we (Nodd & I) opened a club called The Gander. He was playing in a local band - Hoffman Sloth - and we just hit it off straight away. I jammed with his band on numerous occasions, our party piece being ‘Ice Cream Man’. When The Gander closed I stayed on to look after the building for Enterprise Inns, and as we were getting very creative together (musically!) it made sense that he move in here, with a view to working with the new lease-holders and getting the venue up and running again.

He is also a bit of a wiz on computers and has helped me loads in that department. I had the plan and the place where Waysted could get back together, and Jase came up with the idea of calling the venue The Proper Gander which then led to the song ‘Propaganda’. The Gander closing was a very sad day. I had some great times there and met some good people and the Bournemouffff music scene needs a place like that. It was the only city centre venue catering for original bands and it was working!
Anyway when the rest of the band came down and we started on ‘The Harsh Reality’, Jase was around all the time and he got on with everyone. As you rightly said, he's a very good person to have on the team, because not only does he play bass and guitar, but he just happens to manage the local lap-dancing club! And he's not bad at taking photos either. He would jam with us on guitar and play bass when Pete needed to take his ‘afternoon nap’, so he is now part of the Waysted team and will be coming on the road with us when we tour. Photos, 2nd guitar, I.T., and if Pete falls over we have a first reserve to come in and save the day! And one of Jase's songs is on the album - ‘Samaritan Man’ - proving that he can also write a kickin’ tune!

Your songs have always had very punchy, no-holds-barred lyrics, and as with Back From The Dead, many of the lyrics from the new album reflect events in your life. How do you go about writing - i.e., are the ideas always there, or do you tend to have a run of creativity, or do you have to set aside time to think. How does it happen?
Ooooff, it doesn’t come easy, this songwriting thing. I don’t sit around writing poems or stories in the way I like to think Tom Waits probably does... though since getting myself this laptop and doing things like this interview I feel like I am beginning to. I’ve got all the song ideas on here with working titles. Some I use and some I don’t - it beats having bits of paper all over the place. I’m also beginning to feel it’s like a labour of love! (Yea right!). Yes I do try and write from life experiences and they come at you every day, some stick and become little ‘in’ things like someone will say something and that’s it. For example ‘The Harsh Reality’ started out as something Nodd said while he was on the phone, I overheard it and started using it all over the place; never ending bills - the harsh reality, etc etc etc. Then it ends up as an eco-warrior song! The opening line comes from when I was running a bar in Milton Keynes, and we (Big George, RD, Little Dan & I) were the house band, calling oursleves Fin & Co. We recorded a live cassette (yes it was a few years ago) and at the end of the sleeve notes I put, ‘Remember… don’t leave the tap running when you clean your teeth’. Then there were the floods earlier in the year hitting the north east and then the south west. It breaks your heart seeing these people's lives devastated by mother nature, so much water but not suitable to drink... brings it home to you how precious it is and how we all just take it for granted that it’s going to be fresh and pure when we turn on the tap. Don’t waste it! I carry around a little dictaphone (yes I do use my fingers too) for those spontaneous moments. I find that very useful and of course the thesaurus and rhyming dictionary - they all help when trying to dig deep!

Tell us about Song For Steve.
It is dedicated to my late friend Steve Guifoyle, who died three years ago of emphysema. He had just turned 48 (his birthday was 2nd of June, and he died on the 20th) and he was like the brother I never had. We met in Spain in 1990 during my ‘Troubadour' years, and was involved in one of the bars I played in. The first night we met he insisted on helping me pack my gear up and then promptly dropped my drum machine. He got it fixed eventually, but it did go round the universe before arriving back in Spain! Luckily I had another that I had been trying to sell, so the shows could still go on - ‘The Toast of the Coast’. We were inseparable, so much so that his girlfriend at the time attacked me one night when she was pished (fiery fuckin’ redhead), cos she was jealous of the amount of time we were spending together. I still miss him big time and I know that he would be proud of my state of mind and health now as he seen me at one of my low points, and he would tell me ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’ and ‘don’t let your demons bring you down’. I haven’t - and feel great at the moment! I believe he is looking out for me - well I like to think that anyway, and the song is based around the speech I made at his funeral... not an easy thing to do.

When you recorded Handbags And Gladrags for The Office theme tune back in 2001, did you ever wonder what it would sound like given the Waysted treatment? How many times did you jam through it before it felt ready to go?

When we recorded it back then it didn’t cross my mind how it would sound with the band. It was just a one-day session and they (Ricky G & Steve M), weren’t gonna use the whole song, it was more for incidental bits. Yep, a shame we didn’t record the whole thing, as The Stereophonics later proved! Also, no-one knew that the show was gonna be so HUGE! Ricky showed us a couple of episodes while we were in the studio and we thought ‘what’s this all about?’. Just goes to show... In our defence we aren’t office types, us musos, so we didn’t get it. I did think a beefed-up version would work, and myself and Big George (musicologist, friend and geezer who put the project together) tried a chuggin’ version but that wasn’t any good - and to be honest, when I suggested it to the band Chris wasn’t that keen either, so it never really came together until we were in the studio this time.

And what do you think this new version of the song has added to the original?
I think the tempo is right and the bass has a kinda Dear Prudence feel about it. We’re all glad we done it now including Chris. It rocks!!!

Waysted also recorded the Aerosmith song Sweet Emotion for Classic Rock Magazine's Hollywood Rocks cd. How did you arrive at that choice? And which other classics do you think would benefit from a good Waystedizing?
Sweet Emotion wasn’t the first song that came to mind when Classic Rock asked us if we wanted to contribute. Glad we did it though, as there is a wee bit of a story behind it. I hadn’t listened to Aerosmith until I met Pete in 1983, writing them off as Mick’n’Keef wannabes in my youfff (loved them since, that’s for sure). My first choice was Born To Be Wild, but as another band were covering The Pusher from the movie Easy Rider, Classic Rock didn’t want two songs from the same movie. It was Chris’ first choice and RD wanted to do Ballroom Blitz but Chris said ‘I'm nae havin’ it’, so we didn’t - and Pete’s suggestion was all of Trainspotting!!! I think we would do a killer version of Bob Seger’s Hollywood Nights.

Over the years Waysted has had many line-up changes - I tallied up about eighteen different personnel before I lost count! But it can't be denied that when BFTD came out, some of the long-term fans were quite aggressive about Chris's right to be there. But as soon as they saw him playing live, he won people over. His guitar skills and touring temperament have more than proved that he was the right man for the job. Bands only progress by moving forward, so what message would you like to give here to any fans who haven't been able to move forward with you?

How did you come up with 18? Has Pete’s brother been in one of the line-ups I don’t know about? Seriously, yes, there was a bit of flack concerning Chris coming in for BFTD and as far as Pete and I are concerned he saved the day. We have been over the Paul Chapman issue many times and we still stand by what we did. What I brought back from Florida was ‘mince’, layers (16 on 1 track) of guitars is not what Waysted are about, or toy town piano players! We did not use any of the stuff from Florida on the album at all, end of.
It’s not sour grapes cos Tonka is a top bloke and great company, he probably doesn’t speak very highly of Pete and myself, understandably, and we could have handled it better. The harsh reality is that we didn’t, and have to live with it and move on. I’m sure he has, as we have. Chris IS the man for this band and we knew that from the first time he came to the studio in Buckingham. The way he operates live and in the studio, he doesn’t faff about, he knows what he wants soundwise, he has been Marshall’s main man demo-wise for years (one of his reasons for leaving was he had too many Marshall commitments, as well as being “fed up teachin’ Pete his own songs”, and me getting pished too often, which were another two). You don’t keep the Marshall gig if you don’t know what you're doing! The message can only be... listen to the new album and judge Waysted on that - not just Chris. Again, I think it’s our best!

What has been the proudest moment in your career, and why?
The proudest moment was when Waysted played The Apollo in Glasgow, with Dio in 1983 - my first time playing there (I had been on the stage before when Quo played there and I got to see the balcony bounce - frightening!!!). It was a sold out show and my wee mum was in the Royal Box. They put the follow spot on her when I said she was in the building and she got a huge cheer, lump in the throat time for real.

And what's the song you're most proud of writing/performing, and why?  That's probably Heaven Tonight for ‘If I could hold this moment in my hand’ but ‘Song for Steve’ is pushing it a close second.

© Get Ready To Roll - 8th October 2007