I've been doing this for a while. Shocking isn't it? You wouldn't believe it if you listened to the show regularly but I have, and I've seen an awful lot of bands come and an awful lots of bands go, the vast majority of which make no real dent on your consciousness because there are an awful lot of bands out there, and unfortunately the good ones are few and far between. It's harsh, but it's true. One of those bands, one of the special few, who have basically sound-tracked, I think, my radio career are Derrero, because they've basically been releasing records for as long as I've been doing this job. Well, I've probably been doing it a little bit longer, but I get excited whenever I know there's a new release coming, and they're about to release their third album, which is called "Comb The Breaks" on Sylem records, which is Melys' label, at the end of this month. So, I thought I'd drag them, kicking and screaming, into the studio in Cardiff to talk to me, and I actually forced Andy Fung, who's the drummer and vocalist, and Ashley Cook, who's the guitarist and vocalist as well into the studio, and the first thing that I put to them - the first of a number of totally rubbish questions was this:

Adam: You aren't rushed into recording, (now, I said this because "Fixation with Long Journeys", their last album, was about 2 years ago). Was that because you needed to write more material?

Ashley: Well, we had a lot of material, didn't we? It's just amazing how time flies by but with this one, we did record it really quickly and we have released it pretty quickly, y'know? It was recorded in August and September of last year. It's just a matter of, by the time you get the material together, it can take y'know a year or two too before it comes out.

Adam: There's this popular misconception, isn't there, that the gaps between an album from a band, the band are actually spending all of that time writing and recording that album, so that if you spend three years of four years, or whatever, people assume you've got writers block or something, but especially with the amount of things that, y'know, well, certainly the things that we know about, but the creative side-projects we'll talk about a little later. You must have had an awful lot to fill you time anyway.

Andy: Yeah, totally, well y'know we've always been involved with lots of other things really as well as the band. I mean, there was a bit of a long gap between the Boobytrap single and the next release. We'd have liked to have made that shorter, but, yeah, we've all been doing other stuff. Yeah, like Ash is going to be a dad soon…

Adam: Yeah, and congratulations incidentally!

Ashley: Thank you.

Adam: That's very soon, isn't it Ash? That's like four weeks, or?

Ashley: Yeah, how did you know that?!

Adam: Mary told me. (Laughs) Well, I'm gonna be a dad in June, see? So I said, well I was panicking there, I was panicking already when I was talking to Mary and saying "I'm gonna be a dad in June." She said "Well, Ash is going to be a dad in four weeks." So there you go. Congratulations.

Ashley: Yeah, we're like, we're quite a prepared sort of couple, y'know. We've got everything - school's already booked and university places, yeah, y'know! (Laughs.)

Adam: Excellent! I haven't done any of those things. I went to my first - I'm sorry! This could get a bit, y'know, we are moving along a kinda , like moving along a different road here! But I went to go to my first anti-natal class today. I walked in the room, and there was, like, twenty-five women - and me! And it was a little bit embarrassing, for them, as they asked me to leave.

Ashley: Yeah?

Adam: Maybe it was the eagerness with which I walked in the room, and the rubber gloves didn't help!

Ashley: (Laughs.)

Adam: Anyway, what were we talking about? I've forgotten! Yeah! When you were approaching the recording of a new album, do you have a conception of the sound and the atmosphere you want to convey with it?

Andy: Well, I don't know, because the last album, "Fixation", was recorded at different times anyway, but I think this new one's kind of a product of recording at Betws-y-Coed, in Melys' studio. It's kinda got some of that pastoral, y'know, out-in-the-countryside kind of feel to it. It wasn't a conscious decision to write songs in any particular way, was it?

Ashley: I think that with this one, it's the first one we produced pretty much entirely ourselves with Gez, Melys' sound guy, so we weren't really sure how we were going to approach it. We just kinda did it really simply - just tried to get a true sound from the instruments and a generally lush effect. I mean, it was only a 16-track studio, so we had kinda to be fairly resourceful but, I don't know, we are really pleased I think. It's quite warm sounding.

Adam: It's very, very warm sounding! I know from talking to you in the past, well, or at least I'm assuming, that the inference wasn't there, that there was a certain amount of frustration in that, I know that when you were recording "Fixation with Long Journeys," that there were obviously big gaps between the time you'd get into the studio, and that album didn't suffer from that because it had a number of almost different atmospheres that you could spot on it. This is a different album altogether, and a lot more cohesive, I think. It's a really satisfying experience when you're listening to it. But was it the warmth, was that the thing that maybe you were aiming for when you went into the studio?

Andy: Yeah, just kind of good rounded sound, and I mean harmonies have always been important to us, so we're just trying to really bring out the best in that, y'know?

Adam: Now I'd like to play the first selection, and I think it works really well in respect to what you have just been saying. It's called "Old Grey Skies" and it comes quite early on in the album. And this, listening to the whole album, and this is about the most bizarre thing I've ever said in an interview, and certainly the most bizarre thing I've ever said that's meant to sound like a compliment, but an awful lot of it reminds me of two things: one - incidental music they used to have on "Take Hart" when I was a kid, just does and I don't know why…

Andy: (Laughs)

Adam: …and two - a lot more than any kind of contemporary bands I can think of, maybe video game music, more so than obviously, and I mean that maybe, not necessarily this song that exemplifies that best, but am I barking up two of the most wrong trees that have ever been spotted in a forest?

Ashley: I don't think so. We used to open our sets with a kind of, Pac-Man sort of noise years ago in the pub circuits.. So, yes, it's always been there I think.

Adam: There just seems to be a more interesting and idiosyncratic approach to the way that you write songs and craft the songs then just concentrating on a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, but that's always been something that you've aimed for, isn't it?

Andy: Yeah, that's a good point, actually. I think we try to. I think personally, I think Ash tend to write more classic songs, with me I try to approach more than verse-chorus, verse-chorus middle-eight, y'know, and just more of an a-b-c - three sections of music, and also be like, a-b-c, repeat, y'know? Maybe alluding more to dance music, y'know, and little loops and things like that, so I think possibly that's part of the idea.

Ashley: …Which is interesting because, as you know, whereas before it's been just a straight, y'know, guitar/bass/drums way of writing that we've already been and brought stuff to the band which has been inspired by working on computer software, and y'know, other ways of generating rhythm tracks and things.

Adam: Yeah, actually I noticed that because I thought, well Andy, you're the person to talk about this specifically, but I thought that the rhythms were a lot simpler on this album than maybe in the past. There's a few examples of things swapping and changing around a bit more, but they do seem to be more straight ahead. Is that, have you kind of like mellowed out maybe in that respect?

Andy: I think for this album, yeah. That seems to be the case but, I mean, we do like, Ash is doing a little gig next week and stuff on his own, and I've got this fairly instrumental angular side-project thing, and I think that is going to fit in more with the next album hopefully, so it won't be just kind of sweet, y'know, pop songs and whatever, maybe a bit more angular, but for this one, I think it's quite nice - maybe something to put you to sleep or whatever, and that's okay.

Adam: Right, let's listen to "Old Grey Skies" now and talk a bit more after we've heard it.

<Adam plays the track>

Adam: Now, has the importance of the band in you lives changed over the last few years? I don't mean to infer that you've been around since the start of time, but I mean you've been, certainly, making music since I started doing a radio show or more-or-less started around the same time, which is six or seven years, and I know that my priorities have changed an awful lot. Have yours?

Ashley: Well, I mean everyone's life changes, dunnit? Y'know, and it's nice that as a group of friends, and also professionally and musically and stuff, that's always been the same and perhaps we've all changed round it a bit, hence, like the music changes too and it reflects, y'know, your change in state of mind. I don't know really.

Andy: Yeah, I mean Ash has been writing country ballads since he fell in love and stuff…

Adam: Well, y'know, I was going to move onto that but this the right time to talk about it. I think there's more emotional integrity maybe on this record. I'm not saying that being disingenuous but lyrically I found an awful lot of your previous stuff to be quite oblique - very interesting, but oblique, and I didn't get much warmth emotionally from it, but certainly on this album, and I'm thinking mainly of… well, we'll listen to it next, "Lean on Me Comfort" or something like that is almost a more direct lyric - a more direct way of addressing human emotions, or have I got my head stuck right up my arse?

Ashley: It's just very often the case that stuff you write, it gets influenced by what's happening in your life, and if you're in a fairly, y'know, oblique and abstract kind of place in your life, the y'know, that's what you write about. (Laughs nervously.) It was not a conscious decision to, y'know, to perhaps take a little bit of the humour out of it and start to get serious at everyone.

Adam: When you were writing something lie "Lean on Me Comfort" it's very, very easy to turn round and say there is a Country and Western inflection on this, because it has elapsed deal on it, or at least some form, I don't know what it is, it somehow elapsed some deal?

Ashley: Yeah.

Adam: Is that John Lawence playing on it, is it?

Ashley: It certainly is! He's a good lad in'he?

Adam: He's very, very good at it.

Ashley: Yeah, he really changed the track verse, and he really made it a lot more, well, Country, but it does sort of lay it back a lot, yeah.

Adam: It does, it fits it with that directness, doesn't it? 'Cause an awful lot of those Country and Western songs are renowned for almost going straight to the heart of the matter. Is any of that kind, I mean what are the reference points musically when you were making this album?

Ashley: I don't know, it'd probably make me sound like a really old, sad "pfer…", but y'know, kinda like James Taylor I suppose, but you know, the whole kind of Neal Young thing, and Hanson family…

Adam: Oh, wow, yeah.

Ashley: …And I've been listening to recently, Mike Nesbitt's stuff and those early albums and stuff, they're amazing, y'know. He's up there with Graham Parsons.

Adam: Well, I've got the one, a double one - I think it's his Greatest Hits so far. It's the one with the different drum on it, and it's packaged with another one, and they're just beautifully, beautifully simple songs, and that does not… it makes them sound like cardboard, but they're not quite that boring to any stretch of the imagination.

Ashley: The things like the fourth or fifth album, the band that he had had got other commitments, and he had, like, this album he was still contracted to do and it's just him playing his acoustic with the pedal-steel player, y'know, and there's different drums from that, and the songs are just, like, so kinda simple and stripped back that you don't have to kinda like fancy them up with odd time-changes. It's nice to actually, perhaps write some things that rely on the spaces, y'know, and less being more.

Adam: We'll listen to "Lean On Me Comfort" now and we'll be back in a couple of minutes.

<Adam plays the track>

From their new album "Comb The Breaks", which comes out on Sylem records on March 25th, that's Derrero - that's tonight's special guest. That is a track called "Lean On Me Comfort". This is The Musical Mystery Tour, with me, Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales 93-96 and 104 FM, and I've got Ashley and Andy from Derrero - theoretically in the studio in Cardiff, like I say. I felt I'd give them a Sunday off so we recorded it earlier in the week. The next thing that I asked them was that in light of the fact that they've released two critically acclaimed albums so far, and a number of highly lauded EP's, why do they think that they haven't been snaffled up by a big, major record label yet?

Ashely: Gor', I dunno. It's not like we really see it as an issue any more. Y'know, you make the music and you live your life, don't you? And as long as you can actually release records, y'know, people can go and buy them, y'know?

Adam: Well, it's good to hear that that there is a kind of … um, I can't hear any kind of frustration, but there must be occasions when you know, as a band that you are aware that you have value and you have, like, an individuality lacking in the majority of bands.

Andy: I think, to answer the other question as well, I think we don't conform to a sort of, a stereotypical formula - no obvious front person, perhaps, y'know. It's things like that really, but rather that than conform too much. I mean, we've just evolved into the roles we've got and we're happy with them, rather than worry too much about image. We're just happy about releasing stuff as long as we can get music released continuously, then that's what's important. I know it sound a bit like, well you know, "hey, like we are trying to be our artists" and stuff, but really I don't know.

Adam: No it doesn't!

Andy: Some bands actively seek fame and the limelight, but we're more, I guess we're slightly more unassuming people. Like, to make a living out of it would be great, but just to release stuff is good, y'know?

Ashley: We've been together for about eight years, I think, and like, however long it is, it's something that other groups don't have, y'know. The fact that we are still doing it, you don't need to be constantly doing the rounds and getting your photograph in. It's just not important really, is it?

Andy: In a way these things, releasing stuff on Melys' label is really appropriate, because they're a band that's lead, I mean they had the initial interest, but they have totally created their fan base there which is really healthy, you know, and I guess that's something we want to be part of, y'know - move towards that, sort of, y'know?

Adam: how did that relationship with Melys on that kind of level start, 'cause I know that you've done dates together in the past, but then to actually end up signing to that label - there must be a story behind that?

Andy: (Laughs)

Ashley: Actually, not at all! We just, well, Big Noise became Boobytrap and we didn't have a label and we kinda were thinking about options. We did actually send a lot of stuff out to the majors and stuff - heard nothing, and thought, yeah, Sylem could be a go-er, and they were really up for it from day one, y'know? So unfortunately no rock 'n' roll story. It was more of a logical progression.

Adam: It was a stupid question wasn't it? "There must be a story behind it? … Well, Yes! Well, once upon a time, and…"

Andy: But while we were out there at one point John Peel did come into the studio…

Ashley: He did, yeah!

Andy: … and lean on the banister for a bit while we were mixing, so that was cool.

Adam: Well, the next song I'm going to play is my favourite at the moment on the album and I don't know why, It's not saying that like I'm giving it any special kind of commendation, but "Ripple of Strength", and I think this is my favourite thing you have ever recorded, and I think that having heard most of the stuff you've done. And I like it because it is quite angular, y'know, and I mentioned the, kinda like Nintendo music at the start of the song and the beautiful harmonies. Where did this come from?

Andy: Um, the tune? (struggles for an answer) Well, it's like an old one actually, a few years old, and it was just conceived again as three parts that repeat, but I think I wrote it when I was at my parent's house, y'know, so, really reflective, just messing around on a classical guitar.

Adam: Now…

Andy: (remembering more) I think I was thinking about a band called Eggs when I wrote it! Have you ever heard of Eggs?

Adam: No!

Andy: Well, they're sort os American... they're a lo-fi teen… I think their last album was called "Teen Beats" in there. They had a kind of a line about incandescence in their lines and this kind of inspired me in the chorus, and just features that, y'know?

Ashley: It's got that kind of little device where a couple of songs on the album have got, like Andy playing guitar and me playing guitar - and they're both quite simple lines individually but together they form, it's not just a rhythm guitar with a bit of singing over it - there's quite complex little structures that then go into a verse.

Adam: And how are you going to reproduce that live then?

Andy: No worries!

Ashley: Nah, no problem!

Adam: <laughs>

Andy: We've got some guests.

Adam: Oh aye? Oh well I say, that is an interesting way around it. I was thinking, this reminds me actually a little bit of early 90's stuff, not necessarily what they call shoeglazing stuff, but around the same time as My Bloody Valentine and "Isn't Anything" and, certainly like the melodies off that and a bit of Ride as well. Was that ever featured as influences on Derrero?

Ashley: Not consciously.

Andy: We were into Ride once, didn't we?

Adam: Well, once…

Andy: There isn't anything by My Bloody Valentine. It's classic by anyone's standards. Yeah, I guess there's all of that really. I had fairly indie roots. Ash had sort of more bluesy and stuff and more rocky. We're also moving into more appreciation of dance and stuff as well, so, that's going to crop up.

<Adam plays "Ripple of Strength">

Adam: That's "Ripple of Strength" from Derrero's new album, "Comb The Breaks", which is out on March 25th.

<Takes a break from the interview.>

Our guests all night have been Derrero. Unfortunately for Derrero that's just meant that they've had to talk to me because it's been one of those interview situations, which I am very, very partial to. I've got Andy Fung, who's the drummer with Derrero, and Ashley Cooke, who does guitars. They both do vocals, as you know, and part two of the interview kicks off with me, obviously, on mini-disc recorded on Wednesday:

Adam: Now then, I think it would be obvious listening to this album to make the assumption that Derrero have mellowed out totally, almost as you have progressed. I think there is just one exception - "Dust Brings Depth" is the obvious exception towards the end of the album, and we've talked a lot about how you approached this and it was more pastoral because of the way that you recorded it and all this kind of thing, but have you noticed how loud music makes you blanche as you get a little older, or are you just storing that away for a later day?

Ashley: Possibly, but I mean, um… I spent quite a few years screaming...

Adam: (Laughs)

Ashley: ...so it is nice to do something different. This time around we have had peddle-steel and a trombone and various other interesting things - to consider other instruments. We're perhaps being a little mellow, y'know, just to do something different.

Andy: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I guess we have - yeah, evidently we have. Like I said earlier I think the next album could be totally different. It may end up being pretty hardcore, y'know? Yeah, we have for now.

Adam: For now… there's a promise of louder things to come perhaps. Right now, we're all sort of a part of a generation, certainly the last six or seven years, that have been greatly effected by changes in technology, and you mentioned that there may be more, maybe, computer orientated music - that kind of approach on this album. What other ways have ways of technology, such as the internet or whatever - have they effected Derrero and the way that you make music?

Andy: Yes, well just having PC's in the band and stuff, and starting to experiment with music software, like we said has impacted that. I mean, as far as the internet and stuff like that, yeah, it affects everyone's lives all the time doesn't it? It's incredible really. But yeah, I guess just in subtle ways. I can't really…

Adam: … focus in on any one thing. I think that there is a bewildering array of information at your fingertips these days. I kinda got the feeling, almost. Its just that anything like this is down to interpretation, and this was kind of like, the album was like a reaction to that because it is so kind of… mellow is a word I hate to use because it is more than that, but I just felt this was kind of like a refuge from all of that kind of bombardment.

Ashley: Well, there is a cliché about commenting on contemporary society and technology and kind of exploiting that in music, but the way that we've used it, it's just like a digital 4-track, as a way of putting some parts of your backing tracks down and bring to the band in rehearsal, do you know what I mean? It's like using technology just as a clean way of transferring data, rather than being a way of manipulating sound itself y'know.

Andy: I tell you what you're saying - I mean, perhaps, I don't know, not intentionally a reaction against the, y'know, bombardment of technology really. I think we just have always been into song writing and all the values of like people like Neil Young, etc. y'know, and dance music as well and all other things - but trying to fuse them all, but the thing, one of the things that always seems to come through, like you say, you can translate something like longing and heartache through to a beautiful melody that you maybe can't necessarily do through blips and bleeps, y'know, so we seem to keep returning to it, y'know.

Adam: Yeah, I think that, I like the way that it is harnessed and kind of like, it's calm. There's very little calmness in modern day life I think because I think there is so much that people kind of expect you to do so there's no excuses to just not do it any more, y'know, because everything is instant and on our fingertips and I think there just seems to be a different pace to the album and that's what makes it precious.

Ashley: Hmmm… I didn't know that we were known for any one thing anyway. We've very often written slow waltzes and played some of this really kinda like, y'know, pacey, loud and shouty, y'know.

Adam: You keep mentioning shouting and screaming Ashley - I'm sure you'll be back to it soon!

Ashley: Yeah, back to it soon! (Laughs)

Right, we'll listen to "Dust Brings Depth" now because, well, there's not really any shouting in there - the guitar does the shouting for you I think, but it's a very fine track, and we'll talk for the final time after we've heard this.

<Adam plays "Dust Brings Depth">

That's the loud Black Sabbath-y one from Derrero's new album "Comb The Breaks" - a track called "Dust Brings Depth"… and I'm talking over the ace end bit, so I'll shut up… The sound of amplifiers in pain… Actually, when I was playing that at home the other day the cat tried to mate with the speaker 'cause that must sound like must sound like a randy cat or something in cat world!

Adam: Right, Derrero don't just limit themselves or their artistic amount-lets to merely music - No! Ashley is a published poet, Andy and the bass player Dave are both visual artists and Mary, their keyboard player is a film maker and made the video for their EP "Unstraightforwardtune". Now, do all of these non-musical proclivities have a beneficial effect on the music itself?

Ashley: Yeah, it must do. It's all the same business isn't it, y'know?

Andy: Hmmm definitely. The two kind of inform each other, y'know, all the time.

Adam: So maybe from a, more specifically when you are writing lyrics Ashley, as you go through the process of writing poetry do you find that you've refined you lyric writing process to what you've learned while sitting down writing poetry?

Ashley: Well, I did have, like, a sort of a kind of a system, it's not particularly original, of like y'know, cutting things up and reassembling things out of the words you've got, but recently I've kind of, y'know, learned how to do that naturally and I think they just become little bits of kind of trivial autobiography or something, y'know. A bit like what's common about your life and a bit more directly rather than a little bit more literary…

Adam: Yeah…

Ashley: … but I mean, y'know, there's nothing profound about it. I just right stuff. (Laughs). Whatever comes into your mind.

Adam: No - it's weird though isn't it because people I think assume that if you are a lyricist you can write poetry and that if you're a poet you can write lyrics and though they are two distinct disciplines so, I mean is that noticeable or do you find it's quite easy to take something that you've written as a poem and then crib it and use it as a lyric?

Ashley: Yeah, but I wouldn't sort of say that I'm a fairly conventional poet anyway. I mean it's not, yknow, I don't go around writing sonnets or anything, I mean it's pretty much open verse. I don't know, I should think the MC Mabon book recently - I'd quite like to do something like that. It's kind of like a blank page with, kinda like, just a bit of rambling on it. I think that's quite exciting, y'know, he kinda taps into something quite raw.

Adam: Definitely…and from the point of view of yourself Andy and Dave and Mary I think Derrero, you've always made, y'know, visual music - there's always something sparky, something kinda inspirational in that kind of respect. Do you find that there's a cross-fertilisation, y'know, for yourself?

Andy: Yeah, I mean, I kind of approach, sort of, music making in a similar way to my paintings really - quite sort of automatic processes. Just, maybe, I don't know, just like getting stuff down - a stream of consciousness thing and then manipulating it into something else, quite an organic process.

Adam: (Jokingly)You don't ever get confused and find yourself throwing your guitar against a blank piece of canvas?!

Andy: Ah well, y'know, maybe… I mean, I do sometimes perform at exhibitions and stuff, yeah. Yeah, but the two should interact as much as possible y'know. I mean that's the way its going these days. It seems that, y'know, an artist can be, can come from any background, you know what I mean, and it's like cross fertilisation all the time.

Adam: Is Cardiff, y'know, an inspirational place to be because y'know it seems that there's an awful lot of people that's drawn to Cardiff from throughout Wales and other places as we see you yourselves were, with different leanings and different artistic creativities, or do you find that each of the different communities kind of closet themselves off?

Ashley: I don't know really. I never thought of it like that. I mean, it's a pretty dynamic country in that there's many different facets to it. You know, I think…

Andy: I think Cardiff's great y'know. It's got a lot going on, it's easy access to some of the most beautiful landscape in the world and stuff, and I mean, sometimes I look at Bristol and think, "Oh yeah, it's so happening, I want to go there", but I think the bottom line's that Cardiff has got just as much potential y'know.

Adam: What is it that impresses you about Bristol?

Andy: I don't know, it's just diversity of things, like culturally and stuff, but then it's got it's problems as well, y'know, so, the grass is always greener I guess.

Adam: Of course. Now, the last song I'm gonna play is the last song on the album, I think, I haven't looked. Actually, I think it is - "Telescopic Sights" and, well, one - it's a beautiful way to end the album there, also the interview as well, What do you see in Derrero's future?

Ashley: More albums!

Adam: Will there be as much of a considered period in this album and the next album, or are you going to going to try to get the next one out more quickly, perhaps?

Andy: Yeah, hopefully. Definitely. Within the year, hopefully. I think we're going to start working on new stuff fairly soon.

Adam: Excellent! Well, good luck with the album, like I say, very, very much enjoyed it, and it's just nice to have a bit of calm but I look forward to the storm that might follow, although you lot being contrary bastards it probably won't! Thank you very much for joining us tonight. This is "Telescopic Sights".

<Adam plays "Telescopic Sights">

Many thanks to Derrero for their time for recording that interview last Wednesday, like I said, it wasn't actually done tonight. That's a brilliant, brilliant album - "Comb The Breaks", which comes out on March 25th, just to reiterate, on Sylem records, and that particular track was called "Telescopic Sights". It's definitely, definitely worth in vesting in this particular record. This is The Musical Mystery Tour on BBC Radio Wales!

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