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| RIDING HIGHER - Black Rose are back! Kiko Rivers, Steve Bardsley, Chris Bennett and Kenny Nicholson. Stoked, primed, and ready to rock. "We've got the buzz again" - says their founding frontman. |
Hang on a second, this can't be right! It would appear I'm now just 20 years old. I must be, 'coz I'm down the front of the stage mouthing the words to NE-NWOBHM anthem "Sucker For Your Love" and Teesside's BLACK ROSE are up there beaming literally from ear to ear. Kenny Nicholson giving it the old 'windmill arms', Bards's voice is sounding as good as ever, new bassist Kiko's throwing his best 'Pete Way shapes' and drummer Chris Bennett is bashing out the beat - big time! Surely, there's some mistake? Well, let's find out!.... I pinch myself quickly to see if I really am dreaming, and upon discovering that we are indeed in the real world as far as I can make out, I sit down with Steve Bardsley to get the full low-down on this 'Rose Renaissance'.
“Honest answer then Steve….. when you formed your first
band back in 1978, did you really think we’d be sat talking about how Black Rose
seem to be going from strength to strength - THIRTY FIVE years later????”
"No absolutely not, up until
2011 when we were asked to play at the first ever Cradle will Rock festival, I
never dreamt that I’d be playing live with Black Rose ever again. Chris Watson and myself did decide it
would be a great idea to record some new stuff back in 2006, which we did over
a four year period via the wonder of the internet and released it as a download
only album in 2010 called ‘ Cure For
Your Disease ‘. This album was then officially released as a CD last year
on the German record label Metalizer along with another two albums – ‘ Loveshock ‘ and ‘ The Early Years ‘, again
all on German labels, featuring some of our older material. All this seems to
have sparked a mini revival and peoples interest in the band again, which is great."
“Going back to ‘the day’ quickly. I feature a quote
from you in No Sleep Till Saltburn which goes something like…. ‘Great memories
of a time when small town bands dreamt of becoming major league rock stars’!
Black Rose always to me seemed to be ‘on the verge of greatness’, yet it never
quite happened…. Why do you think that was?
"Hmmm....that’s a good
question and I wish I knew the answer. I guess a lot of it is to do with luck,
being in the right place at the right time (London rather than Middlesbro’ may
have helped) or having someone with a certain amount of clout taking a liking
to you and giving you a break. We did come close a couple of times, first with
Bronze records (Motorhead and Girlschool) reportedly wanting to release our
‘next album ’ ......but they never did, and Atlantic records came to see us
play three times but without actually penning any sort of deal. So there was
some interest in us.....but unfortunately it just never came to anything. Our second album ‘ Walk It How You Talk It ‘ which was released in Europe on Neat
Records, got licensed to K-Tel Records
who were more famous for Perry Como and Max Bygraves records in the UK, but
were seemingly a big company over in the US. They repackaged the whole album
and were all set to release it in the States when they came across legal
wrangling with a band also called Black Rose based over there who had copyright
to that name. This caused all sorts of problems and led to the album being
shelved and our infamous tour of the States being cancelled".
“Those nights at the Town Hall Crypt were really
special though weren’t they? What was it like... being real - ‘Home-Town Heroes?"
"It was fantastic! As you say, we started off as a small town school band from Saltburn, and progressed to being those ‘local
Heroes' you describe if that's how you want to put it, and that was more than we ever dreamed of when we first
started. The Town Hall Crypt gigs were always special and the first one we ever
did was when we supported our local heroes White Spirit. Those guys were brilliant
but after Janik left and they eventually split up, we kinda took over their
role I guess and made it our own."
"Hmmm...now that’s a hard one
cos we kinda made lots of small achievements all the time. The opportunity to
play at bigger venues after playing the pub circuit was an achievement; places
like The Redcar Coatham Bowl and then The Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt were
brilliant. Then next we got the chance to play at The City Hall in Newcastle
and the now legendary Marquee club in London (as support to Thunderstick I must add), all
fantastic places to play. Releasing records that we wrote and recorded, and
that people wanted to buy, felt like a massive achievement. We did a recording
session for the late Tommy Vance for his Radio One rock show, and the fact that
we had fan clubs, not only in the UK but also in Europe, The States, Canada and
Japan, again were all amazing achievements for us.
So I’m not sure if we ever had a ‘biggest achievement ‘ as such, but I guess you could say that us getting back together after 30 years and having the chance to do it all over, playing at the likes of Hammerfest, Brofest and the Headbangers Open Air and entertaining the hairy hoards once again after all these years.....well that in itself is a hell of an achievement for us!"
So I’m not sure if we ever had a ‘biggest achievement ‘ as such, but I guess you could say that us getting back together after 30 years and having the chance to do it all over, playing at the likes of Hammerfest, Brofest and the Headbangers Open Air and entertaining the hairy hoards once again after all these years.....well that in itself is a hell of an achievement for us!"
"And any big Black Rose related – REGRETS from back
in the day?”
"I don’t think there are any personal
regrets for any of the band members 'cos everybody loved playing with the band,
but there were maybe a few regrets that other people didn’t do what they maybe
should and could have done to help us a bit more. Things like record companies
broken promises, American label legal guys making sure our name wasn't copyrighted the States before releasing our album! These kinds of things that
unfortunately we couldn’t do much about really" .
“It’s really kind of weird in a way to see you and Kenny back on stage together playing stuff like ‘Sucker’, ‘No Point’,
‘Riding Higher’ etc. What’s it like for
you two in particular to be sharing the stage again playing all those great old songs?”
"Well it’s funny you should
ask that 'cos when we released the new cd’s we had to send the record labels lots
of old photos and stuff to put on the sleeve and there were some pictures that Kenny
sent me, that I hadn’t seen before of us playing back in the early 80’s at a
local music festival. A couple of them were of Kenny and me rocking out on
stage and then there are these new pix of the two of us rocking out recently at
various festivals and I gotta admit looking at them is a bit of a weird
feeling.....kind of, 'then and now' pictures.
As far as being on stage
together again, it’s fantastic to have another ex member in the new line up,
cos it’s added some 'authenticity' to the band. At first our original drummer Mal Smith was also involved, but due to
his club-band commitments he had to leave, which was a shame, but that said - Chris Bennet our new drummer is absolutely fantastic."
“And so to the present day, I first became aware
that you’d reformed the band when you turned up on the bill at Cradle Will Rock
a few years ago was that gig the real ‘catalyst’ that got things going again?”
"Most definitely yeah.... We
were a bit apprehensive about the gig to say the least, cos obviously it had
been some time since anybody had seen us play.......about 25 years I think, so
would anybody remember who the fuck we were, was probably our biggest worry.
Most of the other guys on the bill were new young modern bands so when we went
on to play and the room looked empty it was like “oh shit nobody wants to
watch us“ , but then after we started our first song people gradually came in
and by the end there were people cheering and clapping just like the old
days.....and it felt fantastic. We always said that we would play it by ear and
if the Cradle gig went well we would consider doing more shows. Then we got
offered the chance to play at Hammerfest lV and
the HOA in Germany
“Of course as you mentioned earlier Steve, you also independently released “Cure For
Your Disease” a couple of years back, how were those recordings put together –
did you actually do studio sessions, or was it a “Pro-Tools” – “file share”
type of collaboration”?
"Due to logistics it was
never going to be practical to record in a proper studio so we basically did
the whole thing over the net using all types of different recording methods. Kiko Rivers (our new bass player) has
a home studio which we used to lay down the basic tracks and then we sent them
to Chris and Ian ( Iredale ) as wav files and they added
their parts. I then added guitars / vocals and mixed it all on my home studio.
None of the audio stuff we used was very fancy and we’re certainly not sound
engineers or producers but we think it turned out pretty good for what it was.
As you say ,we then independently released it in 2010 when it was only available
as a download, until last year, when Metalizer records released it as a physical
CD."
“We've mentioned you did Headbangers Open Air in Hamburg
"It came about after Hellion
records, who are a German record label and one of the sponsors of the event,
wanted to release a compilation album of our 80's material. They said that
as part of the promotion for the album they would love the band to play at the
HOA and they put us in touch with the guy who runs the festival. They released
the album ‘ The Early Years and More
‘ an eighteen track CD, we agreed terms and flew out to the festival the day
after we’d just played at The Swan in Billingham, which was another venue that
bought back fond memories from when we used to play there in the 80's too.
The HOA festival was again a
bit daunting cos we knew that the Europeans tend to like their metal as heavy
as fuck , so we were a bit worried we might be light weight for their tastes.
We followed an Australian band called Hobbs Angel Of Death....and those fuckers
were fast, heavy and bought the bloody house down, so we just had to go for it.
As it was those crazy Germans loved us and we needn’t have worried, they were
cheering and singing along to every song, it was amazing. We took a load of
merchandise with us to sell and when we came off stage my wife came back and
said “ We’ve sold the lot “ ...amazing. We signed autographs on albums that
people had bought back in the eighties and took them to the festival for us to
sign, It was a fantastic experience and we’re looking forward to going back
some day."
"Thanks for that Mark, and yeah,
judging by the feedback we’ve had so far, people seemed to really enjoy our set at
Brofest. Nothing is definite at the moment but we’re in contact with festival
promoters all the time trying to get things organized. There is a rumour that
we may be asked to play at the Keep It True fest in 2014, but nothing is
confirmed at this moment. We may also be going to Holland
and Belgium
“Finally then, I know you were a late addition to
Bro-Fest #1, but how did it feel to open the gig and get such a GREAT reaction?
"It felt great and a bit
special to open up for the very first one and to be honest it was a bit like
when we played to the Headbangers Open Air crowd cos they all sang along, chanted and shook
their heads with great big smiles on their faces, so what more could you ask
for?"
"Brofest was an extremely
well organized and long overdue local North East Rock festival, which for a
first time event I think went amazingly well. Everyone seemed to enjoy
themselves including all the bands, so it can only go from strength to strength
as long as it’s supported, which I think it will be by both UK
Check out the latest Black Rose live videos here!
Black Rose's - Steve Bardsley was in conversation with Mark Gregory - NWOBHM Author of "No Sleep Till Saltburn". PREVIEW and BUY the paperback here:
Thanks for that mate and good luck with your new blog \m/
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