Przemysław Stochmal: First, I’d like to congratulate you on the new release from Henry Fool, which is splendid. It’s also one of your most unusual albums, since it’s entirely instrumental and we can’t hear you sing on it. What’s the reason why you recorded an album completely without words, against its crooked title?
Tim Bowness: I have written instrumentals in the past and I do write a lot of music on guitar and keyboards. I thought it was an interesting thing to do, I guess, at this stage of my career, to release my first ever instrumental album. What I actually wanted to avoid was releasing an album of ambient, drifting atmospheric instrumental music. This is what came out and this is what seemed to be the best next release for Henry Fool.
PS: And what’s the story behind the title? Is this an intentional irony?
TB: Yes, indeed it is. I think that one of the things with instrumental albums is that you can be quite playful with the titles. It’s a sort of a tradition from 1970s, from certain bands like Brand X, Bruford or Hatfield And The North. Their titles were generally quite light-hearted and ironic and I suppose in some ways we’re following in that tradition.
PS: You’ve stated on your blog that the album had been made for a few years – you worked a lot on the order of certain ideas recorded through the years. Still, in my opinion the music sounds open and spontaneous, like an improvisation played here and now. Such an open composition seems to be meant to be presented live. You play in Henry Fool with musicians you have known and played with for years, don’t you feel tempted to present your music live?
TB: Yes, we would like to play this in a live context. It partly depends on people’s schedules and that could be the schedules for performing with bands such as No-Man. But with the album itself, interestingly quite a lot of the music actually comes from playing live together in the studio. As with the debut album, 2001, the entire basis was a live performance we did in the studio, based on compositions I mainly brought in, which we edited at a later point. What was interesting was that there was an incredibly good chemistry between this particular group of musicians. Since the debut we’ve done quite a few other recording sessions with various people, but this particular group of musicians works fantastically well together.
PS: A gig during which you wouldn’t stand in the centre of the stage and you wouldn’t draw most of the audience’s attention most of the time, would have to be an interesting experience for you. And what was it like in the studio, making “Men Singing”? Do you feel fulfilled in the new role you had in the process of making music?
TB: I was involved in a lot of editing processes and production processes, that’s something that I’m quite familiar with. I have co-produced an album for a folk singer Judy Dyble. I’m used to working on things other than just my own voice or writing for vocal. So, this was quite nice, it gave me an opportunity to work with something quite different from the work I normally do.
PS: In recent years, more or less since the release of „Together We’re Stranger” album, most of your works bring along one or more videos. Even “Men Singing” brought videos to three songs. It seems you find making videos an important way of promoting an album – am I right?
TB: I quite like videos and some have been very special. I think the video for “Back When You Were Beautiful” from “Together We’re Stranger” album is one of the strongest we’ve ever had, actually. I think that it can be quite useful. It’s another part of , I suppose, the promotion of the album. But for me personally the music is always the most important thing as is releasing the best album you can. I think that one of the things which the Henry Fool albums have and which all of the No-Man albums have as well is a real sense of having sat down and structured “an album”. Although it’s an instinctive process initially, every aspect is thought out, including the length of the album. Although the ”Men Singing” album is quite short (forty minutes), we actually had about five hours worth of material to work on and that was one of the reasons why the process of making this album took such a long time. We tried to create the best album we could and an album of the right length. I’ve always felt that somewhere between thirty eight minutes and forty eight minutes is the perfect length for the sort of music that I make, whether it’s with Henry Fool or with No-Man. I think the structure of the album, the flow and making sure that it works as a complete entity is perhaps more important to me than a video, though I do like people doing videos for the songs and I’ve liked several of the interpretations, like the video for ”Wherever There Is Light”.
PS: Some of those interesting videos illustrating songs by No-Man, Memories Of Machines, Slow Electric or Henry Fool have been made with contribution of your keyboardist, Stephen Bennett. Have you and Stephen ever thought of doing some bigger audio/visual project?
TB: Well, certainly I know Steven wanted to…You know, in his own work he’s always created albums he sees as soundtracks to films. I think No-Man’s music is so cinematic that I could certainly see it being used in films. We have been asked to write a soundtrack to an American film and for this we’d probably be using old No-Man songs. But you know, we’ve never really conceived an album as an audiovisual project, though personally I do quite like the idea of visuals accompanying the music and certainly it’s an area to investigate.
PS: One of the guests on the new Henry Fool album is Phil Manzanera – after Robert Fripp and Peter Hammill, to name a few, yet another legendary figure you have worked with. Like Steven Wilson, you successfully collaborate with musical heroes of your teen years. Now that you’re yourself an experienced and acknowledged musician, what is your attitude to recording with those heroes?
TB: It’s a great privilege and a great pleasure. I mean, a lot of musicians you mention I grew up with and had tremendous respect for, so whenever you work with people whose music I admired there’s always a thrill and there always should be, I think. And I would say the first time this happened would be when I worked with Japan - Jansen, Karn, and also Richard Barbieri, who subsequently joined Porcupine Tree. But this also happened with Robert Fripp very early on in No-Man’s career. These are great individuals and great musicians, who have contributed so much to the industry of music. And I certainly think that when they’re gone there’ll be very very few people who could ever get close to that level of individuality and brilliance.
PS: In recent years in the wide world of prog-rock there have emerged quite a few two-piece collaborations of musicians from different bands, yet of similar musical interests. You released an album with Giancarlo Erra of Nosound, many of your fellow musicians did similar collaborations to great effect (for example: Storm Corrosion, Hogarth/Barbieri) or such figures as Steve Hackett and Chris Squire. Is there a name you would pick up yourself to work with in a collaboration of this sort in the future?
TB: Interesting question. I greatly enjoyed the two collaborations with Steven Wilson and with Giancarlo Erra as Memories Of Machines. I mean, yes, it would be fantastic to work more with somebody like Phil Manzanera. I have co-written songs with people such as Jacob from White Willow and recently Jim Matheos from Fates Warning and OSI, but as for fully collaborative projects, there’s probably quite a number of musicians I’d like to work with… Conceivably too many (laughs).
PS: Speaking of collaborations – is there a chance that you will re-release “Flame”? It’s very hard to get these days.
TB: I hope so. The problem with it is that it’s owned by the record company One Little Indian and the album sold out at its pressings very quickly. But was never re-pressed. So basically it’s only ever been available in 1994, so the copies that exist are very old and now cost stupid amounts of money on Ebay. There was a Japanese version as well, but the same there - it sold out in Japan very quickly and it was never re-pressed. Richard and I have talked about re-releasing and we’ve even talked about re-releasing it with an EP of new material or a completely new mix. I think part of the problem with “Flame” comes from the fact that One Little Indian own the album and don’t seem either prepared to re-release it or sell it back to us and another part of the problem is that we sort of struggle to agree on what format we’d like. I think If you’re going to remaster or remix an album, you should make it as good as you possibly can. I’m a great fan of…say, for example, the King Crimson reissues that the Panegyric label put out, I think they’re absolutely wonderful in a sense that they preserve the integrity of the original album and offer additions that make them fresh. I’m always more towards that side…I think Richard very much preferred the idea that the release as it is should be issued. Don’t play with the original. He’s not a great fan of extra material, extra mixes. But, hopefully some day “Flame” will be released.
PS: The „Men Singing” album took a few years to make, as did Memories Of Machines. Could that mean you still have some surprises up your sleeve, some unfinished projects that you go back to every now and then and plan to put out some day?
TB: There’s quite a lot of unreleased music and I’m constantly writing both on my own and with other people, with No-Man for example. Hopefully, we will be doing some recording this year and there will be new songs, but also we’ll be working on one song we’ve been working on since 1994 - the epic track called “Love You To Bits”. Yes, there’s a lot of material that remains unreleased. Some of it will never be released, because it’s not considered good enough and some of it is in a state where it needs more work. And with Memories Of Machines ,for example, we probably have at least two or three pieces that haven’t been released, and the same with other projects. There’s probably about two or three albums worth of material that’s never been released. I’m working on one at the moment, which is Postcards From Space - a collaboration with Alistair Murphy, who I co-wrote and co-produced the Judy Dyble’s album with. And again it’s very different from No-Man, very different from Memories Of Machines, very different from Henry Fool. It is a song-based album that is quite experimental and textural in places.
PS: We’ve talked about your touring possible touring plans with Henry Fool, I’d like now to ask the same question about Memories Of Machines. From what I know, there have been plans to go on tour with the material…
TB: We haven’t discussed it, certainly we’d like to that at some point. I would say that when the second album is released that may become more possible, but at the moment there are no plans at all. I think most likely over the next year. It would be wonderful if No-Man could play again and we certainly greatly enjoyed the tour last year and our date in Cracow was one of the most special. I think performing in Poland for the first time was something we were all really thrilled by and greatly enjoyed it. The Polish fans certainly made it worth the trip. There might be more No-Man dates and I’ve been talking about doing some performances with Slow Electric, which is a band I have with Peter Chilvers. The second Slow Electric album we’re midway through recording and that features Colin Edwin on bass.
PS: On your blogs you speak much of your numerous and diverse musical influences. Do you ever come across some Polish artists?
TB: Yes, I have heard a few Polish artists. I like the band called Indukti. They have a female violin player. I think that’s just sort of dark, almost King Crimson-esque music. And obviously I’m very familiar with Lunatic Soul and Riverside. So, yes I have heard some Polish artists. One of the employees at Burning Shed is Polish, as well.
PS: Let me ask you again about No-Man. In Cracow, you played one new song called “The Warm Up Man Forever”. Was this a sort of a portent of something bigger? Are you planning to record a new No-Man album in the nearest future?
TB: This is one of the tracks we will be trying out for a new No-Man album. Actually, we will be recording some new material this year and that is one of the songs we’ll certainly be considering . It worked well live. When we played it in Cracow it was the first time we’ve played it and in some ways it got better throughout the tour. I was really pleased, given it was a new song, a not obviously No-Man one in some ways, that the response to it was mostly very positive, so – yes, that’s certainly under consideration. There were number of things by No-Man that could develop and evolve from working with the live band, because I think what is really exciting about playing live with No-Man is that it feels like writing a new No-Man album. It absolutely captures the spirit of the band, but it also has something new to it. In the same way, whenever we’re releasing a new No-Man album I think it preserves the spirit of the band, but it also tends to take to us someplace new. “Together We’re Stranger” is nothing like “Wild Opera”, which is nothing like “Flowermouth”, and so on. And I think that with the live band it certainly sounds like an evolution of No-Man’s sound. I’d very much like to see if we can continue that and perhaps incorporate it into a new studio recording. But ultimately Steve and I will always go for what we think is the strongest material, the strongest performance, the strongest album. And of course when you are in the middle of the writing, things occur and that’s one of the reasons we’ve not released the No-Man’s song ”Love You To Bits” that we wrote in 1994. Although we were pleased with it, it never fitted an album project. So, you often start writing something and then deviate and an album becomes something else. Another good example is the song “Lighthouse”. We started again around 1993-1994, but we didn’t feel we’ve done this song justice really until about 2000-2001, when we released “Returning Jesus”. But, originally “Lighthouse” was very much scheduled for what would’ve been the follow-up album to ”Flowermouth”, which was going to be a much more atmospheric and ambitious album, perhaps in the style of ”Angel Gets Caught in The Beauty Trap”. But, in the studio we actually got carried away by different ideas and enthusiasm and ended up making “Wild Opera” and “Dry Cleaning Ray”. So I think that even if you have a strong idea of what you want to do in the studio, you can never fully dictate where it goes, because your passion can always take you anywhere.
PS: In May there will be twenty years since the release of No-Man’s debut album. By the way, congratulations on this fine anniversary. Do you have any touring plans on this occasion? Or maybe you plan a reissue of “Loveblows & Lovecries”?
TB: Well, again it’s owned by One Little Indian and it’s another case of an album that sold out many years ago and hasn’t been reissued. We have tried to get the rights back for this and re-release it through KScope, but it’s proven very difficult. So, again it’s something that we’ve discussed and something that we want. For various reasons perhaps that’s not our favourite No-Man album, but… You know, there’s also, of course, the tenth anniversary of “Together We’re Stranger”, which I think is an album that both Steven and I hold in high regard. It’s an album that we have a great emotional attachment to. I’ve done many other things I feel strongly about, but “Together We’re Stranger” might be the favourite that I’ve been involved in. And obviously it speaks more of No-Man than “Loveblows & Lovecries” does. But, hopefully No-Man will tour again next year and it will be great opportunity, as it’ll be the twentieth anniversary of the release of the first album. Still, what was again very exciting about touring with No-Man and that particular set of musicians is that it didn’t ever feel like a nostalgia act. One of the good things I think about working with Steven is that we both share this idea that the band should be allowed to evolve, should be allowed to change and in some ways you’re living in a moment. Of course you’ve got some respect for the past, but you have to be living at the present moment . So in some sense it is very nice to have this respect for the past and not be remotely nostalgic.
PS: What’s your opinion on releasing archive stuff? Some people claim cynically that it’s for musicians who are about to retire, however, in case of such active musicians as you it would certainly be a real treat for fans, without any concealed meaning. What do you think about that?
TB: For me, when we’re getting involved in archive releases it’s about perhaps updating the packaging, it’s about improving what you have and it’s also imagining what you’d want to buy as a fan. Certainly I have bought many reissue programs, such as the King Crimson reissue program, which has beautifully been put together. I think it can be an art in itself. Obviously you have the respect for the original work, but at the same time you can do something fresh and contemporary in terms of packaging. I’m always interested in the historical perspective of an album... Anyway, whatever archive work you do, you want to put out the best version of an album you possibly can. But it’s certainly not about cynically making money before retiring in our case (laughs), because what I have to say is that it still feels to me that I’m in infancy of of my music making. It may sound strange 20 years after the debut No-Man album and really 26 years since I started working with Steven Wilson, but whenever I’m writing , I’m writing in the moment. I don’t think about my past, I don’t think about my back catalogue, I don’t even think about my age. It’s about being carried away by ideas, emotions, music. I’ve been very lucky in that I still find making music and listening to music as exciting as I did when I was a teenager. And I think it’s also the case with the musicians I work with, people like Steven Wilson, Giancarlo Erra… And take Phil Manzanera - he’s a musician in his sixties and yet isn’t afraid to a wonderful big project with Dave Gilmour, and then play on an experimental album like the Henry Fool release, or do an ambient solo project… I think this is because he’s still excited by music . And I think that’s very much the case with me and other members of No-Man.
PS: Anyhow, now you’re giving your fans a brand new album. We thank you for this and obviously wait for more new music by Tim Bowness. Thank you for the nice conversation.
TB: Thank you.
