Interview with Mark Colton (Credo)

Mark Colton (CREDO) Interview with Artur Chachlowski

AC: What are your impressions after Credo concert in Poland in 2008? I mean concert itself, the audience and the DVD filming.

MC: To be able to play in Poland was a great honour for CREDO, The Slaski Theatre is a legend for British Prog bands and fans so to get the chance to come and play for you guys was a dream come true.  The success of RHETORIC opened lots of doors for us, and the Poland show was the last night of our RHETORIC tour and gave us a chance to get a really good live recording and record of our tour, for us and the people who have become our friends over the last couple of years.

As you know Artur, I was very ill a few years ago, and after our first lot of dates with RHETORIC we had to take over a year off as I needed more surgery.

During that year though more and more people became aware of the band, and we were delighted to take the RHETORIC live show out again, and play such places as the USA, Holland, Poland etc.

The people of Poland are a great people, and their values and ethics are strong, there are many Polish people in the city I live in in the UK, and they are great hardworking honest people.  There are a lot of similarities between your country and ours and we met some amazing people who have followed CREDO for many years, and remembered the band when we came back with RHETORIC.  To meet so many of our Polish friends on one night was a dream.  I mean Artur, we must have known of each other for nearly 20 years now, and to meet you and your family was great, just a shame our mutual friend Kevin wasn’t there! 

The concert felt great, the response we got from the audience really blew us away, we knew we had our work cut out with the other two bands on the bill (Final Conflict & Pendragon) but it was as good a show we could have wished to put on, I guess maybe 50% of the audience on the night didn’t know us at the beginning of the night, but I know we made some great friends that night, and the way your people took us to our hearts was amazing.  We can’t wait to come back to play for you again with the new album.

AC: New Credo CD will be out in April. What is "Against Reason" album about?

MC: Wow, where do I start, the album is a collection of songs from a bunch of normal guys, like any group of five friends who meet up anywhere in the world these days for a beer or two, and is about the things that are important to us as fathers, husbands, boyfriends etc.  About the world we live in, the worries we have for our planet and our children and loved ones, about the futility of war, about mindless violence, and the way people often manipulate each other.  It’s about the hope that we will all find a satisfying relationship that will fulfil us and keep us happy.  So I suppose it’s about normal people keeping their “heads above the water” in an ever increasingly crazy world.

AC: Is the new album a continuation or is it rather a breaking point for your band?

MC: I think that people will easily know its CREDO, and will see, hear and feel the references to RHETORIC & “Field Of Vision”, however, it does sound different, a lot of RHETORIC was old and had been played live many times before we recorded that album, apart from Round & Round, none of this album had been played live and we have had a chance to develop these songs “in private” for quite a while.  Our Keyboard player, Mike Varty is the most amazing musician and producer and has built a powerful sound and got great performances out of all of us for this album.  So yes it is a continuation of sorts, but I would say it is definitely the start of a new era in the history of CREDO, hopefully this release will see us connecting with more people that will enable us to play better venues in more countries and meet more amazing people.

There is a free download on mp3 of the track, “Staring At The Sun” on the website if people want to hear CREDO, and the new material.

AC: Where do you see Credo in 2011, 2015 and 2020?

MC: Well, as I say, I hope this album will help take the band to a new level, and enable us to play more shows and meet more people who like our music. 2015, I hope there will have been a new album by then and we will continue to grow our friends, and 2020, god, I hope we are all still alive then...

AC: Personal question: who is/are your favourite rock artist(s) ever and why?

MC: Probably Fish era Marillion, emotion, power, feeling, a truly great band, Francis Dunnery, the ex It Bites Guitarist who is a great song writer and an inspirational human being.  Pavlovs Dog – A sensational band, Crack The Sky a truly brilliant American prog band, a sort of Lynyrd Crimson lol.  I loved Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy, a great front man, and song writer and then bands like Liaison, Twelfth Night, Pendragon, Pallas etc, and probably for the reasons we all love them!

AC: ...and one final question: what would you say to your Polish fans through the MLWZ web site/radio show?