Interview
(Progressive Newsletter Nr.30 05/00)
excerpts from an interview with Alan Reed (Vocals)
The Pallas story starts long before I was involved. It begins with Graeme Murray and Derek Forman - among others starting a band called Rainbow when they were still at school, 1974 I think. They had to change the name when a certain Ritchie Blackmore decided to call his band by the same name... They put some names in a hat - and Pallas came out! It's actually a shorter version of the name of the Greek Goddess of war, wisdom and needlework, Pallas Athene - also known as Minerva or Athena. By 1980 the line-up that went on to do "The Sentinel" they were playing all over the UK, and were playing a lot of their own songs alongside stuff like "Supper's ready", "Heart of the sunrise", "Echoes" or "Burn". In Scotland, you couldn't get to see them, everywhere they played was sold out. I was lucky enough to see them a couple of times in small venues and it was quite amazing. I'd never seen so much equipment for a non-name band. And the sound!! Euan, the singer, was a frightening performer. He was like Alice Cooper meets Iggy Pop. He used to cough up blood during "Crown of thorns", and they had to stop doing "The ripper" because he was starting to hurt himself when they played it, he cut his wrists open with a knife! They'd just done the live album "Arrive alive" and were poised to become major stars. It was very strange to find myself joining them after Euan left.
Talking about success, what do you think about "The Sentinel" and "The Knightmoves" now? I think both productions are a fantastic jewels of the early Neo Prog sound.
I'm glad you like them. "The Knightmoves", which was an EP - not an album, was meant as a transitional step between the band's first EMI album "The Sentinel" and the next. I had just joined the band, so it was a chance to introuduce my voice to the fans and also give a sense of the direction in which we were heading. The idea was to give a more accurate account of how the band actually sounded - heavier and darker than "The Sentinel" had turned out. Also to give a taste of our plans to use more modern technology and ideas so that the band sounded contemporary, rather than being stuck in the music of the 70's. I think "Sanctuary" in particular showed we could do this successfully. "The Wedge" was a further development along the same path. The idea was to create something that was definatley rock music, and stayed true to the kind of influences we loved, but moved on into then-unexplored territory. At that point rock music in general was going in smaller and smaller circles, and the idea of anything fresh being brought in was anathema to many critics. We thought it was possible to make powerful music and still "progress". We wanted to use new ideas and technology - just as Yes, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Floyd etc. had done 15 yrs before. We also wanted to sound like us - not anyone else - so we determined to follow our own direction. Some of it works better than other parts, but on the whole I think we were quite successful. The kind of sound we developed was in many ways slightly ahead of what was going on around us, but became very much the norm in the years that followed. It prepared the ground which we intended to consolidate on the third album had we managed to record it when we intended to - rather than wait 15 years!
Where did you record these two albums? I am sure you have memories to share?
"The Knightmoves" was done in Townhouse 1& 2 in London. It was THE best studio in the UK, possibly the world, at that time. Anyone who was anyone was recording there at the time. While I was there I met Simple Minds, The Cure, GTR, and loads of other people kept dropping by. Phil Collins was next door recording "No jacket required" - and was keeping us amused at mealtimes with his jokes. It was my first time in such a big studio, and it was an educational experience. We hired in a Fairlight - an early sampling keyboard which only people like Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush were really using at that point. It had its own programmer and was the single most expensive piece of equipment we had ever seen. It's amazing how far things have come! We actually travelled down to London on New Year's Day. This was real dedication, because for Scots, Hogmanay - New Year's Eve - is the most important day of the calendar. We should have been at parties, or in bed with hangovers, not driving down to London. "The Wedge" was recorded in a number of places. First off we spent 3 weeks doing drums at Townhouse 3 in London. It had originally been called Ramport studios, when it belonged to The Who. It was also haunted! Then we went to The Wool Hall near the historic town of Bath. It was out in the countryside and very restful. We had all our meals in the village pub! We ran out of studio time and weren't anywhere near finished, so we then had a few weeks of time at different studios in London trying to get it done before the money ran out! On the day of Live Aid we were in a studio a couple of miles from Wembley stadium - and I could hear the crowd cheering. It seemed like we were the only people in the world not taking part in some way, it felt very lonely. Later that day I collapsed with nervous exhaustion and had to be taken to hospital! In the end I remember we did one session that was two days long without stopping to sleep, so we could meet the deadline. Niall had fallen asleep in a chair, and I had to wake him up to do the guitar on the end of "Just a memory". I was still recording the chorus to "Throwing stones.." when the sun came up on the last day, happy days!
This is probably the most asked question, but why did Pallas disappear some years ago leaving only two studio albums behind?
To start with it was mainly money. We didn't have any, and it was getting harder and harder to keep going without being able to afford to live properly. The split from EMI had been a difficult experience, and every time we came close to securing a new deal, something would go wrong and it wouldn't happen. I was finding it too stressful, and decided I needed to stop and do something else for a while. We all went our separate ways, but eventually we found ourselves drawn together to do something new. We found that the old magic was still there for us, and decided to do a new album. It just took longer than we planned. We've probably recorded - and discarded - two albums' worth of material over the years.
Your last album "Beat the Drum" is a perfect mix between dynamics rhythms with sharp guitars and expressive singing. Could you tell us a little bit more about it?
I think it finds a balance between the grandeur of "The Sentinel" and the directness and accessiblity of "The Wedge", while moving on from both. It sounds like us - which is the main thing! We're very pleased with the way the album turned out. It's difficult to get a sense of the finished article when you're working on it, but it does seem to be fairly well-balanced in terms of how the various tracks work together. It's quite surprising really when you think about how we recorded it. I would fly in to Aberdeen from London, where I now live, for a few days, and work on a couple of songs - then come back later to do more etc. It sounds quite lively when you consider we were rarely all in the same room! Writing it took some time, because we'd be sending eachother tapes to listen to and criticise and change. Fortunatley advances in modern technology mean its a lot easier to try ideas out before you record them properly, so you can get quite good sense of what will work and what won't!
How did the songs come about? And how did you write the music as a band?
We do write together, particularly the other four, who jam together to get rough ideas to develop into songs. They put all these on tape to act as an "ideas bank" which we can steal from to build into songs, or bits to finish songs that we're having problems with. We also work as individuals, writing ideas and then letting the others adapt and develop them into a finished article. Nearly all Pallas songs are group compositions, because even if the original idea was from one person, it's completley changed by the time the others have worked on it! For example, I wrote the original opening section to "Rat-racing" as a vocal based around a 12-string guitar part. The others changed it into a keyboard-based thing, changed the key, and then developed another 7 minutes onto the original 2 minute idea. "Hide & seek" I wrote as a short keyboard-based song - the others developed it into a short Guitar-based song. "Fragments of the sun" came out of the outro to "Beat the drum", and Graeme used lyrics I'd written for the chorus of a song we didn't use - to become the first verse. I added the "Hear our song" section once they'd already recorded the rest of it! It's a complicated and slow business.
Are there any other side projects?
We've all dabbled. Colin plays with about three other bands in the Aberdeen area, playing everything from heavy rock to jazz. Niall produces a lot of other bands, and has played guitar for a famous scottish folk-singer on tour. Graeme's heavily into rally driving - so that takes up most of his spare time and money. Ronnie's played a lot with other musicians. And me - well I had a 9 piece R&B band playing soul classics, I sang and played guitar - which was very different - and I've been working with a friend on some other stuff which hopefully we'll put out at some point. Plus I may make another guest appearance on Clive Nolan's "Strangers On A Train" project.
In the 1970s and 80s most of the world's Progressive Rock bands originated from the UK What do you think about actual neo progressive sound?
I think some of it sounds very derivative. It's almost a cliche that you need a synthesizer playing arpeggios, some mellotron choir/strings, guitar like Steve Hackett and a vocalist doing a bad impression of early Peter Gabriel.Unsurprisingly, the term "neo-progressive" has quite a bad reputation among many people. Some of the music is just dreadful. But, some of the bands from that era have developed a strong identity of their own, and are making music which has lasted in its own right. Pallas was always on the edge of that scene. We never really felt part of it. It was a very English thing. Our audience was more rock-orientated - we were aiming at the Rush and Led Zeppelin fans as much as the Genesis thing. In fact I once saw a defintion of Pallas in a list of prog bands and it said: "Pallas: Heavy Metal in disguise". I also saw a review of Baja Prog that described us as pop-heavy-rock, though the author didn't like much of anything he saw at the festival. There's only really two kinds of music: country & western? Good music and bad music. And that's true of every genre. You pay your money and take your choice. Only YOU can decide what you like and don't like! It doesn't matter if I agree with you or not!
What about recording a new studio album? When could we expect a release of the new material? 2010?
Actually, we've already started work, the aim is to have a new album out by the end of the year. The working title is "Midas touch" - but that may of course change. Tracks to look out for are "Midas touch", "Who's to blame?", "Requiem", "Animalize" among others. A couple of older tracks we didn't get on to "Beat the drum" may also finally get done, such as "Never too late" and "Real world". In the meantime, enhanced versions of "The Sentinel" and "The Wedge, including all the Knightmoves stuff, will be re-released in May. They'll feature video clips and stills and substantial new liner notes. And as if that wasn't enough, we'll be putting out a new live album in the summer, recorded on last year's European dates. It'll include stuff from "Beat the drum", as well as the live version of "The Atlantis Suite".
Juan Barrenechea Herrera © Progressive Newsletter 2000