Skyclad’s Kevin Ridley has recently released his first solo album. Mick Burgess met up with him in a pub in Newcastle for a chat and a drink.
MER:
Your latest album, Flying In The Face Of Logic was released a few months ago. Are you pleased with how it turned out?
KEVIN:
I’m more than pleased with how it turned out. It was 5 or 6 years in the making for various reasons, but at the end of the day with all of the ups and downs, I’m really happy with the end product. It’s a lot bigger than I originally envisaged it as it took longer than I thought, so it kind of grew and it came to fruition and I can’t really fault it at the end of the day.
MER:
It was five years in the making. Were you working solely on the album during that period or were you trying to fit in your solo work around your other projects?
KEVIN:
I also work with Skyclad so this album fit in-between the last two albums that I did with Skyclad. We did an album in 2004 and when that was finished I kept on going with stuff that didn’t really fit with Skyclad and we went on tour and started the next record, so I just kept on going around what I was doing with Skyclad. It’s a side project so it took a long time.
MER:
You’ve made many albums over the years. Why did you feel the need to make a solo record at this stage in your career?
KEVIN:
When we finished the last Skyclad album we’d been doing a lot of acoustic, unplugged shows and the first album I recorded as vocalist with them was No Daylights…Nor Heel Taps, where we recorded the stuff that we’d been doing live. The band made the decision that it was moving too far away from the Rock side of things, but I really enjoyed it and it just felt right for me to pursue this further and explore those ideas and instrumentation. I wanted to make my stuff distinct from the band stuff. There has to be some difference otherwise there wouldn’t be any point in doing it. It was also a question of finding some time to be able to work on my own material.
MER:
There’s a strong Folk influence running throughout the album. Although the Folk influences are always evident with Skyclad, how do you feel that this differs from the music of Skyclad?
KEVIN:
There’s a much stronger Folk influence on this record although there are Folk influences in Skyclad, which is much more of a Metal band with Folk influences added to it. I think my solo work harks back to the kind of stuff I used to listen to when I was young which was acoustic music with some Folk Rock added to it.
MER:
What has influenced you musically over the years?
KEVIN:
When I first started listening to music I was into Lindisfarne, so they were my main influence. I’ve been in Skyclad for 20 years now and I’ve picked up influences from The Levellers, New Model Army, and various bands along those lines.
MER:
Did you do all of the song writing or did you co-write the material?
KEVIN:
I wrote most of the material, it’s mainly down to me on this one. There are a couple of cover versions and a lyric was taken from someone else’s poem. I ended up with 17 songs so it just grew as I was working on it and we ended up using 14 on the album. I seemed to have found this little vein of form that followed on from recording A Semblance Of Normality, which was one I did with Skyclad. The thing about that album is that it was the one we took a while to do and we used loads of session players and as a result I built up a load of contacts that meant I could bring in people that could play Northumbrian pipes and fiddles and things like that. I had the idea of writing songs where every song had a different line up. I think I ended up with about 10 musicians playing on the tracks.
MER:
Are you the sort of writer that writes on the spur of the moment as and when inspiration hits you or do you tend to write in the studio just prior to recording?
KEVIN:
I tend to be more spur of the moment, but once I start getting into the zone I tend to stick with it and I switch off from everything else. I often leave ideas then come back to them later and I also spend a lot of time researching things, but once I get the bit between my teeth I tend to work on it until it’s finished. I tend to work on a project then move on. You just wait for the spark and now I have to do the follow up album. This album was sort of autobiographical and once I’d got the theme then I wrote the songs linked to that theme. I don’t want to repeat myself so I’ll have to do something different next time. I’d like to get the next one done a little quicker. I have one due with Skyclad first and we have some basic ideas, but we’re now just waiting for the spark to be able to make a real start.
MER:
Do you find yourself writing songs thinking that you’ll use it for your solo work or for Skyclad depending on how it turns out?
KEVIN:
I have this view that Skyclad is a Metal band with a bit of Folk so anything that doesn’t fit will go into a pot and when I get enough in the pot I’ll develop it on as a project. I do have an idea of what I’ll be doing for my next album and I actually have most of the demos done now. With Skyclad I tend to co-write with Steve and he has other stuff on as well so there’s two different processes going on and I just have to write twice as much.
MER:
Do the songs on Flying In The Face Of Logic reflect your Northern England roots?
KEVIN:
A lot of it is based on the North East and about me growing up here in this part of the world. In a way the A Semblance Of Normality album and this latest one are a sort of homecoming for us as that was the first time the entire band had actually been from the North East. That meant when we started doing that album, that we could look at using some local instruments like the Northumbrian pipes, so A Semblance Of Normality is really about what it’s like to be English whereas my solo album is more about the North East of England.
MER:
Which song is your particular favorite on the album?
KEVIN:
I think “De Profundis” is one of my favorites and people mention “Angel At Harlow Green” and I like that one a lot too. A lot of the Metal magazines mention “Good Intentions” as it’s probably the heaviest song on the album. I’ve also just done a video for “Lost For Words” and I’m quite proud of that one because of the playing and the concept. It was one of the later ones that we did and the quality of that one came across really well. I think of that as quite a different thing for me to do so I was pleased with that one.
MER:
From a producer’s point of view, how do you approach making an album in the studio?
KEVIN:
I like to be involved right from the off to listen to things before they are committed, to bounce ideas around before they are recorded to see if they can be improved. If you get the songs right before you enter the studio that helps a lot. Fair enough if you can afford to sit around for 6 months in the studio, but most people can’t so it pays to be well-prepared. On the last Skyclad album we wrote the songs then went into a rehearsal room and played them until we knew them inside out and then we went into the studio and it was done within a week as we all knew exactly what we had to do. When I produce someone I really like to know if the song is any good first as no amount of production work can save it.
MER:
How did Dario Mollo get involved in your project?
KEVIN:
It was the label’s idea. A while back I was working with the producer Kit Wolven and he was going across to mix at Dario’s studio and Kit put me in touch with Dario and the record company asked if I wanted to check him out … so he mixed A Semblance Of Normality and that’s when we first worked together. He then did In The … Altogether so I knew Dario very well by this point — it seemed a logical place to go when my solo album was ready to be mixed.
MER:
You had a few guests playing on the album. Who were they?
KEVIN:
There was a guy called Dave Anderson who played the bass and he was in bands like Blitzkrieg. Sophie Ball plays the fiddle and Andy May plays the Northumbrian Pipes, he can play just about any instrument: whistles, guitars, flutes, violins, he’s an amazing guy. I can hum him a tune and he can play it in any key in 5 minutes.
MER:
As far as touring goes will you be heading out on the road to play your new solo material?
KEVIN:
I’ve just played a solo show at The Cluny in Newcastle, England, but have nothing planned for anything more extensive just yet. I’d like to get the band together and rehearse and look at doing some festivals over the summer, if possible. I also have Skyclad and we need to look towards writing and recording the new album, so any touring I do will have to fit around my commitments with Skyclad.
MER:
Have you started thinking about your follow up to Skyclad’s In The Altogether?
KEVIN:
We have already got together to discuss ideas about the new album so we are right at the early stages of the writing process and we hope maybe to have something out to tour with at the end of the year.
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