Page 12 - ION Indie Magazine MarchApril 2019

MW: Yeah, I suppose when you're up onstage at somewhere like The O2, you look out at the
audience and you can only see people in the first row. Everyone else is in complete
darkness. Whereas, playing acoustic shows in smaller venues, you can see every single
face.

RD: And it's brilliant. Also, acoustically it puts you more on the spot as a vocalist. You've got
nowhere to hide. So, it kind of makes you pull out all your chops.

MW: You've got a new album due out in the next few weeks. You took advice from Chris
Kimsey who co-produced two and was an engineer on three Rolling Stones’ albums. How
did you get to work with him?

RD: That was through a mutual friend that introduced us. Chris really liked the new stuff that we'd
been writing, so he advised on the new songs we were working on. We also got him to remix the
single ‘Sailing On A Pool Of Tears,’ which really did add a bit of magic to it. It was great! And he's
also just an amazing person to talk to about songwriting and production. He's a wealth of knowledge
really; a great person to tap into his brain for songwriting.

MW: Yeah, I looked him up and I was looking through the bands he's worked with – The Cult,
Marillion, Ten Years After, The Stones, INXS…

RD: Yeah, everyone.

MW: And you've got Bill Drescher who mixed the album. Did you give him any direction
about the sort of sound you wanted, or did you give him free rein?

RD: Well, Bill Drescher mixed part of the album. He's in LA. He worked on five songs and again,
he's worked with everyone. He's worked with The Allman Brothers; done movie soundtracks. He
did ‘Titanic’ and ‘Armageddon.’ He's very high-caliber. I didn't really tell him at all what to do. He's
of such a high standing even though he's a very, very humble guy, that we just gave him the tracks.
We gave him an initial track to mix to see what it sounded like. And when we got the track back and
heard it, I cried. I'd never heard anything we'd done before sound so good. The other half of the
songs have been mixed by Chris Childs, the bass player in Thunder, and it works really well. It
sounds like they've been mixed by the same person. And obviously, they'll be mastered so it all
flows really well.

MW: Did Chris take a cue from the tracks that Bill had already mixed?

RD: A little bit, yeah, to get them sonically sounding similar -- and there is a definite style to the way
Bill's mixed it with heavy drums and a big vocal sound.

MW: And you've got Danny Bowes from Thunder on board too. In what capacity is he
involved?

RD: Danny's been advising really, mainly on the business side of things and connections to PR and
people within the industry that he believes it would be good for us to talk to.

MW: From what you've told me, it sounds like this album is going to be something special.
I'm looking forward to hearing it. What is it called and when is it due out?