Page 23 - ION Indie Magazine SeptOct 2021 Issue

Kendall: I had been playing with Ryche for quite a few years before joining Nektar, and we seem to work
very easily together. So, when I joined Nektar it was in a way an extension of what we had been doing, but
also a fantastic new musical experience to play with some of the founding fathers of progressive music.
When you sit back and look at the original band, there is a unique harmonic approach going on. It’s nothing
they sat down and worked out, it's the way they heard music. Just when you thought that by the theory books
a chord should be an E minor, for example, Mo would play a third in the bass or (original keyboardist) Taff
(Freeman) might throw a 6th in there, making things a lot more interesting. Roye, as well. So Ryche and I
always have a fun time debating on how to voice things authentically. There is also Larry Fast's contribution
on “Recycled,” which is a whole other approach because he had his own way of looking at harmony, as well.
So, I set out to play with the necessary keyboard parts with the right vibe, but I was always encouraged to
make the parts my own and contribute anything that would make our performances stronger in a live setting.
Sometimes I'll grab something that Taff did on a live recording, sometimes a combination of studio and live,
sometimes I'll come up with my own thing. You have to remember that these guys played differently every
night, it kept the music interesting for both them and their audience.

JP: When the band was working on the tunes for "The Other Side," had there been keyboard parts
laid down already, or did you create them?

Kendall: There were some organ parts on the old demo tapes that we sourced, but for the most part I came
up with the parts that I played on the record. We cut the raw tracks live as a band to capture that cohesion,
and at the end of the day everyone would go over mixes at the summerhouse, and I would usually go to my
home studio and work on different parts and textures on my own. We were trying to cover a lot of ground
during our studio stay, so there were some long hours with multiple processes going on simultaneously. This
was a different approach to how Nektar has worked in the past, but when we brought everything together at
Shorefire (Studios) and it sounded great.

JP: Has COVID changed how you prepare for a tour, both logistically and mentally?

Mick: It kept us apart too much and prevented making plans.