Paul on the big bad bass

What kind of kit do you use? - A beautiful blue Tokai Jazz copy, even better that the real thing.  The amp's a Carlsbro Cobra 90 Stack.

Tell us about your musical past - My first band was that well known Birmingham combo, The Desperate Rabbits, so named because of the sexual frustration of Franco who was on vocals (OK it probably applied to all of us spotty adolescents). The Rabbits played some seminal gigs in Rowley Regis and, after some line up changes morphed into Knockin 491.  This name was chosen by opening a Yellow Pages at random and picking the first thing our eyes fell on.  Knockin 491 is the telephone number of a heavy plant hire company in the Staffordshire village of Knockin.  We had pretensions to be a heavy rock band but really only got good at power ballads. Caroline's voice was so powerful that sound engineers were always turning her down for fear for their PA tweeters.  Any way the heady days of the Brandhall and Rowley Regis rock seen ended with the call of academia and the band split to get educated.

And college was an education. I had not realised that the West Midlands were still following the hippie mantra while down in London (and everywhere else for that matter) they had Punk.  Punk was invented to save our sole from the Genesis and all things Glam.  And so to Nada, via a whole list of dreadful band names which I have forgotten.  Nada means nothing in Spanish and by a strange quirk of fate means hope in serbo-croat.  Any way if you hoped for nothing you would not have been disappointed, maybe even a little pleased.  Rhys on vocals sounded more like Ian Curtis than Ian Curtis.  We did a mean Joy Division sound although we were always trying to write songs that did not sound like that.  We were going to change the world.  There is life and Death and then there is Rock and Roll! The high point was having our demo tape played on a French local Radio station.  Anyway, academia passes and so do bands.  Time to grow up, get a job, behave like an adult, move to Salisbury.  Briefly, 18 years on, 3 of us got back together (+Pete) for a one night only gig in Andover as the Four Surfers Of The Apocalypse.  This is probably the best name yet.

Who are your musical influences? - The best album ever made is, as every one knows Doreme by Hawkwind.  It is up there in the list of greatest human intellectual achievements with the late Beethoven string quartets.  Velvet Underground, The Sound, Joy Division, Violent Femmes, Magnum, Patty Smith, Billy Brag, The Stranglers, New Model Army, Sabbath.  Bass players to aspire to?  Well Lemmy, Hoocky, Geezer, Holger Czukay, Graham Green, JJ Burnel, Brian Ritchie.  This is a very old list.  Time to get with the 21st century but there are no more heroes any more.

Who inspires you most in music? - The most inspirational thing in music is when you play with other people.  There's that moment when suddenly you are all communicating.  It all gels.  You bounce off each other, change things and you know the others will respond and you respond to them.  It's a deeper form of communication than speech.   The other major influence is work.  There is nothing better than a day at the office reselling with mindless bureaucracy to get you in the mood for the "make-believe violence of a 100w stack".  (Ok its only 90W but we can DI it for pity sake!)  "I could cry out when he going gets tough, the things that we worked for no longer enough, the language of sound is all we need know to synchronise love to the beat of the show and we can DAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE!"   Oh and Karen of course.

What was your most memorable moment with Turtle Shed - I would like to say it was the moment when we had the crowd in front of the pyramid stage at Glastonbury chanting our new songs, but that moment is still to come.    I guess its the moment at the end of audition when Chris said "OK we will give you a go - but your only on probation mind" No actually it was just before that when we played "on my radio".  It was all over the place and I was laughing so much and thinking, "this is fun".

So if the band are given a huge wedge of money and asked to devote their lives to entertaining people with brilliant music, what will be your reaction? -Yes, I sense the big record deal is not far away.  But we must be careful.  So many bands sell out their artistic credibility when they get into the green stuff.  I have problems with this idea that we are just there to entertain people.  It has to be much more than that.  We have to inspire and lift people to a higher level.  We have to change people, help them through the bad times and lead them to a better world where there are no ASBOs and people want to share their stash.  I am chasing a greater beauty than can be found in calm eyes and braided hair.

Copyright(c) 2003 Turtleshed. All rights reserved.
christian@turtleshed.co.uk