Modesty Blaise | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Well that is cool. That is called Carol Mountain. That is the remaster of it from the three disc anniversary edition of Melancholia from Modesty Blaze. And we've got Johnny Collins from Modesty Blaze with us via Microsoft teams all the way from across upon As we say, Hey, Johnny, are you there?

0:18 Speaker 2: Hey, I'm here. How are you hey?

0:19 Speaker 1: Good? Welcome to the program. I really I really be here. Yeah, yeah, it's great to talk with you. I really like this a lot. You know, the this is something to this project Modesty Blaze. It's really kind of outside the norm of a lot of what you hear on this program, and you know, what you hear on on radio generally, at least in America. So very very interesting to listen to it. And you know, I'm impressed with There's just a lot there. It sounds like, obviously we're going to talk about the remaster and everything, but I assume when this was recorded originally, it was quite the undertaking, right, because it's very dense.

0:53 Speaker 1: There's a lot there. There's a lot of layers, probably a lot of tracks involved in recording something like that. I would think that just the vocals are so layered and just really really interesting. I'm fascinated by the production.

1:07 Speaker 3: It's a sixteen track analog production, but obviously as you can just hear from that, it's got everything in it. We do say that not only do we throw the kitchen sink in, we break in next door, rip their sink out and throw that in as well. So everything had to be mixed down, so the drums are recorded and then mixed down to two tracks, and then I remember at the end when we're putting the strings on, we just had one track and so everybody had to play at the same time and get it right at the same time.

1:42 Speaker 3: More than fifty percent of the budget for the entire album went into Carol Mountain, so it was a massive undertaking. It was eleven months of recording and you know what, I know, I didn't make it easy for myself, Matt we because I thought I wanted to do them in that particular way. But for instance, in Carrol Mountain, which is about an unrequited love for Brian Wilson.

2:09 Speaker 2: Oh, and.

2:13 Speaker 3: They here's and villains and con vibrations in different studios, Well, I'm going to use the same studio. I can't record it in different studios. I'll tell you what, I'll use completely different instruments. So it was recorded in sections. Oh there are four different drum kits on there and you can't tell, right, it's just me making things difficult for myself.

2:38 Speaker 1: Wow, when you look back on that now, obviously today we have the benefit of technology, and technology moves very fast, and you know, over the course of twenty five years, obviously technology has moved very fast, and in terms of the way that you record and everything. When you look back, I would imagine obviously if you were to record this exact same thing today, it would it would be easier in some ways, although maybe harder in others because because of the options and the choices that you have to make when recording.

3:08 Speaker 1: But I mean, you're definitely right, is oh, go ahead?

3:14 Speaker 3: Well, the I've known people and now everybody has a studio because they've got a laptop and a microphone and it's automatically one hundred times more powerful than Abby Road was when the Beatles recorded there, Right, So, so what's your excuse. There's there's an awful lot to be said for the restraint of studio time. This is costing you money. Make a decision. Musicians will will put off making the decision as long as they possibly can. I don't call myself a musician. I'm quite happy to make decisions.

3:50 Speaker 3: So in order to fit all of that onto a sixteen chart recording, there was a lot of decisions being made all the time.

3:56 Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt. How many you mentioned to the string section that was all going on to one track, so they had to get it right. I mean, do you remember, obviously it was a long time ago, but do you remember how many takes it took before they got it right.

4:13 Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately we didn't have the luxury of taking and keeping it all, so it was only three or four I think, Oh good. The the the.

4:25 Speaker 3: End section at the end there where they're coming in and there's an orchestral section with a theremin.

4:31 Speaker 2: That was that was two takes. The other take.

4:34 Speaker 3: The other take is on the kind of like the outtakes disc and and I know because I conducted them.

4:41 Speaker 2: I conducted them at that time.

4:43 Speaker 3: Wow, And I know they all thought it was too slow, but it was what I had intended, right. Yeah, when you the horns as well, A lot of horns were all onto one track as well.

4:55 Speaker 2: Very difficult, very difficult.

4:57 Speaker 1: That had to be Do you remember how many takes that took? Probably around the same.

5:02 Speaker 3: Four, I think to be to be fair, the people that were playing were quite exceptional. I didn't know many of them before we started. But what I did was I managed to get in the in the days before people were worried about privacy. I managed to get a list of names and numbers of people from a local symphony orchestra and I just called them up, would you be free to do some recording?

5:29 Speaker 1: Wow?

5:30 Speaker 3: And we'll pick you up and take you back and feed you. And that's what we did. So I didn't know many of them before. I still know a few of them now, which is really good. So yeah, they were they were all highly competent.

5:47 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, yeah, I mean you had to find the right people obviously for you know, for an undertaking like this. Again, it's there's a lot going on there, and like you said, it's it's the kitchen sink and the kitchen sink of the next door neighbors. Now, why why did you decide to do this the remaster? This again, the twenty fifth anniversary of Melancholia? Why now? And why did it take this long to bring it to streaming.

6:14 Speaker 3: You know what, I think that the twenty fifth was a bit of a fortunate thing. Once I put out that we were going to do it, we kind of got forced into it. But I actually wanted to do it on the twenty sixth anniversary because I thought it would be funnier. You're not right, And it just so happens that the album that I thought was being released was released in two thousand, was actually released in twenty oh one, So I was wrong. We this album sold very well and did very well, and in fact has some quite obsessive fans for which I am very grateful over in continental Europe Germany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and various other countries of Scandinavia as well and Japan, so it has some some big fans there.

7:06 Speaker 3: And we were getting a lot of questions, why can't I get this on streaming? Why can't I do you know? Where is it? And at which point we kind of and then a lot of the sort of questions, how did you record this so right? Well, if to it, let's do it properly, Let's go and remaster it properly, go through the whole process and try and answer some of those questions with the music rather than by email.

7:35 Speaker 1: Right right, that makes sense. Yeah, and I read something you said the goal wasn't wasn't reinventioned, but revealing extra detail when you went back and listened to because I you know, I can just tell you just personally, anecdotally, I've had the experience of listening to music that I listened to a long time ago and hearing things. You know, like, if I'm wearying really good headphones, i might hear something in a song that I've heard a thousand times over the course of my life. But then I maybe I'm listening to good headphones or through really good speakers, and I'll hear details that I never noticed before.

8:11 Speaker 1: I might hear something that I didn't pick up on when I listened to that originally. And I'm wondering, when you went back and listened to all of these all of these songs, did you start hearing things that you forgot about or maybe you or things that you knew were in there, but you really didn't think the listeners probably knew that those things were in there.

8:29 Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, You're absolutely right, Matt, and you hit the nail on the head really good.

8:34 Speaker 2: Headphones.

8:36 Speaker 3: We went back to the studio, Tavid Tuppy Brown the basic ploys with me as well. There were definitely things in there that he hadn't heard before. At the end of one of the string parts, there's one of the strings on one of the cellos broke and I left it in Oh, and he had never heard that before.

8:57 Speaker 2: Oh there you listen to that. That's fantastic.

9:01 Speaker 3: But I was astonished to hear it again on the huge studio speakers. And then spent a good week bemoaning to everybody who had listen. When did we give up having proper speakers in our houses. We're now listening on these tiny little things on phones and on little airphones. And I went out and bought a pair of high end headphones to not annoy the neighbors.

9:30 Speaker 2: But we've definitely lost something.

9:33 Speaker 3: I remember when I bought my first set of stereo speakers with the money from my part time job. They were huge, you know you could it took two people to carry one of them, and then ages to try and set them up in the room. And then you know, I've got the base rocking the foundations of the house. We've given that up and we've given up a lot through doing that. So I did buy some expensive headphones after the pro sess of doing this, and I have gone back and started listening to everything again just as you intimated.

10:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you're right, by the way, that's an interesting observation that you make, and you're right. And it's the same in America too. I mean, we have given that up about you know, the even me. I mean, you know, I'm a radio guy. I'm a musician. You know, you would think I have some really good speakers in my home, and I don't. You know, I've got some decent headphones, but I don't have I don't have good speakers. Yeah, we have lost something with that, and also too with streaming. You know, depending on where you stream something, there's varying degrees of quality too.

10:35 Speaker 1: You know, if you stream something on YouTube, it's not going to sound as good as if you're listening to the wave file. And you know all of that.

10:41 Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean I've got I've got my little air AirPods in now so the so that the speakers are right in my ears. The other thing I've been obsessing about is this idea of moving air so when we record, we move air into a microphone and that then when it's played back, we move air out of speakers to us.

11:06 Speaker 2: Again.

11:06 Speaker 3: It's a much more analog way of doing things. You record digitally and you might put a sample on a on a keyboard and it's digital.

11:15 Speaker 2: You haven't moved any air.

11:17 Speaker 3: And that's what I've been future recordings are coming from modestly Blaze, and that's what I've been currently obsessing about the movement of air or all these into that same thing to do with the with the size of the speakers and what we've lost.

11:35 Speaker 2: I think the.

11:36 Speaker 3: Other thing is, and this may not It's something that I admit from listening to it for remastering.

11:44 Speaker 2: Was it's a really weird album, isn't it.

11:49 Speaker 3: Well, there are songs about death and stalking and suicide and all sorts of stuff like that, but with nice, happy tunes. How curious I hadn't realized that. I think that in retrospect, you can look back on things that you create, and you're a musician, you know this stuff. You look back on things and think, oh, I wonder what I was thinking. Then I wonder where that came from. What was what was that about?

12:15 Speaker 1: No, you're right, though there are some dark themes on the album, but I think that's part of what drew me, and I listened to the whole thing, and uh, it's I I think part of that is, you know, it's that Yeah, I'm not sure the term I'm looking for, but you know that those those dark themes, but with this very happy sounding music. That contrast that exists in the music. I think that's part of what makes it so interesting and compelling, you know, and and the vocals and the production and all of it.

12:41 Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean I think it's sunshine pulp twilight.

12:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.

12:52 Speaker 2: It's crescular pulp.

12:57 Speaker 1: There you go, there you go. Now, So, with the modern mastering technology that you used to do this, was there ever a point where you were concerned about Obviously, the goal is to bring things forth that maybe were in the back of the mix before that you couldn't even hear, right, But I mean, were you ever was there ever a point where you were concerned about sort of losing something in that too, maybe losing the vibe of what you had originally done.

13:21 Speaker 2: Martin Nichols, who was the original engineer on it, was also the remastering engineer, and he is.

13:30 Speaker 3: This is his area and it's what he does. He these days, he mostly is doing reissues and remasters and getting stuff.

13:42 Speaker 2: Off old tapes.

13:43 Speaker 3: He does a lot of he does a lot of really really high end stuff. He's very much in demand. I pulled rank in order at the studio time, and so I'm less worried about that. You know what, though I've lost some frequency from my ears, so it's also it's also done visually in terms of graphic eques and that sort of thing. So I wasn't concerned about losing anything because I trust the people.

14:14 Speaker 2: I'm working with. Yeah, that's just I think we just there.

14:21 Speaker 3: They're just little subtle changes. I've done ab viarisons with the with the original album. I've done a lot of that, and I think that it's it is subtle. It is very subtle. And then obviously there the reconstraints that you get from streaming services are something that you really can't do a lot about it, but you can try and optimize what you do. This isn't the case of a remaster where you go into the studio and you just turn everything up as loud as it can. It has a huge dynamic range on this album, and I think we've you know, we've managed to pre punished to just enhance that world and replace it.

15:03 Speaker 1: You brought up another really important point though about it's so important to have other other ears, uh, listening to this as you're as you're doing the remastering or mixing or whatever it is that you're doing, because like you said, and because I can relate to what you said about losing frequencies. You know I've I've not had my own ears tested, but I know for a fact I have hearing damage. I wake up every morning with tonight as I can hear the ringing. Once I get going, it's fine, But I know that I've.

15:29 Speaker 2: Lost just.

15:33 Speaker 4: In the wrong places, exactly exactly, So I can relate to what you were saying about, because people who don't have hearing loss don't understand it's not simply for for some of us, it's not simply a matter of oh, you just kind of can't hear everything as well as you used to.

15:50 Speaker 1: You can, you can lose certain frequencies but maintain other frequencies. Because you know I experienced this, and I'm sure you do too. Sometimes I can't hear things very well. But there will be other times I'll hear things that other people don't even notice, and someone will say, oh, wow, you have really good hearing, and it's like, no, actually, I don't have good hearing, but for whatever reason, that particular frequency I'm able to easily pick up.

16:14 Speaker 3: Oh yes, now you're completely right on that. I've if if I've got something that is special, it's my ear and you know, I can go and listen to orchestras and say, oh, that's second French French orn is a bit flat flat. I've got that, and it's something I'm very protective of these days. I do make sure I'm wearing ear plug and various things.

16:43 Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I do the same.

16:46 Speaker 3: Just sounds really old and not very rock and rolled at all. We've both got tonight that'll do.

16:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah yeah. And then so the band, well, I haven't asked you the obvious question yet. Where does a name come from? Modesty Blaze? What does that mean?

17:00 Speaker 3: So it's a cartoon strip. She was like a female James Bond and in the local paper in Bristol, it used to be it was in the back of the paper every night. I used to read that. I remember saying to Dave at some point, why aren't we called modesty Blaze? And none of us could think of a reason, so we did. Transpires that that was pre internet. Had we known, we would know that would have known that there was already a Norwegian metal band called Modesty Blaze. But you know, I don't mind being mistaken for a Norwegian metal band every now and then.

17:37 Speaker 1: That's kind of fun. Well, you know, if you think about it, some of the themes in the music is probably similar. There might be some correlation.

17:43 Speaker 2: There could well be.

17:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, well be did you ever run in any problem because of the there was already a comic strip you said, called this, Like, did they ever read?

17:54 Speaker 2: We didn't.

17:55 Speaker 3: Obviously we couldn't, you know, we couldn't get the web, the web address and various things like that. Yeah, don't think it really matters. You know, we're obviously not selling, and that all of those comic strips are available available as available as books, and people tend to give them to me as presents. So great, I've got quite a collection of multesty Blazed books.

18:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's cool.

18:23 Speaker 3: It's difficult. It's difficult, isn't it with with with band names. You do something you're then that's then your name and anything that comes.

18:31 Speaker 2: Up you can have to deal with it exactly.

18:33 Speaker 3: Least I didn't decide at least I didn't decide that we should be called prefab Sprouts.

18:39 Speaker 1: And what was the scene like back when when you started? So it was in the nineties and I was reading something about so your your debut single was with Edwin Collins. Is that correct?

18:50 Speaker 3: Edwin produced our first single, Oh Wow. His his new studio at the time. I knew Edwin and we played with him, and he had just got his studio prior to recording Gorgeous George with.

19:06 Speaker 2: A Girl like You on.

19:07 Speaker 3: It, And there was this discussion about him having a new studio and about how he needed to get used to the studio before before recording his album. Oh right, well, well we'll come and record a single with you then, So we did. We went up to the studio and recorded a single. He used a lot of the instruments that were there already. So if you listen to our first single, which is Christina Terris and the two tracks are on the B side, If you listen to that and then you listen to Gorgeous George, there are an awful lot of sounds that are similar.

19:45 Speaker 2: Okay, only his with an enormous hit.

19:51 Speaker 1: I should mention too, for American listeners who hear the name Edwin Collins and say familiar, familiar, Where I know that name. He had a big hit here in America with Never Met a Girl Like You Before. I think the actual title officially is just a Girl Like You, but Never Met a Girl Like You Before. That was a massive hit. It's the only it might be his only big hit in America because it's the only one I can think of. I'd have to look it up. But for again, for American listeners who can't quite place it, that was a massive hit in the nineties here and here in the US.

20:24 Speaker 2: It was an enormous hit worldwide.

20:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, it hit the top five in the UK. It did him much of continental Europe as well, and it's still got a huge life. It's used for advertisements all the time on the Telly Oh.

20:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And did you also did you open for Robbie Williams at the O two Arena? Is that true?

20:46 Speaker 2: Weirdly, yes, very strangely.

20:49 Speaker 3: He had these six big articulated lawyers with his gear and we had our stuff loaded into the back of the small hatchback.

20:58 Speaker 1: Wow, how did that? But how did that come about?

21:02 Speaker 3: It came about through uh knowing the tour manager so and being a late standing type thing.

21:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so.

21:13 Speaker 2: It was. It was good fun. It was good fun, you know, it was.

21:18 Speaker 3: It was we didn't stay, We didn't stay and watch because Neil Young was that playing that night, so we all went off to watch Neil Young.

21:25 Speaker 1: Oh no kidding. Oh that's funny, that's cool. Yeah, I would have done the same thing.

21:33 Speaker 3: Who wouldn't go and see Neil Young? But no disrespect to Robbie. Robbie made some some some good pop singles.

21:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, Millennium was a big hit in the US. And that's a Robbie Williams song that I really like. Yeah, absolutely absolutely.

21:48 Speaker 3: Oh that's got the bond sample, hasn't it the it does you only did twice sample?

21:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, it absolutely does. That's right.

21:57 Speaker 2: Oh go ahead, No, that's why it's a good record.

22:00 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah absolutely. So. Now I'm curious what is next for Modesty Blaze. I mean, obviously you're gonna spend you know, this is a big, big project. Of course. The twenty fifth anniversary, the reissue of Melancholia and it's three discs. Is this kind of opening the door to some new material beyond this? I don't know if you're thinking that far ahead, but I'm curious.

22:25 Speaker 3: So there we will re promote our Christmas single. We've got a Christmas single. Oh, so when that comes around, we'll do that again this year because it needs to be better known. And there is a new album in the offing. It's being recorded. We've maybe got three or four tracks finished excellent, so that's good. There was an album in twenty twenty one which we released that did very well, and so in terms of what the next eighteen months looks like, new album and then what we'll do is we'll do the same process but with the first modesty based album, which is called Modern Guitars with Amplification, And so we'll do that with the yearly stuff on the Edwin Collins Recordings and Wow in order to get that up onto streaming services again and do the process again and make you know, make it, make it a proper, a proper disc.

23:33 Speaker 3: This has been very well received so far, so I think we're quite heartened by that as an idea.

23:38 Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, no, that's great. By the way, any plans to perform these live. I know that's probably not easy because, as we talked about, there's a lot there unless you do kind of strip down versions maybe, But what's the plan there.

23:53 Speaker 3: Well, we toured this album for two years, okay, and after a short while, what we did was we put the strings and horns onto a hard disc recorder and we played those along. You know what, most of the bands that you see are doing the same sort of thing. I worked for many years in a very large live music music venue. Of the band that we're playing, we're playing to some kind of playing along to some kind of track. If you see a if you see a drummer with headphones on, you're you're hearing. Not what you're hearing is more all acoustic.

24:34 Speaker 3: So that's what we did, we could theoretically do again.

24:38 Speaker 2: But you hear this.

24:39 Speaker 3: Hoarseness in my voice, Yes, yes, that's dysphonia. That's the same thing our FK Junior has. Really, although mine's not quite mine's not quite that bad.

24:48 Speaker 2: Yeah.

24:49 Speaker 3: So I'm on some current drugs at the moment and it's causing a lot of difficulty for speaking and certainly can't do singing. So there's a plan for this new album that I'm talking about, whereby I'll come off the jokes, get the voice back, record, record the.

25:13 Speaker 2: Record the vocals, and then go back on the drugs again.

25:15 Speaker 1: So oh okay, and you can you can do that, You can do that safely.

25:21 Speaker 2: Yeah.

25:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's theemo therapy I'm having. Okay, So that's what's causing it. And we have a long term plan with my oncologists to be able to do that. So yeah, that's what we'll do.

25:34 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Oh, excellent, excellent, all right, well, very good. So in a moment at the end of our conversation, we're going to play and I think you did reference it earlier, The Little Things You Do, of course the remastered version, which I love. Anything we should know about this one, I mean, obviously what's nice about this too, is all these all these songs have something distinctive about them. You know, there's there's there's nothing, there's nothing here where you say, oh, that sounds a lot like the song I just listened to.

26:03 Speaker 1: But what should we know about this one? The Little Things You Do?

26:06 Speaker 3: Well, Really strangely it was set to be a single we got as far as recording, we started filming a video for it. It was gonna strangely, it was going to be a vinyl single, seven inch single for Kappada. I don't know how this happened, and none of us can remember why it didn't happen or what shouldn't have happened. So what you're hearing is the single version, which we recorded at the time. Because the album version goes straight into.

26:36 Speaker 2: The next track.

26:38 Speaker 3: What you're hearing is the single version, and it had it had never been released before, so in many ways, this isn't a remaster, it's a master because he got shelved, and neither us nor the people at the record company, who I'm still very good friends with, can remember what happened. But it didn't come out as a single. But it is now and it's it's sounding great. Those big big horns on there are really good. Gregory, who's the guitarist, playser. It's a kind of like blistering guitar sound from it.

27:19 Speaker 3: So it's one I'm still very very pleased with. I think that as a songwriter and lyricist, I have to do. I have to have something in the lyric that I particularly like, and I particularly like it's the way your picture overloads my memory because it was a real thing. We were doing a cover and there was a girl on the cover of the previous single, which was the Uranium Girl, and it kept on crashing the computer that we were using.

27:52 Speaker 2: So it came from that. It's the way your picture overloads my memory. That's my favorite.

27:56 Speaker 1: Oh, okay, I get it. Oh that's cool. That's cool.

28:00 Speaker 3: Back in the days when computers used to crash if you try to load up more than three megabytes.

28:07 Speaker 1: We have come a long way with technology, that is for sure.

28:09 Speaker 2: We certainly have. That is for sure if we make the right decision.

28:14 Speaker 1: I'm not sure me neither hopefully.

28:18 Speaker 2: But we couldn't do this.

28:19 Speaker 3: That could be mad. We couldn't do this. We couldn't talk across the.

28:22 Speaker 1: Efer exactly, exactly. Yeah, that is a wonderful thing, Johnny. Where's the best place for people to go online to keep up with everything? Modesty Blaze is doing.

28:33 Speaker 2: Well. We have.

28:36 Speaker 3: I'd like to tell you that we have a social media strategy, but I will be lying.

28:40 Speaker 1: Ok.

28:41 Speaker 3: You can find us on Instagram modesty Blaze UK. You can find us on Facebook modesty Blaze UK. There is a website Modesty blaze dot Net. I'm sure that's been updated in the last year. Okay, so you'll you'll find us around, all.

28:58 Speaker 1: Right, wonderful, wonderful. Well, like I said in a moment, we're gonna play uh, we're gonna play this uh, this track The Little Things You Do. But Johnny Collins, thank you so much for joining us. This has been wonderful. We will definitely have you back in the future, especially you know now that you've told us you've got more stuff coming up with Modesty Blaze. Cannot wait to hear what comes next. And thank you absolutely, Thank you so much.

29:19 Speaker 2: For beshes to everybody.

29:22 Speaker 1: All Right, you as well, my friend. We'll talk to you soon.

29:24 Speaker 2: Take care, okay, goodbye, bye bye.

29:27 Speaker 1: All right. That is Johnny Collins from Modesty Blaze and we're gonna play this track now again. This is really good. I like this a lot. This is called The Little Things You Do, uh not the remaster because it was it was never released originally, as he told us, interesting story about that, so but uh, but here it is The Little Things You Do and this is Modesty Blaze