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With strong
reviews across the board ‘Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow’ is
just about to send Magnum back into the UK Album Charts. For this
album, the third since their reformation at the start of the decade,
Tony Clarkin has penned arguably his finest and most consistent set
of songs for 20 years. Add into the mix a captivating performance
from Bob Catley and Mark Stanway’s spellbinding keyboards and you
have an early contender for the album of the year. But before you
even remove the CD from the tray it is clear this will be a very
special album. Tony Clarkin has pulled off a masterstroke by
enlisting the services of fantasy artist Rodney Matthews. Matthews
will forever be linked to Magnum for his work with them on the
classic trilogy of albums from the 80’s; the lavish landscapes of
‘Chase The Dragon’, the dark and sinister ‘The Eleventh Hour’ and
the Tolkein-esque charm of ‘On A Storyteller’s Night’. So I kicked
off my chat with Bob by asking him to tell us some more about the
story behind the artwork.
BC - Well Tony had got this idea of Princess Alice in his head; the
name came from the Princess Alice orphanage in Birmingham…although
the Alice on the cover, our Princess Alice if you like, is a
fictitious character. And it just seemed right to ask Rodney if he
would be interested in doing a painting for the front cover instead
of using computer graphics which we have used a lot in the recent
past. Tony wanted the sly fox in the artwork and Princess Alice
breaking the arrow over her head and this was something that had to
be done by an artist….so the only man for the job was Rodney
Matthews. We went down to his house in Wales and Tony sat down with
him and went through his ideas for the cover and Rodney came back to
us with this wonderful pencil drawing which knocked us over; it was
brilliant in black and white so we knew it would look amazing in
colour. Of course with Rodney he was a known quantity for us from
‘Storyteller’s Night’ and those other great covers and so he was the
obvious choice. It reminds me a lot of ‘Storytellers Night’ and it
shouts Magnum at you ; I don’t think anybody else would have a cover
like that really.
Bob Catley
And does the cover relate to any of the song titles or the lyrics
in any way?
BC - Yes, in fact the little story there is that Princess Alice is
doing a deal with the fox; breaking an arrow over her head is her
making peace with the fox which is part of the lyrics in ‘Like
Brothers We Stand’. And this song is to do with the Native American
Indians making peace with the White Man so that they ended up being
shoved into reservations instead of having all of that country to
themselves. ‘The Flood’ from ‘Sleepwalking’ was basically the same
subject matter. And then the kids in the background stuck in the
cages are all looking sorry for themselves and the Princess is
trying to get the kids back as part of her deal. And she also kicked
off a song called ‘You’ll Never Sleep’ which closes the album that
was also part of the very loose Princess Alice concept.
The album marks the arrival in the studio of a new drummer, Jimmy
Copley. How was it working with him?
BC - Yes he has done two tours with us already, he did the two
‘Storyteller’s Night’ 20th anniversary tours in April and December
2005. Harry was back with Thunder and we needed someone quite
quickly and we got to know Jimmy through Mark Stanway really because
they both work together in M3 which is the band that features Bernie
Marsden and Mickey Moody. And it’s been great. He is very adaptable
he is a great session player and rock is his main forte and he is
very much part of the band now.
Sure. I was wondering if you ever heard from original Magnum
drummer Kex Gorin at all?
BC - Well yes Kex will probably turn up at one of the gigs on tour;
he tends to do that from time to time. You might not see him for
four years and then he will turn up out of the blue, he hasn’t
changed at all (laughs). He looks a bit older but so do all of us
really; he’s still a great bloke. He was with us when we started in
Birmingham back at the Rum Runner on Broad Street in the early 70’s.
That was quite a few years ago now. Did you ever think you would
still be working with Tony 30-odd years down the line?
BC - Well I can’t believe it really. If someone had said to me that
we would still be making albums 30 years later I would have been
amazed. I mean we really didn’t know where it was going to lead back
then, luckily we developed and progressed and made quite a few
albums along the way. This is album number 13, or 14 if you count
the acoustic album we did when we re-recorded some of the older
songs. I mean it was recorded in the studio not on tour so I say
that this is album number 14 really. So where did all that time go,
it’s like yesterday that we were just starting out.
Talking of looking back and the past there are a couple of songs
on the album that seem to be quite reflective….I’m thinking of
‘Thank You For The Day’ and ‘When We Were Younger’
BC - Well yes there is a bit of reflective thinking on the album,
time to look back and take stock and take a breath and I think that
Tony has written a wonderful set of songs. I’m very proud to have
sung them, I really loved it. And also, I think he wrote ‘Dragons
Are Real’ as a bit of a dig at the sort of press we used to get when
we first started, kind of “bloody Magnum all dungeons and dragons
sort of stuff”. And I think he wrote it with that in mind, kind of a
poke in the eye really. But it’s a great song, fantasy lyrics of
course, a little boy up in his room, reading a book and then it
takes you off into another world. And you know, Dragons are real, I
always thought they were and now I know they are (laughs)
You’ll be touring the album shortly, any thoughts on the set list
yet?
BC - Yeah, we’re just getting round to that. We’ve decided to play
five songs from the album, ‘When We Were Younger’, ‘Dragons Are
Real’, ‘Thank You For The Day’, ‘Like Brothers We Stand’ and ‘Out Of
The Shadows’. ‘Out Of The Shadows’ paints the picture of the
aftermath of a bloody battle and the stupidity of it all really. I
suppose it’s the anti-war song really, set around the Battle of
Waterloo period, so we’ll definitely do that one. And we’ll also do
about 10 old songs so it will be close on a two hour show because
most of the new songs are quite long, we have gone epic again
(laughs), they are all six or seven minute songs. It sounds a long
album but I listen to it and it goes really quickly for me, there’s
something different happening all of the time really. And people
will relate to the songs on the album differently. And it’s a very
warm album…very comforting, like sitting by the fire.
I noticed its also being released in the US around the same time
BC - Yes, a week later than Europe, and we have a single for radio,
an edited version of ‘Like Brothers We Stand’ which SPV thought
might go down rather well in America so lets see if they are right.
You know I wouldn’t mind getting back over there to play a few
shows.
Is it a regret that you never really had a good crack at the
States?
BC - Well we didn’t really, no. We recorded ‘Goodnight LA’ over
there in 1990 but never toured it and we had done some shows with
Ozzy back in 1982 but apart from that we haven’t done anything else
over there and it would have been nice…but we have never been to
Japan either, one of the few bands never to have played there. We do
sell quite a few records there but maybe it will happen one day. Our
biggest territories are still Germany, the UK and Scandinavia and a
little bit in Italy and France. On this tour we’re playing a gig in
Paris for the first time in ages, looking forward to that one. So
it’s going to be a really good tour, about four weeks in May and we
start rehearsing middle of April when I’ve put the set list
together. I haven’t got the running order right yet but I know the
content…it’s important to get the order right so you space out the
news songs and put them in the right place.
On your last solo tour you added ‘Sleepwalking’ to the set, that
was one that hadn’t been heard for a while
BC - Yeah it worked really well and I thought it would be nice to do
it because it was one that Magnum hadn’t played in ages. I wasn’t
sure but it went down great. I don’t do a lot of Magnum songs at my
solo shows but I think people expect to hear one or two and the
promoters like me do to a couple.
Any plans in place for the next solo album yet?
BC - I’m just having some songs sent over now for me to listen to by
a chap called Magnus Karlsson who is quite well known across Europe
I think. And Frontiers are very keen for me to work with Magnus in
conjunction with a chap called Dennis Ward, a producer who is
involved with Pink Cream 69 and it should be good. It’s sounding
good so far, I won’t be doing any singing on that until September
and I’ll be going over to Germany for a couple of weeks to do my
warbling and be there for the mixes and it’ll be out sometime next
year. So that will be album number six for me
I was speaking with Danny Vaughn a few weeks ago and there’s a
song on his new album called ‘The Warrior’s Way’ that he wrote with
you in mind
BC - Yes, he told me that actually. I’m honoured. I may work with
Danny at some point in the future and I know that he is definitely
interested in writing me some songs. This ones a done deal but
there’s always next time Danny (laughs)
Next year will be 20 years since ‘Wings Of Heaven’…any places to
tour the album like you did with the ‘Storyteller’s Night’
anniversary?
BC - (laughs) Well yeah probably. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
It’s too early to say yet but we might just do that. It worked
really well with ‘Storytellers Night’ and if everybody clamours for
it I’m sure we could oblige.
‘Don’t Wake The Lion’ would certainly be a popular addition to
the set
BC - It’s a big production number really, you need to do it a
theatre with a proper light show and everything; explosions,
flamethrowers and all of that to really help it along. It’s a song
that needs to be done properly, there are no half measures with that
one but I don’t know if it would work in the smaller venues
And looking ahead have Magnum re-signed with SPV for more studio
albums?
BC - Yes we’ve got another couple with them, then we’ll see. They
keep picking up the option and that’s a nice compliment. We’re
really pleased with SPV and they are doing a great job for us;
they’re really pushing this album, more so than they did with ‘Brand
New Morning’ really. They’ve got a really good feeling about it,
there are good pre-sales and hopefully it will chart for us this
time like we used to have (laughs). So maybe we’ve got a chance
again with this one.
Let’s hope so. Well Bob was there anything else you wanted to
add?
BC - Well just to say thanks for listening everybody, hope you enjoy
the album and we’ll see you on tour very soon, come and say Hello
Many thanks to Bob for his time and also to Annie Minion for setting
up the interview. To find out more about Bob and Magnum then you can
visit the following websites:
www.magnumonline.co.uk
www.bobcatley.com
www.myspace.com/bobcatley
Magnum' s new album, ‘Princess Alice And The Broken Arrow’, is out now
on SPV and Magnum tour the UK and Europe in May. |
