Ricky Warwick Interview

At the beginning of his recent solo acoustic jaunt round the UK HardRockHouse got to sit down with former Almighty frontman Ricky Warwick just before the second show of the trek in Newcastle. Over a beer or two we had the chance to talk about all things Ricky Warwick related as well as the two recent Almighty reunion shows in aid of Leukemia Research

The obvious kick off for the interview was to ask about the two Almighty shows and how they went. Ricky was full of enthusiasm about the experience, "Amazing" was his reply, "we raised about £20,000 and sold every t-shirt we printed. It couldn't have been better you know. It was very emotional, the first time in ten years we'd played together" So with the success of these shows what was there any likelihood of The Almighty returning full time. With this in mind we just had to ask what the chances were of the Almighty reforming on a more permanent basis. Ricky explained " Don’t know, hate to say no hate to say yes. We got together, we did it for Floyd obviously, and that was the line-up that gelled the best. The whole thing felt really easy and it was really good and we all had a good laugh. The shows were fucking amazing and it gets you thinking maybe we’ll do another show. I don’t think we’d get back together and I don’t think there’d be an album cause I don’t think any of us want to do that, it’s not really were our heads are at, we’re all off in different directions. But playing those songs from the first five albums with that line up, it was a lot of fun, I think we played well and we rocked. Yeah we’ve got the legacy so why the hell shouldn’t we use it, so we are talking about, we might do another couple of shows, we might not. To sum it up the gigs were fucking amazing don’t get me wrong but it wasn’t like oh my god that’s it we’ve got to reform the band and make a new record and go on tour. We’re old enough and wise enough to know that that’s not the thing to do but I would certainly like to think we might do another couple of shows"

The Almighty

Tattoos & Alibis

Now obviously with his two solo albums, 'Tattoos & Alibis' and last years 'Love Many Trust Few' opus Ricky's style has moved on from the heavier sound of The Almighty but when asked about this change in direction Ricky points out that " It’s still me, I just love writing songs. I love music and I like going out and playing. Whether that’s in front of 20 people or in front of 50,000 people I don’t care. That’s what I like to do and that’s what keeps me sane. It’s not like there’s a great myth behind it, like why’s he doing this or why’s he doing that, I want to play. If it’s me on my own with a guitar or me with the Almighty or its me solo with my band or whatever else is going on I want to be busy and I want to play. Its what any artist wants to do I think, people read into it way too much. If somebody calls me up from The Almighty and said there’s a show do you want to go and play next Saturday, of course I want to play. I don’t want to do a lot of the politics and bullshit, I just want to play and of course I want to get paid cause like everybody else I’ve got mortgages and kids. It’s my job as well as my art. Sometimes people get do deep about it, as I said I just want to play. I’m not trying to confuse any fans out there, like what’s he doing, is he country. There’s no point writing a hundred ‘Addictions’. It’s a great song but what's the point trying to repeat yourself again and again"

Talking further about the Tattoos and Alibis album we got to talking about the evolution of that record, Ricky explained that " It kind of saved my life that album in a funny short of way. I was very very close to turning my back on music, very close. I had taken steps to do that. I was really disillusioned with the whole thing and I just picked the guitar up and started writing and 'Mysteriso' and 'Church of Paranoia' were the first two songs that came. Those songs came so easy and the whole album came out easy so that just inspired me again, it really made me feel excited again like when I was 14 or 15. I played the songs to people and they seemed to share my enthusiasm which gave me the confidence to go right well this is what I’m going to do. I didn’t sit and plan and go I’m going to have a solo career, this is my next move. The way I felt at that point I was like maybe I need to do something different apart from music, maybe go off and travel for a year or whatever. Then as I said I came up with those songs and played them to people if they’d said what you doing that would have been it, cause my confidence was quite shaky but they said this is great you should pursue this. So I thought if their digging it you know maybe I’m onto something here. A publisher at the time gave me some money cause I had no management, no record deal in place, it was back to square one and it started with a publishing deal and that enabled me to start doing demos for the record. Joe Elliot got involved when he heard the demos and suddenly there was record deals on the table and managers back in place again and it was like here we go again, it was great.

Def Leppard's Joe Elliot obviously played a big part in getting Ricky back on the musical trail once more, so just how important was Elliot , "I couldn’t have done it without Joe, absolutely not, not without his belief and his direction" was Ricky's answer, "I did a few solo shows over here and I’d never done anything like that before with just me and an acoustic guitar and I didn’t know if I could. I did a couple of shows with Toby Jepson, which was very cool, just to test the water and it was alright, like 150 people or whatever and then we did the album and Joe said why don’t you come over and open for us. Fucking hell me opening for Def Leppard with just a guitar, sounds amazing but I’m not sure how this is going to happen". Ricky went on to explain further "What had happened was Universal in Japan had agreed the license for 'Tattoos And Alibis' and Def Leppard were going to Japan so Joe says why don’t you come out to Japan and we’ll road test it out there. You can go on before us there cause your albums coming out in Japan first. It all made sense and to cut a long story short I went out and did the shows and it seemed to go down really really well. So Joe and the boys came in and said we’ve got a run of twelve dates starting in December on the west coast of America and we’ll have a go. So there’s me in Las Vegas in the Mandalay Bay Hotel, 8,000 people, me and my fucking guitar just sitting there shitting my knickers thinking what have I got myself into. They're (the audience) are going to kill me, it was the most nerve wracking thing I’ve ever done in my life. I went on and opened for Leppard and it was great, people seemed to like it, it seemed to go down well. It was easy for Leppard cause it was just me and my guitar and it snowballed and I was asked do you want the rest of the tour, this is great, people are liking you, it’s easy for our crew, there’s no big change over it’s just one guy and a guitar and I was like fuck, course I do you know so 150 shows later that was it. I went to America and was able to establish myself over there and then we came back to the UK".

That particular UK tour, with Leppard having just released their 'X' album saw Ricky opening the gigs and then being followed onstage by the then relatively unknown 'The Darkness'. Having seen the band every night did Ricky have an inkling of what impact they would go on to have. "Yeah" he replied, "you know why I realized at the time, cause I saw this once before with a band called Alice In Chains and not to compare Alice In Chains with The Darkness cause their two totally different bands but we played with The Almighty alongside Megadeth and Alice In Chains back in 1991. Alice In Chains opened the show, The Almighty were in the middle and Megadeth closed the show. It was right before grunge hit, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was about to blow up, but it still hadn’t got there, so we were still very much in metal territory, still very much in the Sunset Strip era. Alice In Chains turned up looking fucking amazing, Dr Marten’s boots the whole grunge look, they were an amazing band but they were going on stage and you could see half the people going what the fuck is this, this is shit and booing them and yet the other half were going I’ve see the light, this has restored my faith in rock and roll. It was the same thing with The Darkness, half the people were going this is shit the other half going this is amazing". Explaining further Ricky said "The line between comedy and balls out rock and roll they are treading is a tight one. AC/DC are the ultimate band at doing that, but AC/DC are fucking hard, they are a hard core rock and roll band, they are dirty Aussie rock and roll band and you believe in them. I don’t know if I believe in The Darkness. Beautiful people, nice guys and I had a great time hanging with them on that tour, but I have to believe in it you know. It kind of happened to Zodiac Mindwarp a few years ago as well. They came out and did the tongue in cheek thing and I think if people can see through it at all, they’re not that stupid. Alice Cooper's being able to maintain it for years, the character onstage and Vincent Furnier off stage. It’s a hard call though they were great guys. I haven’t really seen them since but they were doing the tour on a shoestring and they totally believed in it, so if they believe in it that’s good enough, pat them on the back and more power to them you know".

One of the biggest criteria for success in the rock and roll game is longevity. Whether The Darkness can go the distance remains to be seen, Ricky, on the other hand, with The Almighty and other British bands from the same generation such as Thunder and The Quireboys seemed to have managed to keep going over the years. We asked Ricky on his thoughts as to why this should be the case. "I think we all meant a lot to a lot of people at the time and people latched on to it. I know the bands that, when I was a lot younger, meant a lot to me back then I still listen to now cause I thought they had something to say or they were a part of my life. I still listen to the Stiff Little Fingers, I still listen to Motorhead. There are bands that are really good entertainment but don’t necessarily mean a lot to you yet they entertain you and its great to watch them but you don’t walk out of there thinking that song changed my life or that did that, certain bands do that." But that being the case why hadn't the American bands of the time, who perhaps sold more albums managed to keep the same profile in the UK. "British and Irish people just can’t do that ‘Yeah Dude’ thing" he comments "it’s just not in our culture. I’m hugely influenced by Americana rock and certainly with what I do now. Not being a hypocrite but with the likes of Springsteen, Darkness On The Edge of Town and all that kind of stuff to Thunder Road I love all that shit. John Cougar, Stevie Earle, The Smithereens, Jay Hawks I love that stuff, its good songs played with a lot of with passion. I’ve been to Nashville, I write in Nashville but I can’t suddenly sing with a Memphis or Texas twang cause I’m not fucking from there. I don’t necessarily think I have an accent when I sing, but I’ve seen singer/songwriters go to America and see them come back sounding like there straight out of Nashville when their not their from Greenwich, London or something".

With the style Ricky is now employing on his two solo albums I asked whether the songs were written specifically with just an acoustic show in mind. "Pretty much" he answered, "both albums were written on acoustic guitars and then you think lets rock this up, electric guitars. But the last thing I wanted to do was write on acoustic and then go and get the heaviest guitar sound I could find. When I tour in the USA now I’ve got a three piece band, a bass player, drummer and myself on guitar. I play electric guitar throughout the entire set and we’re doing the albums and it just rocks like you wouldn’t believe, huge sort of tele (caster) sound. I’m loving it, really enjoying it and think I’m going to be doing a lot more of that this year. But when you record it, it’s not like ok lets try and make things really heavy, lets keep them rockier, keep them up there but you don’t need those guitars distorted to get the message across, its two different ways to experiment".

Love Many Trust Few

So with that in mind what's next for Ricky Warwick once the UK tour is over. "Back home to LA next week" Ricky explained "I've got a show in San Diego pretty much when I get back and then hopefully we will be going on the road in the States probably April time and then back over here and Ireland for a couple of festivals and hopefully bring the band across and at some point start the third album". With that answer it was obvious to ask just what the next album would be like. "This time I’m going to record it out in the desert in Nevada" he replied "I’m gonna use the three piece band I’ve been using live so it still have the Ricky Warwick solo flavour but I think it will sound like a live album whereas before it was pretty much me and Joe in the studio doing everything this will be three guys standing there looking at each other. There’s talk about trying to make it a double album, one CD electric the other acoustic. That’s the plan. I’ll keep touring and keep writing. Gotta keep busy you know".

So there you have it, a half hour chat with Ricky Warwick distilled into a few hundred words. What was obvious over the course of the interview was just how much enthusiasm and love he has for his music and how much he simply enjoys playing. This was further emphasized by the show that followed the interview. Just one man, one guitar, a few dozen people, a dozen or so songs and a hundred stories - all in all a great night then...

many thanks to Ricky for taking the time to sit down and chat with us. For more details on Ricky & The Almighty you can visit his official website at www.rickywarwick.com or alternatively www.thealmighty.co.uk

You can read the review of Ricky's Newcastle show via this link and check out the HardRockHouse.com review of 'Love Many Trust Few' by' clicking here