home back to interviews	I just love doing it! Clive Nolan Interview - Tivoli, Utrecht, Holland, 5 April 1996
	While support act PTS is doing its job, we took the opportunity to ask Clive Nolan a few questions about the first gigs, lyrics, the upcoming album and his various projects. How was the first gig of the tour, in The Bottom Line in England? It was interesting. Basically, it was a great opportunity to try out the new line up and to sort out a few technical problems. I wouldn't say it's a great gig, but I think it was good to do. And the audience? Very British, basically a couple of hundred people, polite but not the most enthusiastic country in the world... There's plenty of fans for this kind of music in England, it's just hard to track them down. If you compare the Bottom Line audience to that of Rotherham? Rotherham is made up of people who are members of a fan club, so they're more enthusiastic. I mean, this was just a gig in the middle of London without a lot of publicity as a warm up to the other gigs. So it was alright, it went OK. It's just that I don't think I will remember that gig when I'm seventy. This is a two way question: Now I'm going to ask you what your expectations are for tonight and afterwards you can say if your expectations came true. Well, I really, really hope that it's going to be a good gig. I hope the audience is going to love what we do. I hope that we play well. We've got high expectations of ourselves, probably much harder than anybody else has got out there, so that makes it quite difficult for us, it's hard to be pleased with what we do, but the best dream for us would be this gig to go well. What are the plans for the band after this tour? Well, we start (recording) the new Arena album in the second half of May. The music's mostly written, so Mick and I have got to finish preparing the work we've been doing and we'll have to write the lyrics amongst other things. That will take us May, June, July and August and the album hopefully will be out in September followed by a September, October tour. So it will be totally Arena until the end of the year. You know already when you're going to be back in Holland? Not in terms of date but we plan to start the tour third week of September or something like that and if we could be on tour for three or four weeks then I suppose we're going to be in Holland towards the end of September. I read that you might be visiting America in the near future, what can you say about it? Yeah, we've been asked to go out by a few people. It's a question of trying to choose the right moment, there's no point in just going out and playing to a couple of hundred people. You need to have some reason, so I think what we'll do is wait until next year, maybe earlier next year if we can organize it. When we go out there we'd like to do more than one gig. Basically we go out there and do a few gigs and see if we can capitalize on the new album.  There is actually a possibility for us to go to Japan now apparently as well, we'll be talking about on that Wednesday. And again, it's a nice idea whether we can actually make it happen or not... Did you sell many albums in America and Japan? Yeah, oh yeah, we sold quite a few thousand albums in Japan, somewhat less in America. We haven't really got the right deal yet in America, I think it was a bit last minute. We have to think on that again, it's such a big country... This is a very long question: the Songs From The Lion's Cage lyrics contain many mythological and Biblical elements, which doesn't make them easily accessible for everybody. Could you enlighten us about every lyric a little bit? We decided that the theme of the first album was going to be about victimization, being thrown to the wolves. We were just dealing with the idea and we took it from different sides. So Out Of The Wilderness was a kind of an announcement. You could say that it parallels to Mick but it wasn't really about him. You know, this is like: despite the odds I'm back. It's a fighting song, it's about: stuff you, I'm going to carry on...  Solomon deals with what it's like experiencing being thrown to the wolves, being thrown in the arena, the experience of feelings you have to go through. The other songs approach it in different ways. The whole Crying For Help idea is as simple as that: there you are, completely on your own. No help, no friends, no nothing and it is just that simple feeling: God, somebody, something, help me! There is an ‘I’ in the song who says: I want to lead you through the traps and snares...’’  Yeah, I kind of describe it from different sides and I don't necessarily explain that in the lyric, but sometimes it's the victim and sometimes it's someone else. Crying For Help itself was actually inspired by children who didn't have homes and have to live in the streets. That's where I took the idea, the inspiration for what it was about. So yes, the sinner is actually saying: look at this, I'll help, I'll try and do one thing. Valley Of The Kings is a very straight idea, a sort of greed thing. You know, the man who wants to live forever even if that means at the expense of thousands of other people. If you're looking at feelings you're looking at the way people deal with that or at least that's what they're trying to do. Midas Vision is about greed, treachery. Treachery is the theme that we pick up and continue to use on the second album, so the first one is about victims and the second one is about treachery, betrayal. Crying For Help III ends with a phone call, no one's answering and then you hear Midas' Vision. Do you suggest that the helping instance is greedy? No, there's no help offered, that's the arena really in a way. The songs are two separate things, it's just that we joined them together. Basically Crying For Help III is just a cry for help. Midas is almost the sort of person you might ask for help but didn't get it from. So yeah, just what you said, it might be the other end of a phone... When you compare Pride to Songs From The Lion's Cage, what are the differences and similarities when you think about the music? Well, there will be a different singer and a different bassist, that's the first one. The music, to be honest, I think of Pride as the second part of Songs From The Lion's Cage. We decided that the first two albums would be very much in the same vein, don't mean the same but basically the same kind of flavour: we were dealing with ancient history, we're taking a simple idea. Neither of these albums are concept albums, we're just taking themes that we can use; the idea of betrayal and also a kind of larger scale.  The first album was very dry, it was the sand, that was the visual idea. This one is kind of wet, lots of water, oceans, bad stormy oceans. So the approach is going to be the same as we did with the first album. In fact, just to show that point, we are going to record Crying For Help V, VI, VII, and VIII. The basic shape of the album will be similar to the first album. Things are going to change on the third album. We are going to completely change the approach on the third album in terms of concepts and ideas - the third album will be a concept album. Musically, Pride is going to be in the same vein, it's going to follow the same sort of approach as we used. The Crying For Helps will be musically different following the thematic idea we started with on the first album, but the main songs I'd say that if anything possible a little more aggressive in places. The stature and the size of the songs is similar. I heard Mick say he wanted some more guitars, is that right? That will sort of develop as we are recording it. Yeah, possibly, that depends on what he means by that. I think it's always got to be controlled, if the fight between keyboard and guitar would get bigger. That's good, in a controlled kind of way. I think what he means is that it's going to be a bit harder. Can you tell something about the lyrics from Pride? Well, there aren't any lyrics yet. I've written a couple of lines. Basically, I know the subject, some ideas and all I can really say at this stage is that we are going to take that basic idea of betrayal, look at it in different ways and see what feels good. You'll have to wait a bit longer before I can answer more specific. You are a member of four bands, do you write for each band another type of lyrics? I don't write anything for Pendragon at all, I just play for Pendragon. Shadowland has me as the singer, I write a particular kind of lyric for me as the singer, so this is a slightly different approach. I go for the words that feel right, I go for moods and ideas that appeal to me, that are very personal to me. Strangers On A Train, I'm writing for Tracy, those lyrics are much more open and fantasy orientated. With Arena we (Mick and I) decide together on the subject and the approach. Most of my lyrics, 99,9 percent, are always personally, got some personal experience. I don't think you can write without having at least an idea what your words are about.  When you should describe yourself as a keyboardist, what would you say? What style do you play (and I don't mean progressive), who is your example, who's way of playing do you loathe? I don't really know. Well, I've had a classical education: I did musical university and I studied music, so my kind of approach to music, I suppose, is very disciplined. Having said that my main studies were not keyboards or piano or anything. My parents were piano teachers, so I started, as a kind of a rebel, to play the violin and other instruments actually. The piano was not something I took seriously, although I was always playing it because there was always a piano in the house. So I would say my approach to keyboard is not so disciplined as it might have been if I had studied piano the whole way through.  I'm a great fan of Rick Wakeman, particularly when he's not with Yes, I like his solo work a lot. I like what Tony Banks does with Genesis. I'm also a Howard Jones fan, I think he's a great keyboard player. There are a lot of keyboard players around now who basically can't really generate without a sequencer. So I don't loathe them particularly, I just think it's a shame they can't actually get up and play, they're more programmers than players. Do you think there's too much computerizing in music? In the studio we're trying to do a definitive article which is going to live forever. Discipline and control in the studio is worth having and the computer is a tool and as long as you're not slave to it, then it's alright. Live you still want to deliver the goods on the stage, I've got a lot of respect for people who do that. Which instruments do you use? Well, tonight I should be playing a PF 85 piano, that's with weighted keys, full length piano, made by Yamaha / two 01 W's which I use mainly as controllers / Roland JD 800 / Roland D 50 / Korg MI, I've got a bit of a deal with Korg / EXI Sound / Roland Vintage Keys / EMU Vintage Keys / Korg Wavestation which is brilliant / a moog / a very large mixing desk / a host of peddles and thousands of leads. That's about it. You haven't got your own mellotron?  I don't. Do you regret that? Well, yes and no. I use Mike Stobbies' mellotron when I have to on the Arena album, and Martin Orford's got one. I can get to a mellotron when I want to. It would be great to have one but the maintenance is hard work. If some one offered me a good deal for a mellotron I would be interested but I'm not travelling to the desert to get one. When you look at Pendragon, Arena, Strangers On A Train and Shadowland. Which place does Arena have among the others? Number one. So if you 're going to get big, really big... Well, I never think of it. People always ask me: who are you going to choose? I don't think of it in terms of choices. You know, I'm a musician and I owe my living doing music. One band would have to get awfully big before that's going to be a complete career. I play in these bands because I enjoy playing. If I would want to earn lots of money I wouldn't be doing progressive rock. Basically, it's not the question: if one band is doing well, goodbye to the others. I will do them all as long as I possibly can, but you'll have to have an order of priority.  Now I understand, as much as I love singing for Shadowland, I'm not the world's greatest singer, I'm almost their worst asset in a way and I accept that, but we'll do what we can although there's a limit. Strangers On A Train is a project and it comes to a close when we bring out the third album, anyway, that was always the plan (I'm actually going to do an album with Rick Wakeman's son, that's another project). Pendragon, I play for them, a performer, I'm part of the line up for ten years. I love doing it and that's the reason why I do it. Which question that hasn't been asked yet would you like to answer? Where would I most like to play? Well?  I would most like to play at Wembley Stadium to a packed audience. I'd like to be in a band who could fill a stadium, I want to play where the audience is. It's not of greed, it's merely a passion to make the whole thing more successful. I've never done music for money, it's not a good area to work in for money. I just do it because I love doing it! By: Monique van Galen