Working With Your Heroes
John Mitchell Interview April 2005

John Mitchell is very busy with both Arena and Kino at the moment. In this interview we take a look into his Kino experiences.

Finally, Picture has been released. Are you satisfied with the end result yourself?
Totally! I wasn't sure for a while as we had spent so long making the album and I was starting to lose objectivity, but in hindsight, I’m extremely pleased with it.

How are the gigs going?
Well we just did a show in London which was FANTASTIC! It was the first time I heard people sing along with the songs. I actually got a bit emotional when the audience sang along with the 'Dead nobodies in company cars..' at the end of Losers Day Parade. I didn't really expect to hear that. There was a VERY good turnout as well!

How is your back doing?
Fine thanks! It plays up once a year and that's about it. It comes from a trampolining injury I had when I was 14 and I crushed one of the discs in my back. It always strikes when I least need it to :-)

Was there a concept on how Kino's music should sound, or did the music just come naturally?
We just wrote whatever came into our heads. There was no concept. Obviously people might have been a little shocked if we had delivered a country and western album and I wouldn’t have blamed them. As it is, we all like this sort of music and we have a lot of common musical ground, so it came very naturally.

Are the songs all group compositions, or is Picture more of a collection of individual efforts? Can you tell something about the writing sessions?
Well it was very much a collaborative effort. Sometimes I would write with one person, and other times, another and sometimes...hey, even all three :-) Everybody made their mark in the end though. The songs wouldn’t have sounded anything like they do with different people.

How important are the lyrics for you? Is there something of a lyrical theme on Picture?
Well, lyrics are extremely important. Jon Anderson was very vocal about the 
fact that a lot of his lyrics are just nonsense that sounded good. That's kind of true and I guess it works for them. I'm not sure that I would be too happy singing anything that didn’t have some meaning to me though. The sort of music I listen to is very much governed by having some deep seated meaning that people can relate to. If I thought that Rufus Wainwright was singing nonsense poetry, then I probably wouldn’t give it as much time as I currently do :-)

I just got to know: who wrote the absolutely fantastic chorus of Perfect Tense? 
I wrote that one. It's sort of weird the way it changes from major to minor and back again I guess.

What is your favourite track and why?
My favourite track on the album is a tossup between Loser's Day Parade and Picture. And don't ask me why :-) Its like asking someone why their favourite colour is red (and please don’t' ask me that!!! ;-)

When I first heard that Ray Wilson would not be part of Kino, I was a bit disappointed. Now hearing the end result, I am not anymore because your singing is actually very good. Did you ever consider other singers when Wilson declined? Did you have back-up band members in the first place?
Nope, there were no backups. Waber [InsideOut – eds.] asked me who I wanted to work with and I 
was very stubborn with my choices. I can be very much like a dog with a bone when it comes down to it. Various singers names were suggested and I didn’t have a vast amount of enthusiasm for the alternatives so I kind of held out for Ray, and when it became apparent that it was never going to happen, Waber asked why I didn’t just do it myself. 

I was a bit disappointed that the Ray thing never worked out at the time and I wasn’t exactly reluctant to sing on the record, but in hindsight I’m glad I did :-) The less people you have in a band, the easier it is to make decisions. Well...that's one benefit anyway :-)

In a review someone said that your voice resembles Peter Gabriel's. How do you think about that?
I think it's very flattering if a little bit way too flattering. Peter Gabriel has probably THE most beautiful voice on the planet. I obviously don’t :-) The comparison is drawn purely because of the 'gravel' factor. I'm afraid that when I open my mouth and make noise, it's always going to be raspy, that's just the way it is. If I had even one fifth of the tone and delivery of Peter Gabriel, i would be a happy man.

It Bites' (or Marillion's) music has made a big impression on you when you were younger (like it did to me). My personal experience is that such music becomes a part of you; when hearing it you recall certain situations and even emotions. 

I think that I'd be afraid to put part of that on the line, taking the risk that collaboration with one of those musical heroes might not succeed. If you and John Beck would not have been able to get along very well on a personal and/or musical level, wouldn't that have had effect on the magic that is It Bites nostalgia? Did you considered this?
Well yes, and I agree. They say 'never meet your heroes, you'll only ever be disappointed'. Well your heroes are just people as well with faults and failings. It depends on whether you can be objective about it or not. Someone who plays an excellent keyboard part on your favourite record may however not be the be the best person at turning up to the studio on time :-) Not mentioning any names by the way!! :-) 

The point is if you spend enough time working and writing with people and not forcing the issue and getting to know them and developing personal chemistry, then there is more chance that the camaraderie aspect will fall into place. Working with anyone, there is always the risk that it won't work out, but it's fair to say that because the people I wanted to work with in Kino are all people whose musical angle I greatly relate to, there was always going to be an above odds chance that it was going to work out.

Is working with the other band members like you imagined or hoped it would be?
Probably better than I imagined it would be. I've certainly learnt a lot about economy of arrangement and simplifying stuff. I have a bad habit of playing about six different guitar parts at once when one really good part would do. I only have two hands when we play live, after all. John Beck comes very much from the writing together in the rehearsal studio approach, so he's used to writing parts that are strong and can be duplicated live as well. I'd never really thought about things in those terms really. I don't know why...it's fairly obvious :-)

If you were to choose any back catalogue of the different bands to play during a gig, what would be your picks and why?
Well we did that already. We play two It Bites tunes, one Marillion and one Urbane. The choices are very much based on first and foremost which ones we all like and secondly which ones fall within my fairly limited vocal range :-) I'm not giving anything more than that away right now, you'll just have to wait to see us live to find out!

You are doing three different things in three different bands. Is there still any musical territory that you are into and have not explored yet?
I'm sure there is and there's always more you can be doing as a musician. But I’m happy with the way things are right now :-)

What are your musical plans for the rest of the year?
Tour, tour, tour. It's Arena time right now, and we've got the ten year anniversary tour later this year, plus a few one off gigs over the next few weeks, but if hope to do a headline tour with Kino after the Arena stuff.

What's Kino's favourite CD in the tour bus? 
Weirdly, the only time so far that we have been on a tour bus all together, no one has really played any music. I've been listening to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack a lot recently if that helps :-)

By: Remko Heerings