Off the back of All Through The Night, lead singer and songwriter David Mcdonnell was invited by a certain Mr N. Gallagher to play guitar for his newfound High Flying Birds. The invitation was accepted and The Sand Band's year long victory lap around the country would have to be put on hold. A few weeks later however, and David's high flying days were done. Personal issues led to an amicable split from the group and an arduous few months in a year which could and should have been his finest so far.
Fortunately, the personal issues that plagued 2011 have ceased in 2012 and in the year that the Mayans have predicted that the Earth will come to an end David, along with Scott Marmion (pedal steel and guitar) and Ben Curtis (bass and organ) look set to be born again with the download release of the new album Love Will Save Us I Hope which is to be followed by a second album proper in the form of When We Kiss later this year.
With all this to talk about, plus the unsung heroines behind the great Liverpool bands, the lunch making routine of The Sand Band and their death defying trip on the high seas of Cornwall, David swung by The Soul Kitchen to try and put this chaos into some sort of context.
The Soul Kitchen: A year in which your debut album receives widespread critical acclaim
and brings you to the attention of Noel Gallagher, who in turn asks you
to be one of his High Flying Birds, would usually be seen as quite a
monumental 12 months. However, serious personal issues brought a year of
such great promise to an abrupt halt. Would you mind talking us through
what happened?David Mcdonnell: The album coming out was a high, It felt like a real achievement for Scott, Ben and myself. Being asked by Noel to play guitar and rehearse with him was a high. I fell in love. Then Something happened in my personal life towards the middle of the year that was a low which led to the discovery that some people find satisfaction when they think you are falling and will even say and do things to contribute. That was a new one . But then to test myself and use music to write my way out of a low was another high. So four high's and one low, that's good odds. The high's won.
TSK: How difficult has it been to regain a sense of normality? Has anything in particular helped?
DM: Musicians are never any good at normality. We’re supposed to find moments for ourselves and others to escape into and I'm the same, trying to escape with everyone else. My sons Dylan and Zak keep me on my toes and don't let me off with anything. They keep me grounded. And sometimes hounded. What’s helped me the most has been the person I’ve met in the past 12 months. She’s helped me beyond being a lover or a friend. The best thing about the whole year for me has been falling in love. Doesn't happen that often does it ? Gigs, tours and traveling are brilliant but they all end. Love doesn't really, it grows and evolves and finds its way around any obstacle without you even knowing. If you don't take stock now and again and recognize what you have , you run the risk of getting lost in things that aren't real or losing things that can't be replaced. So some friendships have faded away but I found one worth keeping, she's a good soul. Sometimes people step up and show who they really are at a moment when it counts the most and we’ve both done that at different points for each other.
They say if you can count your close friends on one hand, not associates but your real friends, then you’re a lucky person. So I must be lucky after all because hers is a friendship that I will always maintain. A lifelong one like Scott , Ben , Caroline , Johnny Thieves , Alf , The Coral and Dom Foster who does our art work and videos. My kids and my friends, I would do anything for them.
TSK: How would you describe your experience as a High Flying Bird?
DM: It was a good experience. Oasis influenced me growing up and in the way I try to write songs. Noel's lyrics and the chords he chooses are the things I’m drawn to. They’ve always been the thing that I admired. I love Liam and Noel's voices but it's Noel's songs. If you’re a song writer or a singer or a guitarist then they’re important. Even if you’re just a fan of good music they are right up there. They stand for something that I relate to. Noel’s one of one of my heroes so it was a bit overwhelming at times. I couldn't really speak after playing ‘Listen Up’ and ‘Good To Be Free’ with him. He's a brilliant musician and one of the best songwriters ever. I went into The High Flying Birds as a fan of his music and I came out of them as a fan of his music. I’m grateful I got to do that.
TSK: Now you're back recording with The Sand Band, have you been able to recapture the momentum you previously gathered around the release of All Through The Night?
DM: It's never really a good idea to step out for too long when you’re an unknown band but people seemed to really get into All Through The Night. We were already recording again by the time it came out and we had done so much recording before I broke away that it was easy to pick up where we had left off. Although some songs had no place when I came back to them, I didn't want to sing about those things again, so some older songs had to go. But as far as playing, there has always been some place we go to when we play together, that's been a constant from the beginning, that's the bit you hope you can come back too if you've been away from it for a while.
DM: I think
it's always good to get new stuff out. We just broke away from When We Kiss for a bit to do those
songs. There are two old ones in there (‘Out Of Sight’ and ‘Hour Of The Wolf’)
but the others were written to go together as an album. It's good to test yourself
from time to time, I know you could go into a big studio and mix them to
perfection but sometimes that's not what it's about. People seem to spend a lot
of time and money behind big 64 channel desks polishing turds. It's two fingers
up to that in a way. We still use an 8 track tape then a computer, that's more
than The Beatles had! My 8 track EQ has a sound that I like. It has limitations
but within that you learn to work harder.
BB King has Lucile, Jack White has his Red Airline and I have my old
grey 8 Track ha ha. Even the microphone we use for all the vocals and guitars
isn't an expensive one. The point is any musician can get hold of this stuff. It
should be about what you have to say rather than what equipment you have. We
would love to record through an old Neve desk with some old microphones one day
but we don't have access to those things so right now this is us.
To record the drums for ‘Hour Of The Wolf’ I took
it over to The Coral’s room and Ian Skelly just played over it. We used just
that one microphone above the kit to capture it as a whole, that was his take
start to finish, he's unreal. He had one listen through and then said “press
record”. It was just guitars, bass and a tambourine loop. He found the groove
and just went for it.
‘Out Of Sight’ I wrote the night I found out Mark Linkous
(lead singer of Sparklehorse) had committed suicide. It was the day after he
did it and Scott phoned to tell me. I just left where I was and started walking
home. At the top of Rose Lane there's a church and as I got up to it to turn
the corner the bells were ringing , it was just getting dark and when they had
stopped ringing this massive flock of birds flew down into the trees and were
all just perched there silently. It was peaceful, I dunno. Sometimes there are
moments where you are aware of being alive and you have to remember how lucky
you are to be here because sometimes you can forget. By the time I got home I
had finished the words in my head and then just stayed up all night recording
the instruments. I can still hear that I was kind of mad and sad at the same
time. Not mad at Mark, but the situation. The drums and bass have a heaviness and the guitars and organ have a
sadness. As much as it was a reaction to loss , it's also a celebration of his
talent and the body of work he left behind.
The rest of the songs are brand new, recorded
as they were being written. Bob Dylan and The Band just got those takes down on
The Basement Tapes. Performance over
perfection, but they are perfect to me. Same with Astral Weeks by Van Morrison , A
Northern Soul by The Verve and Five
Leaves Left by Nick Drake. They all have a mood from start to finish.
Proper albums, Not focused on singles. Who gives a shit if there is hiss on
Leonard Cohen’s vocal and guitar takes?
He's showing you his soul. So rather than focus on pristine sounds, we
made sure that whatever the song had to say was loud and clear before we
started chasing some colossal bass drum sound. . I've heard of artists hanging
their work up in exhibitions while it's still wet. Maybe this album is a bit
like that.
All the
proceeds of each download go to Cystic Fibrosis Trust to try an raise awareness
because the more people that know about it the more people who might donate and
the more funds the CF Trust gets the more they can invest in finding a cure. We
don't want to force it on people, £1.99 for 10 songs is a fair exchange we
think. People get an album , The CF Trust get a donation.
TSK: We understand the follow up to 'All Through The Night', entitled 'When
We Kiss', was originally set to be The Sand Band's debut. Why the change
of heart?
DM: Yeah When
We Kiss was written first but I had
already passed out the demos of All
Through The Night just to test the water. James Skelly was the main one who
said don't put it out first and that we should put All Through The Night out first. He said the recordings had a charm
that needed to be left alone. I trust him a lot, so I left them alone. He was
right. The only track that has remained from the original twelve of When We Kiss is the title track, that's
now the last track on the album. It has John Head (guitarist with Shack) playing on the outro. It's
crazy that from the second he starts playing, you know it's him. You don't see
that in lot of players here, maybe only Will Sergeant , Bill Ryder Jones and
Lee Southall. He's like Bert Jansch , Keith Richards and Davy Graham all in
one. Me and Scott Spent the early years of the band learning and playing Shack
songs so that was a memorable moment for us both to sit there and see him play
all these unbelievable runs and notes up close. Then he came in and said "Can you use any of that ? " We used all of it! I read that Nick McCabe
never plays the same thing twice in the studio and you have to be quick to
capture it, John Head is the same. He had three passes and they are all
completely different but all sounded like him. All three takes glide in and out
over the outro. So yeah that track ends the album but the other 11 tracks are
all new, we have tried to stay busy.
TSK: How do you approach a second album after such a successful debut? Has it
been a case of carrying on from where you left off or have you taken a
more adventurous route?
DM: Carrying on from
where we left off musically yes, but not emotionally for me. I’m trying to move
forward with subjects and issues which won’t kill me to stand up on stage and
sing about. Or maybe they will, who knows ? I think we have grown as a band and
have other things to say now, but we can only be us too, so within that you get
a sound I guess. There is no formula, that would only go wrong anyway. It takes
all three of us to make our lunch, that's not even a joke! One on cups of tea,
one doing the toast and one doing the beans. We're a finely tuned machine. When We Kiss is our best album. That's
something that we and the few friends we have shown it to all feel the same
about.
TSK: Are there any particular influences inspiring the sound of the next album?
DM: Our
influences always seem to sit well within the context of the band but making
contact with (Doves frontman) Jimi Goodwin about potentially mixing it led to
him playing on a few tracks. We would actually love to do some recording from
scratch with him, he has an innate sense of melody and he's a great drummer,
bass player and guitarist. He's into good tunes and his lyrics are real and
from the heart. When you’re around people like that you have to make sure you
step up. I used to work in a guitar shop
and I’d listen to Lost Souls a lot as
I was walking to work, ‘Cedar Room’ is a tune. So I am still made up we even
know him and I hope we get to work together.
 |
We have
benefited just from someone with so much experience having a listen to where we
are up to and having a positive input. All three of us love Doves, they’re a
great example of a band who grow and change with each album but maintain an
identity too. That's hard to not repeat yourself but also not change to the
point of being inconsistent. I think Elbow are masters at that too. And
Spirtulaized , The Verve, The Coral, Richard Hawley, Paul Weller, The Smiths , Neil Young
... It's the sign that something is real. That's what you want isn't it? Integrity, values, soul - Those things can't
be engineered or programed into a band or artist, it's there or it isn't.
For us influences come from any source, they
aren’t always necessarily musical either. Scott, Ben and Me all discovered
great things in our personal lives last year. You can hear that in these two
records I think and that we are progressing together. Johnny Thieves and Dom
Foster are always throwing some audio or visual inspirations our way. I guess
for all of us combined, love is never really too far from the mix.
TSK: The Sand Band served us all another reminder of how fantastic a city
Liverpool is for churning out great British songwriters. From John,
Paul, George and Ringo (Octopus' Garden is a tune is it not?) through to
Ian McCulloch, Lee Mavers, James Skelly and of course Sporty Spice,
what is it about Merseyside that generates this almost infinite stream
of phenomenal guitar bands?
DM: Maybe
women, whether it's love , heartbreak , loyalty , inspiration , respect ,
admiration , desire or just a realization of a soul mate that you want to do
right by. Behind every good Liverpool band or musician you will usually find an
unsung heroine. I don't think they get enough credit. There are exceptions to
the rule obviously but I think it's true in most cases. Being in a band
sometimes gives people license to get a bit male-tastic. That's when it gets a
bit shit for me.
I think
people who run venues and nights in this city don't get enough credit either.
Tony from The Zanzibar, Danny and John who run The Company Store, Paul who runs
Static. James and Tom, the promoters who run Harvest Sun are good lads too.
They all play important roles in providing a platform to showcase the music.
There
has always been a high standard of musicianship in Liverpool and I think you
are aware of it from the moment you start playing in a band that has to play alongside
other really good bands from the city. I agree with you on all the bands you
have mentioned but you have to put Shack in there too. Mick and John Head are up
there and Edgar Jones is always doing something unique.
I've been speaking to
Paul Maguire who used to play drums in The Stairs about playing on a track
because he has his own style which I’ve always been a fan of . He lives in
Iceland now but the internet will solve that one I hope. He's opened a Cafe in Reykjavik called St.
Paul's, he runs it himself and makes all the food, so if anyone’s ever over
there and wants to see a friendly face or hear a friendly voice, you know where to eat now. I want an
Icelandic egg baguette on the next Easyjet for this Paul!
Also in
Liverpool, Clinic are always putting out interesting albums, Bill Ryder Jones
has just released a brilliant debut solo album which doesn't sound like
anything anyone else is doing. I know
James Skelly will release one too, I heard a couple of stripped back demos he
had done early on and they were already better than most band’s final mixes. He
is always looking and listening in places no one else is, lyrically and
musically I mean. Me and his brother Alf once decided he must write while he is
asleep because he always has an unbelievable amount of material written and
ready. Lyrically he is someone I look up to, him and Ian McCulloch. And I like
James's work ethic, he's committed and dedicated. You have to be if you’re
gonna discover your own path. He's in it for the music, like we are so I'm
looking forward to hearing what he does next. And I hope Ian Skelly releases
something too, he's as good on the guitar as he is on the drums. He has about
two albums written too, he seems to be able to blend everything from Joe Meek
through to Tom Rush within a single song.
There’s
also Jay Sharrock, who played with The Sand Band at the beginning and I still
love him for what he brought and the way that he plays. I really loved playing
and recording with him. Sometimes it's not just about how good the person is,
it’s about the chemistry or how your characters interact. They are the unspoken
elements of being in band together. Jay, Alf , Scott and me all went down to a
studio in Cornwall for three weeks in 2010 to do When We Kiss. We all bonded over music down there, we'd just play
from when we woke up , then we would record after tea until the early hours - I
loved it. We had a drink on the last night and took this tiny motor boat out in
a thunder storm, right out of the tidal creek and into the bay and headed for
the sea with a stereo blasting ‘Rolling People’ by The Verve ha ha!
We all had
to hold onto this one piece of rope, it was like something out of Apocalypse Now. Seemed like a good idea
on land but in the end we had to turn back because as we were getting to open
sea we were just getting flung about six foot into the air. I can remember Jay
answering his phone with all this thunder and lightning happening and just
saying "Hello, I’m on a boat, what's
happening ?” like it was nothing
ha ha.
It's like I said earlier, everything has value
and you have to carry it with you. They aren't in this band anymore, but we all
still play music and are all still mates and always will be.
TSK: Finally, you did ask before the interview for us not to ask you any
mathematical
questions. So we've decided to throw in some GCSE Biology
instead; Q: The mayfly larva needs clean water to survive. This means it
can be used as: a) an indicator species for water pollution. b) Food in
fish farms. c) A direct measurement of pollutant levels
DM: You Know
I am going straight on the internet to find this out ....... Ok I'm saying - A
because from what I can gather , almost any pollution will harm them, probably
wrong though! Yes! No maths! A good end.
A good end indeed. And with the releases of Love Will Save Us I hope and When We Kiss this year, we will hopefully see the dawning of a second beginning for The Sand Band.
* Love Will Save Us I Hope is available to download for £1.99 from http://thesandband.bandcamp.com/album/love-will-save-us-i-hope with all proceeds going to The Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
Until next time,
Keep on Keepin' on,
Baia
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