He's
The Piper...And So Much More:
Marty
Willson-Piper Goes Solo...Sort Of
by William Harris
(photo courtesy of Rickenbacker.com)
It's been quite a few years since Marty Willson-Piper, guitarist for the Church, took time out of his busy schedule to record a solo album. 8 years, in fact: that's the time between Rykodisc releasing his last disc, Spirit Level, and Heyday Records putting out his latest, Hanging Out In Heaven.
But don't go getting the idea that Marty was relaxing a whole hell of a lot during that time. From '92 to present, the Church released 5 albums (Priest=Aura, Sometime Anywhere, Magician Among The Spirits, Hologram Of Baal, and A Box Of Birds) and toured the world; in addition, Marty's also been serving as both a recording and (Church permitting) touring member of All About Eve since their 1991 album, Touched By Jesus. Add to that the fact that the guy's also got a family, and you can see why 8 years between solo albums really isn't doing too badly at all.
And while it also may not come as too much of a surprise to learn that it took the better part of 5 years for Hanging Out In Heaven to reach full fruition and release, the reasons why aren't as obvious as one might suspect.
According to Robert Rankin Walker of Heyday Records, "Marty recorded 10 songs with Shep (Lonsdale, who engineered the Church's US breakthrough album, Starfish), then, for one reason or another, lost contact with him for what I'm told was two years! Oh, yeah, and all this time, Shep had the master tapes. When Shep resurfaced, Marty wasn't happy with the songs anymore...or, rather, time had passed, and they didn't mean as much to him as they did when he first recorded them."
"Robert liked what he'd heard," says Marty (or, to reveal Robert's own words, "those 10 songs blew my mind!"), "and he wanted to release it, and that was great, but not until I did some more work on the material." By the time Hanging Out In Heaven saw release earlier this year, of the 10 songs, some were remixed, parts of some were re-recorded, and a few others were re-recorded entirely. To top things off, he added 5 new songs; one of them was the jangly but nonetheless anthemic "Forget The Radio," the album's opener and, arguably, its signature song.
Switch on your radio/And put a record on/Lay back on your pillow/And hear your favorite songs/Feel the music breathe/Sing the melody/Read the sleeve notes through/What the musicians do/And when you've found the groove/Or if the lyrics soothe/Concentrate and listen really close/Forget the radio/Send the DJ home/You're better on your own/Forget the radio.
“Yeah, that one was important to include, I think," admits Marty. "It says quite a lot."
Marty supported the release of Hanging Out In Heaven by doing a solo acoustic tour of the US throughout April, then finishing things up with a gig at the Borderline, in London, England. By most accounts, it was a complete success.
Though he's now suffered the slings and arrows of a solo tour, it wasn't so long ago that Marty found himself leading the Church for a night...mostly by default.
The night in question was October 5th, 1999; the location was New York City's Bowery Ballroom. A review of the performance, posted on an unofficial Church website known as Shadow Cabinet (http://church.sausage.com), described the evening as beginning in the following fashion: "Marty came out, carrying an unlit cigarette, went to the center mike and said, 'We have a problem tonight. We're Steveless. I'll let that sink in while I light this.' He walked back towards the drumkit, lit the cigarette, then said, 'And it looks like he's not going to make it at all.' He stepped back again, and after some comments from the audience, continued, 'He's been arrested.'"
In fact, he had, indeed.
The Church's frontman, Steve Kilbey, had been arrested on the corner of East 6th Street and Avenue D in Manhattan, charged with drug possession in the seventh degree; this left Marty to take the reins of command at that night's show.
"I wish I'd been more prepared," Marty admits. "If it were to happen now...well, I mean, now, I've got this solo tour behind me, and I've got the experience of doing it. A lot of bands would've just thrown in the towel that night, but the Church has a tendency to morph from one massive decision to the next without much conceptualizing going on."
The next massive decision: to release a new album in January. For those who've been keeping score over the years, the band's line-up will remain the same as it did on their previous disc, A Box Of Birds: Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, Tim Powles, and, of course, Marty Willson-Piper.
And to speak of A Box Of Birds, Marty draws a complete blank as far as whose idea it was to put together an all-covers album. "Erm...well, we started out doing a few cover versions for the (Church) fanzine, and we ended up with an album's worth of songs, but the idea to actually do a covers album per se...erm, it might've come from the fanzine editor." He pauses, then repeats, "It might've...but, honestly, I just don't know the answer to that question! But it's certainly another example of how things in the band have rather a tendency to morph into different shapes," he explains. "Nothing's ever concrete."
As far as how the songs were chosen, "several of the ones we recorded were songs that we'd been doing live for ages." Case and point: the Monkees' "Porpoise Song"; Marty proudly declares the Church's recorded rendition to be "a great version."
"Everyone had our own choices for what we wanted to do. 'Faith Healer' (originally written and recorded by Alex Harvey) was one of mine. In fact, all of the uncool stuff was me. Pretty much anything that's '70's or progressive rock-y are usually my idea."
As noted earlier, in addition to the Church, Marty also serves as a member of All About Eve. The story of how that came about is surprisingly simple: "They rang me and asked me. And I said yes."
Well, fair enough, then.
"The new record (Fairy Light Nights, an acoustic, unplugged live disc) came out Monday, so we've been touring England, and will do through October... though we're taking 3 weeks off to watch football. European championships are on.
"I know most American musicians think that sports are for jocks; in England, it's not like that. Here, you just know that Ian McCulloch is watching football; you just know that Robert Smith are watching the football. That's right, British musicians watch football. It's not defined as as much of a masculine sport here; it's more of a poncey sport, and we relate to it."
At the time of our interview, Marty had been off the road for two days, using that time to stock up on new books and music. The most recent book he's bought and read? Aurelia, by Gerard De Nerval. The most recent music he's bought? Not quite so easy a question to answer. "I tend to buy my music in bulk," he freely admits...and he is not kidding. Not even remotely. In fact, whilst reeling off a list of what he's purchased over the course of the past two days, I was absolutely unable to keep up. Here, however, is a sampling of some of his purchases: T. Rex, Inger Lorre, Gun, Gene, the Grateful Dead, the Bluebells, Prince, Van Morrison, the Cure, Sparklehorse, the Pretty things, the eels, Ben Christopher, David Gray, Luna, The The, Spock's Beard, Creed, Gorky's Zygotic Minci, Mandingo, Blue Oyster Cult, the Dandy Warhols, Neil Young, Grandaddy, Lewis Clark, Ian McNabb, Finley Quaye, Pearl Jam, Peter Gabriel, Ute Lemper, k.d. lang, and Rod Stewart.
Now, c'mon, Marty: what kind of effect does this kind of eclectic record collection have on your music?
"Honestly? I don't think it has any effect at all. Not one little tick.
"I find it interesting and a bit sad that many musicians don't listen to a lot of records. They're too busy creating their own to listen to other people's That's why I love Joe Elliot of Def Leppard. He loves music. I'm not scared of metal, I'm not scared of prog...frankly, I'm far more scared of dance music. It's so arrogant and pretentious. I haven't got any problems with any kind of music at all, but the problem is that people who are into dance music tend to hate rock music with a vengeance.
"For instance, I read a review of the latest Porcupine Tree album in Q Magazine, and it was pretty much saying that it's the shittiest album in world. Now, I don't think of myself as stupid, but I think it's a great record. The problem is that they get people who hate a genre to review albums from it. I find that a lot of albums that I'll find to be great, they'll say they're terrible...but they're saying it's shit because it's not
in the genre they like. For instance, they said that the melodies on the Porcupine Tree album are weak. Well, if the melodies are so weak, how come I'm finding myself singing 'em all the time? I've seen a piece saying that Miles Davis was crap. Well, obviously, he's not, but if you're not into jazz, you might think so...but if you're not into jazz, then why are you reviewing Miles Davis?"
"I know, I shouldn't really care…but I do.
"The British are scared or rock. I mean, look at these bands like Shed Seven, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, Travis...now, to be fair,Travis is the best of a bad lot, but, overall, those are mostly very average bands. And even Travis...they make the Monkees sound aggressive. I mean, there's not one Travis song that's as violent as 'I'm A Believer.'"
It's unfortunate that Marty's phone card was about to expire at around this point, but he was able to confirm his plans for the future before it ran out.
"I'll be concentrating on (All About) Eve until about November, then I'll be on holiday in December. The new Church album will be out in January, and we'll probably end up touring sometime around March, April, perhaps May. Yes, I'd like to make another solo album, but I've also got a family, and....well, I'm just too busy doing other things right now!"