By improvisational degree...
Muirsical Conversation with Chantel McGregor
Muirsical Conversation with Chantel McGregor
While Chantel McGregor’s chirpy West Yorkshire accent, bright and bubbly persona and gift for covering many a Stevie Nicks number with acoustic aplomb might initially lead to the opinion this is an artist who won’t have the chops to deliver quality blues rock or thrive in such an environment, it’s an opinion that would have to be radically changed after hearing either of McGregor’s first two studio albums or attending one of her high energy and high quality live performances.
Such musical encounters with the Bradford born Miss McGregor will also lead to the far more accurate opinion that this is one seriously talented young lady – at the age of eight she became the youngest person in the UK to pass a Rock school exam and at eighteen became the first student in the history of Leeds College of Music to achieve a 100% pass mark (leaving with a First Class Honours degree in Popular Music and a prize for Outstanding Musicianship).
In 2011 Chantel McGregor released her debut album Like No Other.
It was a many faceted collection of self-penned, predominately melodic blues numbers that sat comfortably alongside an acoustic take of Fleetwood Mac’s 'Rhiannon,' a cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s 'Help Me' and a softer voiced, fourteen minute interpretation of the Robin Trower classic 'Daydream.'
In 2015, after winning five British Blues Awards in three years, Chantel McGregor stepped it up a couple of heavy gears, flexed her rock muscles, got her Southern Gothic on and delivered the contemporary blues rock album Lose Control.
It was an excellent album that, by way of its darker, conceptually themed thread, was unlike any other blues rock album released that year.
Prior to going back out on the road in a year that is already peppered with dates in further support of Lose Control, Chantel McGregor spoke to FabricationsHQ to discuss her latest album and its Southern Gothic themes, her love of improvisational live performance and how "girls don’t play (rock) guitar like that!" comments helped spur her on to greater things…
Ross Muir: The last time we spoke was back in October 2015 in Glasgow when you were playing quite literally across the road from Glenn Hughes…
Chantel McGregor: That’s right, yes! I’ll never forget that night [laughs]; there were so many bands playing in Glasgow that evening.
RM: About a dozen, from memory. But it must have been quite gratifying for you to still get a crowd in, including a few who clearly wanted to see and hear you rather than nip over the road to see Glenn…
CMcG: It really was. Glenn is amazing – I mean even I wanted to nip across the road to see him [laughs] – so I was genuinely worried. But it was really nice that so many people turned up, including some that probably wanted to also seen Glenn but came out for my gig; that was great.
RM: It's a testament to your talents and quality of material that people make the effort to come out and see you, including on your European tour dates that followed the UK shows at the end of last year.
CMcG: That tour was absolutely brilliant. I was on cloud nine for weeks after that tour but when I came back to England it was a case of "oh, it’s so cold here!" after I had been lovely and warm for a few weeks.
Right after that tour I was in the house, thinking, "right, tour's over; now what do I do?" [laughs]
RM: But that reflects on your love of playing – you clearly love to be on stage, playing to, and for, an audience…
CMcG: Absolutely. It’s such a brilliant feeling to have a room full of people who love what you are doing; that’s why that last European tour was just incredible. The last few shows of that tour sold out and in fact a few earlier shows in the tour had as well; we just couldn’t get off the stage at those shows.
After two hours the crowd still wanted more and you’re thinking "this is great, but I need a beer!" [laughs]
RM: We have a flourishing blues rock scene here in the UK but the European fans turn out in such large numbers when you guys go over to play, be that yourself, Laurence Jones, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Ben Poole, King King… to name but five.
CMcG: I think, with us, what we do is not really blues; it’s more rock, and the audiences over there are very open minded to that. They are more about what is good and what is bad; they are not going "well, this is blues and this is rock" or putting things in a box.
RM: Interesting you should say that because I chatted fairly recently with singer Chris Norman.
Chris has been a solo artist for some thirty years but here in the UK he’s still so associated with the pop rock band Smokie that he’s stuck in that box as the "ex Smokie singer," while enjoying large non-Smokie solo success in Europe. You’ll be too young to remember Smokie though.
CMcG: Actually I do know of them; they were from Bradford too, weren’t they?
RM: They were indeed. Chris’s bug bear is that while he can sell out venues on concert tours in places like Scandinavia, Germany and parts of Eastern Europe, he finds it hard to sell a ticket or an album here.
Totally different mindset.
CMcG: I think he does well in Russia too but, yeah, it is a different mindset here for guys like Chris: "oh, we remember you from when you played in that band and sang those songs so that’s why you must do this one and that one."
Obviously we go out and play certain songs as well but we’ve started to change our sets around because there’s only so many time you can play a particular song – usually that’s after what seems like a million times [laughs], hammering it to death with nowhere left to take it.
But in Europe they are just up for it, no matter what you play.
RM: The other side of the touring coin, whether that be the UK or Europe, is while you have very appreciative audiences, getting to the next step of larger venues is hard work in this greatest hits day and reunion age.
Nostalgia is back in musical fashion so artists like yourself can find it difficult.
CMcG: Yeah, it is difficult at the moment and we’re still in a financial climate where people are pinching pennies a little bit, so even buying tickets for a gig can be tough.
It’s also that thing where, if you are with a major label that has a little money behind them, they can sell sand to the Egyptians [laughs]. But, if you’re an independent artist with your own label – or sometimes no label at all – how do you get heard?
RM: Indeed. Right now it’s all about touring as hard as you can or getting a great support slot.
Your blues rock sister Joanne Shaw Taylor was support on Robin Trower’s 2015 UK tour and that did Joanne no harm at all; likewise King King’s recent opening act slot on Thunder’s UK arena shows has put them on the cusp of something beyond the blues rock circuit…
CMcG: Yes, it’s finding the opportunities – and making the right career moves – because it’s as much about how to get in to the position of being considered for those support slots as it is the support slots themselves. There are a few ways to make in-roads but a lot of them mean having the money as well, which is the scary thing – putting a few thousand pounds up just to get a support with a band and then thinking "well, will anyone even bother to watch our set or will they all be in the bar during the support band?"
That's the worrying aspect of it, along with having the confidence of putting that money up and saying "yes, this is worth doing" – or perhaps having the confidence to say "no, it’s not worth doing" because there is always going to be a risk.
RM: That’s very true but something that’s becoming more commonplace, certainly on the blues rock circuit, is people will come out for the support band. I mentioned Joanne on the Robin Trower tour – in Glasgow she had a full house for her opening set and went down an absolute storm.
But that’s the constant touring and word-of-mouth in action – if you are good, and people know you are good, they will come out and listen.
CMcG: Yes, it’s all to do with building that reputation. I kind of feel sorry for some of the bands who are just starting out; a lot of them come and speak to me because we have our own little label.
They will ask what advice you can give them, how do they get a support slot, how did you do this and get that etcetera, but you have to build your own foundation before you even think about paying out a couple of grand to support a band.
Because if you haven’t built any sort of foundation prior to that support slot no-one is going to watch you; that’s just a waste of your money.
But that’s all part of doing the hard work and the groundwork – but I wouldn’t want to have to start out again, not in this day and age!
RM: Well I'm glad you stuck at it, as are many fans of Chantel McGregor and blues rock, because that hard work has produced, thus far, a couple of cracking albums.
You started with the hard pop and melodic blues debut Like No Other but the follow-up, Lose Control, is a far heavier, darker outing that mixes blues with contemporary rock.
It’s also heavily influenced by Southern Gothic literature and imagery, which gives it a lyrical and musical feel like no other rock-based album. What inspired that Southern Gothic twist?
CMcG: That really all came from choosing a subject matter I was genuinely interested in.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to sing a song about [sings] "oh, my baby left me, and then my doggy died" over a twelve bar blues riff [loud laughter] or words to that effect.
But you know what I mean – it would have been so easy to deliver an album of twelve bar standards with lots of widdly guitar solos and those generic lyrics, but I wanted to do something I was genuinely interested in and that would actually mean something – I don’t want to write a song that means nothing to anybody.
It was also a bit like setting myself out musical criteria, or tasks. I started by saying "okay, I’m going to write a song about addiction" but how do you write about addiction when you’ve never truly been addicted to anything? Well, unless I write about being addicted to chocolate [laughter]
But that was the challenge – how can you write about something if you’ve never experienced it?
So my way of dealing with that was by doing a lot of research – reading a lot of books, looking at artwork, watching films, drawing on other peoples' experiences and then writing out of that.
And a lot of my writing came from Southern Gothic inspirations and influences. When I looked at the themes I was writing about, a lot of them were connected to their Southern Gothic equivalents – addiction, guilt, debauchery, horror… so it all just started falling in to place and became a bit of a concept, which then became the album.
But, really, it’s just something that I’m into and I enjoy reading those sorts of books and watching those sorts of films – and if you are into something so heavily you tend to be passionate about it.
RM: The obvious follow-on question then, given that you were writing about a passion, is did that make the song writing process easier?
CMcG: I think it did. Writing songs is not a therapy thing for me; I know a lot of people write that way or write what they have to express, or get out, or write from very personal experiences, but I don’t write that way.
If I did? God, it would be such a depressing album! [laughter].
Well, it would! It would be all "that boyfriend did this and then that happened to me and then there was that," blah blah blah. So, no, I don’t do that [laughs].
I don’t actually draw on personal experiences that much and it’s probably easier for me not to draw on those experiences, or write personal songs. So, yeah, I guess it was an easier process.
RM: Lose Control was a win-win because not only did you write with purpose and passion you delivered a truly excellent album, right from the opening brace of the grungy, blues driven Take the Power and the equally grungy but darker Your Fever, which incorporates an interesting melodic thread across the top.
Both songs also highlight just what an earthy, contemporary style of guitar playing you have but always with a bluesy or melodic undertone.
CMcG: Thank you. Take the Power was written specifically about a being under the control of a Cult – not that I’ve ever been the member of any Cult I should add [laughs]
Your Fever wasn’t just about the darkness of the song; I wanted it to be interesting melodically.
The first part of that song was inspired by bands I had been listening to like the Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden and it is very grungy, it is very dark, but I also wanted to open the song up so it becomes more melodic, and the backing vocals become ethereal and higher, as the song goes on.
RM: There are also some lovely, lighter pieces on the album by way of Anaesthetize and Home.
Anaesthetize breaks the Southern Gothic spell in very haunting and emotive style, complete with cello and violin.
CMcG: I love working with cello and violin; I’d love to use woodwind too but I haven’t managed to incorporate that on to an album yet – next one though! [laughs]
I just love to arrange for a more orchestrated style and I find it’s easier to do that for the acoustic stuff than the electric stuff – although I’ve also got a string part on Your Fever which we just mentioned.
But I just think, texturally, it’s nice to put strings with acoustic because it helps to make it build and has a more natural sound.
RM: I know you said you don’t write too much from personal experience but Home clearly resonates with you at a personal level…
CMcG: Yes, that is probably the one personal song on the album. It is about home but it’s also about that metaphorical home and finding yourself.
RM: Lovely number that showcases the acoustic side of Chantel McGregor beautifully…
Such musical encounters with the Bradford born Miss McGregor will also lead to the far more accurate opinion that this is one seriously talented young lady – at the age of eight she became the youngest person in the UK to pass a Rock school exam and at eighteen became the first student in the history of Leeds College of Music to achieve a 100% pass mark (leaving with a First Class Honours degree in Popular Music and a prize for Outstanding Musicianship).
In 2011 Chantel McGregor released her debut album Like No Other.
It was a many faceted collection of self-penned, predominately melodic blues numbers that sat comfortably alongside an acoustic take of Fleetwood Mac’s 'Rhiannon,' a cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s 'Help Me' and a softer voiced, fourteen minute interpretation of the Robin Trower classic 'Daydream.'
In 2015, after winning five British Blues Awards in three years, Chantel McGregor stepped it up a couple of heavy gears, flexed her rock muscles, got her Southern Gothic on and delivered the contemporary blues rock album Lose Control.
It was an excellent album that, by way of its darker, conceptually themed thread, was unlike any other blues rock album released that year.
Prior to going back out on the road in a year that is already peppered with dates in further support of Lose Control, Chantel McGregor spoke to FabricationsHQ to discuss her latest album and its Southern Gothic themes, her love of improvisational live performance and how "girls don’t play (rock) guitar like that!" comments helped spur her on to greater things…
Ross Muir: The last time we spoke was back in October 2015 in Glasgow when you were playing quite literally across the road from Glenn Hughes…
Chantel McGregor: That’s right, yes! I’ll never forget that night [laughs]; there were so many bands playing in Glasgow that evening.
RM: About a dozen, from memory. But it must have been quite gratifying for you to still get a crowd in, including a few who clearly wanted to see and hear you rather than nip over the road to see Glenn…
CMcG: It really was. Glenn is amazing – I mean even I wanted to nip across the road to see him [laughs] – so I was genuinely worried. But it was really nice that so many people turned up, including some that probably wanted to also seen Glenn but came out for my gig; that was great.
RM: It's a testament to your talents and quality of material that people make the effort to come out and see you, including on your European tour dates that followed the UK shows at the end of last year.
CMcG: That tour was absolutely brilliant. I was on cloud nine for weeks after that tour but when I came back to England it was a case of "oh, it’s so cold here!" after I had been lovely and warm for a few weeks.
Right after that tour I was in the house, thinking, "right, tour's over; now what do I do?" [laughs]
RM: But that reflects on your love of playing – you clearly love to be on stage, playing to, and for, an audience…
CMcG: Absolutely. It’s such a brilliant feeling to have a room full of people who love what you are doing; that’s why that last European tour was just incredible. The last few shows of that tour sold out and in fact a few earlier shows in the tour had as well; we just couldn’t get off the stage at those shows.
After two hours the crowd still wanted more and you’re thinking "this is great, but I need a beer!" [laughs]
RM: We have a flourishing blues rock scene here in the UK but the European fans turn out in such large numbers when you guys go over to play, be that yourself, Laurence Jones, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Ben Poole, King King… to name but five.
CMcG: I think, with us, what we do is not really blues; it’s more rock, and the audiences over there are very open minded to that. They are more about what is good and what is bad; they are not going "well, this is blues and this is rock" or putting things in a box.
RM: Interesting you should say that because I chatted fairly recently with singer Chris Norman.
Chris has been a solo artist for some thirty years but here in the UK he’s still so associated with the pop rock band Smokie that he’s stuck in that box as the "ex Smokie singer," while enjoying large non-Smokie solo success in Europe. You’ll be too young to remember Smokie though.
CMcG: Actually I do know of them; they were from Bradford too, weren’t they?
RM: They were indeed. Chris’s bug bear is that while he can sell out venues on concert tours in places like Scandinavia, Germany and parts of Eastern Europe, he finds it hard to sell a ticket or an album here.
Totally different mindset.
CMcG: I think he does well in Russia too but, yeah, it is a different mindset here for guys like Chris: "oh, we remember you from when you played in that band and sang those songs so that’s why you must do this one and that one."
Obviously we go out and play certain songs as well but we’ve started to change our sets around because there’s only so many time you can play a particular song – usually that’s after what seems like a million times [laughs], hammering it to death with nowhere left to take it.
But in Europe they are just up for it, no matter what you play.
RM: The other side of the touring coin, whether that be the UK or Europe, is while you have very appreciative audiences, getting to the next step of larger venues is hard work in this greatest hits day and reunion age.
Nostalgia is back in musical fashion so artists like yourself can find it difficult.
CMcG: Yeah, it is difficult at the moment and we’re still in a financial climate where people are pinching pennies a little bit, so even buying tickets for a gig can be tough.
It’s also that thing where, if you are with a major label that has a little money behind them, they can sell sand to the Egyptians [laughs]. But, if you’re an independent artist with your own label – or sometimes no label at all – how do you get heard?
RM: Indeed. Right now it’s all about touring as hard as you can or getting a great support slot.
Your blues rock sister Joanne Shaw Taylor was support on Robin Trower’s 2015 UK tour and that did Joanne no harm at all; likewise King King’s recent opening act slot on Thunder’s UK arena shows has put them on the cusp of something beyond the blues rock circuit…
CMcG: Yes, it’s finding the opportunities – and making the right career moves – because it’s as much about how to get in to the position of being considered for those support slots as it is the support slots themselves. There are a few ways to make in-roads but a lot of them mean having the money as well, which is the scary thing – putting a few thousand pounds up just to get a support with a band and then thinking "well, will anyone even bother to watch our set or will they all be in the bar during the support band?"
That's the worrying aspect of it, along with having the confidence of putting that money up and saying "yes, this is worth doing" – or perhaps having the confidence to say "no, it’s not worth doing" because there is always going to be a risk.
RM: That’s very true but something that’s becoming more commonplace, certainly on the blues rock circuit, is people will come out for the support band. I mentioned Joanne on the Robin Trower tour – in Glasgow she had a full house for her opening set and went down an absolute storm.
But that’s the constant touring and word-of-mouth in action – if you are good, and people know you are good, they will come out and listen.
CMcG: Yes, it’s all to do with building that reputation. I kind of feel sorry for some of the bands who are just starting out; a lot of them come and speak to me because we have our own little label.
They will ask what advice you can give them, how do they get a support slot, how did you do this and get that etcetera, but you have to build your own foundation before you even think about paying out a couple of grand to support a band.
Because if you haven’t built any sort of foundation prior to that support slot no-one is going to watch you; that’s just a waste of your money.
But that’s all part of doing the hard work and the groundwork – but I wouldn’t want to have to start out again, not in this day and age!
RM: Well I'm glad you stuck at it, as are many fans of Chantel McGregor and blues rock, because that hard work has produced, thus far, a couple of cracking albums.
You started with the hard pop and melodic blues debut Like No Other but the follow-up, Lose Control, is a far heavier, darker outing that mixes blues with contemporary rock.
It’s also heavily influenced by Southern Gothic literature and imagery, which gives it a lyrical and musical feel like no other rock-based album. What inspired that Southern Gothic twist?
CMcG: That really all came from choosing a subject matter I was genuinely interested in.
It’s the easiest thing in the world to sing a song about [sings] "oh, my baby left me, and then my doggy died" over a twelve bar blues riff [loud laughter] or words to that effect.
But you know what I mean – it would have been so easy to deliver an album of twelve bar standards with lots of widdly guitar solos and those generic lyrics, but I wanted to do something I was genuinely interested in and that would actually mean something – I don’t want to write a song that means nothing to anybody.
It was also a bit like setting myself out musical criteria, or tasks. I started by saying "okay, I’m going to write a song about addiction" but how do you write about addiction when you’ve never truly been addicted to anything? Well, unless I write about being addicted to chocolate [laughter]
But that was the challenge – how can you write about something if you’ve never experienced it?
So my way of dealing with that was by doing a lot of research – reading a lot of books, looking at artwork, watching films, drawing on other peoples' experiences and then writing out of that.
And a lot of my writing came from Southern Gothic inspirations and influences. When I looked at the themes I was writing about, a lot of them were connected to their Southern Gothic equivalents – addiction, guilt, debauchery, horror… so it all just started falling in to place and became a bit of a concept, which then became the album.
But, really, it’s just something that I’m into and I enjoy reading those sorts of books and watching those sorts of films – and if you are into something so heavily you tend to be passionate about it.
RM: The obvious follow-on question then, given that you were writing about a passion, is did that make the song writing process easier?
CMcG: I think it did. Writing songs is not a therapy thing for me; I know a lot of people write that way or write what they have to express, or get out, or write from very personal experiences, but I don’t write that way.
If I did? God, it would be such a depressing album! [laughter].
Well, it would! It would be all "that boyfriend did this and then that happened to me and then there was that," blah blah blah. So, no, I don’t do that [laughs].
I don’t actually draw on personal experiences that much and it’s probably easier for me not to draw on those experiences, or write personal songs. So, yeah, I guess it was an easier process.
RM: Lose Control was a win-win because not only did you write with purpose and passion you delivered a truly excellent album, right from the opening brace of the grungy, blues driven Take the Power and the equally grungy but darker Your Fever, which incorporates an interesting melodic thread across the top.
Both songs also highlight just what an earthy, contemporary style of guitar playing you have but always with a bluesy or melodic undertone.
CMcG: Thank you. Take the Power was written specifically about a being under the control of a Cult – not that I’ve ever been the member of any Cult I should add [laughs]
Your Fever wasn’t just about the darkness of the song; I wanted it to be interesting melodically.
The first part of that song was inspired by bands I had been listening to like the Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden and it is very grungy, it is very dark, but I also wanted to open the song up so it becomes more melodic, and the backing vocals become ethereal and higher, as the song goes on.
RM: There are also some lovely, lighter pieces on the album by way of Anaesthetize and Home.
Anaesthetize breaks the Southern Gothic spell in very haunting and emotive style, complete with cello and violin.
CMcG: I love working with cello and violin; I’d love to use woodwind too but I haven’t managed to incorporate that on to an album yet – next one though! [laughs]
I just love to arrange for a more orchestrated style and I find it’s easier to do that for the acoustic stuff than the electric stuff – although I’ve also got a string part on Your Fever which we just mentioned.
But I just think, texturally, it’s nice to put strings with acoustic because it helps to make it build and has a more natural sound.
RM: I know you said you don’t write too much from personal experience but Home clearly resonates with you at a personal level…
CMcG: Yes, that is probably the one personal song on the album. It is about home but it’s also about that metaphorical home and finding yourself.
RM: Lovely number that showcases the acoustic side of Chantel McGregor beautifully…
RM: There are two other Lose Controll songs I’d like to mention, because they are both interesting and clearly influenced – intentionally – by very specific artists.
The slightly dissonant guitar and vocal track Eternal Dream shares musical DNA with the late Jeff Buckley…
CMcG: Absolutely, yes – it’s my little tribute to Jeff; the song is really all about him.
I did a lot of research on his life and read the books written about him and he does seem to have been a troubled soul, so I tried to put that across in the song.
I’ve loved Jeff’s music since I was about fifteen and was obsessed with the album Grace, but I would never dare cover anything from it – no-one is ever going to better Jeff Buckley on his own songs – so Eternal Dream becomes my little tribute to Jeff and his music.
RM: It certainly captures the spirit or musical essence of Jeff. The remarkable thing about Grace is how long it took to be appreciated; from initially poor sales and mixed reviews to two million worldwide sales well after Jeff’s passing. But then it may well be that it took that long for people to "get" it…
CMcG: I think it’s just such a beautiful album; his vocals on that album were absolutely extraordinary and the way he delivered the lyrics and phrased the words was just so organic and natural.
It was just such a "wow, this is incredible" listen; parts of it were like hearing Angels’ sing and his songwriting was excellent. But the music was great too; it just has so many depths to it and I think that’s why it now resonates with so many people.
RM: The other song I want to talk about is the album's closing number Walk on Land.
That’s a progressive blues soundscape with a nod to Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree but what really caught my ear was the second half of the song and the extended guitar solo over Keith McPartling’s drums.
It was a completely improvised section?
CMcG: It was, yes; we literally just recorded it. The first stage had actually been to record the song with bass guitar but that was drowning the sound a little, so we thought "why not take all the bass off and we’ll try it with just guitar and drums, with no parts sitting underneath it."
So that’s what we did but to be honest it was a bit of an experiment, doing it like that, but once we played it back we all thought "wow; that’s amazing."
We did another take just to see how that would go in comparison but once we played that back we went "no, it’s the first take; we’re never going to get better than that."
I think we actually did three takes but it was always a case of "no, not better than the first one, we’ll use that first one and put some bass back on the song.” So that’s what we did!
RM: Great call. It just works so well, so natural. So there was no pre-conceived idea or even a rough map of where you and Keith were going to go with it?
CMcG: No, not at all. For any improvised section I always keep it fully improvised; no preparation work.
When we play that song live the ending is different every night, because we’re improvising – how it plays out can depend on the mood we’re both in, how far we want to push it, time displacement, things like that.
In the studio we like to do a lot of pre-production rehearsal but never for any of the improvised bits; we want to push the improvisations – and each other – as far as we can.
In fact looking at how Keith and I work it’s almost as if we have a psychic connection when we are playing together because he knows what I’m going to do and I know what he’s going to do and we build it up.
I even know when he’s going to do a bit of time displacement so I’ll do a different time displacement over the top and then we’ll throw everything at it! [laughs]
RM: Having mentioned how you work with Keith leads to the perfect time to talk about the band, because you have a great band for live performance.
Keith is relentless on the kit; he just produces monster beat after monster beat – and the four-string drive Colin Sutton brings to the songs and the performances seems to be the perfect fit.
Colin brings quite the presence and power to Lose Control songs such as Burn Your Anger and the sassy blues rock of Southern Belle.
CMcG: They are so important to the overall sound and I think I’ve honestly now got two musicians behind me that are both exceptional. It’s almost becoming that scenario of – and I hate saying this because I know how it sounds – three musicians who really understand music.
I have a degree in music; Colin is a lecturer who teaches a degree music; Keith is a top session drummer.
It’s three people who not only understand the technicalities of the music it’s three people who want to turn that into something that is both listenable and has feel, as opposed to three people just playing.
We’re all coming from the same place; we want to push it as far as we can musically and see where it goes.
Now, there are some nights when you cock it up and you know it went really badly but you just say "okay, we won’t do that again" [laughs] or we’ll try it a different way next time.
It goes back to that experimentation I mentioned earlier, and that hearkens back to the seventies, when bands were very experimental.
RM: Indeed. Now, people just think of that whole late sixties to mid-seventies period as "classic rock" but of course back then it was new and fresh – musical freedom, creative expression and artistic experimentation.
You clearly retain some of that experimentation within your own musical framework.
CMcG: Exactly, and that keeps it interesting for us as well.
I was raised on jam sessions and sit-in sessions, things like that, and not just twelve bar blues. It might be a case of "right, let’s try this Grateful Dead track and take it somewhere else" or "let’s try a Neil Young song and jam around with it until it sounds like something by the Doors."
Now, it might end up being this psychedelia improvisational mess [laugh] but that’s where you start and that’s where I come from – and to be able to do that with two musicians who are excellent players and understand that jam vibe is just great.
The slightly dissonant guitar and vocal track Eternal Dream shares musical DNA with the late Jeff Buckley…
CMcG: Absolutely, yes – it’s my little tribute to Jeff; the song is really all about him.
I did a lot of research on his life and read the books written about him and he does seem to have been a troubled soul, so I tried to put that across in the song.
I’ve loved Jeff’s music since I was about fifteen and was obsessed with the album Grace, but I would never dare cover anything from it – no-one is ever going to better Jeff Buckley on his own songs – so Eternal Dream becomes my little tribute to Jeff and his music.
RM: It certainly captures the spirit or musical essence of Jeff. The remarkable thing about Grace is how long it took to be appreciated; from initially poor sales and mixed reviews to two million worldwide sales well after Jeff’s passing. But then it may well be that it took that long for people to "get" it…
CMcG: I think it’s just such a beautiful album; his vocals on that album were absolutely extraordinary and the way he delivered the lyrics and phrased the words was just so organic and natural.
It was just such a "wow, this is incredible" listen; parts of it were like hearing Angels’ sing and his songwriting was excellent. But the music was great too; it just has so many depths to it and I think that’s why it now resonates with so many people.
RM: The other song I want to talk about is the album's closing number Walk on Land.
That’s a progressive blues soundscape with a nod to Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree but what really caught my ear was the second half of the song and the extended guitar solo over Keith McPartling’s drums.
It was a completely improvised section?
CMcG: It was, yes; we literally just recorded it. The first stage had actually been to record the song with bass guitar but that was drowning the sound a little, so we thought "why not take all the bass off and we’ll try it with just guitar and drums, with no parts sitting underneath it."
So that’s what we did but to be honest it was a bit of an experiment, doing it like that, but once we played it back we all thought "wow; that’s amazing."
We did another take just to see how that would go in comparison but once we played that back we went "no, it’s the first take; we’re never going to get better than that."
I think we actually did three takes but it was always a case of "no, not better than the first one, we’ll use that first one and put some bass back on the song.” So that’s what we did!
RM: Great call. It just works so well, so natural. So there was no pre-conceived idea or even a rough map of where you and Keith were going to go with it?
CMcG: No, not at all. For any improvised section I always keep it fully improvised; no preparation work.
When we play that song live the ending is different every night, because we’re improvising – how it plays out can depend on the mood we’re both in, how far we want to push it, time displacement, things like that.
In the studio we like to do a lot of pre-production rehearsal but never for any of the improvised bits; we want to push the improvisations – and each other – as far as we can.
In fact looking at how Keith and I work it’s almost as if we have a psychic connection when we are playing together because he knows what I’m going to do and I know what he’s going to do and we build it up.
I even know when he’s going to do a bit of time displacement so I’ll do a different time displacement over the top and then we’ll throw everything at it! [laughs]
RM: Having mentioned how you work with Keith leads to the perfect time to talk about the band, because you have a great band for live performance.
Keith is relentless on the kit; he just produces monster beat after monster beat – and the four-string drive Colin Sutton brings to the songs and the performances seems to be the perfect fit.
Colin brings quite the presence and power to Lose Control songs such as Burn Your Anger and the sassy blues rock of Southern Belle.
CMcG: They are so important to the overall sound and I think I’ve honestly now got two musicians behind me that are both exceptional. It’s almost becoming that scenario of – and I hate saying this because I know how it sounds – three musicians who really understand music.
I have a degree in music; Colin is a lecturer who teaches a degree music; Keith is a top session drummer.
It’s three people who not only understand the technicalities of the music it’s three people who want to turn that into something that is both listenable and has feel, as opposed to three people just playing.
We’re all coming from the same place; we want to push it as far as we can musically and see where it goes.
Now, there are some nights when you cock it up and you know it went really badly but you just say "okay, we won’t do that again" [laughs] or we’ll try it a different way next time.
It goes back to that experimentation I mentioned earlier, and that hearkens back to the seventies, when bands were very experimental.
RM: Indeed. Now, people just think of that whole late sixties to mid-seventies period as "classic rock" but of course back then it was new and fresh – musical freedom, creative expression and artistic experimentation.
You clearly retain some of that experimentation within your own musical framework.
CMcG: Exactly, and that keeps it interesting for us as well.
I was raised on jam sessions and sit-in sessions, things like that, and not just twelve bar blues. It might be a case of "right, let’s try this Grateful Dead track and take it somewhere else" or "let’s try a Neil Young song and jam around with it until it sounds like something by the Doors."
Now, it might end up being this psychedelia improvisational mess [laugh] but that’s where you start and that’s where I come from – and to be able to do that with two musicians who are excellent players and understand that jam vibe is just great.
The covers of Like No Other and Lose Control help tell a tale of what lies within – a collection of bright, melodic pop blues and darker, Southern Gothic themed contemporary-edged blues respectively.
RM: To track even further back, before blues, rock and jam sessions, there was a wee lass from West Yorkshire passing a Rock school exam at eight years old…
CMcG: There was, yes!
RM: Which lead top the obvious question of what the hell was a wee lass from West Yorkshire doing, taking a Rock school exam at eight years old? [laughter]
CMcG: I had always been into rock music; my dad raised me on Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and Free had always been my favourite band, even as a little kid.
When I was three, my dad got so fed up of me nicking his guitar and detuning it [laughter] that he got me a little half-sized guitar. When I was seven I got lessons on a three-quarter size and then at eight I did the Rock school exam with my dad’s 72 Strat.
So I always wanted to do that whole rock guitar thing, even although it would have probably been easier or more expected to go the way of the classical guitar, especially if you were taking music lessons at school. But I was absolutely focussed on rock music and being so small, with tiny hands, playing classical guitar was very difficult for me.
RM: Interesting you mention the rock or classical choice because I believe, once you hit your teens and started to really show your talents, you got that whole "oh dear no – fourteen year old girls shouldn’t be playing rock guitar."
CMcG: I think I was actually thirteen but I did, yes, and with a major label in the Living Room no less!
They came up from London one day, sat down, and this thirteen year old girl proceeded to play them some Steve Vai and Bonnie Raitt – I think I played a Hendrix number as well – but it was a case of "Oh no, that won’t work; you need to go back and listen to Nick Drake."
My reply was "What! I’m only thirteen years old and Nick Drake killed himself because he was miserable; I’m hardly going to be doing that!" [laughter]. Of course I really like Nick Drake now [laughs]
RM: I would imagine you would now, yes, but I can also understand your reaction back then – a thirteen year old is hardly going to have any serious appreciation or understanding of the music or lyrics of Nick Drake.
CMcG: No, exactly! [laughs]
RM: So did that sort or negativity or reaction to what you were doing spur you on to enrol at Leeds College of Music or do you think you would have inevitably found your way there?
CMcG: That kind of just happened, to be honest with you; I was initially going to do an English degree, and that was only because of how things had developed at school.
When I was at the stage of doing my GCSEs there were only three of us who wanted to do a GCSE in music; not enough for a class. So the music teacher said she would teach us GCSE level music at lunch-times but unfortunately she fell ill, left school and that was it – no more GCSE level music!
I ended up doing the more usual GCSEs, including English and Art, but when it came to the A Levels there was obviously no music option – no GCSE music, no A Level music.
So I did my Art A Level and a few others including English; that led to my decision to do an English degree. But I was also putting a band together at the same time so I was starting to ask myself "do I want to do English or do I want to do music? Do I want to be a teacher or do I want to play in a band? I’ll do music.
It’s what I love; I’ve got to do this!" And here we are now! [laughs]
RM: Well proof, if proof were needed, it was one hundred percent the right choice was the fact you also came out with a one hundred percent pass mark, your degree and, I believe, a whole bunch of distinctions…
CMcG: I did, yes; I was a total nerd! [laughs]
RM: Duly noted [laughs]. But joking aside that’s pretty outstanding – to the extent that, even if you had never done anything else in the world of music, that’s something you can point to and go "tah-dah!"
That’s a remarkable achievement and something to be extremely proud of…
CMcG: Thank you, but at the time it was just a case of being very, very focussed because I was thinking "well, if I’m going to get in to this amount of debt through my student loans then I am going to get this Honours Degree, I must do this." So I just worked really, really hard and although I was gigging at the same time – I had put a band together and we were putting shows on at the weekends – that actually helped.
Because the whole student thing of making new friends, going to parties and getting drunk? That didn’t happen to me because I was gigging and serious about the music. The rest of the time it was about being anti-social and doing a lot of work!
RM: Hard work that paid dividends though – great gigs, great performances and in 2011 a great debut album in Like No Other. What I particularly like about that album is that it is so diverse; it’s probably best described as a multi-faceted album with a subtle, bluesy undertone.
Fabulous for example – that’s just a fantastic straight ahead in fours rock number but with a hypnotic, dance-pop meets hard rock groove…
RM: To track even further back, before blues, rock and jam sessions, there was a wee lass from West Yorkshire passing a Rock school exam at eight years old…
CMcG: There was, yes!
RM: Which lead top the obvious question of what the hell was a wee lass from West Yorkshire doing, taking a Rock school exam at eight years old? [laughter]
CMcG: I had always been into rock music; my dad raised me on Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and Free had always been my favourite band, even as a little kid.
When I was three, my dad got so fed up of me nicking his guitar and detuning it [laughter] that he got me a little half-sized guitar. When I was seven I got lessons on a three-quarter size and then at eight I did the Rock school exam with my dad’s 72 Strat.
So I always wanted to do that whole rock guitar thing, even although it would have probably been easier or more expected to go the way of the classical guitar, especially if you were taking music lessons at school. But I was absolutely focussed on rock music and being so small, with tiny hands, playing classical guitar was very difficult for me.
RM: Interesting you mention the rock or classical choice because I believe, once you hit your teens and started to really show your talents, you got that whole "oh dear no – fourteen year old girls shouldn’t be playing rock guitar."
CMcG: I think I was actually thirteen but I did, yes, and with a major label in the Living Room no less!
They came up from London one day, sat down, and this thirteen year old girl proceeded to play them some Steve Vai and Bonnie Raitt – I think I played a Hendrix number as well – but it was a case of "Oh no, that won’t work; you need to go back and listen to Nick Drake."
My reply was "What! I’m only thirteen years old and Nick Drake killed himself because he was miserable; I’m hardly going to be doing that!" [laughter]. Of course I really like Nick Drake now [laughs]
RM: I would imagine you would now, yes, but I can also understand your reaction back then – a thirteen year old is hardly going to have any serious appreciation or understanding of the music or lyrics of Nick Drake.
CMcG: No, exactly! [laughs]
RM: So did that sort or negativity or reaction to what you were doing spur you on to enrol at Leeds College of Music or do you think you would have inevitably found your way there?
CMcG: That kind of just happened, to be honest with you; I was initially going to do an English degree, and that was only because of how things had developed at school.
When I was at the stage of doing my GCSEs there were only three of us who wanted to do a GCSE in music; not enough for a class. So the music teacher said she would teach us GCSE level music at lunch-times but unfortunately she fell ill, left school and that was it – no more GCSE level music!
I ended up doing the more usual GCSEs, including English and Art, but when it came to the A Levels there was obviously no music option – no GCSE music, no A Level music.
So I did my Art A Level and a few others including English; that led to my decision to do an English degree. But I was also putting a band together at the same time so I was starting to ask myself "do I want to do English or do I want to do music? Do I want to be a teacher or do I want to play in a band? I’ll do music.
It’s what I love; I’ve got to do this!" And here we are now! [laughs]
RM: Well proof, if proof were needed, it was one hundred percent the right choice was the fact you also came out with a one hundred percent pass mark, your degree and, I believe, a whole bunch of distinctions…
CMcG: I did, yes; I was a total nerd! [laughs]
RM: Duly noted [laughs]. But joking aside that’s pretty outstanding – to the extent that, even if you had never done anything else in the world of music, that’s something you can point to and go "tah-dah!"
That’s a remarkable achievement and something to be extremely proud of…
CMcG: Thank you, but at the time it was just a case of being very, very focussed because I was thinking "well, if I’m going to get in to this amount of debt through my student loans then I am going to get this Honours Degree, I must do this." So I just worked really, really hard and although I was gigging at the same time – I had put a band together and we were putting shows on at the weekends – that actually helped.
Because the whole student thing of making new friends, going to parties and getting drunk? That didn’t happen to me because I was gigging and serious about the music. The rest of the time it was about being anti-social and doing a lot of work!
RM: Hard work that paid dividends though – great gigs, great performances and in 2011 a great debut album in Like No Other. What I particularly like about that album is that it is so diverse; it’s probably best described as a multi-faceted album with a subtle, bluesy undertone.
Fabulous for example – that’s just a fantastic straight ahead in fours rock number but with a hypnotic, dance-pop meets hard rock groove…
CMcG: The funny thing about Like No Other is to me, now, it's almost like a pre-first album, if that makes sense?
RM: You’re presumably talking about Like No Other being a "collection" of songs as opposed to an "album" of songs?
CMcG: Exactly. Lose Control feels like my first album because it was mainly written by me, had a direction and was a very concise, conceptually themed piece of work.
Like No Other, on the other hand, was a collection of songs that had been written over a long period of time; some of the tracks on that album were five, even ten, years old. But they were still good songs and if I liked the song, or we were still playing it live, then it went on the album.
There was also the covers aspect; we had three covers recorded so it was a case of "let’s just stick the covers on there, too!" I see Like No Other as my baby album and Lose Control is me all grown up [laughs]
RM: I appreciate what you’re saying but as you just said the songs on Like No Other are still good songs. We’ve just featured Fabulous but there’s also the swampy blues styled I’m No Good For You, the contemporary rock of Caught Out and the melodic pop of Happy Song to name but three more.
As regards the covers, one of the highlights of Like No Other is unquestionably your version of the Robin Trower classic Daydream. That’s a great cover of a truly great song.
CMcG: Thank you. That is just such a fantastic song to play. I still remember the very first time I ever heard that song – I was in a pub in Bradford and someone had put that song on and I immediately said "what is that? What is that song?" and it hadn’t even got to the solo! [laughs].
The song was still on the verses but I was already thinking "wow, this is beautiful," both melodically and harmonically – the way the melody was intertwined with the harmony parts – just lovely.
So I decided there and then that I wanted to play that song and we had it in the live set for quite a while before we recorded it for the album. The solo section of Daydream had always been a big feature of our set and the audience loved it, so it was always going to have to go on the album.
It’s still a beautiful song but we’ve stopped playing it in recent months. Although we always improvised the end section it had gotten to the point where we felt we had overdone it; it was getting stale.
So we’ve decided to leave Daydream alone for a good few months, but we’ll come back to it later and see how we feel about it then.
RM: That goes back to what you said earlier about moving songs around and keeping the set fresh, which helps keep it interesting for you as players.
CMcG: Yes, it has to stay fresh. We have a lot of loyal fans that come to five or six gigs on a tour – sometimes a lot more – and they really don’t want to see or hear the same thing every night; it would get boring.
Nor do I think it’s fair to give an audience the same thing every night, especially as one of our main strengths is improvisation. We want to keep the set and the show exciting so that means dropping songs like Daydream out and replacing them with other songs, like Walk on Land.
RM: You’re presumably talking about Like No Other being a "collection" of songs as opposed to an "album" of songs?
CMcG: Exactly. Lose Control feels like my first album because it was mainly written by me, had a direction and was a very concise, conceptually themed piece of work.
Like No Other, on the other hand, was a collection of songs that had been written over a long period of time; some of the tracks on that album were five, even ten, years old. But they were still good songs and if I liked the song, or we were still playing it live, then it went on the album.
There was also the covers aspect; we had three covers recorded so it was a case of "let’s just stick the covers on there, too!" I see Like No Other as my baby album and Lose Control is me all grown up [laughs]
RM: I appreciate what you’re saying but as you just said the songs on Like No Other are still good songs. We’ve just featured Fabulous but there’s also the swampy blues styled I’m No Good For You, the contemporary rock of Caught Out and the melodic pop of Happy Song to name but three more.
As regards the covers, one of the highlights of Like No Other is unquestionably your version of the Robin Trower classic Daydream. That’s a great cover of a truly great song.
CMcG: Thank you. That is just such a fantastic song to play. I still remember the very first time I ever heard that song – I was in a pub in Bradford and someone had put that song on and I immediately said "what is that? What is that song?" and it hadn’t even got to the solo! [laughs].
The song was still on the verses but I was already thinking "wow, this is beautiful," both melodically and harmonically – the way the melody was intertwined with the harmony parts – just lovely.
So I decided there and then that I wanted to play that song and we had it in the live set for quite a while before we recorded it for the album. The solo section of Daydream had always been a big feature of our set and the audience loved it, so it was always going to have to go on the album.
It’s still a beautiful song but we’ve stopped playing it in recent months. Although we always improvised the end section it had gotten to the point where we felt we had overdone it; it was getting stale.
So we’ve decided to leave Daydream alone for a good few months, but we’ll come back to it later and see how we feel about it then.
RM: That goes back to what you said earlier about moving songs around and keeping the set fresh, which helps keep it interesting for you as players.
CMcG: Yes, it has to stay fresh. We have a lot of loyal fans that come to five or six gigs on a tour – sometimes a lot more – and they really don’t want to see or hear the same thing every night; it would get boring.
Nor do I think it’s fair to give an audience the same thing every night, especially as one of our main strengths is improvisation. We want to keep the set and the show exciting so that means dropping songs like Daydream out and replacing them with other songs, like Walk on Land.
Luckily for the blues rock world, female guitar prodigy and natural music talent Chantel McGregor
didn't listen to those that told her thirteen year old girls shouldn't be playing rock and blues guitar.
RM: You also keep the shows fresh, and mix it up a little, by including a solo acoustic interlude.
Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon, which also appeared on Like No Other, tends to be a highlight of such solo moments but, like the main full band set, a lot of it seems to be improvisational – a mix of audience requests and where you are musically, on a given night…
CMcG: Pretty much, yes. Just before Lose Control came out, when the press releases were being issued, I started to plan out a set list and was already thinking to myself "right, I have to do Anaesthetize and Home in the middle, acoustic part of the show."
But after around twenty shows introducing and playing the same two songs got a bit stale and I started to think more in terms of "well, what do people want to hear and do they even want to hear those two songs?" Because if they don’t want to hear them they’ll either disappear outside for a smoke, go to the bar or talk through them [laughs]
So it became a situation of asking people what they would like and playing what they wanted to hear, which also keeps it interesting for me, because I really do like to be put on the spot where somebody might shout "do a Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks song you haven’t done before!" and I’ll go "okay then, I will!" [laughs]
At the end of last year on the European tour, in Holland, we did a strange show in that it was three sets of forty minutes – and we never do three sets, or forty minutes [laughs]
I decided that for the first set I would come out and do a solo acoustic set of songs I hadn’t done for about five years – there’s that experimental thing again [laughs] – then we did two full band sets, but when we had finished the crowd were shouting out for Stevie Nicks songs!
I’m thinking to myself "right, I only know three but I bet I could blag my way through about five" [laughter] so we ended up with a fourth set of me just doing Stevie Nicks covers, including a few I had never done in my life before! But it was a lot of fun and a bit of a challenge for me, so it was all good.
RM: Fantastic. That also reflects back to what we were saying about European audiences and the fact they are so receptive; up for the music and not the set list. I also have to say listening to Chantel McGregor playing a bunch of Stevie Nicks songs? I’d be more than happy with that sort of on the spot improvisation…
CMcG: I was in my element; I absolutely loved it. You do get some people saying "she’s come unprepared" or "she doesn’t have a set list!" It’s not unprepared because we don’t have a set list; we always come prepared and we know exactly what we’re doing – it’s just that we want to keep it exciting for the audience that come to see us.
RM: Yes, improvisation is clearly part of your repertoire; long may that continue.
As we start to wrap I’d like to give a mention to your parents because clearly the career of Chantel McGregor, or the supporting of that career, is a family affair.
Your mum and dad go to a lot of the shows and help out at the merchandising desk…
CMcG: They come to a lot of the UK shows but they don’t come on the European treks.
They live their normal lives at home in England when I’m on the road in Europe, drinking German beer and doing improvisational sets [laughs]
But, yes, they get to as many of the UK gigs as they can and that’s really cool because you have to have people around you that you trust and you’re probably not going to get a more trusting situation than with your own parents.
RM: And are they also your biggest fans – or biggest critics?
CMcG: Oh my dad is the worst, the absolute worst – he is not my biggest fan but he is my biggest critic, I can tell you. If I make even one mistake, during a gig, on any night, he will text himself while I’m still on stage to remind him of it so he can tell me the next day! [loud laughter]
RM: That is brilliant. That’ll keep you honest and grounded…
CMcG: [laughs] it does but the thing is, I think a lot of artists miss out on having somebody doing that.
It's very easy to believe what everybody is saying to you, or telling you what you want to hear.
RM: Ain’t that the truth; there’s so many "Yes" men and women around these days, applauding the King’s New Clothes…
CMcG: Exactly. If everybody is just saying yes to you or "you’re amazing, you’re wonderful, that gig was the best you’ve ever played!" you’re going to start to believe every word and that’s when you'll fall down.
If you honestly believe all that you’re an idiot. You are never going to be perfect, you are never going to play the perfect gig, and that’s because you’re human.
You can try and be the best, that’s completely different, but you will never be the best because there is always somebody better than you – and a lot of the time they are probably in the same room.
Accept that, do what you can do to the best of your ability and never get a big head.
RM: Can’t argue with that philosophy, Chantel, and I can’t think of a better way to finish other than play out with another track from Lose Control. Here’s to your musical future and taking the blues rock power your talent and work ethic so thoroughly deserves.
CMcG: Thank you so much Ross. Cheers!
didn't listen to those that told her thirteen year old girls shouldn't be playing rock and blues guitar.
RM: You also keep the shows fresh, and mix it up a little, by including a solo acoustic interlude.
Fleetwood Mac’s Rhiannon, which also appeared on Like No Other, tends to be a highlight of such solo moments but, like the main full band set, a lot of it seems to be improvisational – a mix of audience requests and where you are musically, on a given night…
CMcG: Pretty much, yes. Just before Lose Control came out, when the press releases were being issued, I started to plan out a set list and was already thinking to myself "right, I have to do Anaesthetize and Home in the middle, acoustic part of the show."
But after around twenty shows introducing and playing the same two songs got a bit stale and I started to think more in terms of "well, what do people want to hear and do they even want to hear those two songs?" Because if they don’t want to hear them they’ll either disappear outside for a smoke, go to the bar or talk through them [laughs]
So it became a situation of asking people what they would like and playing what they wanted to hear, which also keeps it interesting for me, because I really do like to be put on the spot where somebody might shout "do a Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks song you haven’t done before!" and I’ll go "okay then, I will!" [laughs]
At the end of last year on the European tour, in Holland, we did a strange show in that it was three sets of forty minutes – and we never do three sets, or forty minutes [laughs]
I decided that for the first set I would come out and do a solo acoustic set of songs I hadn’t done for about five years – there’s that experimental thing again [laughs] – then we did two full band sets, but when we had finished the crowd were shouting out for Stevie Nicks songs!
I’m thinking to myself "right, I only know three but I bet I could blag my way through about five" [laughter] so we ended up with a fourth set of me just doing Stevie Nicks covers, including a few I had never done in my life before! But it was a lot of fun and a bit of a challenge for me, so it was all good.
RM: Fantastic. That also reflects back to what we were saying about European audiences and the fact they are so receptive; up for the music and not the set list. I also have to say listening to Chantel McGregor playing a bunch of Stevie Nicks songs? I’d be more than happy with that sort of on the spot improvisation…
CMcG: I was in my element; I absolutely loved it. You do get some people saying "she’s come unprepared" or "she doesn’t have a set list!" It’s not unprepared because we don’t have a set list; we always come prepared and we know exactly what we’re doing – it’s just that we want to keep it exciting for the audience that come to see us.
RM: Yes, improvisation is clearly part of your repertoire; long may that continue.
As we start to wrap I’d like to give a mention to your parents because clearly the career of Chantel McGregor, or the supporting of that career, is a family affair.
Your mum and dad go to a lot of the shows and help out at the merchandising desk…
CMcG: They come to a lot of the UK shows but they don’t come on the European treks.
They live their normal lives at home in England when I’m on the road in Europe, drinking German beer and doing improvisational sets [laughs]
But, yes, they get to as many of the UK gigs as they can and that’s really cool because you have to have people around you that you trust and you’re probably not going to get a more trusting situation than with your own parents.
RM: And are they also your biggest fans – or biggest critics?
CMcG: Oh my dad is the worst, the absolute worst – he is not my biggest fan but he is my biggest critic, I can tell you. If I make even one mistake, during a gig, on any night, he will text himself while I’m still on stage to remind him of it so he can tell me the next day! [loud laughter]
RM: That is brilliant. That’ll keep you honest and grounded…
CMcG: [laughs] it does but the thing is, I think a lot of artists miss out on having somebody doing that.
It's very easy to believe what everybody is saying to you, or telling you what you want to hear.
RM: Ain’t that the truth; there’s so many "Yes" men and women around these days, applauding the King’s New Clothes…
CMcG: Exactly. If everybody is just saying yes to you or "you’re amazing, you’re wonderful, that gig was the best you’ve ever played!" you’re going to start to believe every word and that’s when you'll fall down.
If you honestly believe all that you’re an idiot. You are never going to be perfect, you are never going to play the perfect gig, and that’s because you’re human.
You can try and be the best, that’s completely different, but you will never be the best because there is always somebody better than you – and a lot of the time they are probably in the same room.
Accept that, do what you can do to the best of your ability and never get a big head.
RM: Can’t argue with that philosophy, Chantel, and I can’t think of a better way to finish other than play out with another track from Lose Control. Here’s to your musical future and taking the blues rock power your talent and work ethic so thoroughly deserves.
CMcG: Thank you so much Ross. Cheers!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Chantel McGregor
March 2016
Chantel McGregor official website:
http://www.chantelmcgregor.com/
Photo credits: Keith Newhouse (top image); Ian Stafford (lower image)
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and promote the work of the artist/s.
No infringement of copyright is intended.
Muirsical Conversation with Chantel McGregor
March 2016
Chantel McGregor official website:
http://www.chantelmcgregor.com/
Photo credits: Keith Newhouse (top image); Ian Stafford (lower image)
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and promote the work of the artist/s.
No infringement of copyright is intended.