Progressive thoughts
Muirsical Conversation with Dave Cureton
In 2009 a band called IOEarth made quite the impact on modern, progressive rock with their self-titled debut album.
Both band and debut deservedly went on to win numerous 2009 rock and prog-rock awards, both in the UK and Europe.
But while the debut brought a breath of fresh musical air to the world of progressive rock, the band’s second album, Moments, went a step further and redefined the very boundaries of the genre.
Moments is a remarkable and, in places, quite brilliant piece of work.
Dave Cureton, guitarist and co-creator of the band's unique brand of music, talked to FabricationsHQ to discuss IOEarth and gave insight into not just some of the songs but his creative and compositional relationship with long-time friend and IOEarth keyboard player Adam Gough.
As it turned out, we also found time to discuss just what progressive rock means these days and the state of modern music in general.
And talking of States, IOEarth aren’t just making an impact in the UK and Europe, the US is starting to take musical note…
Ross Muir: You recently played at Rosfest, the progressive rock festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It must be gratifying for a band like IOEarth to get invited over to play a festival like that.
Dave Cureton: Yeah, that came out of the blue, really. The organiser George Roldan wanted us to perform at the 2011 festival but he already had the bill sorted by the time he had heard of the band so he wasn’t able to book us.
But we were half-way through recording Moments when I got an email about Rosfest 2012 and it was literally done in about three emails.
So we went over in May and it was just amazing. Really good gig.
RM: And a good reception as well?
DC: The reception was overwhelming. We were getting standing ovations half-way through the set. We were virtually unknown over there so we were like the new kid on the block and had a lot to prove. But we went over and blew the roof off and went down a storm. And a lot of people were telling me afterwards that we were the band of the festival, which was really nice. So we must have made an impact!
RM: Well, that makes sense because the first time I saw IOEarth was at the Summers End festival in Lydney back in 2009. I didn’t know what to expect but when the band came on it was clear something a little bit different was going on.
It wasn’t just the band’s musicality, but the music itself and the form and style of that music. IOEarth were the surprise of the festival for me.
DC: We try to keep our gigs a little quirky in places and use instruments that aren’t really… well, aren’t really allowed in rock (laughs). But those instruments, for me, can be really cool and really dynamic. We’ve got a pool of friends that play numerous instruments that we can just call upon.
If we want a trumpet player we’ve got Steve Trigg who plays on both albums; for sax we’ve got Luke Shingler; there’s always somebody in the band who will know somebody who can play an instrument that you need.
And we try and use real instruments where possible as opposed to using keyboard samples. If we want a violin, we should get violin player, not just play it on a keyboard and hope it sounds okay, you know?
But obviously hiring an orchestra would be completely out of the question because you’d be talking mega-money, even just for a day, so we have to use software to create that orchestration.
But we have really good software that Hans Zimmer uses, John Williams uses and all the film scorers use so that’s why it sounds so authentic – even though we’d rather have the real orchestra but, like I said, massive bucks (laughs).
RM: IOEarth are a very organic band with the use of various instrumentation, and you also think outside of the box. And that brings me to Moments, which was released earlier this year.
Like your 2009 debut album, Moments is a truly innovative work that is categorised generally as progressive rock but, for me, goes beyond any such label.
DC: We feel this album is… well, it’s not really commercial but it’s got more of a commercial element and has got more songs, if you know what I mean.
The first album was supposed to be a piece of music that you listen to as a whole, whereas Moments you can pick out tracks you want to listen to, or maybe just that one track you want to listen to. And we feel we’ve matured a lot in our songwriting and we look at different recording techniques.
I mean I don’t know if you think it’s completely different to the first album but we hope it is because that was the main aim.
We wanted to sound like IO but we also wanted it to be different to the first album and not just copy it, which we could have done quite easily.
RM: No, indeed, Moments could have been a sequel but what you have done is brought a natural progression to the IOEarth sound. In fact that’s another astonishing thing about the band and the music; it very quickly developed its own phrase “The IOEarth Sound.”
But then nobody else is really doing what you’re doing. At least not to this degree.
DC: I think you either like it or you don’t. But that’s a good thing because it means our fans who like it really like it. I know there are people out there who think it’s okay, but there’s a good split between people who like it and don’t like it.
I get people who say to me “I don’t really get it” or they didn’t understand what we we’re trying to do, which is fine. It’s hard to please everyone, you know?
Everyone has an opinion but that’s what makes music so good – there’s no such thing as bad music, it’s just opinion on whether you like it or not. If someone likes Napalm Death and they want to head-bang all night and it makes them happy…
if it does what it’s meant to do, create an emotion or create a feeling, then it’s done its job, regardless of the genre or whatever it is.
RM: I have a pretty eclectic taste from A for Abba to Z for ZZ Top. I like jazz-rock fusion, classic, heavy, melodic and pop-rock, blues, classical music, the crooners and some smooth jazz and you’re absolutely right, we all like what we like.
But with IOEarth you also have that interest right away; everyone has a curiosity about it. People will get pulled in just to listen to it, even if they later say “actually I’m not too sure.” You’re attracting interest because of the music you present. That’s a win-win.
DC: I think we surprised everyone by going out and doing it live because a lot of people said or thought “well there’s no way they’re going to do this live,” but we knew from the off there was no way we were going to be able to recreate the album exactly the same because there is so much on it we would have to have a band the size of the hall (laughter).
We were an eleven piece band at one point… string quartet, trumpet player, sax player… it sounded great but logistically we would never have been able to do Rosfest, there was no way we would have been able to do that. And European gigs, there would have been no way, it would have cost too much money to do it.
But the six members we have now, including myself and Adam, it’s so right.
And everyone gets it, which is good. We present the music to them and… well, they used to look at us a bit weird and go “right, okay…” (laughs) but now they really get it. They learn it and play the parts and we’re really happy with the band we have now, live. You said you saw us at Summers End, well, that was actually our third gig as a band.
RM: Really? That was a pretty competent performance for a third gig.
DC: We rehearsed loads, obviously, but it was only our third performance.
Now, the older songs, we know them so well it’s just a pleasure to play them. Before there was a lot of thinking involved or making sure we don’t make mistakes. Now we can actually enjoy playing the songs…
RM: …you’ve become comfortable with them…
DC: …yeah, and we have the strength of the band behind us who know the songs as well as Adam and myself, we back each other up. And at Rosfest Claire’s performance was just absolutely mind-blowing, she was so good it was just unbelievable. And she was the only female singer at the festival so she had a bit of pressure on her but she was just amazing.
RM: Actually you’ve beaten me to the punch because I want to run through the individual members of the band and what they bring to IOEarth.
The voice of Claire Malin is an instrument in itself but she is also very emotive as a vocalist and, clearly, a major part of your sound.
DC: Definitely. On the first album we had various vocalists, including Claire, because it was more of a project and we just got people in. But when we got invited to Summers End we thought “Oh, we’d better find a band” (laughs).
So we got my brother Richard in on drums, who was someone we wanted and he was a member of the band instantly, because he’s my big brother (laughs). Then we had Luke who came in to do the soprano sax parts and he plays flute as well.
We had Mark Williams who played bass, but it’s Christian Nokes who plays bass now. Christian was in another band and they were doing quite well so he never had the time to split himself in half to do IOEarth as well as the other band, and Adam and myself wanted complete dedication. So we had to get Mark, a friend of ours, and he played with us for about a year, year and a half, then Christian came back and now he’s a fully-fledged member.
And there was no question that out of all the vocalists we wanted Claire – she just comes in and does her job and she doesn’t make any mistakes.
And her pitch is just amazing live; she doesn’t drop notes or anything.
And we’ve all grown together, which I think makes a band more solid, really.
We know our strengths and we can help each other out.
Both band and debut deservedly went on to win numerous 2009 rock and prog-rock awards, both in the UK and Europe.
But while the debut brought a breath of fresh musical air to the world of progressive rock, the band’s second album, Moments, went a step further and redefined the very boundaries of the genre.
Moments is a remarkable and, in places, quite brilliant piece of work.
Dave Cureton, guitarist and co-creator of the band's unique brand of music, talked to FabricationsHQ to discuss IOEarth and gave insight into not just some of the songs but his creative and compositional relationship with long-time friend and IOEarth keyboard player Adam Gough.
As it turned out, we also found time to discuss just what progressive rock means these days and the state of modern music in general.
And talking of States, IOEarth aren’t just making an impact in the UK and Europe, the US is starting to take musical note…
Ross Muir: You recently played at Rosfest, the progressive rock festival in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It must be gratifying for a band like IOEarth to get invited over to play a festival like that.
Dave Cureton: Yeah, that came out of the blue, really. The organiser George Roldan wanted us to perform at the 2011 festival but he already had the bill sorted by the time he had heard of the band so he wasn’t able to book us.
But we were half-way through recording Moments when I got an email about Rosfest 2012 and it was literally done in about three emails.
So we went over in May and it was just amazing. Really good gig.
RM: And a good reception as well?
DC: The reception was overwhelming. We were getting standing ovations half-way through the set. We were virtually unknown over there so we were like the new kid on the block and had a lot to prove. But we went over and blew the roof off and went down a storm. And a lot of people were telling me afterwards that we were the band of the festival, which was really nice. So we must have made an impact!
RM: Well, that makes sense because the first time I saw IOEarth was at the Summers End festival in Lydney back in 2009. I didn’t know what to expect but when the band came on it was clear something a little bit different was going on.
It wasn’t just the band’s musicality, but the music itself and the form and style of that music. IOEarth were the surprise of the festival for me.
DC: We try to keep our gigs a little quirky in places and use instruments that aren’t really… well, aren’t really allowed in rock (laughs). But those instruments, for me, can be really cool and really dynamic. We’ve got a pool of friends that play numerous instruments that we can just call upon.
If we want a trumpet player we’ve got Steve Trigg who plays on both albums; for sax we’ve got Luke Shingler; there’s always somebody in the band who will know somebody who can play an instrument that you need.
And we try and use real instruments where possible as opposed to using keyboard samples. If we want a violin, we should get violin player, not just play it on a keyboard and hope it sounds okay, you know?
But obviously hiring an orchestra would be completely out of the question because you’d be talking mega-money, even just for a day, so we have to use software to create that orchestration.
But we have really good software that Hans Zimmer uses, John Williams uses and all the film scorers use so that’s why it sounds so authentic – even though we’d rather have the real orchestra but, like I said, massive bucks (laughs).
RM: IOEarth are a very organic band with the use of various instrumentation, and you also think outside of the box. And that brings me to Moments, which was released earlier this year.
Like your 2009 debut album, Moments is a truly innovative work that is categorised generally as progressive rock but, for me, goes beyond any such label.
DC: We feel this album is… well, it’s not really commercial but it’s got more of a commercial element and has got more songs, if you know what I mean.
The first album was supposed to be a piece of music that you listen to as a whole, whereas Moments you can pick out tracks you want to listen to, or maybe just that one track you want to listen to. And we feel we’ve matured a lot in our songwriting and we look at different recording techniques.
I mean I don’t know if you think it’s completely different to the first album but we hope it is because that was the main aim.
We wanted to sound like IO but we also wanted it to be different to the first album and not just copy it, which we could have done quite easily.
RM: No, indeed, Moments could have been a sequel but what you have done is brought a natural progression to the IOEarth sound. In fact that’s another astonishing thing about the band and the music; it very quickly developed its own phrase “The IOEarth Sound.”
But then nobody else is really doing what you’re doing. At least not to this degree.
DC: I think you either like it or you don’t. But that’s a good thing because it means our fans who like it really like it. I know there are people out there who think it’s okay, but there’s a good split between people who like it and don’t like it.
I get people who say to me “I don’t really get it” or they didn’t understand what we we’re trying to do, which is fine. It’s hard to please everyone, you know?
Everyone has an opinion but that’s what makes music so good – there’s no such thing as bad music, it’s just opinion on whether you like it or not. If someone likes Napalm Death and they want to head-bang all night and it makes them happy…
if it does what it’s meant to do, create an emotion or create a feeling, then it’s done its job, regardless of the genre or whatever it is.
RM: I have a pretty eclectic taste from A for Abba to Z for ZZ Top. I like jazz-rock fusion, classic, heavy, melodic and pop-rock, blues, classical music, the crooners and some smooth jazz and you’re absolutely right, we all like what we like.
But with IOEarth you also have that interest right away; everyone has a curiosity about it. People will get pulled in just to listen to it, even if they later say “actually I’m not too sure.” You’re attracting interest because of the music you present. That’s a win-win.
DC: I think we surprised everyone by going out and doing it live because a lot of people said or thought “well there’s no way they’re going to do this live,” but we knew from the off there was no way we were going to be able to recreate the album exactly the same because there is so much on it we would have to have a band the size of the hall (laughter).
We were an eleven piece band at one point… string quartet, trumpet player, sax player… it sounded great but logistically we would never have been able to do Rosfest, there was no way we would have been able to do that. And European gigs, there would have been no way, it would have cost too much money to do it.
But the six members we have now, including myself and Adam, it’s so right.
And everyone gets it, which is good. We present the music to them and… well, they used to look at us a bit weird and go “right, okay…” (laughs) but now they really get it. They learn it and play the parts and we’re really happy with the band we have now, live. You said you saw us at Summers End, well, that was actually our third gig as a band.
RM: Really? That was a pretty competent performance for a third gig.
DC: We rehearsed loads, obviously, but it was only our third performance.
Now, the older songs, we know them so well it’s just a pleasure to play them. Before there was a lot of thinking involved or making sure we don’t make mistakes. Now we can actually enjoy playing the songs…
RM: …you’ve become comfortable with them…
DC: …yeah, and we have the strength of the band behind us who know the songs as well as Adam and myself, we back each other up. And at Rosfest Claire’s performance was just absolutely mind-blowing, she was so good it was just unbelievable. And she was the only female singer at the festival so she had a bit of pressure on her but she was just amazing.
RM: Actually you’ve beaten me to the punch because I want to run through the individual members of the band and what they bring to IOEarth.
The voice of Claire Malin is an instrument in itself but she is also very emotive as a vocalist and, clearly, a major part of your sound.
DC: Definitely. On the first album we had various vocalists, including Claire, because it was more of a project and we just got people in. But when we got invited to Summers End we thought “Oh, we’d better find a band” (laughs).
So we got my brother Richard in on drums, who was someone we wanted and he was a member of the band instantly, because he’s my big brother (laughs). Then we had Luke who came in to do the soprano sax parts and he plays flute as well.
We had Mark Williams who played bass, but it’s Christian Nokes who plays bass now. Christian was in another band and they were doing quite well so he never had the time to split himself in half to do IOEarth as well as the other band, and Adam and myself wanted complete dedication. So we had to get Mark, a friend of ours, and he played with us for about a year, year and a half, then Christian came back and now he’s a fully-fledged member.
And there was no question that out of all the vocalists we wanted Claire – she just comes in and does her job and she doesn’t make any mistakes.
And her pitch is just amazing live; she doesn’t drop notes or anything.
And we’ve all grown together, which I think makes a band more solid, really.
We know our strengths and we can help each other out.
Adam Gough, Christian Nokes, Luke Shingler, Richard Cureton, Claire
Malin and Dave Cureton. Collectively, as IOEarth, creating musical
Moments that are redefining the boundaries of progressive rock.
RM: Having just talked up Claire I’d like to feature a song from Moments now but typically I’ve chosen Brothers, the only instrumental on the album (laughs).
But we’ll be featuring Claire later…
DC: Brothers came about from a piano riff that Adam came up with and originally it didn’t have the sax or flute on it – it was just this sort of ambient thing.
But then we worked on it, built it up a bit and then I thought wouldn’t it be good to get Luke to play on it, just see what he could do with it.
Obviously the melodies were already there but he just played on it and it just fitted with the sound. And then he ad-libbed the solo at the end, I think it was just two or three takes then it was nailed to the wall. But the bit I like is the quirky bit in the middle with the question and answer with the sax and the flute and the xylophone. We liked that because it’s quite a dark song, really, but it gives you that sort of humorous but scary clown thing.
RM: (laughs) yes, sometimes there’s nothing scarier than a clown…
Malin and Dave Cureton. Collectively, as IOEarth, creating musical
Moments that are redefining the boundaries of progressive rock.
RM: Having just talked up Claire I’d like to feature a song from Moments now but typically I’ve chosen Brothers, the only instrumental on the album (laughs).
But we’ll be featuring Claire later…
DC: Brothers came about from a piano riff that Adam came up with and originally it didn’t have the sax or flute on it – it was just this sort of ambient thing.
But then we worked on it, built it up a bit and then I thought wouldn’t it be good to get Luke to play on it, just see what he could do with it.
Obviously the melodies were already there but he just played on it and it just fitted with the sound. And then he ad-libbed the solo at the end, I think it was just two or three takes then it was nailed to the wall. But the bit I like is the quirky bit in the middle with the question and answer with the sax and the flute and the xylophone. We liked that because it’s quite a dark song, really, but it gives you that sort of humorous but scary clown thing.
RM: (laughs) yes, sometimes there’s nothing scarier than a clown…
DC: There’s light and dark notes in there. We love that.
RM: Well, that comment and your insight into how Brothers was composed leads me to another question – just how do you and Adam compose or musically create?
DC: We don’t really sit and say “right I’m going to write a song now” because a lot of the time that just never happens. We’ll just keep jamming and jamming and all of a sudden Adam might play something and we’ll say “right, remember that.”
But that might be for a song we’ve been working on before that point and we just jot it down and it sort of works like that, really.
A lot of times we might write part of a song where we think “that would make a good chorus” but we haven’t got anything else (laughter). Then all of a sudden we’ll be jamming again and we’ll say “hold on, that chorus will fit this.”
And I think that’s how our music sort of jumps genres because we might have a rock chorus – really thumping – then maybe we’ll have a nice, ballady, orchestrated part. And we’ll think “take that as the start, tag that chorus on, I know it’s completely different but it’ll work.” And nine times out of ten it does. Well, sometimes it crashes and burns but usually it works really, really well.
The funny thing was with the song called Drifting, which was called Chant originally. I recorded all the Gregorian vocals at home and later we said “should we look at Chant again and see what’s happening with that?” So we opened the project called Chant on the computer and we played it through but the middle part wasn’t there. But then we played the last project that we saved and that bit was there – we didn’t even remember we had recorded it! (laughter).
And then we found the old chorus that we never thought we could find a use for, we wrote it a few months before we finished Drifting, so we tagged that on and it was done (laughs).
RM: A great example of how the cross-pollination of the pieces gives you that unique sound and there’s clearly a musical simpatico between you and Adam.
Your relationship goes back to school days?
DC: Yeah. Funny story, and he’ll kill me for telling it (laughs)...
When we had our first music lesson at school Adam played piano in class and I thought “oh, he’s good.” I mean he was good then and I was still bloody banging out Guns N Roses stuff (laughter). But when I was about thirteen I actually asked him to join, or make a band, with me, and this was in the changing rooms after a Physical Education lesson (laughter). I said “do you want to be in a band with me?” and he said “all right then, I’ll come to your house after school” (laughs).
So there we were, bashing away and playing and helping each other learn while he was having lessons and I was having lessons. And while my mum and dad were spending money on my guitar lessons I was showing Adam as well (laughs) and he was having piano lessons and he was trying to show me stuff!
So we grew up together and we’re on the same page and we know exactly what each other is thinking. And we’ve been friends for so long that it’s going to be very, very unlikely that we’ll ever split up (laughs), because if it was going to happen it would have happened ages ago.
RM: And that relationship and musical understanding shines through on the pieces of music you have created thus far. If I could jump back to the debut album, which was composed in three movements – what inspired that long-form concept?
DC: Well before IOEarth came about I thought “wouldn’t it be great to make a massive piece of music?” And I phoned Adam, because Adam and I had been writing together for years, and I asked him if he would you be up for doing this.
But I wanted to make sure we finished it. Because a lot of musicians, they start large projects but never finish them, which is a shame because a lot of them would probably be really good. But they get bored because it just takes so long.
And that first album took three years to make. A lot of the composing was done prior, but we just couldn't afford to go to the studio every week to record so it was do a bit, save up, do a bit, save up, so to record it all took three years.
RM: Well, that comment and your insight into how Brothers was composed leads me to another question – just how do you and Adam compose or musically create?
DC: We don’t really sit and say “right I’m going to write a song now” because a lot of the time that just never happens. We’ll just keep jamming and jamming and all of a sudden Adam might play something and we’ll say “right, remember that.”
But that might be for a song we’ve been working on before that point and we just jot it down and it sort of works like that, really.
A lot of times we might write part of a song where we think “that would make a good chorus” but we haven’t got anything else (laughter). Then all of a sudden we’ll be jamming again and we’ll say “hold on, that chorus will fit this.”
And I think that’s how our music sort of jumps genres because we might have a rock chorus – really thumping – then maybe we’ll have a nice, ballady, orchestrated part. And we’ll think “take that as the start, tag that chorus on, I know it’s completely different but it’ll work.” And nine times out of ten it does. Well, sometimes it crashes and burns but usually it works really, really well.
The funny thing was with the song called Drifting, which was called Chant originally. I recorded all the Gregorian vocals at home and later we said “should we look at Chant again and see what’s happening with that?” So we opened the project called Chant on the computer and we played it through but the middle part wasn’t there. But then we played the last project that we saved and that bit was there – we didn’t even remember we had recorded it! (laughter).
And then we found the old chorus that we never thought we could find a use for, we wrote it a few months before we finished Drifting, so we tagged that on and it was done (laughs).
RM: A great example of how the cross-pollination of the pieces gives you that unique sound and there’s clearly a musical simpatico between you and Adam.
Your relationship goes back to school days?
DC: Yeah. Funny story, and he’ll kill me for telling it (laughs)...
When we had our first music lesson at school Adam played piano in class and I thought “oh, he’s good.” I mean he was good then and I was still bloody banging out Guns N Roses stuff (laughter). But when I was about thirteen I actually asked him to join, or make a band, with me, and this was in the changing rooms after a Physical Education lesson (laughter). I said “do you want to be in a band with me?” and he said “all right then, I’ll come to your house after school” (laughs).
So there we were, bashing away and playing and helping each other learn while he was having lessons and I was having lessons. And while my mum and dad were spending money on my guitar lessons I was showing Adam as well (laughs) and he was having piano lessons and he was trying to show me stuff!
So we grew up together and we’re on the same page and we know exactly what each other is thinking. And we’ve been friends for so long that it’s going to be very, very unlikely that we’ll ever split up (laughs), because if it was going to happen it would have happened ages ago.
RM: And that relationship and musical understanding shines through on the pieces of music you have created thus far. If I could jump back to the debut album, which was composed in three movements – what inspired that long-form concept?
DC: Well before IOEarth came about I thought “wouldn’t it be great to make a massive piece of music?” And I phoned Adam, because Adam and I had been writing together for years, and I asked him if he would you be up for doing this.
But I wanted to make sure we finished it. Because a lot of musicians, they start large projects but never finish them, which is a shame because a lot of them would probably be really good. But they get bored because it just takes so long.
And that first album took three years to make. A lot of the composing was done prior, but we just couldn't afford to go to the studio every week to record so it was do a bit, save up, do a bit, save up, so to record it all took three years.
RM: The three movements within the album were Water, Earth and Air, but a fourth element is missing...
DC: We only ever wanted to do Water, Earth and Air. I think the reason we didn’t do Fire was we were worried about it sounding like Earth, Wind and Fire (laughs)!
We were worried about it sounding like we were a disco band even though they’re brilliant. So we didn’t put in a Fire one and I think it was because of that, actually.
RM: Maybe you should have dropped in a hidden track and made it an Earth, Wind and Fire cover. Next album, perhaps?
DC: Yeah, September? (laughter). But it was always going to be Water, Earth and Air and without Fire we created this hype, without knowing we had. There was actually hype for this Fire movement. You know, “will they do it, won’t they do it, will the new album be called Fire?” So when we get all old and grey and need a new album we can say “will we try Fire now, then?” (laughs).
RM: When I first heard the debut I did a few lines on it and described it as an album of moods whereas Moments I described – with no pun intended – as being an album of true, musical moments. It captures that IOEarth Sound with nine, very distinct pieces yet collectively, as an album, it’s a cohesive whole.
It’s an extremely accomplished work and you should be proud of it.
DC: We are. And we’re very meticulous about everything when it comes to recording. I think you have to be when you’re doing an album and Adam, myself and the rest of the band want to be able to listen to ourselves and not think “I wish I’d done that overdub a bit better.”
Actually, with the song Brothers, we had the album mastered and Luke phoned me up and said “I’d like to redo my sax part.” And I said, biting my teeth (laughter), “okay, but you’d better get your arse round to my house today. We’ll re-record it, send it to Mig (Miguel Seco, studio engineer) and he can put it in the mix and remaster it.” But the bit that he changed, it needed it and that’s the good thing with this band, we’ve got another load of ears to listen to the music and say “I don’t know if that’s quite right.”
Everyone says it's Dave and Adam, and composition wise it is, but the band have a very big say in their own individual parts. Especially Christian. He was given a brief on the songs and the bass lines on a demo, but when we gave him the tracks he recorded all his bass parts at home and we didn’t actually see him (laughs)!
He just came back with a memory stick and said “there’s your bass bits” and away it went.
RM: You mentioned that you and Adam are the composers but you’re also very good musicians and there’s clearly a lot of Steve Vai in your own six-string work. But I hear it as more of an inspiration than an influence.
DC: In the influence sense, then obviously I’m influenced by Steve Vai because he’s my hero, I love his music and I love his guitar playing. But I find there are a lot of bands who just copy their influences and enjoy the fact that they are being compared to their influences. It’s nice that I’m being compared to Steve Vai – which blew my mind – but I want to be compared to myself.
I mean we’ve got Steve Vai, we don’t need another one. He’s the best in the world in my opinion and we don’t really need to replace that.
I started playing guitar when I was eleven, mainly because my brother learnt drums. I always tried to follow him, in his footsteps, with what he was doing, like sports, but I was rubbish (laughs). I thought I would be good but I wasn’t.
So at eleven I got my first guitar and my mum and dad bought me a guitar book to see how I got on before they invested in guitar lessons. Eventually I learned the book by myself and then I saw this music store in Birmingham with a sign on the window saying “guitar lessons available” and it was with a guy called Steve Makin, who was a wicked, amazing guitarist.
But I’ve lost touch with him now and I don’t know where he is. Which is a shame, because I’d like to meet him again. He was a great player and it would be nice for him to see that his little pupil’s doing something with his life and didn’t just give up.
RM: Oh, his lessons most certainly worked…
DC: He taught me blues, rock, everything he knew or could think of... we touched on jazz a bit but that was over my head, really (laughs).
And it was weird because it was sort of like when you’re learning to drive, you don’t think all your limbs are going to work at the same time (laughs) but then all of a sudden it starts working – “oh, right, if I press the brake I’m not going to crash into that car again” (laughter).
So I was practising and all of a sudden it just clicked, in the space of about a minute. All the exercises started working and I took lessons for about three years. After that third year Steve actually turned round to me and said “I can’t teach you anymore, I’m going to have to let you go.” So he had taught me everything he knew, he’d almost surpassed his limits in teaching.
And I carried on learning by myself and jamming with my brother who was playing in bands and I was jamming with them. They were mostly cover bands but it was like getting dropped in at the deep end with last minute phone calls – “the guitarist can’t make it, Dave, can you do it?” So I’d be going out and playing a gig, making a complete mess of it (laughs), but coming home feeling like I’d given a performance and really enjoyed it.
RM: Any other guitarists you admire?
DC: As far as other influences go, or people I enjoy listening to… obviously Steve Vai, Joe Satriani. I like Frank Zappa and his very quirky style and the weird way he played. He didn’t care what note he hit – if he thought it sounded right then that was that. Brian May, who was a complete innovator of the guitar, doing all that harmonizing stuff, and then there’s Jimmy Page.
And Tom Morello, who was doing all that weird stuff and with Rage Against The Machine, which was really cool.
But there are no real guitar heroes around anymore and I feel really sad because even in music in general you can’t really see anyone coming out now who are heroes. You think about Elvis Presley, he was a legend and will be a legend forever. But I can’t see Cheryl Cole being a household name in fifty or sixty years.
RM: No, it’s the Five Years of Fame thing and what I describe as the lazy, re-imagined entertainment world we now live in. The countless and constant movie remakes are a prime example, where it’s all visual impact and no substance and I hear and see that in current pop culture. Even in rock music we seem to be musically re-booting what we did in the seventies and eighties.
And manufactured artists are churned out via the Reality TV, Pop Idol and X-Factor shows that create celebrities who are not star quality but are championed or hailed as such. We have plenty of celebrities who will get their five or ten years, but how many will we look back on in twenty, twenty-five or thirty years? Not many.
DC: I couldn’t even tell you who’s in the charts now and that’s really sad.
I still keep my ear in on the pop music and there’s still bands that make you think “oh, that sounds interesting” like Florence and the Machine.
And obviously we have Adele, who I Iove, and thank fucking God we’ve got her because the English music pop scene is nothing. But as I said before on one of my posts we’re too busy making music to look at rather than music to listen to.
RM: I remember we had an earlier conversation about that because around the time you posted your comment I wrote something very similar – when did we stop listening to the music and start looking at it? Now it’s not the MTV show but the MTV artist.
DC: I don’t think we’re using the tools we’ve been given – with the MTV stuff – in the right way. It’s all commercial and money and that’s that.
The days of the big record deals aren’t around anymore and you can do it yourself, you know? IOEarth is a brand in itself and as far as we are concerned no-one is going to come in and dilute it. If they’re going to come in they are going to be on the same page and work with us, not against us.
But it’s such a shame because the band’s that have come out of Birmingham and the Midlands is just amazing, really. But now in the Midlands there’s nowhere to play. If you’re a band that’s still at school, you can play a local, little pub, but the next step is the Academy or the NEC – there’s nothing in between.
The only thing is The Robin [in Bilston near Wolverhampton] and that’s it.
And that’s the whole gamut of music venues in the Midlands that are half-decent. You’re not going to go where there’s no PA or no lighting and that's such a shame when you see the wicked bands coming out of Birmingham and the Midlands.
It's just embarrassing, really. The Council should embrace the fact we have quite a lot of music and art from the Midlands and we should push that more and in different parts of the country – Liverpool, London, Manchester.
And in Scotland you had Simple Minds, Big Country, all these wicked bands… and dare I say The Proclaimers…
RM: …you can dare to say The Proclaimers, absolutely (laughs).
DC: They made that impact. Everyone knows that song, their timeless hit Five Hundred Miles, but now, the bands… it just makes me sad.
RM: I can sympathise, but I’m also very lucky. I live in Prestwick, a town in Ayrshire and we have an incredible undercurrent of talent coming through.
We’re punching above our weight with some great singer songwriters, but we’ve also got the same sort of problems you touched on. We have the Burns an’ a’ That! festival, an annual arts and culture event that runs in June, yet there were only two or three Ayrshire acts on the entire five-day 2012 festival bill. Sometimes you just shake your head. But that’s a million miles away from rock and prog...
DC: Sometimes I think the word “prog” scares people because they assume you are going to be a YES type band, long keyboard solos and stuff like that.
But I think prog was actually an era as opposed to a genre. Prog was seventies, early eighties music but now it’s actually progressive in that there are more, different versions of progressive rock music.
You’ve got people like Devin Townsend who is predominately a metal musician but he’s seen as being in the prog thing now. Even Steve Vai is categorised as prog in some things. And I just think if we called it "progressive rock" it may get more of an impact than "prog." I don’t know if you agree?
RM: I agree with the subtlety of the difference in terminology. I’ve had this discussion many times and I think the terms "prog" or "prog rock" become very insular and a musical barrier goes up.
It becomes almost a clique, to the extent that people feel they are either not invited or the prog people don’t want to share it. We should be looking at it as this large, literally progressive movement of music that goes in all sorts of directions and embraces so many styles.
DC: To be honest though, Ross, it should all just be called music.
I also think the only reason they categorise it is so they can sell it and say “this is this” or “this is that.” I think if you had a record store that didn’t have any categorisation and people just had the free-thought to go in there and look at a CD and think “that looks good” just from the cover, people would listen to more music. Because there are rock fans, dance fans, fans of other genres who will not listen to any other style of music because it’s not rock, or it’s not dance and they’re selling themselves short because there’s a lot of brilliant music out there.
That’s why there’s a dance side to our stuff but it’s not our main sound and a lot of people don’t even realise they are listening to a dance song, which is good.
Because maybe it will make them think “perhaps I should go and buy some Faithless [UK electronica/ dance band] to see if I like it.” And I bet they would, because it has that proggish feel, very keyboardy. It’s only because it’s got a bass drum beat through it, but it still has that proggy vibe and it’s not all keyboards.
So if it wasn’t categorised people would listen to a lot more music, just on face value.
RM: Maybe come the time when we are both millionaires we should open that very shop up and have Abba sitting next to Anthrax and all the rest.
DC: Or don’t even give them the covers. Just give them the CD’s in a plastic wrapper. “Oi, what’s this?” “Don’t know. Give it a spin and see” (laughs).
RM: Sounds like a plan (laughs). We’ve talked about your guitar background but we must talk about Adam’s keyboard work that creates the wonderful atmospheric structures and tones that are such a part of the IOEarth sound.
And he performs some lovely piano pieces, too. What does Adam bring to IOEarth, from both a playing and compositional point-of-view?
DC: Absolutely nothing. It’s all me, Ross (laughter). The thing about Adam, and he won’t mind me saying this, he’s not really a soloist. Well, he can, he can solo all over the keyboard, but he’s really focussed on not sounding like a prog keyboard player. You know, that typical synth sound (mimics a run of high-pitched synth notes) that goes on for about five minutes.
But if I say to Adam “do that” he can, but he automatically hates it.
He’ll say “oh, no” and would rather go back to the organic-ness of the piano and do it that way and use string sounds. And he’s really good at making sounds.
For example in the song Take Me, the heart monitor, he actually made that sound, it wasn’t a sample. We needed a heart monitor sound so he sat there, for about a week, just creating that beep.
RM: That’s interesting, I thought that was a sample or lifted from a sound library…
DC: No, he actually made that. And then sometimes what we do, like on the song Sun is Going Down, where we wanted that straight, regimented dance vibe, we’ll get Richard in to play it instead of finding a loop or a sample. And then he’ll keep playing it and keep playing it and then we make loops of that.
People have been using loops as rhythms for Years. Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys was all loops. There was actually a tape, which ran on reels all the way around the studio to create a loop. That whole drum bit was looped.
Also, the intro to Money by Pink Floyd, the cash-register thing? That was a loop. They recorded that then looped it. So people have been using loops and samples for years. But it’s easier to do on a computer than it is on tape. But Adam is really innovative like that and he’ll sit at his keyboard or software for hours to create a sound. And he’ll come up with that sound and it will be perfect.
DC: We only ever wanted to do Water, Earth and Air. I think the reason we didn’t do Fire was we were worried about it sounding like Earth, Wind and Fire (laughs)!
We were worried about it sounding like we were a disco band even though they’re brilliant. So we didn’t put in a Fire one and I think it was because of that, actually.
RM: Maybe you should have dropped in a hidden track and made it an Earth, Wind and Fire cover. Next album, perhaps?
DC: Yeah, September? (laughter). But it was always going to be Water, Earth and Air and without Fire we created this hype, without knowing we had. There was actually hype for this Fire movement. You know, “will they do it, won’t they do it, will the new album be called Fire?” So when we get all old and grey and need a new album we can say “will we try Fire now, then?” (laughs).
RM: When I first heard the debut I did a few lines on it and described it as an album of moods whereas Moments I described – with no pun intended – as being an album of true, musical moments. It captures that IOEarth Sound with nine, very distinct pieces yet collectively, as an album, it’s a cohesive whole.
It’s an extremely accomplished work and you should be proud of it.
DC: We are. And we’re very meticulous about everything when it comes to recording. I think you have to be when you’re doing an album and Adam, myself and the rest of the band want to be able to listen to ourselves and not think “I wish I’d done that overdub a bit better.”
Actually, with the song Brothers, we had the album mastered and Luke phoned me up and said “I’d like to redo my sax part.” And I said, biting my teeth (laughter), “okay, but you’d better get your arse round to my house today. We’ll re-record it, send it to Mig (Miguel Seco, studio engineer) and he can put it in the mix and remaster it.” But the bit that he changed, it needed it and that’s the good thing with this band, we’ve got another load of ears to listen to the music and say “I don’t know if that’s quite right.”
Everyone says it's Dave and Adam, and composition wise it is, but the band have a very big say in their own individual parts. Especially Christian. He was given a brief on the songs and the bass lines on a demo, but when we gave him the tracks he recorded all his bass parts at home and we didn’t actually see him (laughs)!
He just came back with a memory stick and said “there’s your bass bits” and away it went.
RM: You mentioned that you and Adam are the composers but you’re also very good musicians and there’s clearly a lot of Steve Vai in your own six-string work. But I hear it as more of an inspiration than an influence.
DC: In the influence sense, then obviously I’m influenced by Steve Vai because he’s my hero, I love his music and I love his guitar playing. But I find there are a lot of bands who just copy their influences and enjoy the fact that they are being compared to their influences. It’s nice that I’m being compared to Steve Vai – which blew my mind – but I want to be compared to myself.
I mean we’ve got Steve Vai, we don’t need another one. He’s the best in the world in my opinion and we don’t really need to replace that.
I started playing guitar when I was eleven, mainly because my brother learnt drums. I always tried to follow him, in his footsteps, with what he was doing, like sports, but I was rubbish (laughs). I thought I would be good but I wasn’t.
So at eleven I got my first guitar and my mum and dad bought me a guitar book to see how I got on before they invested in guitar lessons. Eventually I learned the book by myself and then I saw this music store in Birmingham with a sign on the window saying “guitar lessons available” and it was with a guy called Steve Makin, who was a wicked, amazing guitarist.
But I’ve lost touch with him now and I don’t know where he is. Which is a shame, because I’d like to meet him again. He was a great player and it would be nice for him to see that his little pupil’s doing something with his life and didn’t just give up.
RM: Oh, his lessons most certainly worked…
DC: He taught me blues, rock, everything he knew or could think of... we touched on jazz a bit but that was over my head, really (laughs).
And it was weird because it was sort of like when you’re learning to drive, you don’t think all your limbs are going to work at the same time (laughs) but then all of a sudden it starts working – “oh, right, if I press the brake I’m not going to crash into that car again” (laughter).
So I was practising and all of a sudden it just clicked, in the space of about a minute. All the exercises started working and I took lessons for about three years. After that third year Steve actually turned round to me and said “I can’t teach you anymore, I’m going to have to let you go.” So he had taught me everything he knew, he’d almost surpassed his limits in teaching.
And I carried on learning by myself and jamming with my brother who was playing in bands and I was jamming with them. They were mostly cover bands but it was like getting dropped in at the deep end with last minute phone calls – “the guitarist can’t make it, Dave, can you do it?” So I’d be going out and playing a gig, making a complete mess of it (laughs), but coming home feeling like I’d given a performance and really enjoyed it.
RM: Any other guitarists you admire?
DC: As far as other influences go, or people I enjoy listening to… obviously Steve Vai, Joe Satriani. I like Frank Zappa and his very quirky style and the weird way he played. He didn’t care what note he hit – if he thought it sounded right then that was that. Brian May, who was a complete innovator of the guitar, doing all that harmonizing stuff, and then there’s Jimmy Page.
And Tom Morello, who was doing all that weird stuff and with Rage Against The Machine, which was really cool.
But there are no real guitar heroes around anymore and I feel really sad because even in music in general you can’t really see anyone coming out now who are heroes. You think about Elvis Presley, he was a legend and will be a legend forever. But I can’t see Cheryl Cole being a household name in fifty or sixty years.
RM: No, it’s the Five Years of Fame thing and what I describe as the lazy, re-imagined entertainment world we now live in. The countless and constant movie remakes are a prime example, where it’s all visual impact and no substance and I hear and see that in current pop culture. Even in rock music we seem to be musically re-booting what we did in the seventies and eighties.
And manufactured artists are churned out via the Reality TV, Pop Idol and X-Factor shows that create celebrities who are not star quality but are championed or hailed as such. We have plenty of celebrities who will get their five or ten years, but how many will we look back on in twenty, twenty-five or thirty years? Not many.
DC: I couldn’t even tell you who’s in the charts now and that’s really sad.
I still keep my ear in on the pop music and there’s still bands that make you think “oh, that sounds interesting” like Florence and the Machine.
And obviously we have Adele, who I Iove, and thank fucking God we’ve got her because the English music pop scene is nothing. But as I said before on one of my posts we’re too busy making music to look at rather than music to listen to.
RM: I remember we had an earlier conversation about that because around the time you posted your comment I wrote something very similar – when did we stop listening to the music and start looking at it? Now it’s not the MTV show but the MTV artist.
DC: I don’t think we’re using the tools we’ve been given – with the MTV stuff – in the right way. It’s all commercial and money and that’s that.
The days of the big record deals aren’t around anymore and you can do it yourself, you know? IOEarth is a brand in itself and as far as we are concerned no-one is going to come in and dilute it. If they’re going to come in they are going to be on the same page and work with us, not against us.
But it’s such a shame because the band’s that have come out of Birmingham and the Midlands is just amazing, really. But now in the Midlands there’s nowhere to play. If you’re a band that’s still at school, you can play a local, little pub, but the next step is the Academy or the NEC – there’s nothing in between.
The only thing is The Robin [in Bilston near Wolverhampton] and that’s it.
And that’s the whole gamut of music venues in the Midlands that are half-decent. You’re not going to go where there’s no PA or no lighting and that's such a shame when you see the wicked bands coming out of Birmingham and the Midlands.
It's just embarrassing, really. The Council should embrace the fact we have quite a lot of music and art from the Midlands and we should push that more and in different parts of the country – Liverpool, London, Manchester.
And in Scotland you had Simple Minds, Big Country, all these wicked bands… and dare I say The Proclaimers…
RM: …you can dare to say The Proclaimers, absolutely (laughs).
DC: They made that impact. Everyone knows that song, their timeless hit Five Hundred Miles, but now, the bands… it just makes me sad.
RM: I can sympathise, but I’m also very lucky. I live in Prestwick, a town in Ayrshire and we have an incredible undercurrent of talent coming through.
We’re punching above our weight with some great singer songwriters, but we’ve also got the same sort of problems you touched on. We have the Burns an’ a’ That! festival, an annual arts and culture event that runs in June, yet there were only two or three Ayrshire acts on the entire five-day 2012 festival bill. Sometimes you just shake your head. But that’s a million miles away from rock and prog...
DC: Sometimes I think the word “prog” scares people because they assume you are going to be a YES type band, long keyboard solos and stuff like that.
But I think prog was actually an era as opposed to a genre. Prog was seventies, early eighties music but now it’s actually progressive in that there are more, different versions of progressive rock music.
You’ve got people like Devin Townsend who is predominately a metal musician but he’s seen as being in the prog thing now. Even Steve Vai is categorised as prog in some things. And I just think if we called it "progressive rock" it may get more of an impact than "prog." I don’t know if you agree?
RM: I agree with the subtlety of the difference in terminology. I’ve had this discussion many times and I think the terms "prog" or "prog rock" become very insular and a musical barrier goes up.
It becomes almost a clique, to the extent that people feel they are either not invited or the prog people don’t want to share it. We should be looking at it as this large, literally progressive movement of music that goes in all sorts of directions and embraces so many styles.
DC: To be honest though, Ross, it should all just be called music.
I also think the only reason they categorise it is so they can sell it and say “this is this” or “this is that.” I think if you had a record store that didn’t have any categorisation and people just had the free-thought to go in there and look at a CD and think “that looks good” just from the cover, people would listen to more music. Because there are rock fans, dance fans, fans of other genres who will not listen to any other style of music because it’s not rock, or it’s not dance and they’re selling themselves short because there’s a lot of brilliant music out there.
That’s why there’s a dance side to our stuff but it’s not our main sound and a lot of people don’t even realise they are listening to a dance song, which is good.
Because maybe it will make them think “perhaps I should go and buy some Faithless [UK electronica/ dance band] to see if I like it.” And I bet they would, because it has that proggish feel, very keyboardy. It’s only because it’s got a bass drum beat through it, but it still has that proggy vibe and it’s not all keyboards.
So if it wasn’t categorised people would listen to a lot more music, just on face value.
RM: Maybe come the time when we are both millionaires we should open that very shop up and have Abba sitting next to Anthrax and all the rest.
DC: Or don’t even give them the covers. Just give them the CD’s in a plastic wrapper. “Oi, what’s this?” “Don’t know. Give it a spin and see” (laughs).
RM: Sounds like a plan (laughs). We’ve talked about your guitar background but we must talk about Adam’s keyboard work that creates the wonderful atmospheric structures and tones that are such a part of the IOEarth sound.
And he performs some lovely piano pieces, too. What does Adam bring to IOEarth, from both a playing and compositional point-of-view?
DC: Absolutely nothing. It’s all me, Ross (laughter). The thing about Adam, and he won’t mind me saying this, he’s not really a soloist. Well, he can, he can solo all over the keyboard, but he’s really focussed on not sounding like a prog keyboard player. You know, that typical synth sound (mimics a run of high-pitched synth notes) that goes on for about five minutes.
But if I say to Adam “do that” he can, but he automatically hates it.
He’ll say “oh, no” and would rather go back to the organic-ness of the piano and do it that way and use string sounds. And he’s really good at making sounds.
For example in the song Take Me, the heart monitor, he actually made that sound, it wasn’t a sample. We needed a heart monitor sound so he sat there, for about a week, just creating that beep.
RM: That’s interesting, I thought that was a sample or lifted from a sound library…
DC: No, he actually made that. And then sometimes what we do, like on the song Sun is Going Down, where we wanted that straight, regimented dance vibe, we’ll get Richard in to play it instead of finding a loop or a sample. And then he’ll keep playing it and keep playing it and then we make loops of that.
People have been using loops as rhythms for Years. Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys was all loops. There was actually a tape, which ran on reels all the way around the studio to create a loop. That whole drum bit was looped.
Also, the intro to Money by Pink Floyd, the cash-register thing? That was a loop. They recorded that then looped it. So people have been using loops and samples for years. But it’s easier to do on a computer than it is on tape. But Adam is really innovative like that and he’ll sit at his keyboard or software for hours to create a sound. And he’ll come up with that sound and it will be perfect.
From Physical Education class to Musical Education and firm friends.
Adam Gough and Dave Cureton, Architects of "The IOEarth Sound."
DC: And composition wise, because Adam and myself are on the same wavelength… well, part of the time I might present something and he’ll say “that’s shit,” or vice versa (laughs), but a lot of the time I’ll play something, to fit the album or for a song and he’ll say “yeah, that’s exactly what we need” and then we work on it together and write a tune. And he’s a really cool guy. He’s so laid back.
Unlike me, I’m the hot-head. I’m the one that stamps the feet and will scream my bloody head off but he’s the calm one. He just gets the job done.
And maybe I’ll allow him to have a solo, you never know (laughs)!
RM: Well, having mentioned Adam and his preferred instrumentation, this would be a great time to feature him on piano accompanying the wonderful Claire Malin.
I'd like to finish by playing the introductory section of Live Your Life…
DC: Live Your Life was originally supposed to be just one piece of music but then we realised it was thirteen minutes long and we thought some people might want to skip the first bit and just listen to the heavy bit, or vice versa. So we decided to put the track on the album as two separate parts.
And the piano that starts the song was another thing with Adam, really, because it was supposed to be played on guitar. I was playing this guitar thing and it just didn’t sit right. It was really nice but it didn’t fit just as well as we thought it would. It was one of those moments where you think “yeah, it’s good” and then after a while you think “Ooh, not sure.”
So Adam went away and he basically just copied what I had played on guitar, but with some alterations to make it work for the piano. And he came back the next week with the piece and he said “shall I play this over your guitar part?”
So I got him to play it and I said “We don’t need the guitar part mate, it’s great.
I’ll just shut up and you can have the part” (laughter).
Adam Gough and Dave Cureton, Architects of "The IOEarth Sound."
DC: And composition wise, because Adam and myself are on the same wavelength… well, part of the time I might present something and he’ll say “that’s shit,” or vice versa (laughs), but a lot of the time I’ll play something, to fit the album or for a song and he’ll say “yeah, that’s exactly what we need” and then we work on it together and write a tune. And he’s a really cool guy. He’s so laid back.
Unlike me, I’m the hot-head. I’m the one that stamps the feet and will scream my bloody head off but he’s the calm one. He just gets the job done.
And maybe I’ll allow him to have a solo, you never know (laughs)!
RM: Well, having mentioned Adam and his preferred instrumentation, this would be a great time to feature him on piano accompanying the wonderful Claire Malin.
I'd like to finish by playing the introductory section of Live Your Life…
DC: Live Your Life was originally supposed to be just one piece of music but then we realised it was thirteen minutes long and we thought some people might want to skip the first bit and just listen to the heavy bit, or vice versa. So we decided to put the track on the album as two separate parts.
And the piano that starts the song was another thing with Adam, really, because it was supposed to be played on guitar. I was playing this guitar thing and it just didn’t sit right. It was really nice but it didn’t fit just as well as we thought it would. It was one of those moments where you think “yeah, it’s good” and then after a while you think “Ooh, not sure.”
So Adam went away and he basically just copied what I had played on guitar, but with some alterations to make it work for the piano. And he came back the next week with the piece and he said “shall I play this over your guitar part?”
So I got him to play it and I said “We don’t need the guitar part mate, it’s great.
I’ll just shut up and you can have the part” (laughter).
DC: I recorded a rough demo version of that first part with the vocal. I mean I can’t sing but I did this rough version and I gave it to Claire and she came in and sung a demo of the first part. And we weren’t really thinking of writing part two at that point because we’d only just done the first part, but I thought it would be great if, just after this part finishes, some big guitar comes in.
So I came up with the part two guitar riff, we added the vocals and then it just automatically went into that chorus again. Then we thought wouldn’t it be nice if the song dropped tempo again, so we messed about with some chord structures that flow through the album and we came up with the end and put a guitar solo on it. But Claire’s vocals on that first part are just amazing.
RM: Oh it’s a lovely piece, a beautiful vocal and the perfect way to end this Muirsical Conversation.
Dave, it’s been great chatting and here’s to more musical moments from IOEarth.
DC: It’s been cool, mate. Take care!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Dave Cureton
June 2012
Article dedicated to Steve Makin – Steve, your boy done good.
So I came up with the part two guitar riff, we added the vocals and then it just automatically went into that chorus again. Then we thought wouldn’t it be nice if the song dropped tempo again, so we messed about with some chord structures that flow through the album and we came up with the end and put a guitar solo on it. But Claire’s vocals on that first part are just amazing.
RM: Oh it’s a lovely piece, a beautiful vocal and the perfect way to end this Muirsical Conversation.
Dave, it’s been great chatting and here’s to more musical moments from IOEarth.
DC: It’s been cool, mate. Take care!
Ross Muir
Muirsical Conversation with Dave Cureton
June 2012
Article dedicated to Steve Makin – Steve, your boy done good.
IOEarth website: http://www.ioearth.com/
IOEarth and Moments are available from iTunes, Amazon and the band’s website.
Photo Credits: © Wendy Vissers-Hagenbeeck.
Audio tracks presented to accompany the above article and by kind permission of Dave Cureton.
No infringement of copyright is intended.