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The First International MelloFest 2008
INTERVIEW No. 5

NICK MAGNUS
(Steve Hackett Band, The Enid, Autumn)

Nick Awde: A big welcome for Nick Magnus!

Nick Magnus: I'm slightly disappointed there wasn't the Parkinson theme playing on the brass on the Mellotron just then as I came up.

NA: We could always do that - and you could always oblige! Now would you like to introduce yourself? Were you born ten years too late?

NM: Yes, I similarly was born ten years too late. My first proper professional job, if you want to call it that, was with The Enid in 1976 when I answered their advert in the Melody Maker. That was an interesting six months, it didn't last any longer than that. It was very intense but it demonstrated that I knew what I wanted to do. So I left them and spent another two years playing in Autumn - not to be confused with today's Mostly Autumn. Autumn was a prog rock band based in Portsmouth where we were flying in the face of punk just as Jakko and Martin were talking about, trying to put prog rock forward while all the cards were stacked against you. But rather than dumb anything down we just decided: "No we're going to make it even more difficult, we're going to make it more complex. This number's only 12 minutes long, come on guys, 18 at least." And in terms of writing there was nothing structural apart from the fact that instead of having simple structures that went A-B-C-B-A ours went A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N, while we were going: "Oh those ideas are in the same key, let's crowbar them together!" And so we ended up with 24 minutes of sort of, well, musical masturbation really, but we loved it.

NA: So did we.

NM: And apparently so did a lot of the audiences. But not all of them did. We only released our album about eight years ago. We did some recordings back in 1978 which we never ever dreamt would see the light the day and they finally did, we decided in 2000 to remaster them and clean them up with, you know, de-hiss and de-noise them and do a bit of enhancement and everything and stuck them out as an album, and it unbelievably it sold really well. So it just goes to show that people do like this kind of stuff, if they're allowed to know it exists and allowed to hear it.

NA: And then you famously answered yet another Melody Maker advert.

NM: Actually it was the other way round. He answered mine. That was [ex-Genesis guitarist] Steve Hackett. We had got to a point with Autumn where although we were out and gigging we were literally all signing on the dole, had no money or anything - and so we decided to pool our last pennies to put an advert in a magazine that was going round at the time. I don't know if anyone remembers it, but it was called Circuit Magazine, the one that college social secretaries used to read where all the bands advertised and so you got all your college and university gigs out of it. I seem to remember at the time you could get Genesis for #1,000 - sounds quite bizarre now, but you could! So we coughed up the last of our money and stuck this advert in. The moment the print copy appeared, our phone got cut off because we couldn't afford to pay the bill! And it remained cut off until the next issue of the came out, at which point if anybody ever had tried to ring us to book us we would never have known about it. We were all so depressed that I said: "God I'm going to advertise for myself. Does anyone mind?" And the others went: "Oh no, we'll all advertise as well!" And so I stuck an advert in Melody Maker... and they got the phone number wrong. I went "oh God here we go again" and instantly phoned them up and said: "You've got my number wrong, can you put it in again?" They said: "Oh yeah okay, we'll put it in again free of charge in two weeks' time." And two weeks later they put the advert in with the right phone number, and it just happened that Steve's roadie Jed was reading through the Melody Maker because Steve had asked him to have a look out for keyboard players. He saw my advert which was the reprint. Of course, it was meant to happen - had they got the phone number right the first time I would never have put it in again two weeks later and that job would never have happened!

NA: And that was Steve Hackett who had just left Genesis--

NM: He had.

NA: --and was starting his solo career. You worked with him during what are considered to be his classic years.

NM: Eleven years I packed in, from 1978 until 89.

NA: You started off as part of a full band and then were whittled down, a process that also reflected the erosion of the music industry at the time. It ended up with Steve and yourself as a production team along with Steve's brother John.

NM: Yeah that kind of came out of necessity because Steve wanted to record the third album I did with him - "Cured" - after the live version of the band had dissolved. So it was basically him and me and we thought: "Oh well, let's just start recording something..." And that's when the dreaded LinnDrum showed its head and I went: "Hmm, I quite fancy getting my hands on one of those." So we decided to plough through and do as much as we could as a twosome and then John joined on the flute later.

NA: In fact, it was a sign of the times that during the 80s touring must have been becoming progressively more difficult for a band such as the one that you had with Steve Hackett. So that must've been quite frustrating.

NM: It was. In the end we toured for as long as we could, but I think the reason that all came to an end was because Steve severed any connections with Charisma Records or they did with him, and he took up with another small independent label, who I won't name, who were basically just playing at being a record company. So, of course, there was no financial support, no moral support even from the new company and it got to the point where Steve couldn't even afford to record anything else because there was no money coming forward. Of course nobody could afford to build their own studio at that time in the way everyone can do it now. With two weeks' pocket money it seems you can buy a home studio today, but not then - you had to go to a studio to do it. Without the money we couldn't record anything, and without new material to record the live gigs petered out. So that's basically what happened.

NA: The Mellotron had already fallen by the wayside earlier but for similar reasons: it was costly, heavy...

NM: But I loved it.

NA: Mind you, you replaced with synthesisers and expensive - for the time - samplers that also cost huge amounts.

NM: Of course, by comparison things like that didn't cost that much less than the Mellotron. But the change-over happened for practical reasons really. I loved playing the Mellotron, and I have to say that all the times, countless times that I had it in the studio it never ever put a foot wrong. It always behaved perfectly but it just grew these little devil's horns the moment you put it on a stage. We were okay when we did small gigs, like the size of venue we're in tonight, particularly in America where our tour venues were club gigs, which are this kind of size. They're great places to play because the audience is really close and you get a great atmosphere, but the temperature inside is pretty constant - it's always hot! So the Mellotron is fine as long as the temperature was constant. That way it was perfectly happy. But then we started doing European tours with huge sports stadiums like concrete flying saucers, particularly in countries like Italy. The gear would be in a boiling hot truck during the day then it would get cool in the evening, the truck would get icy cold, then they'd take it out, put it in the gig, turn on the lights, put the sound on for the sound check and the Mellotron would get hot again. Then the lights would go off and the Mellotron would get cold again, and by the time you came onstage it had sort of alternately boiled and frozen so many times that you'd get all this condensation forming on the tapes. So of course when you played the thing it just went nnnnnnrrrrgh! All you could do was to go "what...?!" The tapes wouldn't have rewound because the condensation made all the oxide turn into gunge and it just stuck on the heads and so the tapes wouldn't rewind. In the end the only way to play the thing was to have the back off and Steve's guitar roadie Jed suddenly had two jobs. One was to look after Steve. As for the other, well every time I was about to play the Mellotron he'd have to come over, get on his knees and literally pull the tapes down by hand just to keep the thing going. Occasionally he'd have to go to do something else and I'd be going: "No, come back! I've got another passage coming up!" So it got to the point where it was embarrassing. The thing was actually a Novatron 400, the black one, and it also had this tendency for the motor to overheat and you'd see clouds of white smoke coming out the back as the thing would grind to a halt. And after the band has given you funny looks a certain number of times, you have to say: "Look, it's not my fault, it's not me, it's THAT! Much as I love it I can't go on!" So in the end I said: "Do you mind if I fill in on other keyboards?" Steve said: "If it makes you feel comfortable, go ahead." And that's really when I stopped using the Mellotron. We still took it in the studio but not onstage.

NA: And it hasn't really featured in your subsequent recordings?

NM: Oh, it's all over the place - but not the real thing! I would love to have the real thing but I don't have the space for a Mellotron at home! Samples are fine for me. When you play them with the right sensibility, as far as I'm concerned there is no difference - and I know I'll get shouted at or bottled by certain purists - I know, I know! But there you go. When it's recorded sensitively I defy most people to tell the difference, quite honestly.

NA: Well thank you, thank you very much, Nick Magnus everyone.

NM: Thank you!

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Mellotron progressive rock prog rock British invasion Tony Banks (Genesis), Mike Pinder (Moody Blues), Ian McDonald (King Crimson, Foreigner), Woolly Wolstenholme (Barclay James Harvest), Greg Lake (King Crimson, Emerson Lake & Palmer), John Wetton (King Crimson, UK, Asia), Nick Magnus (Autumn, Steve Hackett Band), Martin Orford (IQ, Jadis), Roine Stolt (Flower Kings, Transatlantic, Tangent), Jakko Jakszyk (Level 42, 21st Century Schizoid Band, Tangent), John Hawken (Renaissance, Strawbs), Doug Rayburn (Pavlov's Dog), Tony Clarke (Moody Blues), David Cross (King Crimson), Dave Cousins (Strawbs), Blue Weaver (Strawbs, Bee Gees), Robert Kirby (Strawbs), Robert Webb (England), Dave Gregory (XTC), Andy McCluskey (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark). Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson) provides a drummer's view of working with four classic Mellotron bands, and there are perspectives from Geoff Unwin, the first Mellotronics demonstrator, John Bradley & Martin Smith of Streetly Electronics, the original makers of the Mellotron, and Planet Mellotron's Andy Thompson Nick Awde