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It was a dull, grey morning and I had just
got off our tour bus. I found myself backstage at the Arrow
rock festival (2005) and I was hungry so I started looking
for Catering. |
So there I was, standing backstage in a field, looking a little lost when I heard a voice behind me say, in a heavy Glaswegian accent, “Is that you Ben Matthews?” I turned round and standing in front of me was a real blast from my past; a guy called Mick Boyle.
Now I need to wind the clock back to the mid 1980s when I was a young lad working for the English office of a Swedish based record company known as Sonet Records. Sonet decided to buy their very own English recording studio, handed over the keys and told me to go and run it. Their reasoning was that I had been in a few studios as a youngster in various bands I had played in, this was hardly a qualification but hey! – I had my own studio to play with.
Here
I met a chap who became one of my best friends –
Kenny Denton; he is an engineer and producer and taught
me everything I know. One of the first sessions I did
with Kenny was a band known as Glasgow, they were from
Glasgow and the album we did was entitled “041”
which was the telephone area code for Glasgow at the time,
you can see the theme here right?
These boys were a lot of fun and we had a great time making
the album, unfortunately fame and fortune eluded the band
and they broke up and went their separate ways. But now,
here, standing in front of me in a field in darkest Holland
was the singer of Glasgow – I hadn’t seen
him in nearly twenty years. He now drives a big black
truck for a rock and roll trucking company known as TransAm
Trucking, I’m sure you’ve seen them parked
outside music venues or on a motorway somewhere. He was
driving a truck load of gear for the band Dream Theatre
who were on the bill that day. We had a good chat about
old times and agreed to stay in touch; he checked directions
on his trucks satellite navigation system and showed me
the way to catering.
“Can
you spot anyone familiar playing on this album?”
(click
to enlarge)
Not
the most amazing coincidence in history of coincidences"
I hear you cry; but the day continues:
As I was sitting in Catering later on that day, I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard someone say “Hey – Ben Matthews” this time in a Spanish accent. I looked up from my Dutch scrambled eggsh and baconsh and there was another ghost from my past, a Spanish journalist who actually lived across the road from and worked at Sonet twenty odd years ago. This was getting a little strange I thought to myself, what are the chances of meeting two people you haven’t seen for twenty years on the same day, in Holland? But there was more to come.
We played our set and came off stage to tremendous applause – I'd had a couple of beers by now, and as we walked into our dressing room, full of adrenalin and alcohol, I could hear people singing in the dressing room next door. They were singing “You Fool No One” which happens to be one of my favourite Deep Purple songs, I realised that this was Glenn Hughes and his band warming up as they were on next band on stage.
Not being a shy person after a beer or two I decided that I would go into their dressing room, listen to the song and wish them good luck, so off I trotted, opened the door and said “Hi – love that song, have a great show”, then to my surprise I heard for the third time that day “Hey, Ben Matthews”
This time it was an unmistakeable Swedish accent (bear in mind we can spot one a mile away because of Mickey Höglund our dear old friend and previous Thunder bass player from Sverige).
I looked round and there was another blast from the past – JJ Marsh
So
let’s wind that clock back again to the very same
period in the 80s. One of the first bands I ever worked
with as an engineer and indeed got my first ever album
credit for was a Swedish band called Spellbound. They
were signed to Sonet on the Swedish label but wanted to
come to England to record their album with the legendary
Vic Maille. Vic was responsible for many a great album
including Motorhead and Dr Feelgood and was great friends
with Kenny Denton. I was to be the engineer for this particular
project and was really looking forward to working with
Vic. During the recording it came to my notice, being
a guitar player myself, that the two young Swedish whippersnappers
in this band were both very talented guitarists indeed,
it also came to my notice that these guys ate nothing
but McDonalds for six weeks during the album recording.
The guitarists were called Al Strandberg and, of course
you’ve guessed it by now – JJ Marsh.
“JJ
is in the pink jacket – Al in black PVC bondage gear”
(click
to enlarge)
I had often wondered
what became of the pair of them as they both really could
play and talent has a tendency to stick around so it was
a real great surprise to see this old friend about to
take the stage with Glenn Hughes. I watched the set standing
next to the Spanish journalist whilst Mick from Glasgow
tooted the horn on his big truck and wondered if it was
all some kind of sign, my past catching up with me…
Nah, just a coincidence, but a nice one at that.
“The
80’s, a decade of questionable fasion”
JJ now plays guitar and co writes with Glenn Hughes’
band and for those of you that don’t know (shame
on you – you know who you are); Glenn played bass
and sang in both Trapeze and Deep Purple before embarking
on a variety of projects collaborating with the likes
of Pat Thrall, Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) and Chad Smith
(Red Hot Chilli Peppers).
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Click
below to hear one of my favourite JJ Spellbound
solos
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