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| photo: Simon Fowler |
Q: You’ve always had a large fan base here in the LA area. Would you put that down to the early airplay from KROQ/106.7 FM when “New Song” first came out?
Absolutely. [DJ] Richard Blade was so supportive and became a really good friend. It was fantastic having that early support. They played my first album with “New Song” and “What is Love?” That laid the foundation for the second album 'Dream Into Action.' It really took off nationally then. It was great.
Q: I first heard your music from Rock Over London, a syndicated radio show that would air the top 10 singles in Britain over here.
Oh, yes! I remember doing interviews with them – both in the UK and when I came over to California. It was very important for us.
Q: Last summer, I caught your headlining performance on the Retro Futura Tour in Costa Mesa, CA. Do you enjoy the camaraderie with other Eighties acts on the bill?
Yeah, it was great. There were 47 of us on the road, including the crew and everyone. It was a real traveling circus. Really good fun. Towards the end of the tour, people were jumping on stage with each other. I did a duet with Dave Wakeling [of The English Beat]. It was a great way to spend the summer. I did feel a little bit of pressure, headlining it. I really needed to deliver a great show because there were so many great bands on the bill. I was a bit nervous, but it all worked out really well.
Q: A few years ago, you released the ‘Engage’ multi-media project on CD+DVD via a crowd funding site. What was that process like for you?
It was an experiment for me to really involve the fans. That worked really well. I did lots of extra stuff like studio days. I composed piano music especially for people over Skype. I stretched things out, tried some new things and it was great. Really good doing it. Loads of bands are doing that now. The great thing is it really links you up to the fans. You feel very responsible about delivering something good. They’re believing in you [enough] to invest in the project and you really got to look after them and deliver something great. I think we did that.
Q: You also introduced an Engage phone app. What kind of feedback did you get?
People do turn up with it at the shows. On Retro Futura, we did broadcast from the stage, so it was triggering stuff in their phones if they had the app open. I’m of two minds about it. It’s a really cool app and everything, but people really want to watch and sing. They don’t want to really be having to deal with their phones. Maybe that’s a good thing - that the show is engaging enough. We will continue developing it though. I think there are some really cool things we can do in the future. It’s one of those things that will gain momentum as time goes by.
Q: With the recent announcement that Ringo Starr will be finally be knighted by the Queen of England, I wondered what it was it like being part of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band in 2001.
It was really amazing touring with Ringo. I had such a great time with him. We traveled together, so I had a lot of chances to have conversations with him about The Beatles and the old days. Also, he has such a great philosophy of life now. He said, ‘I really want to stay fit and healthy, so I can live as long as I can and see my grandchildren growing up.’ He was quite inspirational. He used to have me very loud in his monitors. He loves keyboard players. So I was really chuffed about that.
Q: Did you ever ask him about making certain Beatles albums?
No, I’m more orientated toward the person, how they think and the struggles in their life. How they overcome them. It was just brilliant.
Q: Greg Lake was also on that tour. Weren’t you a big ELP fan?
[Admiringly] Yeah, a huge ELP fan and I got to play “Karn: Evil 9” [the band’s famous half hour composition from 1973’s “Brain Salad Surgery”] with Greg Lake and Sheila E. every night. It was the hardest piece of music I’ve ever had to learn. I had to chop it into two-bar sections and learn two bars at a time. It was amazing to play that. ELP meant so much to me when I was growing up.
Q: If push comes to shove, which of your studio albums do you think still stand the test of time in 2018?
Weirdly enough, they’ve all done well. Electronic music is so in vogue at the moment. With those first two albums, I listen to [Netflix series] ‘Stranger Things,’ the first series, and there’s so many references to that sound. I think they stood up well. I’ve got albums that people don’t know so well that I’m really proud of like ‘People’ - it's one of my little pleasures.
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