ANDRO COULTON - MALLEUS

💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal ANDRO COULTON of MALLEUS!! Welcome!!

Hi and thank you for the interview. 💿 On June 3rd was out your new platter (The 1st MALLEUS full-length!) called YOUR NIGHTMARE CALLS, positive received on our pages. Can you tell us somethin’about its composition process and style? Well, that started many years ago when I wrote the lyrics to Dark Dreams in around 1975, hoping that it would become a Witchfynde song. I had many song ideas too, which I had on a cassette. I met Shaz in 1978 and we talked about doing a band which had the bass guitar as a lead instrument, as all bands just stuck to the same set up with a lead guitarist. Shaz is a great lyricist and wrote most of the words for this album and has about another 20 songs worth ready to go. So when I left Witchfynde we virtually had a set written. Style wise, there is obviously an influence from Hawkwind plus early Black Sabbath, but I never consciously look for a specific style just what comes. We have enough other songs for at least another 3 albums, they have been written over 39 years some like Death Dealers we had not played since 1983. The album tracks however were chosen to go together to make a concept of the nightmare. Originally there was going to be poems with creepy music behind them between each track, but the files were corrupted and so it was released without them. We intend to re-record them to use live. We also tried to record an album that sounded vintage in sound as near on CD as we could to a 70’s vinyl album as I really don’t like the modern clinical mixing and mastering. 💿 Your new album is out via KENT & SUSSEX RECORDS; can you tell us somethin' about the birth of the partnership with them? Kent and Sussex Records is run by Malleus singer Gram Swan and drummer Jake Weekes, they offered to release the album in a licensing deal for the first batch of CDs. They both live in Kent and mainly release artists from that area. 💿 Can you tell us somethin'about the birth of your passion for music? Which bands and artists have influenced you the most? Well my earliest memories were of watching Fats Domino singing Blueberry Hill and Jerry Lee Lewis singing Great Balls Of Fire. I love Rock N Roll then came the 60’s although I liked the Beatles, I preferred the Rolling Stones as they had an ‘edge’ to their music and the early Kinks. Then at 15 I found my cousin’s record collection which included Frank Zappa’s Mothers Of Invention album We Are Only In It For The Money and Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica to name but two. As soon as I was earning, anything by these two I bought. Then along came Cream, The Doors, Grateful Dead, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath and Grand Funk Railroad. Bass players that influenced me were Jack Bruce, Geezer Butler, and the main two when I started were Mel Schacher, from the very start of the Grand Funk Railroad live album his bass sound blew me away. Then I dropped the needle onto Doremi Faso Llatido by Hawkwind and Lemmy changed my life for ever. From there on the die was cast and the bass was for me. Of course I later bought Rush’s 2112 and Geddy Lee’s bass playing again blew me away. 💿 The real “news” in music industry is the return of vinyl and cassette; what’s your feeling about these classic format and the current music “business”? Vinyl is the proper way to listen to music and I’m glad it is back, but for me it never went away and I never got rid of any music, vinyl, or tape just because it was out of fashion. Cassettes are fine with good sound quality, they only snagged up or sounded crap because people played them through cheap players. Buy a HiFi quality player and all is fine. The music business is totally different now to back then, but streaming sites in my opinion are crooks of the worst kind playing 0.0004 of a cent per play while making billions, hate them. Luckily for our kind of music most people want a ‘hard copy CD or vinyl. Also it is very, very hard for young bands who play original music to get gigs. I know many great young bands I have met who have given up. 💿 You're well-known as member of WITCHFYNDE; GIVE ‘EM HELL is real masterpiece for all NWOBHM fans. Why your experience with the band was so short? I was actually in Witchfynde from 1975 to 1980 so quite a long time, there were a lot of reasons why I left, some my fault some not, but I didn’t like the way the band was heading music wise, so musical differences were a big contributing factor. I actually played on 3 of the tracks on Stagefright as well. Thank you for saying Give ‘Em Hell is a masterpiece, I am proud to be part of it. 💿 Can you tell us somethin’ about your live projects? What are next scheduled gigs? With Malleus we have no gigs until October at present when we are at the British Steel Festival in France Saturday 5th October with gigs arranged around this date. However I have something else very new to add. I now have a new band, Andro Coulton’s Give ‘Em Hell to play live the Witchfynde songs I was associated with. I am not calling it Witchfynde as I do not want any confusion with the Witchfynde still going. I have the full support from the guys in Witchfynde for this project and have gig offers in hand as soon as we are ready.

💿 You’re a brilliant musician with a lot of experience and you have the chance to share the stage with many artists and bands. Who were the craziest which you met? Thank you for that complement. Yes I have, but the craziest by far were a band who supported me on a tour in 2014, called Devils Answer. These guys wore face paint not just onstage but all day too. The singer a guitarist looked like a modern day Comanche with red and cream face paint! We played in Nottingham and before the gig we all went down to a Tesco supermarket. When they rolled in, in full face paint a woman screamed and nearly fainted as she thought they were robbing the place. They stopped with me at our house overnight and next morning decided they wanted to go to the village café for breakfast, of course in full face paint. We went in and the clientele mainly pensioners turned round and it went very quiet. I said “It’s OK they are Welsh,” they just nodded and carried on with their day. Charlie during their set used to disappear off stage and could appear anywhere usually chasing barmaids and once disappeared completely whilst playing into another pub! 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal! And thank you for asking me these great questions. #pics Band's Fb malleus  

#MALLEUS #NWOBHM