Interviews: Interview with IQ frontman Peter Nicholls
Posted on Saturday, May 30 @ 09:38:49 EDT
Topic: Interviews
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Peter Nicholls:
Tuned In
by Tommy “Hashman” Hash
IQ, with Nicholls, Far Left
When you say neo-progressive rock, England's IQ is one of the first bands to come to mind; they might have not have had the slight MTV airplay that Marillion did during the eighties, but alongside Pendragon and Pallas, they led the way for what was considered the second wave of progressive rock during that time period, and many bands have followed up that formula. Now with their latest album Frequency hitting the racks, the band still continues to purvey the emotive musical stance that they are well known for - whereas you put the CD in the player and you know the band isn't going to go into some wild tangent - the album is going to simply be the IQ that we have always known and loved them for, yet there is nothing simple about their music; yet it does remain on an accessible level to the ears.
Their frontman Peter Nicholls, known for his elaborate stage presence, speaks about the new album, the evolution of nine albums, and moving on after the departure of co-founder/keyboardist Martin Orford.
"We spent many of our early years developing and establishing our sound and so we wouldn’t ever throw that away and release an album that doesn’t sound like IQ," begins Nicholls about the new record, "But each new album needs to be different and challenge us in different ways, which is certainly true of this album. Plus, of course, there are two new band members, Andy and Mark, on this album who weren’t on the last album, ‘Dark Matter’, so they bring a different energy to the recording. I would say this album shows a more mature IQ. I’m very pleased with it, I think it contains some of our best work in recent years and it has been very well received by the fans and press. (As far as how we have evolved) we don’t compete with each other like we used to do, we understand and appreciate our individual strengths and we give each other more space to make our contributions nowadays. We’ve improved greatly as writers and musicians and, for me, this album is definitely my best recorded vocal performance to date, so on a personal level I’m still moving forward, even after nearly 30 years."
Although containing a vibe of what might be a concept album, Frequency is not; the fact that Nicholls' lyrics are elaborate tends to trick us, but each song is unto itself as the singer explains, "There isn’t a single theme on this album. Each song deals with a different subject, or several different subjects, to be truthful. Inspiration can come from anywhere and I always keep a notebook handy so I can jot down lyrical ideas and phrases. The best ideas come when I’m walking!"
He has also painted cover art for a couple albums, but this particular album, it was longtime collaborator Tony Lythgoe who designed the artwork for Frequency, " Lythgoe has been responsible for all our album covers since ‘Subterranea’ in 1997. I went through with Tony the ideas I had for lyrical themes and he put the artwork together based on those discussions and the atmospheres in the music. It works very well, I think."
The loss of a keyboardist in neo-progressive rock is no different that the loss of a lead guitarist, since he too shares solo duties and when that person is the co-founder, the personality that has been within the heart and soul of the band is also gone, so it was a shock when it was announced that Martin Orford would be retiring from music; yet the band knew that they would have to move on, and that they did " We were all very sad to see Martin go but the change to (new keyboardist) Mark Westworth has gone very smoothly, I think," elaborates Nicholls, "We didn’t audition too many keyboard players and we knew pretty quickly that Mark was the right man for the job. Not only did he have the ability and the sounds to reproduce the existing keyboards parts but he was also pretty relaxed about it all and we felt good about that. As much as anything, we were looking for a good personality fit. At this point in our lives, I think we’d find it very hard to be in a band with someone we couldn’t get along with."
Orford's reasons were because he feels that our society has become a 'Free music culture' and it's increasingly hard for musicians to make a living at this with all the piracy and illegal downloading going on - even if the economy wasn't in a rut, people still would be doing it - so what are the band's thoughts on this particular issue, " I don’t necessarily agree with everything Martin says and I don’t really think the situation is quite as bleak as he makes it out to be," says Nicholls, "but it’s certainly true that music is consumed in a very different way now to how it was 10, or even 5, years ago. We have to accept those changes and work with them. Of course, as an artist, I would prefer people not to download our albums free of charge from the internet but I think the vast majority of our fans still want to support the band and buy the albums legitimately."
IQ has a gig planned at the 3 Rivers Progressive Rock Festival, this August in Pittsburgh, this festival has become the perfect neo/symphonic counterpart to NEARfest's more traditional progressive rock line, and just like NEARfest, there is a wide diversity, making the two festivals the summer prog-rock events for the northeast, yet there more gigs on the horizon although the band does not hit the stage too often, " We don’t play an awful lot of live shows these days, but we’ve played in Europe already this year to promote the release of the album and we’ll be returning there later this year, plus there will be a return to the USA in August and UK dates in the autumn."
And the band is reaching their thirtieth anniversary, having a career that has outlasted many bands and a record after record that is strong; however no major plans are in stone yet for any big celebration at this moment; but you never know, as Nicholls concludes, "We haven’t started making any plans yet but I’m sure there will be a celebratory concert of some kind in 2011. We marked our tenth and twentieth anniversaries, and not many bands reach their 30th anniversary so we’ll do something special, I’m sure."
Copyright & Publishing: 2009 Tommy Hash for Ytsejam.com
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of Frequency
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of Subterranea
Please Visit:
The IQ Website
IQ at MySpace
SPV Records
Inside Out Records
Inside Out Records at MySpace
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