"Dancing With The Tide"

Interview with Jamie Field, guitar and bass of this wonderful British band

 
By Sergio Vilar

Let us start from the beginning: how and when was your band created and why did you choose to name it Mermaid Kiss? Can you briefly introduce your band?
When I first met Evelyn she was still at school – my wife was her drama teacher. At that time she didn’t sing, she just played flute. I taught her guitar and encouraged her to sing and to write. In 1999 we were asked to write the music for two projects – the soundtrack for a short horror film called “The Vawn” and the music for a stage production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”. We didn’t have anywhere to record these pieces, then one of the actresses in the film mentioned her husband had a studio, and that was how we met Andy. We had so much fun recording those projects together that when they were finished we decided to go on working together.
So we wrote and recorded a song, then another and over time we had about 20 finished songs and a whole load more part recorded. It was only then that we thought it might be nice to issue some of them on a disc – and of course that meant we needed a name. We’d decided that the song “Mermaid Kiss” was going to be the opening track on the CD – and it also seemed an appropriate name for the band as a lot of our music has a much darker undertone than it might at first appear.
Once the album was released we were suddenly getting loads of requests to play live – and so we recruited Nigel Hooton who’s an old friend of Andy’s from way back who’ve played together in numerous bands, to help us out at gigs. Whilst he was able to do that, he had other musical commitments at that time, but since then has joined Mermaid Kiss as a full member.
Then Evelyn left to go to University and whilst she remained a member, it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to dedicate as much time as before to the band, so we recruited another local girl, Kate Belcher, to help us out with vocals. Even though Evelyn’s now doing a Masters degree, she’s found more time to do music again and she features as the main vocalist on our new (forthcoming) album – though Kate takes lead on three of the songs. We’ve also got a new part-time member – Wendy Marks – who plays woodwind instruments on the new album. She and I played together about 15 years ago in a band called Close To Zero when we were both in London.

So the current line up, the one on the new album, is: Evelyn Downing – lead vocals, flute, keyboards, harmonies; Kate Belcher – lead vocals, harmonies; Jamie Field – acoustic guitars, occasional electric guitar and backing vox; Andrew Garman – keyboards, bass, drums, percussion; Nigel Hooton – lead guitar, electric and acoustics guitars and Wendy Marks – cor anglais, oboe, recorders.

What do you think about 70's progressive music? Which were your background and your influences?
I loved a lot of 70’s progressive music – Yes, Gentle Giant, early King Crimson, Caravan, Camel, Focus, Genesis in the Peter Gabriel era, mid-period Pink Floyd.
There’s been a lot of other music between then and now and some of that has been terrific too. I’m not one of those people who think all prog is great and all, say jazz, is rubbish. There’s good and bad in all areas, good prog and bad prog, good punk and bad punk, good classical and bad classical. The trick is to find the best music in every genre – and the best of those bands who don’t fit any genre.
Perhaps the lasting influences on us from the 70’s era progressive is that we use a flute, especially on the “Mermaid Kiss” album and again on the forthcoming album –though less so on “Salt On Skin” as Evelyn was away at University for a lot of the time during the making of that CD. The forthcoming album also features other less usual instruments such as cor anglais and oboe – again maybe this is a reflection of the more adventurous approach of early 70’s progressive bands – they weren’t afraid to try things if they felt the music would benefit from it.

Please, do you want to describe your music to our readers?
This is a question that I really have no answer to. I intensely dislike the notion of genres in music because the moment you say a band plays ‘prog’ or ‘folk’ or ‘alternative’ people have a preconceived notion of what that band will sound like. And more often that not this notion is completely wrong.
We tend to let the song dictate the music rather than try and force everything to fit into a particular style or genre. For example we’ve been favorably reviewed in everything from a traditional folk magazine to a Polish heavy metal mag – and yet neither of these genres remotely reflect the music we play. I guess the only answer is really for people to listen to the albums and decide for themselves.

How did your first album develop, “Mermaid Kiss” (the album)? Would you like to illustrate it?
When we first started we’d set off just to record one song, then we did another and then another – and finally we had a dozen or so – it was only then we thought, okay why not put them on a disc?
There are a lot of part finished and unreleased songs from that process – we were learning things about song writing and the recording process every day during the making of the album. It was an amazing and very exciting experience.

     

Andrew Garman                           JamieField                                   Nigel Hooton

Which is the feedback for your first album? Are you satisfied?
To be honest we were very, very surprised at the positive way the album was received. Because the three of us (Andy, Evelyn and I) had done the whole thing ourselves, played all the instruments, mixed and mastered it, the outside influences were minimal – we were very isolated from the rest of the music scene - hence when it came out it didn’t sound like any of the other bands around. This turned out to be very positive for us – the fact that it couldn’t be labeled meant that people from all different genres gave it a listen.

Now your second record: “Salt On Skin”. How did you get the idea for this album, that is so different from the previous one? Would you like to illlustrate it?
I’m not sure the album is different exactly, more a development from the first album. Firstly we expanded the group from the original three members to five with the addition of Nigel Hooton on lead guitar and Kate Belcher as a second vocalist. Also Andy played more of a role in the writing and arranging.
I think it’s really important that a band grows over time. The next album will show further changes and developments - it’ll be the most progressive album we’ve done so far by some distance.

Would a quick summary of the songs be helpful?
The Mermaid Kiss Album: “Breathing Under Water” is loosely based on the story of Ophelia in Hamlet. “Like Water” is about being torn between temptation and duty. It was written during Lent and so it is perhaps not coincidental that it is full of images of the desert and the devil tempting with water. It is an evocative song - heat and passion often going hand in hand. “Spirit” is a song of Evelyn’s about her love for music. “Write My Name In Stars” is a painfully honest look at love rather than the usual superficial sugar-coated treatment the subject usually gets. “Blind” is an anti-war song that was written in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. “This Feeling” is a song written after Evelyn and I spent a day on the coast looking for locations to shoot a video for a song called “Hand In Hand” which for various reasons never actually made in onto the CD and at the moment remains unreleased. “Mermaid Kiss” is, lyrically, a kind of signature song – darker than it first appears which could be said of a lot of our work – Andy’s remix which closes the album is simply gorgeous. “Fated” was written after a fan in Colorado sent us some photos of her cabin deep in wintertime “Some Days Are Like This” was the first song to be written for the album and is a story of domestic violence. “Soundchaser” and “Whisper” are both strange songs based on a fantasy story called “Etarlis” that Evelyn and I have been writing.  “Just Like You” is about human cloning - the paradox of being unique because you are the first no-unique human being and was triggered by the story of a cult in the US who (falsely) claimed to have successfully cloned a human being. We had great fun on this track, nearly everything on it is ‘cloned’. Each of the percussion beats is doubled, the vocals are doubled over the octave, even the bass doubles over the octave. The electronic bleeps also give the track a very futuristic feel. In fact the most extraordinary moment in the making of this whole album, came during the recording of the vocals for “Just Like You”. We recorded Evelyn singing the words “Just Like You”, then played the tape backwards so Eve could actually learn to sing it backwards, words, (uoy ekil tsuj) tune, intonation, the lot. It was actually very scary hearing this strange sound coming out of her. We then recorded her singing this and reversed the tape again so it's playing forward. The words are quite clearly 'just like you' but with a distinctly unnatural and unsettling feel, in keeping with the song as a whole. You can hear them between 2:05-2:23 and again at 3:30-3:43. It took a long time, but is without doubt the most amazing thing I've ever seen attempted in a recording studio.

Salt On Skin: “The Blushing Bride” was, at the time, written in a fairly unusual way for us with Andy creating a basic backing track and me then writing the words and melody. It’s a song about the light and dark of human nature - and how we don’t always know those we love as well as we think we do. “Walk Away” came out of a song-writing session Kate B. and I did early in 2005. The words are Kate’s as is the basic musical idea for the chorus. Like “Soundchaser” and “Whisper”, “Hollow” is another song based on the “Etarlis” fantasy story. Andy came up with idea of doing all the music in 3.4 whilst the vocals remain in 4:4 as Evelyn wrote them – this gives the song a distinctly unsettling feel which reflects the nature of the subject. “Human Zoo” is a song we wrote and recorded as a result of a request from Bill Reagan at Olympian Shadow Farm for a track for the 4th OSF quarterly compilation. It was written in a very similar way to “Blushing Bride” with the backing track coming first. Andy also suggested the theme of humans as animals. I just love Nigel’s electrifying guitar solo. “A Hard Row” was written as a response to the “Children In Need” night here in the UK  – a once-a-year charity TV extravaganza which highlights for a few hours the horrors of life for the poor, and especially children, in the Third World. It’s worrying that the desperate plight of the world’s poor is virtually invisible for the other 364 days of the year. On Julian Cope’s 1987 album “Saint Julian” is a song called “Eve’s Volcano” (it was also released as a single) and I’d long wanted to write a song called “Volcano” for Evelyn to sing. I wrote the lyrics over Christmas 2003 and then Evelyn and I wrote the music together a few days later when we also put together a demo, coming up with the idea of it being a largely a percussion and vocal piece. We joined Andy in the Goat Shed over New Year 2004 and the song was recorded.
“I Go To Sleep” I wrote for my wife, Frances.

What is the real Mermaid Kiss soul, the one we find in “Mermaid Kiss” or the one of “Salt On Skin”? What do you want to communicate with your music?
I think the soul of Mermaid Kiss runs through both albums – bands grow and develop just as individuals do and the music probably reflects our ambitions to improve and develop and push the musical boundaries. I’d hate to do the same album over and over again if you see what I mean.
As to what we want to communicate with our music… I guess to transport the listener, to take them to a different place, to put them inside the worlds created by the songs.

Did “Salt On Skin” bring you more success or do you have the feeling that your audience has remained the same?
I don’t know if “Salt On Skin” bought us more success, but it did bring our music to a further audience and hence the fan base has developed considerably, but we’ve definitely maintained our original fans. I think they know by now that each album isn’t going to be a carbon copy of the last – that each track is going to be something different from the one before - and they seem very curious to see how the music develops next.

           

Kate Emerson                   Evelyn Downing                   Kate Belcher

How important are lyrics in your works? Is there a direct connection between music and lyrics in your works?
We spend a great deal of time on the lyrics – if you’re going to have words in a piece, it’s important they have something to say and can be heard. For us, the song writing is really the heart of what we do – it dictates the music to a large degree. There are loads of examples of this – “Soundchaser”, “Whisper” and “Just Like You” from the “Mermaid Kiss” album, “Hollow” and “Volcano” from “Salt On Skin”.

Are you making live shows?
We’re currently just finishing the recording of the new album so haven’t been playing live. Once we’ve got the new CD completed, we’ll start thinking about putting a set together to reflect the new material. Evelyn also finishes her Masters degree in the summer, so we’re hoping she’ll have a lot more time to dedicate to playing live with us. She’s done most of the vocals on the new CD. With threes CDs worth of material to chose from now, together with a number of other songs that have yet to find a release, I feel we’re ready to construct a worthwhile live show.
There’s a tendency here in the UK at the moment for bands to play long sets – often between two and half and three hours. I know fans probably feel they’re getting good value for money, but personally I don’t believe many bands actually have the amount of top class material to sustain that duration. I’ve said this before and have been pilloried for it, but in truth I would much rather listen to 90 minutes of great material in a 90 minute set, that listen to 90 minutes of great material in 180 minute set. In fact it would benefit the movement as a whole if those three hours had two bands playing a great 90 minute set each – more bands could actually get some decent gigs that way. I also know that for people coming to see bands for the first time – long sets can be off-putting and potential new followers of progressive music can be lost. As I say I don’t expect many people will agree with my views on this, but it’s something that I think needs discussing.

What are your projects for the future?
Now we’re coming to the end of the recording of our third CD, we’re already beginning the writing of the fourth! It’s like a big wheel endlessly turning!
In addition to that we also have what we call our ‘back-burner’ project which we work on between the main Mermaid Kiss stuff – this is called “American Images” and is a kind of soundtrack to an imaginary movie of a trip through the America of popular culture. I think I probably spent too much time as a teenager watching road movies!
We’re also talking to various musicians from other bands about doing a brand new side project, but right now everyone’s so busy it’s hard to find any time when we can even get together to discuss it, let alone actually get into a studio together. There are a lot of ideas floating around and I guess something will eventually happen.

Let us change topic. What do you think about the UK progressive rock scene? How did it change over the years and how do you expect it to evolve in the future?
The current progressive rock scene in the UK is maybe not quite as dynamic as a lot of us would like. It has a very loyal fan base, but a relatively small one which, whether we like it or not, is slowly aging. I think the Holy Grail right now is to find a way to bring in a new audience of younger people. There are bands like Office of Strategic Influence and more recently Pure Reason Revolution whose music, while maybe not progressive in the accepted sense, have got coverage in the popular music press and may provide a way into progressive music for a younger generation. Also I think if established bands try and bring younger musicians into the fold, this would greatly benefit progressive music in the long term. In some sense the term ‘progressive’ is maybe a little off-putting to a younger audience – the current music press often use it as a derogatory term which is such a shame and very lazy journalism.

What do you think about the international Rock Progressive scene? One last question: what do you think of the spreading of the Internet in the world of progressive rock?
It’s absolutely crucial. If progressive music had simply relied on the record companies it would effectively be dead and buried by now. The fact that bands can now promote their own music is proving crucial to both the survival and hopefully the spread of the music. Obviously the competition to catch the ears of people on the Internet is vast, but it’s also much more of a level playing field than progressive bands have had over the last couple of decades. There is an audience out there for the music.
The fact that conventional radio (here in the UK at least) continues to completely ignore most styles of music is now being counteracted by  the growth of more adventurous programming on internet radio stations which brings progressive music to new audiences on a worldwide basis.

Do you believe that the birth of portals like ours can be of any help to the movement and why?
Sites like Nucleus are critical to the survival and development of the movement. They provide a focal point for progressive bands and for the audience who seek out the music. Ten years ago it would have been completely unthinkable for a band like ours coming from a tiny town (pop. 2500) in the rural wastes of the English/Welsh borderland to get our music heard outside of the parish boundaries – now here we are being interviewed in Argentina! The opportunities provided by sites like yours are both extraordinary and very exciting. 

Well Jamie, thank you again and keep in touch with us.
Indeed I will. And thank you for inviting me to be interviewed and for your enthusiasm and support for our music - it’s very much appreciated.
It would be a real pleasure to play there!

(Pics by Chris Walkden)
 

www.mermaidkiss.co.uk

Nucleus interview: 14/03/07