This is where you find out who played what on which tracks, & a little bit about where the songs came from!
'Me & My Friends'
Hard to be a Saint
Thanks to my good friend and Skunk brother 'Damage' for the lead guitar sparring on this track. Love your work mate!
This track was half an idea for a number of years before it was finished. I had the chorus but no verse that stuck; that's strange in itself as it's usually the other way around when I'm writing songs.
We were offered tickets one night to see Robbie Williams, so we thought why not? It was actually a great show and Robbie, at this time, was on his full throttle hedonistic bent.
I wrote the verses that night when we got home.
Nice one Robbie!
Best regards to You and your Monkey!
Me & My Friends
Thank you to Russell Edwards for the Hammond & also the String arrangement on this track, they change the whole vibe of the original take and lift it to somewhere beautiful. Also, big thanks to my Brother Timo, who locks the whole thing together with his ever solid, always inventive & soulful bass lines. Hell Yeah!
This song is about the reason lots of things are wrong in the world today, always have been & likely always will be. It's about the damage that we all do by carrying & projecting prejudice & hate, whether consciously or not. I went to school in a town with a religious divide wider than the sky & where prejudices were present in schools, in churches & voiced in everyday rhetoric that you believed because everyone else said so, & had done so for generations.
This song presents the crazy notion that people are people & we should measure each other by deeds alone, not by fear of the unknown.
Crazy huh?
On a Good Day
My good friend Kerstin Ringel nailed the vocal on this one. I always loved Kerstin's voice since the first time I heard her fronting Semphy Butgereit's 'Rock Schoklate' when we toured together in Germany back in the 1990s. Hence, Kerstin was one of the first calls I made when I started putting together The Distant Conspirators. I called in a favour from my Swamp Donkey brother, Darren Street, to bring the funk on this one. Love what his playing has done for the overall track. Love his playing full stop. Respect.
This is another rework of a song that was originally on Skunk's debut album. The main differences between this time around & back then was, I wasn't restricted for studio time & just happened to have a Horn section & some great Keyboard players available too.
This song was written on my old acoustic guitar, sitting beside a pool in Spain; it was a beautiful day but I recall my disposition at the time was less than sunny.
This song is dedicated to all those who dance with the black dog.
Cry Just a Little
Big thanks to Mark Coles for bringing the bottom end on this track; awesome bass player, awesome friend. A nod also to Maurice Ray & Tad Taylor who helped pull together the original take many years ago. I wonder if they still have a copy of the cassette?
This song, if not one of the first I ever wrote, was certainly one of the first I ever recorded with a band.
So why record this one again? Well, I think I've lost the cassette with the original version on & it was a great opportunity to record again with my dear friend Mark Coles. Plus, it's the only track on the album where I get to 'shred' a little on my guitar! So there's a couple of good reasons right there.
What's it about? I'd have to go back & ask a teenage Mike Hagan that question & who knows where that conversation would go? I would probably hear a whole lot of incoherent ramblings with multiple references to Mott the Hoople thrown in for good measure.
Not much has changed then I guess?
Now I Ain't Got You
Another big thanks to Timo Oehlke for bringing the Bass. You have great groove my friend! Danke mein Bruder.
This is a song about loss. It's about losing someone so special that the whole world will never ever be the same after they have moved on. We all know one or more of these people. Cherish them while you can.
The Captains Song
Big thanks to Gav Cattanach for bringing the harmonies & beauty to this track & every other song he touches on this album. Also, thanks to my FTG brother Geoff Squires, the Harp playing journeyman that he is. Love your work my friend!
The Captain's left and gone away; he never did have a bad word to say, The Captain's gone and left us behind. Finest kind, finest kind.
See you on the flip side my friend.
One More Time
This is the second track that features the amazing Helen Turner. I sent Helen the backing track & was hoping for a raspy soulful call & response vocal to my own vocal part. I was blown away when I heard what Helen had done for this song & I still am, each time I hear it.
This song has been around for a while in different shapes & forms. I've always loved the 1970s folk rock crossover thing & being the youngest of six growing up in that era, I was exposed to lots of amazing music. My record collection also contained lots of 'borrowed' classic albums that perhaps belonged at some point to my elder siblings. This song is just a collection of everything I ever heard growing up.
This is the first track I used my Cole Clark acoustic on & was pretty pleased with the sound I got.