The Fabulous Thunderbirds Interviewed by Christine Leonard-Cripps

Still Tuff Enuff

The legendary Thunderbirds remain 
Fabulous after all these years

Looking back on a career that spans 25 years, Kim Wilson couldn’t be happier with the view. As a co-founder of the seminal American blues outfit, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, the renowned singer and harmonica player has rubbed elbows with the elite of R&B, headlining music festivals around the world. It has been a long road from TFTB’s early days as the house band at a bar in Austin, TX, to opening for the likes of Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. Seeking out like-minded musicians with superior technical skills and a penchant for working the pocket, Wilson has successfully reconstructed the electro-blues juggernaut with Mike Keller stepping into the guitarist position formerly held by Jimmie Vaughn and Duke Robillard, Randy Bermudes on bass, and family-act Johnny and Jay Moeller sitting in on guitar and drums, respectively.

“I love this band,” reports an enthusiastic Wilson. “Things are running so smoothly and every single one of the guys is on such an even keel that we are able to improvise everything we do on stage, right down to the set list. We’ve struggled with that balance in the past. It’s a fine line. You don’t want to kill yourself, but you’ve got to have the desire to do it. When we were kids we were anaesthetized and didn’t feel it as much, but you don’t get to see much of the cities you’re touring when your head is stuck in the toilet. I was a wild man back then, now my head’s clearer and I can accomplish a lot more. There’s no limit to our creativity.”

Describing their fabulous sound as an “American hybrid,” the Thunderbirds get their biggest kicks out of bringing their bombastic blues-on-fire antics to audiences in a live concert atmosphere. Pulling out all the stops when he hits the stage, Wilson’s powerhouse performances bring crowds to their feet, with his soulful vocals and harmonica chops that summon the strength of a full-blown horn section. While he has cut back on his 250-gig-a-year schedule, Wilson is always open to new artistic ventures, finding that his talents as a lifelong bluesman are still very much in demand.

“I’ve been so fortunate to get to do a lot of these things,” he says. “Over the years I’ve played on more than 200 CDs. I find it very gratifying to be able to bring friends into the studio who are little-known but possess immense talent. Some of them are the last of their kind. There are really only a handful of true blues musicians left in the world today, so if you hear someone playing harmonica in the background on some record, check the liner notes — it’s probably me.”

• The Fabulous Thunderbirds join Woodstock rockers Canned Heat, blues-rock institution Savoy Brown and more at the Calgary International Blues Festival, August 7 to 10.

by Christine Leonard

Orignally published August 7, 2008 in FastForward Magazine.

The Electric Revival get their freak on

Calgary rockers The Electric Revival get their freak on for their 4th album 

By Christine Leonard
20 February 2015

1930s film director Tod Browning probably never listened to much heavy music in his day, but he most certainly understood what it meant to stand apart from the crowd. Such was the cinematic bite of his black and white thriller Freaks.

While the three members of The Electric Revival may not have had that cult classic in mind when they named their new album, guitarist-vocalist Ian Dillon, drummer Dallas Lobb and bassist Dan Toews are no strangers to playing the role of disenfranchised misfits who thrive on performing before an awestruck crowd.

“We grew up in Innisfail, about an hour north of Calgary. You could only skateboard four months a year, so there was nothing to do but drink beer and play guitars. It also meant that the garage bands you had to choose from were into either country or metal,” says Dillon. “I met Dallas and Dan in junior high, at age 14, and like most small-town kids we left for the city as soon as we were out of school. We had always been in revolving metal bands over the years, so when we started the group, in 2009, we really wanted to get back to the basics, drums, guitars, amps. We tried to be as primitive as possible and focus on being a solid band.”

It would be three years before the nocturnal trio formally introduced themselves to their audience, raising the curtain on their debut album, Presenting: The Electric Revival, in 2012. The blues-soaked trio decided to keep the ball rolling by releasing a new single every week for 13 weeks that summer. Tightening their grip, The Electric Revival launched their glorious Pirate Radio LP in July of 2013 and followed it up with yet another album, 5 Songs by Electric Revival, four months later. No wonder the band was recently picked up by Cruzer Media. And, achieving international distribution was all the more incentive for Dillon, Dallas, and Dan to dive back into the studio and get their eponymous Freak on.

“The new album was recorded over the course of three weeks, during April of 2014, at Electric Park Studio in Calgary. I produced and engineered the record myself with assistant engineer Jonny Vincent and our pre-production engineer, Steven Lilly. Freaks was recorded live off the floor, together as a band, all in one room using very basic recording techniques… and the best modern digital recording equipment available. We were able to get our hands on a couple of cool synthesizers and used them and the organ a lot on this record, we really like the way it helped fill out the sound.”

Full is an understatement. Freaks kicks off with the explosive howler “My Molly My” a blow-your-hair-back and bury-the-needle joyride that slams into the cerebral cortex like a grasshopper hitting the windshield. Swerving out of the fast lane, the CB heartbreaker “Rolling Stone” postures up for a space truckin’ riff-off that would have Johnny Winter tipping his hat in respect. Southern swelter and soul are grist for the mill on “Wild Child” and “Baby Please (Come Home)”, while the two-edged sword of “Feed My Love” cuts to the drone, scratchin’ for an ‘80s punk fix. Did I just say punk? Yes, it’s in there too!

“The songs are about love, death, freedom, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, they explore a lot of territory while maintaining The Electric Revival sound. We never want to limit ourselves creatively. We wanted to the extra mile for the new album, so we threw a big party at the studio for about 30 friends. Just like the good old days!”

Available now, Freaks is fated to send epic ripples across The Electric Revival’s smoke-hazed horizons. 

See the Electric Revival on February 21st at the Nite Owl with Mammoth Grove, The Rumble and 7’s Wild.

And So I Watch You From Afar interviewed by Christine Leonard

AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR

UNREQUITED OBSESSION

Northern Ireland’s upstart gift to the post-rock era, And So I Watch You From Afar, has been making waves and garnering restraining orders since 2005. Formed in Belfast, the intrepid four-piece surprises and delights by interspersing their angular rock hooks with dissonant bursts of electronic fury. 

With two albums and two EPs to their credit, ASIWYFA has earned a reputation for creating powerful, multi-dimensional, instrumental pieces augmented by the occasional glockenspiel or human voice. Burning the candle at both ends, dual guitarists Rory Friers and Niall Kennedy juxtapose melody and cacophony with incendiary results. Each pulse of noise, every break in the action, provides an abrupt but mutually-adopted jumping-off point for the band’s next musical (mis)adventure. With bassist Johnny Adger and drummer Chris Wee laying down a solid foundation, ASIWYFA’s towering sonic spires threaten to scrape the very heavens. It’s a good thing that these math-rock druids have their feet firmly planted on good old terra firma.

BeatRoute: How would you describe the current musical scene in Ireland at this time and where does ASIWYFA fall into the scheme of things?

Chris Wee: The Irish scene is still really healthy in terms of the quality of music coming out. Unfortunately, gigs are definitely feeling the effects of the recession with less numbers. We were fortunate to be coming up the ranks in Belfast at a time when there was a lot of collectivism and passion in the scene. ASIWYFA curated a mini-festival back in 2008 in Belfast, called “A Little Solidarity,” which showcased a huge variety of local talent and was a real high point for us career-wise, as well as a marker for how good our local scene was. There was a great sense of bands helping each other out and that is still very much alive in the present day. Back then, we were only beginning to do small bits of touring and were very active in Belfast. But, nowadays with our touring schedule we don’t get to spend much time in Belfast as we would like to. It’s nice to come back and get down to local shows when we’re home.

BR: How do you intertwine disparate elements like melody and brute force to make a cohesive whole? You often use explosive bursts of electronic distortion to punctuate and underscore your more straight-forward rock and roll creations. Are your juxtapositions intended as to come across complimentary rather than clashing, or both?



CW: From the outset, we have always strived to make interesting music, not just to entertain an audience but to challenge and entertain ourselves as well. We have also been keen never to cover old ground in terms of our writing and that has continually pushed us into new territory. Our writing process has evolved quite a lot since our first jamming way back in 2005/6. Rory [Friers, guitar] has always been the brains in regards to bringing the initial ideas of melodies, riffs and rough structures. Then, we get into the rehearsal room and thrash around until we start to get an idea of the song. That’s where the dynamics come in and ideas for ridiculous changes in pace or mood come from. We can be quite ruthless with material in that if we’re getting bogged down with an idea it’s better to cut it loose and move on to make sure the momentum and the creativity is maintained.

BR: In what ways is All Hail Bright Futures a reflection of the depth and complexity you’ve continued to build into your songwriting style since the release of your award-winning album, Gangs?

CW: All Hail Bright Futures was written with a lot less of the boundaries and restrictions we had with earlier work. With this album we decided that we would try and make the guitars sound as little like guitars as possible to keep the sound fresh and guitar lines were transposed onto other instruments to create a rich variety of sounds. We went into the studio with a very small percentage of the album written and it allowed us to be more open to different instruments and sounds, less precious over the older conventions of just guitars and drums. We approached it with really open minds and a willingness to try all sorts of different instrumentation. There was also a much more collective contribution from the three of us during the recording, the three of us were in all day every day constantly discussing and contributing ideas of how the song was progressing, which was an immensely satisfying experience.

By Christine Leonard

Originally published October 7, 2013 in BEATROUTE MAGAZINE 

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