Fred T BAKER

This interview with Fred T. Baker was conducted by Manfred Bress on January 7th, 1999 in Rotterdam while touring with the Miller-Baker duo. Thanks Manfred !

Let's begin with a question to your musical background: when did you start to play music and what was your influence to become a musician?
Well, when I started I was really young, I had music all around me, because my father was a guitarist and my mother used to sing a lot of stuff and I think she used to play bits and pieces as well, recording stuff, that was it... I think it was always in there, and a lot of different types of music. So it was all going in there from the beginning and when I was about four or five years old I think, he bought me a little ukulele to play. I still got my guitar that I had when I was about five years old, a little baby guitar, so that still exists, in fact it's hanging on the wall at my mum's. Anyway, I started looking at it all then and started playing bits and pieces on that, I think, with my father, a little tiny bit of blues and things, he was really good, he let me play his Gibson, one of these big guitars, it was quite a handful and in those days I was never forced into doing it, I was open, even though my father was a musician, he never forced me to do it, it was the case of me wanting to do it. And he could see, that the direction was there. He could see the direction of me to do it. I did a lot of things by ear in the early days, just trying to pick it off records, classical music and guitar and blues, he used to have a lot of Big Bill Broonzy and people like that and I tried to do bits of it. Even though I was tiny. So that was how it started out really and it moved from there... Your second name is Thelonious and you also play music by Thelonious Monk. He seems to be a very important musician to you?
Yes, I got the middle name through my father, because that was one of the people with the big changes in that kind of jazz and pre-bebop area, I think that was the thing, when I was born, it was almost the end or the middle of that, if you want to call it that, so there it is, it's really there, it has always been there, children used to tease me about it, when I was a little one... it is different now... years later. Now they look up to you!
(laughs)You play electric and acoustic guitar as well as bass. Which is your favourite instrument personally?
This is very hard, but I'll put it in to perspective. The bass was an instrument, I got really interested in the..., I would say in the development period of it in the late sixties and the seventies. I remember my father had a guy who played electric bass with him and I was fascinated by this thing with the big pegs, the machine heads, and everything stuck there, the sound was it. Obviously I heard it on records and that stuff and without realising I probably have been influenced by a lot of early sort of blues and soul, that was using the electric bass, but later of course that period, I mean that stuff, we used to have a great program, which was called the 'Old Grey Whistle Test' in England at that time, so on the TV you occasionally got some stuff in the seventies which would be different from the mainstream of the normal pop music. So as well as listening to all the jazz and other stuff of my father he got, as well as rock music, that was on the underground, you get it on the TV, so that was where I first saw... I think Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius later. So the bass was always a thing I was fascinated by, the electric bass, I always thought I could do something more with it, I was convinced there was more sound in there, more tones. It always looked to be a secondary instrument, but really I think now people appreciate it as a complete and full instrument in its own right. But the guitar has always been a thing with me right from being young. For me I suppose it's a bit like people play keyboards, for guitar is a natural instrument, where I can play everything on it, the melody, bass and middle parts and play so many different rolls on it in an instant moment. The bass is a very hard instrument, to actually do all the solos that I do, it's sometimes quite a bit of planing and working it out, because it's such a big instrument to get things out of it. The guitar for me is instantaneous, I can pick it up and really do something... As a regular bass player that's fine, it's a nice job, but when I do the other thing it takes a lot of creativity and effort to do it, cause I haven't got the biggest hands in the world, but somehow I manage to do and get something out of it. The thing is that all the instruments all have got their own character, the classical guitar has got a beauty in itself, the electric guitar and the jazzguitar they got different qualities and the electric fretted and fretless basses which I use, there is a complete different sound, I can do bits and pieces, of what I do on each of the others instruments, but really each instrument has got a particular character to do it. That's the thing I like to play real time instruments but they all got something different. And there are things that I can do on the bass that I can never do on the guitar, just by the sheer length for the sound and the strings and viceversa these things on the guitar, that you can do straight there, it's gonna be very hard to try and do it on a bass instrument. Though I've never been at one of these concerts, I know that you play solo-concerts with the electric bass. What kind of music do you play then?
On those concerts it can be, depending on the type of place I play, I mean it could be anything from playing earlier music, Bach, and I try to experiment with all sorts of things, going through blues and standards and mainly some of my own compositions, using some of the more technology things, like the old delay loops, I'm using, that kind of stuff, and going to the more free experimental side of it as well and I tend to balance it, depending on the kind of music, you know, and some old kind of folk tunes and make them more of kind of jazzier or whatever. I try to mix the whole thing, and just use the whole compass of the sounds with the bass really, so just to see it in a different light. In fact, the amazing thing is, people who are just listening to music, don't always think "ah, it's just bass, but music", which is good, because that's what I'm trying to really do. Give more an appreciation of the sound of the instrument, but not trying to make it too technical. You need the technique to transmit the idea, but that's all really... I'm trying to do. You play also classical music on the electric bass with an orchestra?
Well, what happened is, cause I've been trying to do over years, trying to play various music from baroque and some more, even Mozart, trying to play that on the bass and some other composers as well. To try and see how I can make it work, the melody and the harmony stuff. And some stuff works and others don't work, but at least I got quite a bit of it now. But there is a special composition written for me and a great young classical guitarist called Simon Dinegan, who is doing very well in the sort of classical kind of charts and doing contemporary music, it is more modern music on the instrument and brasilian music, he's a fantastic player, it's just one of the top things for a classical guitar album. So Dr. Andrew Downes, who wrote this Double Concerto for us, we actually performed it once with a young orchestra last year and it hopefully will be recorded with the CBSO (City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) String Section, that's next year, that's the big plan, which is an interesting combination: classical guitar and electric bass and the String Orchestra, but it works, that's the thing and I think a lot of people, who have never heard that instrument in that combination before, will be quite surprised, so maybe there is another direction as well.How did you get in touch with Phil Miller and In Cahoots?
Ah, this goes back to the Canterbury connection again and back to I suppose Harry Beckett. What happened I was doing a session with Harry at the BBC and Elton Dean was on it and I knew Elton for years and stuff and... Anyway we did this broadcasted session and all of a sudden, I think Phil was looking for a bass player, cause Richard [Sinclair] was going to do some other projects or he was leaving, it was that particular period, he tried quite a few bassplayers out and was trying to get somebody right for the music.That was after Hugh Hopper left, I think.
Yes, after Hugh. So, what happened was, I think I got a call from Phil and would I be interested and I send you some music and parts and stuff, and an old friend of mine, Matt Rooke, used to be a bass player, he used to live down in that area Canterbury, sort of down the south coast, anyway in that area, and he said "Oh yes, you got to try and go for that". I heard some of the tracks of that first album they did, so I was really interested in it. In fact my father also, it's good stuff. I was inbetween doing various things, well that was it, I went down to play with the guys, a kind of audition, if you like to call it that, then I was in the group from there, that was it, incredible really. Cause at the time I didn't really want to play too much electric music, cause you can get so damage into the ears. But it was great, a lot of material and the guys of course, and it went on from there. So I kept working still with Harry and Chris McGregor at that time and I was doing In Cahoots tours in between and solo concerts. So that's how it all started. The guitar duo with Phil Miller was something very new for the so called "Canterbury Scene". There were and are of course many guitarists, but never before an album by a guitar duo. In the last years I guess you played maybe hundreds of concerts with the duo, not only in Europe, but also in Japan and Russia, so this turned out to be a very successful combination. What was the reason for you and Phil to start the guitar duo besides In Cahoots?
Ah, this is an interesting one, because when Phil found out that I did all the stuff with the guitar as well, I mean he was sort of a little bit aware of it and then he found out... We started just doing our tunes together, just for fun, after In Cahoots rehearsals and that sort of things, sit there and playing. He's got such a love of the guitar and interest for the music, that's how we got it all going and we sort of rediscovered a lot of things. And what I really discovered for me, it was nice going back and listening over various Canterbury Music, Robert Wyatt and stuff, and hearing a tune : like "God song", it sounds really good on the guitar or just try it, and you find, some of the melodies would work really well. So that's how it all started out, doing some earlier material and a couple of things of Phil's new material and some of my own stuff. But it really went back a whole period, so for me it was a nice discovery, cause I listened to tapes and things that nobody ever heard, tapes of tunes and things, it was nice to go..., a good rediscovery of early Canterbury, cause I mean there's a lot of stuff I didn't know about, because I only heard the main stuff that came from the scene. So it was good to look really back into the whole stuff. Later obviously we developed it and started it doing more things for it. I mean we had a bit of time off from the duo because of various things, I mean, it's been very crazy for Phil and myself and we had to push the band thing more as well. Now if we can get the next album finished, we have stuff in the can for a long time, but now we got some beautiful new compositions of Phil's which we're gonna try and get recorded now in the new year and trying to get that finished, so that people have got something else to listen to, because people keep saying "Hey, when you're gonna make an album like Double Up again ?" or "Bring something out". There have been so many other things unfortunately to get done, it's sort of taken up the back seat for a bit, but now we feel we wanna get that happening again. Phil is feeling fresh I think again, now that's a good one. As we heard, you both are working on the second duo CD. What can we expect? Are there In Cahoots songs arranged for the duo, or songs especially written for the duo?
Well, mainly it's new material written for the duo, most of this one. It's a special album, it has taken more time on the production and the choice of material and everything. We really thought about the two guitar thing and incorporating the bass into it and I think it should be hopefully a stronger album than last one. It had some time to be worked at. But the interesting thing is a track of mine we play on that called "On the Up Side of Things", which we actually played with In Cahoots on the last tour, as a band piece, I did it with Phil as a duo and we're doing that of course for the whole band, so that's interesting, it's how something can start as the duo and goes the other way, going to the big band. So, we have things like that, so it's really more of original stuff for this one. How do you develop the music for the guitar duo ? Is each one of you composing the songs alone or do you work out the music together?
Sometimes, what will happen is the initial idea we will do ourselves, you know what I mean like, and then bring it to each other and maybe try playing it, or very often Phil do things on his computer as well. Sometimes he's got lots of different ideas, so he gets a lot of music together on midi and plays it to me or sometimes he just picks up an acoustic guitar and say "What you think of this bit" or "I got this song", doing like that and I try and I write my bits and pieces down and maybe record it as well and see how it sounds, some of the ideas. So it leaves it open, it's not just like we're writing every note down. It's got some room for development, so very often what's happening, is these compositions can develop over a period of time, it gives a better input, we sometimes get the arrangement better by doing that as well. I say to Phil: "You could do this better" or "I do this" and he'll say to me "I've got this idea for this bit" and we change it around and try hold it down till we finally get to the product that you hear at the end of the day. But very often, as you know, live things can even develop and get better. The thing it's a nice thing to play some of the stuff live before you record it because sometimes new stuff grows as well. It's a shame sometimes, often the studio albums get the one version and then live the thing can grow. So it is nice to try and do a bit of that. I mean some of these tunes, we do on here for instance, have had some live air in as well, towards the end of the last duo tours that we were doing. So it helps us to get better forms for the structures of things and better feeling I think for the whole thing. But the new ones we're doing now we only played them a couple of times live since we've been here in Holland. But we're going back to work on that as I'm saying next week, so that probably helps a bit to cement the thing together, to make it better. You just released your first solo CD called Missing Link. There are some songs recorded in the studio and some extra live-tracks. There are only a few overdubs used, but listening to the music, it sounds as if sometimes two or three musicians are playing different melodies. How did you do that?
Ah, I don't know sometimes... (laughs) mind over matters... What it is with the solo album is the thing, a lot of the material unfortunately is quite old on there, because I didn't get the chance to put it out years ago and it was with one company and then with another, thanks to Voiceprint now, again Rob Ayling, who got managed to sort out of a deal to get that out to the people now... We've got that plus hopefully another live thing in the offering, but bassically that material, some of that is purely solo like literally down to DAT-machine, through very hightech equipment, it's not just been stuck there in the room, it was well produced, a lot of effort went into making that album, in fact it's over ten years ago, you know, the first part of that was done, all the studio stuff. And then the later tracks were done at a festival in 1994 with a friend of mine, Paul Smith, who was engineering, so he managed to capture something of that and I have various livethings as well from all over the years and Rob said "Well, if you put some live things on it, we can make a bigger album" So I said OK, we siff through it and there it is, for better or for worth. But I love people say to me "Yeah, the live thing, that is great to have that one as well!" So far people are pleased, cause the official release date isn't actually till end of january anyway, but it's already been on pre-production stage anyway, as we say, or at pre-sales. The actual thing I do is obviously a lot of techniques that keep the bassline going on, get the melody going and try to play the percussion and that stuff as well. Obviously on some of the live things again, I'd rather like the studio, I play using the delay loops as well, sometimes you can sample and delay and hold and play a loop over that. In fact on the album there is a dedication to Phil on there, which he let me use, the basic theme from "Green & purple", I don't know why it came out on that particular gig, cause I was intending something else, but the mood was to.. got me to do something crazy, so there we are, that's how that came all about, so he said "Use that, that's ok", like with friends, I would check things first, cause I mean some people just use bits of material all over the place and never quote anything, that can be a bad feeling. Yeah, it was the basic thing for that, the loop and that I used and created anyway, basically a kind of more free kind of improvisation, so it's taken the thing to a limit kind of thing. And the feed back of course as well, that's another thing, where did you get that sound from?, well, that's just the old sort of Jimi Hendrix stomp box and get it up to the front amplifier and trying to control the harmonics in the room. You can always have a lot of fun with that, I like that sort of element of improvising within that kind of rock vein, cause it leaves all the creativity. Comparing the live tracks and the studio tracks, the live part is much more "free" or "experimental/improvised". It seems that playing live, as we could hear it many times, you like to "go crazy", using your guitar or bass also for percussion, using a lot of echo, delay loops and so on. Is that kind of "going crazy" on the guitar something special for you in a live concert?
No, I've been on to do that in the studio before now. Sometimes the problems with doing it in the studio, it can be very controlled because you have to get the separation to get the absolute quality, which you want and you have to put a loop down first and do something after. In fact that's how the track "Bassically speaking", the groove on the Missing Link CD was done, it was actually done on a loop, I made the loop up as a one and then I did the other stuff after, live, played another bass part and then play the melody part, that's on the bass as well. Cause people say: "Is that a guitar? Or a funny sound?" It's actually an old fender bass that I have been using for years. Just playing the harmonics that I suppose is all the things I've always experimented with, that's kind of more sort of straight rock in a way, I suppose, a sort of funk or grunge I don't know what you really wanna call it. The live things are really...., you know some people call it almost like techno or free form (laughing). You are not only playing in the duo with Phil or with In Cahoots, but also with other jazz musicians like e.g. Harry Beckett or Annie Whitehead and also folkmusicians like Vikki Clayton, together in a trio with the former Soft Machine musician Ric Sanders, to name just a few. Can you tell us more about this musical interest of yours?
All right, with Harry I mean, that goes back for years and years, I worked with a quartet with Harry, I worked with Chris McGregor and Courtney Pine. In fact in Germany, that was in 1987 I think, yeah, I did a hell of lot of work from that period on with Harry as a bass player, that was primarily. And with Chris right until when he died in '91, ya see the last tour I did was in '89 with Chris in England and then of course that was it after that, really, it was a very sad time. But I've been back with some various projects, even worked with Harry with Horace Parlin the keyboard player with Charlie Mingus on a great album, we did an album in Germany, that was called A Moon Of Roses, yes, that was it, on ITM (94, D, ITM 1487) for Ulli Blobel, interesting different things, Harry's music, standards and that sort of... that was the last time I really recorded with Harry, that was in 1993. But now I gonna start working with Harry again, in fact, that's what I'm going back to England for, to start doing another album, with Harry's original tunes, in fact hopefully for Voiceprint or Blueprint, one of the subsidaries. We're doing as well a tribute, a kind of 'Harry playing Charlie Mingus tunes', cause Harry played with Charlie Mingus as well of course back in the late 50's, so Ulli Blobel from ITM in Germany is asking him to do this special album, which we will start in recording next week. So, there are a lot of things on now. Annie actually phoned me up to see if we would do a couple of concerts, cause she's short of a bass player, so everybody's been saying "Can you get Fred?" and Harry said that, and Liam Genockey the drummer, so they've been keen to try to get me, track me down, while I'm even in Europe, to start to do the album. Thus is getting very complicated, while me and Phil are gonna try and finish the duo between this as well and I'm touring with Harry back in England as well and sax player Chris Biscoe, Tony Marsh on drums and Alistair Gavin a good keyboard player, who worked with Harry for years. That's what the plans are gonna be and maybe some live recordings on that as well, in the later part of the tour. Anyway back to Ric and Vikki, because I work with Vikki, she's a very good singer/songwriter, that's the thing that interests me the most with her, the songs and what she does with them and her voice and that stuff, some of the harmonies are nice. So for years, I mean it was again that thing of being invited to do something, here I can do the bass work with this in a different way or play acoustic guitar, and of course then Ric came back on the scene, cause I used to play some acoustic guitar duos with Ric, way after when he used to be in a band... in fact I forgot about all that, that's what really got everything moving with Ric was in the late '70s, early '80s, like after Soft Machine, when he had Second Vision with John Etheridge on guitar, himself on violin, Mickey Barker on drums and Dave Bristow, a wonderful keyboard player and I joined that band, only a year after seeing them in the 'Old Grey Whistle Test' on the TV, the next thing I'm there and get a call. People found out about me, I think it was John and then Ric through some friends. Yes, that was it, that relationship with Ric grew right from there, he was one of my longest friends, unfortunately he's so busy and doing bits with everybody and touring with Fairport all the time, that I don't even get the chance to see him, apart from the festival last year, and he's doing good, but he's talking about that he wanna do some projects with me again, so I'm looking forward to it, he's got his own new studio and wants to get the groups with it, cause we're way behind times and we got loads of material to catch upon. Maybe some projects as well with Phil and Ric and everybody involved in the future, that's one of the aims. He's a very good friend, but just so busy.... but with Vikki I've been working, not so much with the trail, we've got a hell of a lot work with the acoustic trio, but Ric got so busy with Fairport, so that can put a little bit of a stop on that, but she's been working on her own songs, got another company and new stuff out on an album, a very good album, the last album (Movers and Shakers, AND CD 15) which she got all sorts of people on it, she had Liam Genockey on drums and Gerry Conway, some great players, of course I'm playing half of it and John Giblin, the bass player, is playing half of it and various other guests. Rob Foster was a very good jazz guitarist and actually plays a lot of early music as well, he was producer of the album, so that was out last year. Now, what we're trying to do, luckily when I was doing a Jethro Tull convention gig in Germany, was that Clive Bunker was there, the original drummer, cause people know Clive probably from Steve Hillage or originally from Jethro Tull on the very early stuff, all the main stuff from 1972. Yes, Clive was doing the live concert with us and hopefully we gonna have a live album from it, which we did in front of God knows how many thousands people at Cropredy Festival, which is Fairports annual music festival, they invite people from all the different areas, mainly sort of traditional electric music, obviously Richard Thompson is always there and people like that, Danny Thompson of course, although Danny wasn't playing last year, he was presenting it, so they are always playing, in fact I managed to get the "Bonnaville Blues", the solo bass track, played there, in front of 20.000 people or something like that, and there is a video being done of that as well, I don't know when it's gonna be mixed, but maybe this is a footage for the archives for the future. Yes, I've been playing live with Clive as well, so there's another extra dimension, Vikki singing and playing, Chris Conway plays like multi whistles and guitars and things, a good singer/songwriter who contributed songs to.. So that should be on the next album as well as what was on the previous one. Well we wait and see, we've got to mix it all yet and see what's happening, but I'll be doing odd dates, where I can fit them in between now and the summer. So there has been highs and lows.You are a professional musician now for many years. How is the situation for a musician in England nowadays, who has to earn his living by music? Considering the many bands and projects you're involved, it seems to me that you're always either on the road or in the studio. Are you ever at home?
A good question, yeah! In fact my life completely changed over the last three years, I still live back in Chesterfield but I've been all over the place ever since... In my own town, the grand old crooked spire and.. you must come there some time Manfred, it's right in the pennines, I love to get back there when I can, I do miss being around there. It's very difficult, because you can't get just to one place on work, because on the top of music I play, when it's the sort of jazz or progressive or more the folkroots stuff, it's not the type of music that you can play every night in one place, you might get a residency if you're looking at Ronnie Scott's or something like that but it's pretty rarely that you got more than two nights in one place, but I mean, I'm all over the place, obviously I'm back to Europe to do various dates and stuff, but it's taken a couple of years, this is why I've managed to get my solo thing out after all this time just by being around, trying to make more time at home, although now I'm back going full bore again, touring is a bit more like three years ago again, when trying to fit everything in. Unfortunately, I mean, there's not that much money about, the gigs can be a little scarce, so you've got to do the things when they are there. I mean I try to give up a lot of things because I like to create music as well and do stuff. I like to have a little bit of time with the family situation, so it's pretty crazy and I also, obviously the other thing, we're saying, bringing towards the next thing is the education sort, I've been involved in the educational sort of music as well for a long, long time, building things up. My main one being the Music Conservatory in Birmingham, which gives a hell of a wide angle of music. I'm very lucky to be able to do everything from jazz, rock, free form, folk music, whatever I can incorporate, not just a jazz course or whatever it is. Although there will be a new one starting then, a new four year course, but I've been able to work with young composers, in fact I did another Bass Concerto with a full orchestra, that the young guy wrote for it, which was completely crazy to play, it's a sort of interrection with the young composers and students, that I won't be able to get maybe anywhere else, so I like that aspect of it, I'm involved with young people on the creativity side as well as just doing the regular teaching, the instrument and the techniques and everything... It's a very good interrection. And now of course I met my wonderful girlfriend Birgit in Germany three years ago, in fact on a tour with Ric and Vikki and good friend Paul, he introduced me to her, I met here once briefly before that, but I was still involved with somebody at that time, in fact all completely changed, so for some reason my whole life completely changed and I'm sort of happier now than I was some time ago, cause I still got that wonderful little daughter Morgan from the last relationship. It's been complicated, trying to settle back down and do some sort of regular kind of life. So I spent some time as you well know in Germany and then sometimes back in England and now I'm trying to centralise things and catch upon all the projects with Phil and everybody and trying to get my solothings out, that people have been waiting for for years and years and years. Just basically getting back on top of everything again in life, to keep pushing forward and doing music live as much as I possibly can. You are working already on a second solo-CD. What kind of music and songs will be on your next CD? And when will it be released?
I think it depends how everything goes with Rob on this next thing for Voiceprint. What it is, it is a live concert that I did at the Adrian Boult Hall, which is a very big concert hall in Birmingham, and luckily I managed to get it recorded all on a high quality, live the whole concert. So basically they took the best parts of the concert and went through it all to get the best bits. In fact for a lot of people it'll be nice, because it features me playing what people have been requesting for years, some of the solo jazz guitar things, in fact there will be some tunes here, in fact one "The Opener" which I wrote for my old band, the FTB Group, originally and then we played it with In Cahoots and now I play it as a solo guitar piece. It will all be mastered up now and then I do a tribute for my father when he died, I did a Charly Christian / Benny Goodman tune on just solo guitar and then hopefully there will be a live version of "Waltz for Morgan" which is my daughter, that I wrote a tune for many years ago, in fact I played it in the duett with Phil as well. But on the solo concert it's just me playing on that. So there are three guitar tracks on this and then some of the stuff is the bass stuff, the more expermimental stuff and some of the tracks that are probably on the other album, but now live tracks of it. I try to make sure, that everything is completely different live on there from what the live tracks are on the other album. So it's a complete contrast, some things do cross over obviously. So the bass tracks on there, there will be a live version of "Bonnaville Blues", a live thing doing an improvisation going into an irish tune at the end of it as well even, it's like some different aspects in there and free improvistaions in there as well, plus a live version of "Homage to Pastorius". So there are gonna be some goodies in there in store, I leave it till it comes out, but luckily it was well recorded and mastered. And when Rob wants to put it out, we get that out and then there should be something else available. I mean basically what I'm doing, is catching up on years of material, stuff that I wanted to get out now, it's like... I've been really trying to get that together, cause people say, when you're gonna do all these things, solo concerts and everything.. we really want to get hold of this material, I feel quite guilty now, I'm trying to get it there. I mean I'm also working on some more solo material, I got things which gonna feature some more parts, in fact it was a flute part, which is near impossible on bass to play, but I'm getting there with it. As usually I set me some stupid challenges, too high, I can hear and I can work, but when it comes actually to the physics of playing it, it is a different matter sometimes. And I play Mozart, what everybody asked me for years, that "Rondo a la Turke", the piano piece, I'm playing that on the bass and I'm trying to put some of that stuff on it. Maybe some Bach as well, it's a beautiful piece that I'm trying to get together and there will be some more of my own pieces as well, and obviously I'm trying to get some guitar on there, but that's gonna take me some time to make a new studio album, cause I need the time to do it. I mean I would like to do an album, like where I take the best of some In Cahoots things or the duo, and get it to play some of my things, that's one plan, I haven't even talked with Phil about it. And some contributions from Ric and Vikki and stuff and maybe Harry. Trying to get an album, where I do an album of everybody's playing some of my stuff for the future. Maybe I want a bigger band, but that's maybe too far ahead. But the idea is there, you know.

So you still have many other projects for the future. Are there any concerts planned in Germany?
Unfortunately not, I wish there was. What I want to do is to try and do a bit of a release maybe at one of the record stores in Cologne. I'm gonna talk to Rob about this, the company.. To come over and trying fix either that or one of the smaller clubs and come and do a promotion for the solo bass thing, but that might not be till late february or march. I'm gonna find out and make sure that all the contacts are correct for that. I talked through that just as a basic idea to get it happening, cause obviously if I'm gonna see Birgit or something, it'll be handy and try to fix it in. Going to play some stuff live and talk about it, obviously, what I'm hoping is trying to get this album in the bassist and guitarists magazines in Germany. We spoke to the guy, to the reviewer and he wants to get it in, maybe that might create a bit of interest from that side of things as well. Although really I'm just wanting to play to people, who are just interested in that music, you know the sound of it. It's good if there are interested people, it's good for me and good for trying to get the records out, cause that's the thing, people only let you make records, if you sell the first one. I hold it with a lot of things at the moment, I really want to make it sure that it gets the people and trying to build it from there. Whatever happens the other thing will be released at some point, the live thing, later this year - maybe we can even turn it round quicker than that. I think Rob just wants to see what the interest is first... So I have to tell everybody to get hold of it.... (laughs)