Loona
*~holdacska~*
so now, will you pinch it from the library? how do you mean the booklet is fucked up? you don't like the artwork or did they at the library do something to it?
Ship Of Fools
- Thread starter flebbie
- Start date
Strangelight
steak(knife) no more
pages are missing and its full of stamps and stickers from the libraryLoona said:
they can keep the damn thing!
Loona
*~holdacska~*
oh, I see. same here, well maybe that's the reason why I didn't nick cds from the local library...flebbie said:pages are missing and its full of stamps and stickers from the library
2001 Interview with Les Smith by Roberto Martinelli (www.maelstrom.nu)
Roughly 10 years ago, the Peaceville label had a subsidiary called Dreamtime Records. It has long since folded, but while it was around it released two albums by this band called Ship of Fools. Now, this is just about as fresh a piece of news to me as it is to you, because I had never heard of this group before I was sent the promo. But it turns out that this was a group worth listening to. Fitting in very nicely in the genre of music that the Ozric Tentacles play, but with mid-80s Rush elements, this band is an excellent palate cleanser of relaxed but engaging music to break up the often dark and angst-out stuff we normally talk about. It also turns out that the lead member of the Fools, Les Smith, is a man many of us have heard from before. The Yorkshire, England native is currently playing keyboard in Anathema, and spent three years with Cradle of Filth (as the vicar) during the Cruelty and the Beast period. Wanting to know more, I spoke to Smith on the phone.
I really like this record a lot.
Oh, cheers, man. I'm glad.
You probably won't be surprised, but I had never heard of you before.
I'm getting used to that.
These records came out something like eight years ago, right?
Yeah.
So why all of a sudden are they being reissued?
Peaceville has been going through the back catalogue and reissuing everything, really. I always thought [Ship of Fools] could do with a bit of tidying' up sonically. So I asked Hammy and Lisa (of Peaceville) "everything else is going out, how about doing' a Ship of Fools best of?" And so they did. There was an opportunity to do a couple of gigs with Anathema over the weekend, so we did those as well.
You played in both bands?
Yeah. It went really well; we got a really good reception for the Fools. It was a good weekend.
It says on the press release that the album was "mixed down" by you.
It got a full remix because we couldn't get all of the original multi-track recordings - they disappeared into the ether somewhere. I digitally remastered it, which really improved the sound and brought out instruments that you couldn't hear at all the first time 'round. I edited it, chopped it around a bit, put new bits and pasted it all back together again.
So there's music on there that wasn't on there originally.
Yeah, a bit, not a lot
The press release makes it sound like there's less, like it's more minimal. They make this joke about "Les being more."
Yeah Oh, right, yeah, I see. I haven't actually seen the press release. Yeah, it's just a play on words. The new ones just sound a lot better, really.
The press release compares you a lot with the Ozric Tentacles.
Yeah, we were in that genre, really. When we kicked off, we were in the same sort of circuit as them.
Did you really like that band and wanted to have something like that?
Well, no. I mean, if you listen to [Ship of Fools], it's not really much like the Ozric Tentacles.
Well, I checked out Ozric. I got an album called Arborescence. I can see how it sounds like you, but I think you have a lot more variety.
The Ozric is more spacey jam, and we're more song structured, without vocals, but with different sort of take on it. We're similar that we're instrumental and it's sort of head music. It's from the same background.
When I reviewed your record, I hadn't heard the Ozric Tentacles; there was something about Let's Get this Mother Outta Here that made me think mid- to late-80s Rush. There's some sort of quality about it.
You're the second person who's said that today.
What's kind of funny is, and hear me out on this, is that it's the most unfortunate time of Rush's discography. You sound like that, but what Rush should have been doing more.
I'm not that familiar with that period. I sort of left after Moving Pictures.
That's a good time. The late 80s and then 90 was really bad, but they've gotten a lot better.
Yeah, so I hear. They're an amazing band.
Oh, yeah, they're really good. I saw them last month and they played for three hours.
Their drummer rocks. He's fucking superb. They're all spectacular musicians.
You went from the Ship to the Cradle.
Yeah.
Maelstrom: What on earth?
What on earth How I ended up in Cradle is fucking beyond me, mate, really. (laughs) I've actually got one of 'em with me - Nick Barker (drummer for Dimmu Borgir, Lock Up, ex-Cradle of Filth) is sitting next to me at the moment. He's just come over. I was with Anathema after the Ship of Fools. I recorded the Eternity album with Anathema and did a few tours with them. I was doing that when the Cradle thing came up. They had lost their previous keyboard player and needed somebody to do a couple of festivals as a stand in. I got offered the job 'cause I knew the management company - Anathema were on the same company. I also knew one of the guitar players. I wasn't familiar with Cradle at the time. I had a look at it and thought, "oh, that's different, isn't it? (laughs). It's not the usual sort of thing I'd do in itself, but I'll do it. It'll be an experience." I ended up in the band for three years.
How many records are you on?
Two. Cruelty and the Beast and From the Cradle to Enslave.
So they have you all done up.
Yeah, I had the vicar's outfit on. I used to wear it everywhere we went. I'd go out and people would think I was the real thing. It was good fun. Everybody that was in the band at the time I've still got contact with. Dani is Dani, he's got his management and Dani thing.
Is he easy to get along with?
Sometimes he can be, sometimes he can be a complete tool. It was like a heavy metal boy band. Fuck that shit. That's not what I got into it for. Keep the fucking money and fuck off. Bollocks to that.
So I guess you didn't have a lot of creative energy going into the band.
No, I did a lot of writing. The reason I joined was that I really connected with Nick and Stewart - the musicians in the band. We had a really good working relationship and we were good friends; I had a lot of respect for what we were doing. All the rest came to light afterward. I wasn't particularly familiar with the black metal scene going in - I was from a standard metal background. I enjoyed writing the stuff, you know? It was different; it was challenging; it was good.
You know that in terms of being black metal, many people like to spit on Cradle of Filth? You know about all that, right?
Oh, yeah. It's whatever they can say that but they're doing well, aren't they? At the end of the day, people will buy what they want, won't they? If they want to fucking buy it, then that's up to them, you know what I mean? I wouldn't be a fan, myself.
So looking back on what you wrote, 'cause it doesn't seem like your heart was really into it
It was when we were doing it. After Cruelty and the Beast it became a bit stressed, after when Nick left. All the music used to get written and then Dani would come along and screech over the top of it. (laugh) We didn't really have much to do with Dani until the very end of the process. We were a very self-contained unit almost.
This is sort of becoming a Cradle of Filth interview.
I don't want to particularly slag Dani off 'cause I'm not after him. I'll leave that to it. In terms of the relationship with the rest of the band, we were into where we were at, but I think it could have turned out a lot better.
I think I read that Ship of Fools is coming back together?
Yeah, we did some shows and hopefully we're going to put out a new record next year.
Is it going to be the same thing with no vocals?
We might try a track or two with minimalist vocals, sort of like a Chemical Brothers approach to the vocals. Or maybe Prodigy. Use a vocalist, but not in a conventional way.
You were saying before that you had a metal background, but Ship of Fools isn't metal at all.
It's not metal, but it's pretty rooted in rock. The drummer's a (Jon) Bonham freak. He's into Bonham and Keith Moon, so he's more of a classic period rock rather than an 80s period and onward metal. This is my background, anyway. Before the Slayers and the Maidens, your Deep Purples and your Zeppelins were your heavy metal!
I think that's one of the main things I liked about the record: I get a lot of stuff to review from metal labels. And so when I heard the Ship of Fools, it was so completely different energy wise - it was laid back and it wasn't angsted-out; it was a really good palate cleanser. Aside from the fact that I liked it for what it was, I think it was the contrast that made me like it so much.
It's like heavy metal chill out music. People who like metal connect with it for some reason, yeah? It's not hard work on the head. You don't want to live, breathe, eat and drink fucking metal 24 hours a day.
I can't do it.
No, no. You need contrast and variety. You don't eat fries all the time. You need different colours.
Let's talk about Anathema. You weren't on Judgement, right?
Right.
But you were on A Fine Day to Exit?
Yeah.
Ok, there's this part on the album where there's this track where someone says "what about dogs? What about cats? "
" what about chickens?" Yeah, yeah.
What is that?
It's basically the content of John (Douglas) the drummer's head. He's a bit fucking mental. All of that section, you know, there's a conversation going on.
If I remember, it's on the beach?
That's actually John talking to himself.
Right, right, it's some sort of rant.
Yeah, walking up and down a pebbled beach. The bit about "what about dogs? What about cats?" that's John as well. It just made us laugh.
Apparently it's not on the vinyl version. I made a fool out of myself: I went up to a friend of mine and did the whole "what about chickeeeeens?" thing. He said, "what is wrong with you?" I said, "didn't you hear that Anathema record?"
Yeah, it's not on the vinyl version. It's a hidden track.
I went to go see Metalfest 2001, when Anathema played. Were you there?
Yeah, I was.
That was a really funny scene. Speaking of palate cleansers, Anathema was so unlike any other band that played.
Yeah, especially at the Metalfest. It's very metal, isn't it?
The same friend I did the chicken thing with describes most of the bands there as being "truck with a blast beat."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, that sounds about right.
It sounds like (blurting sound) and a blast beat. It's absolutely horrible. So then you have Anathema and you can actually hear all their songs. It's really funny that people with Graveland shirts will be listening to it. I didn't think your band would actually be there, but it was.
We feel a bit odd anyway, really, nowadays because we realise we're not like "metal" metal. And we got a lot of people who say, "uhhhh, it's not metal," but we get more people who say it's fantastic who are banging to metal of all sorts. A lot of the black metal fans are at the gigs, and we're nothing at all like black metal. I supposed it's about not being fooled into believing into the record company bullshit in which people can be characterised so easily. Just because you like extreme metal doesn't mean you don't like classical music or don't appreciate other types [of music]. And especially in the metal scene, I think people have always been - I know they have in Europe - been receptive to other stuff, just not the fucking manufactured crap. If it's anything that's got a bit of spit in it, a bit of rebellion, then I think people will go for it.
Tell me about you. How did you get into this kind of music? You talked about Deep Purple.
Yeah, Deep Purple were a massive influence. I used to play guitar at 6. Then I played trumpet and I learned how to read music. I was always into music. Then when I was 11, 12, I started getting into Motorhead, Saxon, Black Sabbath, all that scene. It developed from there: I decided at that age that that's what I wanted to do, and I did. Over the years, amongst various other exploits, I've ended up doing what I've always wanted to do.
Is being a musician your full-time job?
Yeah. It is at the moment. It has been for a few years. I mean, it's hard - we're not in the mega league.
It's sad, huh?
Well, it's all right. You know, fuck fame - money's ok. But we earn a living out of it. We do what we want and the music is getting better all the time. We're happy with what we do, although sometimes you have to make sacrifices and sometimes you think, "fuck it, I'm gonna get a job. I've had it with this shit."
Yeah, you probably wouldn't like it.
No, I know I wouldn't like it.
Ok, last question. The press release has this slogan about "Ship of Fools when the drugs worked." Is this another playing up of an angle or do drugs play a big part in making this kind of music?
Nah. I suppose a lot of it was around at the time, but most of it was written in a sober state apart from having' a bit of weed.
You have that song "L=SD squared"
The thing about "L=SD squared" is that it's really tongue-in-cheek, yeah? It's all Timothy Leary samples. It was a hippie theory that LSD was released on the world a nuclear conflict. The irony of it was that it was distributed by the CIA, who was testing it out on people and distributing it in the 50s as a mind control drug. It's not like go get drugs, it's cool. It's not what we're saying at all. We've all had our fair share, but we've all had our fair share of regrets and hangovers and fucking wanted-to-die-in-the-mornings. (laugh)
It seems that the whole Ship of Fools thing really plays up the fact that you're hippies.
It was, but also you have to do something to keep the interest going if you haven't got a singer. So you go with the lights and you go with the whole kit 'n caboodle. You could be on drugs and appreciate it but you could also enjoy it if you weren't out of your mind. (a baby makes a noise).
You have a child?
I just had a son last year.
Oh, congratulations. Is it your first one?
Yeah.
And Nick Barker's over there?
Yeah.
So it's like a whole family metal thing going on!
Yeah, there's a family metal thing going on here. Certainly, man.
I'll let you get back to your friends, then.
Thanks, Roberto. Thanks for liking it and doing the interview.
Roughly 10 years ago, the Peaceville label had a subsidiary called Dreamtime Records. It has long since folded, but while it was around it released two albums by this band called Ship of Fools. Now, this is just about as fresh a piece of news to me as it is to you, because I had never heard of this group before I was sent the promo. But it turns out that this was a group worth listening to. Fitting in very nicely in the genre of music that the Ozric Tentacles play, but with mid-80s Rush elements, this band is an excellent palate cleanser of relaxed but engaging music to break up the often dark and angst-out stuff we normally talk about. It also turns out that the lead member of the Fools, Les Smith, is a man many of us have heard from before. The Yorkshire, England native is currently playing keyboard in Anathema, and spent three years with Cradle of Filth (as the vicar) during the Cruelty and the Beast period. Wanting to know more, I spoke to Smith on the phone.
I really like this record a lot.
Oh, cheers, man. I'm glad.
You probably won't be surprised, but I had never heard of you before.
I'm getting used to that.
These records came out something like eight years ago, right?
Yeah.
So why all of a sudden are they being reissued?
Peaceville has been going through the back catalogue and reissuing everything, really. I always thought [Ship of Fools] could do with a bit of tidying' up sonically. So I asked Hammy and Lisa (of Peaceville) "everything else is going out, how about doing' a Ship of Fools best of?" And so they did. There was an opportunity to do a couple of gigs with Anathema over the weekend, so we did those as well.
You played in both bands?
Yeah. It went really well; we got a really good reception for the Fools. It was a good weekend.
It says on the press release that the album was "mixed down" by you.
It got a full remix because we couldn't get all of the original multi-track recordings - they disappeared into the ether somewhere. I digitally remastered it, which really improved the sound and brought out instruments that you couldn't hear at all the first time 'round. I edited it, chopped it around a bit, put new bits and pasted it all back together again.
So there's music on there that wasn't on there originally.
Yeah, a bit, not a lot
The press release makes it sound like there's less, like it's more minimal. They make this joke about "Les being more."
Yeah Oh, right, yeah, I see. I haven't actually seen the press release. Yeah, it's just a play on words. The new ones just sound a lot better, really.
The press release compares you a lot with the Ozric Tentacles.
Yeah, we were in that genre, really. When we kicked off, we were in the same sort of circuit as them.
Did you really like that band and wanted to have something like that?
Well, no. I mean, if you listen to [Ship of Fools], it's not really much like the Ozric Tentacles.
Well, I checked out Ozric. I got an album called Arborescence. I can see how it sounds like you, but I think you have a lot more variety.
The Ozric is more spacey jam, and we're more song structured, without vocals, but with different sort of take on it. We're similar that we're instrumental and it's sort of head music. It's from the same background.
When I reviewed your record, I hadn't heard the Ozric Tentacles; there was something about Let's Get this Mother Outta Here that made me think mid- to late-80s Rush. There's some sort of quality about it.
You're the second person who's said that today.
What's kind of funny is, and hear me out on this, is that it's the most unfortunate time of Rush's discography. You sound like that, but what Rush should have been doing more.
I'm not that familiar with that period. I sort of left after Moving Pictures.
That's a good time. The late 80s and then 90 was really bad, but they've gotten a lot better.
Yeah, so I hear. They're an amazing band.
Oh, yeah, they're really good. I saw them last month and they played for three hours.
Their drummer rocks. He's fucking superb. They're all spectacular musicians.
You went from the Ship to the Cradle.
Yeah.
Maelstrom: What on earth?
What on earth How I ended up in Cradle is fucking beyond me, mate, really. (laughs) I've actually got one of 'em with me - Nick Barker (drummer for Dimmu Borgir, Lock Up, ex-Cradle of Filth) is sitting next to me at the moment. He's just come over. I was with Anathema after the Ship of Fools. I recorded the Eternity album with Anathema and did a few tours with them. I was doing that when the Cradle thing came up. They had lost their previous keyboard player and needed somebody to do a couple of festivals as a stand in. I got offered the job 'cause I knew the management company - Anathema were on the same company. I also knew one of the guitar players. I wasn't familiar with Cradle at the time. I had a look at it and thought, "oh, that's different, isn't it? (laughs). It's not the usual sort of thing I'd do in itself, but I'll do it. It'll be an experience." I ended up in the band for three years.
How many records are you on?
Two. Cruelty and the Beast and From the Cradle to Enslave.
So they have you all done up.
Yeah, I had the vicar's outfit on. I used to wear it everywhere we went. I'd go out and people would think I was the real thing. It was good fun. Everybody that was in the band at the time I've still got contact with. Dani is Dani, he's got his management and Dani thing.
Is he easy to get along with?
Sometimes he can be, sometimes he can be a complete tool. It was like a heavy metal boy band. Fuck that shit. That's not what I got into it for. Keep the fucking money and fuck off. Bollocks to that.
So I guess you didn't have a lot of creative energy going into the band.
No, I did a lot of writing. The reason I joined was that I really connected with Nick and Stewart - the musicians in the band. We had a really good working relationship and we were good friends; I had a lot of respect for what we were doing. All the rest came to light afterward. I wasn't particularly familiar with the black metal scene going in - I was from a standard metal background. I enjoyed writing the stuff, you know? It was different; it was challenging; it was good.
You know that in terms of being black metal, many people like to spit on Cradle of Filth? You know about all that, right?
Oh, yeah. It's whatever they can say that but they're doing well, aren't they? At the end of the day, people will buy what they want, won't they? If they want to fucking buy it, then that's up to them, you know what I mean? I wouldn't be a fan, myself.
So looking back on what you wrote, 'cause it doesn't seem like your heart was really into it
It was when we were doing it. After Cruelty and the Beast it became a bit stressed, after when Nick left. All the music used to get written and then Dani would come along and screech over the top of it. (laugh) We didn't really have much to do with Dani until the very end of the process. We were a very self-contained unit almost.
This is sort of becoming a Cradle of Filth interview.
I don't want to particularly slag Dani off 'cause I'm not after him. I'll leave that to it. In terms of the relationship with the rest of the band, we were into where we were at, but I think it could have turned out a lot better.
I think I read that Ship of Fools is coming back together?
Yeah, we did some shows and hopefully we're going to put out a new record next year.
Is it going to be the same thing with no vocals?
We might try a track or two with minimalist vocals, sort of like a Chemical Brothers approach to the vocals. Or maybe Prodigy. Use a vocalist, but not in a conventional way.
You were saying before that you had a metal background, but Ship of Fools isn't metal at all.
It's not metal, but it's pretty rooted in rock. The drummer's a (Jon) Bonham freak. He's into Bonham and Keith Moon, so he's more of a classic period rock rather than an 80s period and onward metal. This is my background, anyway. Before the Slayers and the Maidens, your Deep Purples and your Zeppelins were your heavy metal!
I think that's one of the main things I liked about the record: I get a lot of stuff to review from metal labels. And so when I heard the Ship of Fools, it was so completely different energy wise - it was laid back and it wasn't angsted-out; it was a really good palate cleanser. Aside from the fact that I liked it for what it was, I think it was the contrast that made me like it so much.
It's like heavy metal chill out music. People who like metal connect with it for some reason, yeah? It's not hard work on the head. You don't want to live, breathe, eat and drink fucking metal 24 hours a day.
I can't do it.
No, no. You need contrast and variety. You don't eat fries all the time. You need different colours.
Let's talk about Anathema. You weren't on Judgement, right?
Right.
But you were on A Fine Day to Exit?
Yeah.
Ok, there's this part on the album where there's this track where someone says "what about dogs? What about cats? "
" what about chickens?" Yeah, yeah.
What is that?
It's basically the content of John (Douglas) the drummer's head. He's a bit fucking mental. All of that section, you know, there's a conversation going on.
If I remember, it's on the beach?
That's actually John talking to himself.
Right, right, it's some sort of rant.
Yeah, walking up and down a pebbled beach. The bit about "what about dogs? What about cats?" that's John as well. It just made us laugh.
Apparently it's not on the vinyl version. I made a fool out of myself: I went up to a friend of mine and did the whole "what about chickeeeeens?" thing. He said, "what is wrong with you?" I said, "didn't you hear that Anathema record?"
Yeah, it's not on the vinyl version. It's a hidden track.
I went to go see Metalfest 2001, when Anathema played. Were you there?
Yeah, I was.
That was a really funny scene. Speaking of palate cleansers, Anathema was so unlike any other band that played.
Yeah, especially at the Metalfest. It's very metal, isn't it?
The same friend I did the chicken thing with describes most of the bands there as being "truck with a blast beat."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, that sounds about right.
It sounds like (blurting sound) and a blast beat. It's absolutely horrible. So then you have Anathema and you can actually hear all their songs. It's really funny that people with Graveland shirts will be listening to it. I didn't think your band would actually be there, but it was.
We feel a bit odd anyway, really, nowadays because we realise we're not like "metal" metal. And we got a lot of people who say, "uhhhh, it's not metal," but we get more people who say it's fantastic who are banging to metal of all sorts. A lot of the black metal fans are at the gigs, and we're nothing at all like black metal. I supposed it's about not being fooled into believing into the record company bullshit in which people can be characterised so easily. Just because you like extreme metal doesn't mean you don't like classical music or don't appreciate other types [of music]. And especially in the metal scene, I think people have always been - I know they have in Europe - been receptive to other stuff, just not the fucking manufactured crap. If it's anything that's got a bit of spit in it, a bit of rebellion, then I think people will go for it.
Tell me about you. How did you get into this kind of music? You talked about Deep Purple.
Yeah, Deep Purple were a massive influence. I used to play guitar at 6. Then I played trumpet and I learned how to read music. I was always into music. Then when I was 11, 12, I started getting into Motorhead, Saxon, Black Sabbath, all that scene. It developed from there: I decided at that age that that's what I wanted to do, and I did. Over the years, amongst various other exploits, I've ended up doing what I've always wanted to do.
Is being a musician your full-time job?
Yeah. It is at the moment. It has been for a few years. I mean, it's hard - we're not in the mega league.
It's sad, huh?
Well, it's all right. You know, fuck fame - money's ok. But we earn a living out of it. We do what we want and the music is getting better all the time. We're happy with what we do, although sometimes you have to make sacrifices and sometimes you think, "fuck it, I'm gonna get a job. I've had it with this shit."
Yeah, you probably wouldn't like it.
No, I know I wouldn't like it.
Ok, last question. The press release has this slogan about "Ship of Fools when the drugs worked." Is this another playing up of an angle or do drugs play a big part in making this kind of music?
Nah. I suppose a lot of it was around at the time, but most of it was written in a sober state apart from having' a bit of weed.
You have that song "L=SD squared"
The thing about "L=SD squared" is that it's really tongue-in-cheek, yeah? It's all Timothy Leary samples. It was a hippie theory that LSD was released on the world a nuclear conflict. The irony of it was that it was distributed by the CIA, who was testing it out on people and distributing it in the 50s as a mind control drug. It's not like go get drugs, it's cool. It's not what we're saying at all. We've all had our fair share, but we've all had our fair share of regrets and hangovers and fucking wanted-to-die-in-the-mornings. (laugh)
It seems that the whole Ship of Fools thing really plays up the fact that you're hippies.
It was, but also you have to do something to keep the interest going if you haven't got a singer. So you go with the lights and you go with the whole kit 'n caboodle. You could be on drugs and appreciate it but you could also enjoy it if you weren't out of your mind. (a baby makes a noise).
You have a child?
I just had a son last year.
Oh, congratulations. Is it your first one?
Yeah.
And Nick Barker's over there?
Yeah.
So it's like a whole family metal thing going on!
Yeah, there's a family metal thing going on here. Certainly, man.
I'll let you get back to your friends, then.
Thanks, Roberto. Thanks for liking it and doing the interview.
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