"To be honest right now my heart and my soul is in my solo stuff, the music I’m making!"

ALMIGHTY vocalist, RICKY WARWICK turns acoustic for new album 'Belfast Confetti' due out on April 27th 2009.

Although the founding member of Glasgow heavy metal band, The Almighty, and working in various other punk outfits, including Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts and New Model Army, Ricky Warwick is once again armed with his guitar, and he has something important to say, so you should listen.

an interview conducted by Stefan Yordanov

THE REASON WE HAVE YOU WITH US IS YOUR FORTHCOMING ALBUM ‘BELFAST CONFETTI’, WHICH IS TO BE HONEST WITH YOU IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING…
Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.

HOW MUCH TIME DID IT TAKE TO RECORD IT?

It didn’t take that long, I mean, I did it over the period of last year. I starteded in January of 2008. I would go to the studio and record for a couple of days and then would go off and do some touring and then maybe would come back three weeks later and record for another couple of days, so it took almost an year to do that on and off, but the total time I spent recording was a little under 2 weeks in total. Pretty quick.

ARE ALL THE LYRICS OF YOUR SONGS PERSONAL EXPERIENCES? ESPECIALLY I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT THIS SONG FROM YOUR LAST ALBUM ‘LOVE MANY, TRUST FEW’ CALLED ‘GUITY’…
Ha-ha-ha… yeah, I write from a very personal perspective and the songs on ‘Belfast Confetti’ are probably the most personal songs that I have ever written. I’d gone very, very deep inside to find the reasons for these songs, so the simple answer is yes.

The song ‘Guilty’ is written from a personal experience of cheating on somebody and feeling horrible for doing that. It’s funny. Sometimes when I play that I go “You know, this is a song about somebody’s having an affair and everybody’s got really quiet.

There’s this funny story. One time a guy walked out when I played this song and I saw him after the show and said: “why did you get out?” and he said: “Look, right now I’m cheating on my wife and I couldn’t listen to that song.”

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ALMIGHTY AUDIENCE AND THE AUDIENCE YOU HAVE ON YOUR SOLO GIGS?
Er, yes, there is some, I mean, obviously there’s a lot of Almighty fans going to my solo gigs and I’m happy to play some of The Almighty songs, because that’s very much a part of me and a part of who I am and I enjoy playing those songs, but there’s also a lot of people I get that really didn’t know about The Almighty, but are fans of what I do solo-wise, so you get a good mixture of people, which is great and is what I want, you know?

ABSOLUTELY! DO YOU MIND TALKING ABOUT THE ALMIGHTY NOW?
No, not at all.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT SITUATION WITH THE BAND?
The current situation with the band is, er, not really anything is happening there. We did a few shows. We talked about writing a new material, but the problem is that everyone is so busy with their own lives and we all live…

I live in America and the rest of the guys live in The U.K. and we just don’t have the time to get together and write and the band is… I don’t think it’s finished, but everybody needs to find the time to do something new and right now I don’t know when that would be, to be honest with you.

BUT YOU ARE STILL DOING YOUR CHRISTMAS GIGS?
Er, I don’t know if we’ll do any any this year. I think we all fell we need to write new stuff. Floyd has left the band (the bass player) and he would probably come back to do a benefit show of course, but I think after that we wouldn’t want to be part of that any more, because he’s got his reasons and he’s busy doing what he’s doing, which is fine.

So myself, Pete and Stumpy have to get together. I want to see them in the summer and have a talk, may be see what we are gonna do…

BUT FLOYD IS NOT COMING BACK?
I don’t think so. I haven’t seen Floyd. He’s going to join us for this benefit show. At least that what he says, but I don’t think so. The problem that I have with the Almighty is that The Almighty is for me such an intense and passionate band and you’ve got to give 100% to be in The Almighty, because that’s what we started and that’s what we believe in.

It can’t really be a part time band and I feel it doesn’t do the band any justice when we are doing just a few shows a year and to be honest right now my heart and my soul is in my solo stuff, the music I’m making. And I think that’s the problem.

I don’t have the time to turn around and give this band 100% and I think that’s what the band deserves. And right now in my head I’m not there doing my solo stuff and all…

WHY DID YOU SPLIT JUST AFTER ‘JUST ADD LIFE’?
At that time we have been pretty much touring and doing records for eight years non stop. I felt we’d just gone as far as we could. The day we delivered ‘Just Add Life’ to the record label, which was Chrysalis at the time, we understood it was taken over by EMI and everybody we have buit a relationship and worked really hard the previous year were no longer there, which I think was so soul destroying. It was a real kick in the teeth.

We thought the business was crap. It was destroying and we didn’t want to be in the band. I mean looking back what we should have done was taking a break for a year and then come back, but we were pretty young and at time I felt that was the right thing to do.

THERE WERE SOME ACCUSATIONS AT THAT TIME, I REMEMBER, THAT THE ALMIGHTY PRETTY OFTEN CHANGED THEIR DIRECTION…
Yeah, absolutely… I’m not going to deny that we did that, but our goal was never be to be just one dimensional band, you know, every record sounds the same. We were always trying to push ourselves forward. Take the song 'Look What Happened Tomorrow' and it’s not less heavier that the others. The only thing changed is that our hair was shorter. The intensity was there. People change and people change their clothes and change their hair. Metallica, you know?

That’s what people do when they grow older but sometimes when you’re in a band people don’t want you to change and they are like: “Oh, they’re selling out and they are doing this and that.” I think one thing The Almighty certainly never ever did is to sell out and we always stayed true to what we believed in and we always wrote about what we wanted to write about. I mean, it would have been very easy to make 8 albums that sound the same as ‘Soul Destruction’ or sound the same as ‘Powertrippin’…

BUT YOU DID NOT EVEN TRY IT…
No, no. We wanted to try to push ourselves as people and as musicians, because I think we would have got bored very, very easily. We didn’t do that. I don’t think we have ever lost any of the power and the intensity or the attitude that we had from the day we started, you know?

NO, YOU DIDN’T.
Thank you.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE THE ALMIGHTY ALBUM AND THE LEAST FAVOURITE ONE?
My favourite The Almighty album is ‘Crank’. That’s my favourite Almighty album. My least favourite one would be-e-e-e… ‘Psycho Narco’, not because of the songs but because the way it sounds sonically. I like the songs on there; I just don’t like the production.

JOE ELLIOT WAS AMAZED WHEN WE TALKED TO HIM THAT WE KNOW AND WE ARE BIG FANS OF YOUR MUSIC…
Oh, cool!

TO WHAT EXTENT DID JOE ELLIOT HELP YOU AT THE TIME....WAS IT ONLY IN THE PRODUCTION OR ALSO IN THE SONGWRITING DEPARTMENT?

No, everything that a best friend would do for somebody else at that time… I was doing my solo stuff and I didn’t know what I was doing, because if someone said to me: “Hey you are going to play acoustic guitar” ten years ago I would be like no way, I’m not that type of guy. There’s no way I would do that!

Joe heard the very first stuff I was writing and believed in it and pushed me the whole way and gave me the opportunity to go and make a record when I had no record deal and no money. Joe said: “Use my studio. I will produce it. When you get a record deal, you will pay me back.” And that’s exactly what happened.

And without him doing that, you know, I wouldn’t afford to go and make a record. And when you have someone like Joe producing your record it’s just huge, it’s amazing, you know? I’m in debt with Joe for doing that, because he understood… He’s the kind of guy who would have said: “You know what, Ricky, it’s a crap, I don’t like it, and you can do better.” But he didn’t. When he heard the stuff and he said: “I think you’ve got something there. You can do it and I think you can go and record these songs. I’ll help you out, I’ll produce them.” He did and that was amazing.

IS CIRCUS DIABLO STILL FUNCTIONAL?
No, not at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that nothing will happen in the future. Again the problem with that band is that everybody is having their own career. And it’s pretty impossible to get all of us together, which is a shame, because I like those guys and playing them is fun. But it’s very, very hard to get all the guys together.

GREAT ALBUM THOUGH!
Thank you.

DO YOU STILL LOVE STIFF LITTLE FINGERS?
Yes, very much!

WHAT ABOUT NEW MODEL ARMY?
Yes!

WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES FROM NEW MODEL ARMY?

Just great! I mean that was a dream come true, because I was a fan of the band and actually ended up being in the band for a year and touring all over the world. It was unbelievable. I was pretty young and learned a lot from Justin about songwriting and being a front man and… I learned a lot from him.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WARRIOR SOUL THEN?
They are a great band. I mean Cory writes great songs. To me he’s one of the greatest rock’n’rollers, you know? He lives it, breathes it, you know, 24/7 and the band that he has backing him up right now is really, really good. Cory will keep doing this until he dies. He’s born to be a rock’n’roller until his death, you know?

AND YOU ARE THE SAME.
Yes I think I am, you know, I think I am… I don’t know what else to do, but I don’t want to do anything else. It’s in the blood and it makes me happy and it’s a purpose and I have to do it.

IS THERE ANY CHANCE OF DOING YOUR PROJECT (SIC) AGAIN?
You know, there’s always a chance of doing it some day again. The drummer lives in L.A. and I see him a lot and he actually plays drums on three or four tracks on my new solo record. I still think that was a great album that we made back then. I would love to do something with those guys, you know? May be a show or… There’s actually a lot of (sic) material that has been left, which might be released, you know?

AS A BONUS DISC OR SOMETHING?
Yes.

THERE WAS A KERRANG! ARTICLE WHICH I READ LIKE 10 YEARS AGO. IT WAS ABOUT YOU SUPPORTING METALLICA AND THEN ABOUT THIS U.S. TOUR ON WHICH YOU HAD TO PLAY BEFORE METALLICA TRIBUTE BANDS…
It was so weird, because we played with metallica in U.K. in front of 85 000 people and it was amazing. And we flew to America the next day and we arrived at a little club and we found out we would be supporting a Metallica tribute band, you know?  It’s 48 hours after the real Metallica. We laughed. We saw the irony in it.

We didn’t mean anything in America. Obviously we meant something in The U.K. we didn’t moan like pretentious rock stars. We were like this is just really funny. Life could be like this, you know?

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE LAST G’N’R ALBUM?
I haven’t heard it. There you go!

GOOD FOR YOU!
I have to listen to it, I don’t know. I have to listen to it.

ONE LAST QUESTION ABOUT THIS COVER VERSION, VERY STRANGE ACTUALLY OF IRON MAIDEN’S ‘RUNNING FREE’…
Ha-ha-ha…Right, it’s my favourite Iron Maiden song but obviously I wanted to do it in a style that fits, you know, me, playing solo on stage. It occurred to me that crazy idea what if I try to make it a little bit like rockabilly Johnny Cash style, you know? It might not work and it might work.

I THINK IT WORKED…
I think it worked pretty good, you know? I played it to Steve (Harris) and he really, really likes it and I played it to Bruce (Dickinson) and he really, really likes it, so I’m a happy man, you know? I had thumbs up from those guys. That’s all I need.

rights Tangra Mega Rock