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By: Matt Stevens
When I was a young guitarist Bill Steer’s playing on the Carcass record Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious was a huge deal for me, the solos are to this day some of my favourites and the riffs still continue to influence my playing with The Fierce And The Dead. Bill is still playing with Carcass now and also with Gentlemans Pistols. Thanks to Echoes and Dust for giving me the opportunity to talk to Bill about the excellent new Gentlemans Pistols record Hustler’s Row, Carcass and his attitude to the guitar.
Matt: How do you feel this record is different from the previous Gentlemans Pistols album?
Bill: Well beside the obvious time lag I’d say it’s more refined, I guess the song content is a little different. You have songs like ‘Devil’s Advocate On Call’ and’ Lady Teaser’, which are just that little bit more old school and snappy. I didn’t really hear anything like that on the previous two Gents albums. The other thing is there are a couple of numbers that are verging on ballads, like the title track and ‘Stress And Confusion’, just a bit more depth or I hate to say it songs that have a bit more maturity.
Matt: I think it’s a great record, it has a 70’s glam boogie stomp feel, the heavy end of glam.
Bill: We were discussing that earlier, that we mean 70’s glam. The original stuff. To me the stuff that took place at the tail end of the 80’s/early of the 90’s is I guess crotch.
Matt: The worst music in the world.
Bill: Yeah. In this band we all love The Sweet and Slade. I don’t see that as being dishonest music. To me it’s quite powerful stuff.
Matt: Slade are a great melancholic pop band, really exciting. So, 4 years between albums, what happened?
Bill: That’s a difficult one to tackle. The shortest answer is a couple of line-up changes, which tends to slow you down. If your band isn’t very active and you don’t have a whole framework like management and so forth a line-up change can really affect the momentum and even maybe the self-confidence of the band too. Then I guess in the background there were label issues, not that there was any strife because there wasn’t really, but there was more or less an understanding that we couldn’t really do another record for Rise Above and that we’d have to look elsewhere. That was one other thing.
And there was the actual album itself because we recorded it ages ago, I mean in terms of all the music and singing on the album that was done in the early part of last year. So everything subsequently has been about mixing it and getting it to a point where Atko [James Atkinson], our vocalist, is happy. It’s very much a feel thing, because as you can tell on the record it’s very spontaneous in terms of the performances, this is not really polished stuff. I think with the mix he just wanted it to feel good. It took him, I can’t remember how many mixes, but we could of got to the 8th or 9th mix before he was starting to relax on it and luckily for us it was coinciding with the business side of things where we came to some kind of agreement with Nuclear Blast where they would release this record. So that’s all it takes, things just pile on top of each other and then suddenly a year has gone by.
Matt: I saw you guys live with The Sword and you were really cool, really exciting. A joyous live band. I was a Carcass fan when I was younger and I really enjoyed your lead playing in the context of this band. Are you touring again?
Bill: Yeah we plan to, we’ll see what gets thrown at us. There are a couple of things that have been mentioned supporting bigger acts, but I guess I shouldn’t say anything in case it doesn’t come off. But yeah there’ll be a fair bit of activity next year. Things have changed for this group in very obvious ways in that we’re on a different label and we have a different agent too. It kind of feels like we’ve found our place a bit more. I mean, certainly not to criticise Rise Above because that’s a fantastic label. It just wasn’t the right home for the kind of music that Gents does. As you pointed out it, you used the word “joyous”, that was what hooked me before I even joined that band, that’s how I felt about the music and that’s maybe not the thing to be associated with the doom or stoner scene. In fact it’s the exact opposite of what those bands are trying to achieve.
Matt: There is a great feel to the band, I think you could play with bands like Fuzz or at Liverpool Psyche Fest or something like that. It’s not really metal, it’s a really great rock band. If you say glam to people they’re not thinking 70’s Sweet or Slade, but if they see you live I think they’ll get it. Do you feel you fit in with the contemporary rock scene?
Bill: It’s hard to say, I think we fit in to a degree. In the last couple of years there has been a wave of interest in bands that play with an old flavour, I hate to use the phrase the “classic rock market”. So that kind of element would work for us to a degree. But everyone is going to say this about the band they are in, but we’re not necessarily approaching this as a museum piece. There is something about it that is very contemporary, just the energy level and the dynamics. The whole music is shot through with old school heavy rock going back to the 70’s and maybe the early 80’s at moments.
Matt: There is a real energy to it and it’s quite irreverent.
Bill: That’s what I got off them seeing them play, a long time before I joined. Somehow they have arrived at this place between the two, the main guy in this band is steeped in old school rock music, but also it’s very clear he is not afraid of stepping outside the boundaries. Not treating the music like it’s dead.
Matt: It’s quite hard to take old influences and approach them like they are new, like you are trying new things. I really like the twin lead solos like on ‘Devil’s Advocate On Call’, then it goes onto a glam boogie stomp. Were those Wishbone Ash and early Maiden style leads something you wanted to develop on this album?
Bill: Yeah we love all those bands. Because the band is quite spontaneous and organic in the way we approach things it wasn’t so much discussed as more just understood. James the figurehead and writer of the band had his own agenda anyway, but I kind of knew he was going to push the vocals a lot harder this time, there is a lot of him really blasting his head off vocally as hard as he can whilst still singing and there are times he is singing quite softly with vocal harmonies.
Matt: Yeah there are some lovely harmony vocals on the record that remind me of Badfinger.
Bill: I think when we came to do lead guitar stuff, it’s not really talked about, but we just knew that was what we were going for. With ‘Devil’s Advocate On Call’ when we were putting that solo down I think I just felt that this would be quite good as a harmony, it wasn’t going to be a load of notes. Almost to take over where the vocal left off. If it was just one guitar voice it just wasn’t gonna cut it. So as soon as I started harmonizing with it Atko had all these ideas about an octave leap here or down there, so it’s not a static harmony, more the interesting side.
Matt: It sounds like you spent some time on it. A lot of your solos sound both worked out and spontaneous, with the energy of an improvisation.
Bill: Yeah I had a whole phase of my life where I religiously avoided planning anything for solos. Like when I was in that band Firebird, that was all just off the cuff and I really believed in that approach. But there came a time when I realised that had its own limitations because you start repeating yourself so I kind of realised you need a bit of both. When I was doing the first record with Gents, the second one for them and the first one for me, that was completely off the cuff, I was in that zone. When this one came around I wanted a little bit of both approaches. So I didn’t have anything planned before I went into the studio, but as soon as we started rolling, I was trying leads and we’d go back and listen and I found passages that I really liked and we’d really build on that. Like ok let’s try this again, but do it differently.
Matt: They’re great lead solos. Really remarkable to hear solos that sound like they are composed and are going somewhere, with the energy of improvisation.
Bill: We kind of got to that point where we knew that was what we were after. When you’re listening to the song the solo should contribute, if it’s just some kind of masturbatory thing or if it’s out of context it’s not good.
Matt: What your favourite song on Hustler’s Row?
Bill: It’s probably ‘Devil’s Advocate On Call’, I like ‘Stress And Confusion’ because it’s quite different for this band. Almost like a ballad in place. Those are probably the two that stick out. I like ‘Lady Teaser’, I like that very slow groove. It’s not doomy because it’s uplifting, it’s in that really weird zone because it’s as slow as we can play, like a shuffle I guess.
Matt: It must be such a fun band to play in, with a really great feel to the music. Tight but loose, with that stompy feel that’s hard to do. What other plans do you have for Gents?
Bill: It’s a case of seeing how much interest there is as we now do have an agent that’s very much behind us and is actively touting us towards festivals. Next year we’ll definitely be doing some of the festivals of the scene we’re in. A couple of the festivals you might expect us to play, we will probably be playing. In terms of touring I think it would be great to get another good support. Off the back of the second record we got some amazing supports, very diverse, one month we’re out with Terrovision and the next month we’re out with The Answer or The Sword.
Matt: Ramblin’ Man would work well for you guys. I think if people see the band live it’ll really win people over. Aside from Gentlemans Pistols you’re probably best known as the guitar player in Carcass. How does it compare playing with Gentlemans Pistols to playing with Carcass?
Bill: Yeah it really is, it’s very different. It’s going to be different from every band to the next band but because of the different genres involved, the different approaches. I guess with Carcass that kind of sprawls back into the tail end of the 80’s, it’s an older band. I guess you have to have an awareness of the audience’s expectations. Yes you’re in charge, you decide what’s in the set, but somewhere in the back of your mind there is an awareness of what people want from you and that plays a part. Whereas with Gents it’s relatively early days, the band’s been around for years, but it’s a bit more liberated in that sense. Like if James was to go “I just want to play the new album live and a couple of oldies”, we could do that and not have an enormous amount of flack. There would be complaints, but it wouldn’t be on the same level as a really old band. In terms of really playing it’s a tremendous difference, because with that kind of extreme metal music we do with Carcass you’ve got to be on your toes all the time, you just can’t relax. In terms of playing solos I do end up improvising, partly by accident. But really you shouldn’t do that too much because there just isn’t enough space to correct yourself and find your way through the music. Everything happens really quickly, but that certainly happens.
Matt: Thanks so much for this, it’s been great to talk to you.
