Poltergiest - Facebook - Album Review
One of the most exciting releases this year has been from a new band called Poltergeist. A psych rock wig out extravaganza which revisits the dirty old days of prog rock and updates for a new millenium. What makes this even more extraordinary and exciting is that this “new” band really consists of three seasoned masters of their art. This is a side project born of two Bunnymen and a returning one.
In between laying down iconic guitar riffs for Echo and the Bunnymen, Will Sergeant and drummer Nick Kilroe have re-united with former Bunnyman and now Wild Swan, Les Pattinson to create a swirling instrumental album of space/psych. In a bid to find out more about Poltergeist Will Sergeant talks to us at Echoes and Dust in an interview which covers a wide range of subjects. Fasten your seatbelts and set the controls for the heart of a Bunnyman's mind.
(((o))): Poltergeist is a very different entity from the Bunnymen. Has there been a sense of freedom to explore areas you couldn't do before?
Will: I would say so. I have always been into the more 'out there music' ever since I was a kid, so to try and fit any left field ideas into the Bunnymen's sound would be a none starter really. Maybe in the early 80's when it was all new to us and I had more input, I got a few things through. But generally I like to keep my more trippy ideas for my own projects.
(((o))): How do you expect it to be received. There will obviously be a certain amount of good will from fans. Are you looking to expand on that?
Will: Yeah, we have had a lot of good will from Bunnymen world, everyone loves Les and misses him so any involvement is always gonna be interesting to our hardcore fans. It has been getting good reviews and I think if we get it to the right heads with no preconceptions, it's got something of interest to the psychedelic warrior. We are of course looking to expand the fan-base and find new people that have not just come because of the Bunnymen connections, we have to survive.
I think the music is the most important element in all of this. I would like it to be judged on it's merits and not coloured by thirty odd years of EATB. I know this is easy to say. We have had a few comments like " it sounds like early Bunnymen" and this would be a great Bunnymen song with Mac on it, these people are totally missing the point of the project. We are not trying to create a new Bunnymen record here, we are venturing off into different realms. If it sounds a little bit like EATB is that surprising as half of the original line are involved in creating it? The world has changed and our influences, which used to be mainly New York Punk. My mind has been expanded and now I have so much great stuff in there and it is seeping out into this project.
(((o))): Is the recording process for Poltergeist a fluid process? How does a song come about? Do you jam ideas or each bring in your own and work them into song?
Will: We haven't done much in the way of jamming these songs, that approach is always a possibility for new stuff. The main body of the songs came from ideas I had been working on for a while. Les came round to my little studio under my kitchen (The Pod) and we listened to all the ideas and chose the best ones. We then started to arrange and expand the ideas. A lot of them had a more programmed sound which I then adapted to a band format and ditched a lot of the keyboard sounds and replaced them with guitar.
It all came together pretty quickly we could only work in spits and spats so it was spread out over time but the actual days working was not that many. We recorded the drums in a studio in Wales called (Ariel studios) housed in an old bombproof windowless Cold War listening bunker it's a very cool utilitarian building, It was very apt.
(((o))): Do they have any meanings? For instrumental songs there is a sense of a journey taking place, was this the plan?
Will: They do have meanings, thoughts and emotions to me. Lune Deeps is an area just off the coast of Fleetwood not far from where we live. There is a deep trench under the Irish Sea. This was used for burials, lead lined coffins would sink to the bottom of the trench and then be trapped in the trench, this prevented half eaten sailors from getting washed up on Blackpool beach, might put the revellers off their sandwiches. We don't like to impose our vision too much. We do prefer the listener to visualize their own story to go with the music.
With a great rhythm section and no vocalist do you feel like taking over with the guitar taking the music to different places?
I am quite aware of being too wanky on the guitar, given that we have long songs and a lot of space to fill I don't think we have done anything that is too self indulgent, but really all music is self indulgent. If you want to be creative you must be self indulgent to a degree. The world will keep turning if you don't bother, so it takes something of an ego maniac to think to yourself " what the world needs is a ten minute Progressive Psyche wig out, yeah that will make this planet a better place".
(((o))): What's it like to work with Les Pattinson again? Was it easy to slip back into a groove (so to speak)?
Will: Yes very easy, Les is a great chap, very mellow. I have remained friends with him throughout him leaving the band and all the crap that went with that. He is an instinctive player and usually the first thing he does is the best. We still go to the pub together on a regular basis and he helps me with fixing things. He is the practical one of the group.
(((o))): The throbbing bass lines are reminiscent of the past...are you conscious of this and do you try to avoid certain ways of working?
Will: No, we don't avoid anything like that Les plays that way and its great, so why would I say to him can you make it a bit like that bloke out of Level 42 or something, not gonna happen. You have Les in a band because he sounds like Les. He has a powerful unique way of playing, oddly and awkwardly all up strokes! This gives it the distinctive Les Pattinson Sound.
(((o))): Is there a certain effort involved in moving away from how you work in the Bunnymen? Is this difficult or is there a sense of release?
Will: It is a totally different way of working we have no boundaries and are open to anything. If we want a twenty minute ambient passage in the middle of a rock song we can have it. We are not dictated too by the usual song format of verse chorus, verse chorus etc. Or that wont fit with the lyrics conversation/argument, so that's a nice release. We aim to go were no man has gone before or something like that.
(((o))): How will the songs work live? There is room to expand...do you think the songs may end up evolving live?
Will: We have quite long passages so there is room to manoeuvre here and there, Nick (drums) guides us back if we stray too far. I think the more we play the more of this experimental side will emerge. We have only done two gigs so far (London and Liverpool) it's still very early days.
I always saw this as a live band and we built the ability to have the songs work live into the recordings, we try and follow a simple and lean approach. We like to trance out and let the mind drift into the mantra. It is also possible to just become boring we are very aware of this.
(((o))): There is a visual side to the live show. Is this used to complement the songs. Is there a danger of them becoming the main focus? How do you avoid this?
Will: I do not mind them becoming the main focus we are just part of the overall event like, a piano player in the old silent movie days.
We hope to expand the projections and the lighting as we get more gigs under our belts. I see the thing developing into a kind of happening as we get more lighting effects and visuals. We are well aware that three blokes noodleing around on a stage with no central figure could be seen as dull but it's all about the sound and the visuals to me.
(((o))): You've stated that the band is very much influenced by the Prog Rock and Space Rock scene. Was this a part of you're growing up. Tell us about the bands you used to listen to? What albums got played the most and why?
Will: As a kid, my brother had a hippy friend who lived over the road from our house. I was friends with his younger brother and we all liked music. My brother and his friend were a bit older than us and were into bands like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Family, Taste, etc. All the freaky music as it was seen back then. It was the end of the 60's start of the 70's. Later on as I got some money together from my paper round I started to get obsessed with music and built up a collection.
I was getting into the likes of Hawkwind, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis all the greats of the Prog Rock realm, the music of hairy freaks, I fitted in well with this scene. We would go to the Liverpool Boxing Stadium to see bands, back then magazines like the NME and Melody Maker championed all the Progressive bands.
(((o))): What do you think of the current crop of Prog bands. It seems like the scene has become respectable again. Who has caught your ear. Is there a particular album you would recommend to our readers?
Will: The label Prog could be applied to many of the new bands about right now. I think they are unconsciously drifting into Prog-world, just by trying to experiment with the rock format. Progressive rock is rock that has moved forward and can mean all kinds of things. I would say that The Flaming Lips are progressive, Radiohead are certainly Prog. I don't see anything wrong in wanting to take rock music to other areas. Rock was born out of the blues, this is now very tired and has been since punk. If anything vaguely sounded like a blues chord progression when we were punks we would automatically hate it, it seemed too lazy.
The bands that are coming through that I like are The Black Angels, The White Hills, Wooden Shjips, Hookworms. But mainly I like to trawl though the past to find hidden gems. I have just discovered Kosmischer Laufer.
(((o))): What happens next? Will Poltergeist be a continuing thing and how will it fit in with your “day job”?
Will: It is a bit of juggling act but its possible to do both, it just has to be co-ordinated well. We do have a lot of time when we are waiting around with The Bunnymen. I'll use this time to move Poltergeist on. We will be making some more recordings soon and we may do an EP next. I have also started a new Glide record (another side project of mine) and this is coming together well.
So there you have it, an interview with a Bunnyman about what us here at E&D HQ believe to be a fantastic new project. You can check out the review of Your Mind is A Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder) and then make your own journey to the through the blistering basslines and pummelling drums guided by the iconic guitar sound of Will Sergeant.
Postscript : During writing this interview it came to my attention that Les Pattinson had been admitted into hospital. We here at E&D would like to wish him well and we hope to see him fully recovered and back doing what he does best very soon.
