Some Background To Doing Interviews:
One of the things about writing for a music site and doing interviews during a festival is that sometimes you have to wait your turn to chat with a band. Oftentimes bands have multiple interviews to do and they can run late meaning things don’t run to perhaps a schedule that is expected. On the Saturday at Call Of The Wild, I had 3 bands I wished to interview and as I sat in the media area it began to look like all 3 would arrive to me at the same time. Now interviewing one band at a time (if with the whole band) can be complicated enough but a multiple of bands would be a disaster waiting to happen 😂. Luckily things worked out OK and I was able to speak to each artist individually (with one ending up being held on the Sunday morning). Beth Blade of Beth Blade And The Beautiful Disasters was doing quite a number of interviews which were running late (partly due to her being generous with her time) so I was at one point sitting with lead guitarist in the band Luke Gilmore. Now I thought it was a case that only Beth was doing interviews, but Luke said that if I was happy he could give me a “bit of an interview” where he could at least give some background for the band whilst waiting. I was more than happy to take up his kind offer. I did laugh when he said he would need to try and remember not to swear “for the radio” and after I said the interview would be transcribed he remarked “still good to make sure“. Very professional! The beginning of this then is myself chatting with Luke and later it is both of us along with Beth. Despite the fact she had been chatting with others and it was getting late in the day, she was still along with Luke happy to give her time and energy for us here at CGCM. This is how the interview(s) went…
CGCM: If I can start by getting some background of the band for those like me who don’t know much about you. Were you for instance part of the original group?
Luke Gives Us His Lowdown:
Luke: So no! My story with the band is that I had just come out of Uni (university) just having done music tech and I was looking for a band to start or join and a buddy of mine told me about the band saying they were “looking for a lead guitar player and you would fit the bill”. Then another friend of mine in the band Everyday Heroes tagged me in a post that Beth had put up looking for a lead guitarist. So me and Beth got speaking, she sent me the album Bad Habit and I learned the songs and went into rehearsal and more or less they pretty much accepted me from there. So I am not the first guitarist but I’d like to think I’m her favourite lead guitar player (laughing… CGCM: I hope she says that… more laughing)
CGCM: So is this the first band you have technically been in?
Luke: No, I have worked with a bunch of bands before but none of them ever really went the way I wanted them to, none fitted correctly, whereas I can sit down with Beth and 5 minutes later we can come up with something pretty cool. Same with me and Sam (drummer), when we go into rehearsals I might play a riff, and to me, I might think it’s shit and Sam will notice something and say “That’s pretty cool” and he will go “I’ll play this” and we work away. Also the same with Dan (Dan Rowe bassist) he will send me loads of stuff and I send him stuff back and then we bring it all to Beth who has been writing songs since a young age and been killing it. We bring it to the table and she will go “That works fine, maybe change this, or this is perfect… let’s do this, let’s do that” and that’s kind of how we do the writing process. It’s a pretty awesome thing. I have been able to find a bunch of musicians who I can work with, bring things to them and if it works they push it forward which is good and they can take it to the next level. You know they can take an idea I brought in and make it 10 times better.
CGCM: So how long have been with the band?
Luke: I’ve been with them for about 4 or 5 years I think, maybe 6.
CGCM: I am trying to think how many albums are out so far
A Look At The Albums/Lyrics:
Luke: There’s the EP, then Bad Habit, then Show Me Your Teeth where I came in, and the new one Mythos, Confession, Tragedies And Love. So I joined for the writing of the second album. (As that came out 2019 allowing for writing he would have joined probably 2018 making it 5 years!) At that time Beth kept coming in with banger after banger of songs. To me it is a personal diary of hers, it sounds that way. No way I wanted to derail her attention so just kept working at every song. It’s been pretty fucking good!
CGCM: So Beth is responsible for all the lyrics?
Luke: Yes Beth does all the lyrics. Once Beth gets an idea into her head, she will often have more or less the whole thing ready in her head. Other times she will bring what she has to us and perhaps I’ll implement a riff and Sam will come up with something. Then Dan will do something, like on the new album he has put in some walking basslines on a few songs. Little things like that make it all better, pushing us forward.
CGCM: I am sure you all have your own individual tastes musically and influence-wise, can I ask what some of them might be? Even if we don’t hear it up front musically in what you do.
Influences:
Luke: As Beth would say, and I agree, without all the guys in the band it wouldn’t be the band it is. I mean Beth has her influences from Kiss, Halestorm, G ‘n’ R and many bands like that. I have influences from Motley Crue, Poison to Ozzy and Pantera. Dan has Skid Row and verging with a few of mine and Sam who brings like like The Foo Fighters. Those sorts of artists we can bring into our own music.
CGCM: What got me today was Beth‘s version of “Proud Mary“….
Beth’s Tribute Live To Tina Turner:
Luke: Yeah, that was literally last minute. Beth came up to us, I was getting ready and she came up and suggested that we didn’t come straight in on “Persephone” and she said what she wanted to do. She just said she would give a cue when she was ready for us to kick into that song. It was cool man.
CGCM: It was a really emotional and powerful performance
Luke: Yeah. It is one of the things we strive for, to have our music touch people, making people happy, to be connected to songs. The performance side, of course, I run about the stage doing my thing or Beth or Dan are. In fact, today someone told me afterward that Beth and I seemed to have synced our high kicks on “Give It All You Got”. I didn’t know which was great. It is always trying to raise the bar performance-wise and keep the crowd up and going.
CGCM: Good to hear that you not only are active on stage, you as a band have plenty stagecraft, but it isn’t all planned. It looks fresh as it is fresh.
Luke: Yeah, every show has to be spontaneous as we are capable of doing something at any point. We like it being different each time, we hope to make each show unique in some way where folks can talk about one of us doing something unexpected
The Dangers Onstage:
CGCM: For me, it is like the smile Beth gave when she got her cable caught on the monitors and nearly tripped herself up. A look on her face of “that wasn’t supposed to happen” followed by a knowing smile. Just going with the flow…
Luke: Absolutely. The one person I try to keep away from my stuff onstage is Dan our bassist. He is very good at somehow unplugging my stuff onstage (lots of laughing) and that’s why I was happy having it taped down, I might have cried today if he had kicked it out (lots of laughing). As for Beth, she recovered really well from doing that, with some flair and some style.
CGCM: Another thing I noticed was how much Beth in particular was smiling at folks in the crowd, pointing, chatting and generally interacting with the crowd. No idea if it was people she knew or not, but she was always having connections with the audience.
Luke: Yeah, that’s the thing.Beth is not shy onstage, we all aren’t in a way. I mean I start the set like in a mariachi hat and sunglasses and try to get a party started you know. If folks can get a laugh out of it then I am doing my job. You got to be able to laugh and make folks laugh, kind of helps draw folks in so they can let themselves go. Beth is amazing in terms of what she can do and does it looking so effortlessly.
Beth Arrives To Join In:
(At this point I give Luke my own thoughts on Beth especially vocally and the way she handled the tribute to Tina. We chatted a bit in general at this point. At which point we were joined by the lady herself)
CGCM: Welcome, good to meet you, Luke has been giving us some background about the band…
Beth: (looking at Luke) Just been talking about you saying you are the baddest influence in the band…(everybody laughing)
CGCM: We were just chatting about how terrific your tribute to Tina was…
Beth’s Take On Tina Turner And Tributes:
Beth: Well Tina has been a presence in my life, from when I was a child. She is one of the biggest legends that will ever be. I don’t think there will be another one like her (Beth starts laughing as someone in a dinosaur costume comes around the corner… it is Call Of The Wild). I think, you know as I am getting older we are losing people and I think we should honour them and their memory as much as we can. We even have some that are quite young like Tayor Hawkins. Whenever someone like that passes we do like to try and do a tribute.
CGCM: I explained to Luke how much I liked your voice and that I was impressed by the power before you did “Proud Mary” on your own. Afterward, I realized you were even better than first impressions. I was blown away.
The Lady LOVES To Sing:
Beth: Thank you. I am kind of known as a rock singer but I have sang all different types of music through my life, from Disney songs to classic musicals like “Singing In The Rain”. I sang in a big band doing jazz and stuff like that. I absolutely love soul and funk so that was quite a nice opportunity to sing something a bit more soulful for a change. It is quite nice to be able to show different aspects of my voice. Every now and then we get to do a cover which is always fun, singing something different. I can be a wild woman on the stage, doing the rock ‘n’ roll, but I just love to sing in general. If you get me drunk enough I could do some Whitney Houston (raucous laughter all round. Luke suggests they do a Disney cover. He suggests “Make A Man Out Of You” from Mulan which he sings the chorus of… Beth laughs and said “You’re definitely not singing it” resulting in more laughter) Beth continues: That is the thing, music is not just one genre, a good tune is a good tune, it doesn’t matter and I just love to sing!
CGCM: Did you sing even when you were a kid?
Beth: Always yup! There was always music in the house from even before I was born, my mum used to put headphones on the belly (pauses) Both my mum and dad sing…
Luke: Her mum and dad told me multiple times as a kid she was singing away, I wish they had some videos…
Beth: Honestly there is a picture at home where I have a Mickey Mouse karaoke machine at about 2 singing at everybody as my parents are sitting going “Not again” (laughs).
CGCM: So where do you come from?
Beth’s Background:
Beth: Originally from Blackburn but I moved down to Cardiff for university which is where I met this lot and we’ve been trucking for about 7 years now (Lukeinterjects “I have only been around 4 or 5 of them” to which Beth goes “Ah but you’re my favourite though” ( more laughs and”aaaahhhhs”going on).
(Luke tells Beth that we had been chatting influences and so Beth goes on to say…)
Beth: That’s the thing, it is hard to be original these days, all you can really do is take your influences, put them in a melting pot, and hope that what comes out is you.
CGCM: Now I know about the last 4 or 5 years so could I ask about how you originally got started pre this gentleman?
Beth: Literally I moved to Cardiff to study music and I had been in a couple of bands before. When I was a teenager I had some discouraging teachers telling me that being a professional musician is very hard and you probably won’t be able to do it, so I kind of went off and did some other stuff, but I went back to uni to study music as it was the only thing I wanted to do. There is a rock bar in Cardiff called Fuel and one of our ex-guitar players got chatting with me and we thought there was nobody playing in a hard rock band at the time so we should do that. Sam our drummer who is still in the band and he was this guy’s best friend (Beth did say the guy’s name but I can’t make it out on the audio so apologies) and then we got someone in temporary on the bass but didn’t end up temporary. Straight off the bat, we ended up doing a couple of tours with Marco Mendoza from The Dead Daisies, TedNugent, Whitesnake, and all that kind of stuff. We’ve been very lucky in that we have had a lot of people support us and we got some amazing opportunities to open for some absolute legends like Ricky Warwick and Damon Johnson, we actually got to open for Y&T which was insane (Luke chimes in in background with “that was awesome in the Tramshed in Cardiff”)
(I explain that the longest show I ever saw from them was in Edinburgh as Dave Meniketti loved the venue so much saying there was nothing like it in the US. Luke proceeded to say what really lovely blokes they are)
Doing The Kiss Cruise:
Beth: Shortly after that we won a competition to play the Kiss Cruise in 2018 and that was unbelievable. Got to fly to Miami and play with Kiss. Was amazing who we saw and met (they start sharing/swapping names and stories…) Bruce Kulick // Ace Frehley // Vintage Trouble // The New Roses …
Luke: I will tell you something, I don’t know what they put in the water in Canada but they all seem to be so fucking tall. I met Todd and Brent (from Slash‘sband) and they are about 7 feet tall.
Wonderful People:
Beth: We got to meet some wonderful people, we are very blessed that we have been able to do the things we have. It is all because of people who support us. Without them, we would be absolutely nothing…
Luke: We wouldn’t be where we are. I am eternally grateful because I came into the band when the band was already growing regardless. I felt I had quite a weight on my shoulders as I had to uphold and maintain everything going forward so I had to, and I still have to make sure I am on my A game going forward. I know I am not the original guitarist… (Beth interjects with “but he’s my favourite. She then tells me of a guitarist she fired for saying female musicians only get where they are due to being hot. She said to him “Really? Did you really just say that to me? You are gone”. He was fired after 1 (ONE) gig)
(Once again the convo went into other territory and that was about Samantha Fish who Beth described as “Amazing“. Sam recently said she gets annoyed being called a “female guitarist”. No bloke gets “male guitarist”. She said she was just a “fucking guitarist”. The conversation ended up on the supposed genre of “female-fronted bands”. Beth said “I don’t personally get offended when it is said, but it isn’t what I would call a genuine genre” Beth did say she loves to see now young girls playing music because of seeing that it can be done. We then chatted about some awesome female drummers.)
Luke Wants A Guitar Battle:
Luke: There are guitarists like Nita Strauss, Orianthi, and Lizzy Hale who are for me are simply guitarists doing the same job I am trying to do… (Beth quips “They would smoke you”. She starts laughing. Luke goes “Oh wow, damn” and joins in laughing). I will do a guitar battle with Orianthi any day. // Beth: Oh you know she is going to win // Luke: I don’t care I will be on the same stage as her (Beth actually said “on the same stage as her” at the same time. It was almost said in harmony). At this point, we chatted about Orianthi with Beth telling us how lovely she is and Luke describing her as the dog’s bollocks”
Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Freedom:
Beth: For me rock ‘n’ roll is freedom. I say this at every gig when I get folks to sing along that I don’t split an audience down the middle. Rock ‘n’ roll is a safe place, it doesn’t matter who you are, who you love, your race, what you look like, your gender, it doesn’t matter, everybody should be welcome. I mean rock and metal is often for those people who have felt outcast or felt different, I know many friends like that, who found their solace in music. It’s an absolutely beautiful thing.
CGCM: Just a thought before I let you go, as you write all the lyrics and I am not that acquainted with your songs sadly, I apologize, I will be making amends for that I promise, can I ask how much of yourself is in the lyrics and how much is general things?
Emotionally Vomiting Lyrics:
Beth: So literally on our last album it is my heart being ripped out of my chest. I write what, 95% of the songs myself (Luke comes in firstly to go “how much” whilst laughing, he then said that as he remarked earlier Beth just brings in “banger after banger” so why stop her from doing the job). So yeah, I write quite a lot, songs just come out of me, they just happen. Our first album was kind of what we thought people wanted to hear, the second was a bit more raw and the latest is just me emotionally vomiting onto record! On the third, there are subjects about domestic violence, suicide… (I mentioned at this point I had heard that she had experienced some horrendous trauma but I didn’t as such want to bring it up as she might be sick of talking about it, reliving things and I didn’t want her to feel in any way uncomfortable)… so yeah I am a DV (domestic violence) survivor and I am kicking arse trying to show people that the story doesn’t have to go a bad way. I do everything in spite of that. If we can help somebody, even if it’s a sad song that helps them heal or a good song that helps them forget, that’s all you can ask for, making a connection with people.
CGCM: Sorry I am not sure how to ask and if it is appropriate or seems trite, I don’t mean it like that, but have you had feedback at all from other survivors of domestic abuse?
Helping Others:
Beth: So many, oh so many. Hundreds of people. That’s why I did it really, spoke about it, and put it on an album that it might help other people. Make sure they know that they are not alone, no one is alone.
Luke: That is why I am proud to have this lady next to me (Beth tells him to stop as “you’re gonna make me cry, don’t“) because she is still kicking and breathing (Beth comes in again going “I need some beer, I am not emotionally prepared for all that“… at which point the 2 of them start laughing like mad).
CGCM: If I may say from what I have read you are one very brave person as well as a kick-arse singer….
Beth: (laughing) I try me best
CGCM: You have succeeded in my opinion
Beth: Thank you. I mean music is about trying to help people when you think about it. When you listen to music and it’s the soundtrack of your life, you know exactly where you were when you heard a song. You can listen to that when going through a real rough time. Music saves so it does.
Luke: It should have an emotional connection and that’s what we strive for.
What They Love:
Beth: It is the reason why we do it, we love it, we love meeting people, I wish we played every night
Luke: I could happily play 9 months of the year onstage. I would tell the others to get on the stage, get with it
Beth: Yup, I would do that in a heartbeat.
(There is a slight tangent chat about the music business at this point leading Beth to say)
Do It Together (DIT):
Beth: We are fully independent, we don’t have a label, we crowdfund. I don’t like calling us a “DIY band” as that is do it yourself and we didn’t do it ourselves, it was due to our community. It is more do it together… DIT… (Luke: nice should we trademark that?” laughs).
CGCM: I like that. I think I should use that as a header in the piece… (I did). You had such a good crowd at such an early part of the day, perhaps the emotional thing of what you do…
It’s A Communal Thing:
Beth: I will tell you, nearly every single person in that crowd I know because we talk to people and we foster relationships and make friends, it isn’t fans and band, its a community. Our band has been a slow burn and because of that we have gone to every single person individually and tried to make an impression and at an event like this you can see all those people together. I think we’ve done a good thing. I mean without people you aren’t there. Knowing all those people, knowing their stories, hearing about their kids that is a big part of what we do. (Luke: hopefully some of their kids might join in as they get older, that would be cool shit. We do have some kids in the crowd singing along already. That is crazy“) Beth continues: It is a communal thing. Having folks from 60 down to 5 coming along. I might be getting a bit deep here, (pauses) I mean I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for music and the least I can do is share my joy of it back to everyone else. Every time I am onstage folks say that I look like I am having a good time and I am, I am having the time of my life. This is my greatest joy.
Luke: I am definitely similar in that music means so much to me.
Beth: If we can give people fun whilst having fun that is great.
Final Thanks And Comments:
About this point, we wrapped things up. Both Luke and Beth could not only have been more generous with their time but also their honesty. Throughout the interview what I kept hearing (and feeling) was the joy of being able to do what they do, their appreciation of those who support them along with other musicians who they raved about (they really are music heads). Knowing a bit of Beth‘s story and listening to her was amazing personally. When she said “I mean I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for music and the least I can do is share my joy of it back to everyone else” she so obviously meant it. I mentioned brave earlier, but her laugh is infectious and she is so full of life and wants others to get the same opportunities. Luke had a similar vibe, but I know he would point to Beth and say similar to my last comments. A huge thanks to them both. I really appreciated the chance to chat with them both.
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Check out my other reviews and interviews here. Tom
