Backstory
I first came across the 3 piece outfit Blue Nation at a festival in Scotland where they (for me anyway) stole the weekend. Having spoken with the guys and their manager later in the evening in the bar and explained that I was a contributor to a website called CGCMand I wondered if I could perhaps do some form of interview as I wanted to tell our readers about them.
Their style as well as their music is heavily influenced by late 60s and early 70s rock music (but sounding fresh and new) along with their charm and witty stage presence. Yes, I really liked what I had heard. Luckily before I organised an online session I found out that I was able to go to the SOS Fest and they would be there. A few messages went back and forth and the guys showed they were more than happy to give us some time for a good chinwag.
The interview (a little like their stage show) goes from funny and irreverent to serious and thoughtful. The band are big supporter of The Samaritans and the work they do in helping those in distress. There are good reasons for this passion as the interview will highlight. One of the messages they make (onstage and off) is to remind folks to speak to someone if they are struggling and for others to ask friends and family if they are OK, like “really OK”. I feel this is such an important message that I had to put it in the opening paragraph. Look after and support each other. The interview covers their background influences and much more. Let us start…
The Interview/Silliness Begins
CGCM: If I could start by asking you to tell our readers who you all are and what you all play?
Blue Nation: OK, my name is Luke and I play bass and sing a bit // My name is Neil and I sing, also a bit, and play guitar (laughter) // My name is Nick and I play the drums and sing a bit // (both Luke and Neil): and don’t sing at all //
There is then a discussion as to whether Nick is his real name…
Neil: Hello my name is James and I play keys (everybody laughing) // Luke: We probably shouldn’t tell HMRC ( the British tax people) but for tax evasion purposes his name is Nick. (By this point everyone is laughing like mad). // Luke: He is actually Spanish and is (puts on a terrible Spanish accent) Nicolas // Neil: He is Nico // They banter back and forth about who the drummer really is whilst giggling like school children! I try to bring some semblance of normality to the interview…
CGCM: You know I saw you recently and you were my band of the weekend (Neil says “thank you“) and I was keen to let the folks who read CGCMfind out all about you, so can I ask a bit about your history, how you formed and that kind of thing?
A Bit Of History
Neil: Luke and I met 5 years ago and then we were looking for drummers for ages. We went through 2 or 3 and eventually found one who didn’t hate the 2 of us (laughter from myself and the rest of the band) which was good. It just went from there really. We have all been in bands for years.
Blue Nation as a band have only come into its own, like what you saw the other week, probably in the last 2 years I would say. It’s gone through changes but we have got to where we are by focussing on where we want to go and how we want to get there. So it is really the last 2 years seriously, before that we were just pissing about with other musicians.
CGCM: (Looking at Nick) So when did you join?
Drummers Here, Drummers There
Nick: So I kind of fill in for Ollie (studio drummer) as he is a very busy man… (he looks towards Neil) I will let you explain // Neil: Ollie plays with a band called Saving Grace and the lead singer in that band is Robert Plant, so he goes around the world with Robert Plant and we kind of have to let him (laughs), it would be mean if we didn’t (laughs), so Nick very graciously, well we have known Nick for years, he just comes in, slots in and plays it perfectly.
Ollie actually says that Nick is a better drummer than him (Nick laughs at that… and Neil goes “yeah, I know” laughing) and asks why we keep him (Ollie that is). We always tell him “it’s because you know Robert Plant” (everybody laughs). //
Luke: It’s the only thing he has got over Nick. (more laughter) // Neil: Ollie was in Blue Nation in an earlier version about 15 years ago. He went away and did his own things and when he came back we were looking for a drummer and Luke said we should just go and ask Ollie. We asked he said yes but he might only be able to do about one gig a year. So we then asked Nick if he was free to do shows and he was. So it works perfectly. They are both part of Blue Nation. // Nick: Thats a long answer for Ollie‘s in a bigger band. (everyone cracks up and agree).
Everyone Gets To Join The Band
Luke: We like to make everyone a member of Blue Nation // Neil: Including the audience // Luke: It is like John Cage and his 4 minute 33 second of silence, it is the audience that fills the silence with noise and the audience are part of the performance. When you come to one of our shows you are part of the gig.
CGCM: You certainly work the crowds, getting them moving and joining in
Luke: The whole thing about it is, we just decided to be ourselves onstage, you don’t get an act, we’re not arseholes (Neil: depends who you speak too… laughs). What you see is what you get. We are passionate empathetic boys off and on stage.
CGCM: Perhaps I could ask to help folks get an idea of your music what some of your influences are?
The Many Influences Of The Band:
Luke: Well my influences are, em, well I started off listening to Cream, The Who, and Zeppelin alongside things like Pink Floyd and Zappa. Then I started to go a bit heavier becoming a massive metal fan. I love my deathcore and hardcore. Loads of stuff. I also play sitar and I love Ravi Shankar and The Beatles. So mainly 60s //
Neil: yeah mainly 60s here too, as mentioned Cream but also Hendrix, The Small Faces, The Byrds, The Animals… What really got me into the music scene was Ocean Colour Scene from Birmingham. I thought if they could do it from Birmingham then so could I do this too. The BritPop period, not so much Oasis, but stuff like Suede and Elastica, that kind of stuff.
Some Curveballs Influence Wise
Luke: The other day I had Spotify on in the car and I put it on shuffle. Roy Harper came on and the next track was Meshuggah so yeah, varied. There are absolutely loads of influences between us. // Neil: If a song’s good it doesn’t matter what it is. I still say to this day “Toxic” by Britney Spears is a banging tune. If another band came up with that or played it folks would say it is amazing. Just so many great songs. You’ve got a really eclectic mix (looks at Nick the drummer)
Nick: Yeah, like in my playlist I could never, or at least it is very hard to pinpoint a favourite. Talking of influences it comes a bit from everywhere. When I first really started listening to music I was very much into like emo rock but I got more into progressive bands like Dream Theater which made me start to look at musicians as individuals rather than just bands and I started exploring what the different guys did solo wise (Neil: Such a better answer than what I gave… laughs and follows up with … screw you Nick, Screw you Nick… laughing)
Stop Right Now
Nick: (tries to continue) I say that, but however in my spare time when I want to develop my measure I play to The Spice Girls … (sounds of disbelief and a very high pitched “REALLY? from Neil) because their metric is just like that (he drums on his own leg) all the time so you have to stay on the beat.
You can throw fills in wherever you want. I love all the different ways of playing and as I am messing around practicing so say half way through like “Stop“ (he starts singing it) by The Spice Girls (Neil says in the background “I like that one“) and halfway through suddenly hit a fast roll before going back to the steady beat (we get an exhibition along with suitable imaginary drumming noises which causes laughs all round. Members then start singing different Spice Girls songs suggesting which ones are “true bangers“).
There is loads of laughter going on with one of the band saying “how long we been going? Is it just 2 questions so far?” to a conversation about how all interviews turn into chaos and why they are a pain to interview.
CGCM: What is great is that folks reading this will be going “Spice Girls? What? (Neil says they will be going Blue WHO?? whilst everyone laughs). I love this kind of thing. You know there are folks who say things like “it isn’t heavy enough, or this enough or that”… (Neil: We don’t care). To me it is always is the music any good.
Mutual Love In For Dolly Parton
Neil: Absolutely. I don’t like the expression “guilty pleasure”. I don’t have any guilt about stuff I like. I mean Dolly Parton‘s “9 to 5” or “Jolene” are incredible songs. Until The White Stripes covered it everyone said it (Jolene) was a country song. It’s a bloody great song. I was never a fan of say Abba I just didn’t get them but they could write great songs. If you take time to read some of their lyrics they can be pretty deep. People like things in boxes. We don’t.
We then get chatting about Dolly doing a rock album and how great the 2 songs out so far are. Neil then surprises me with “Do you know she wrote “Jolene“ and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day?” He then goes “Can you imagine sitting there going “I’ve had a good day, written 2 songs” and both are massive hits? Incredible. “
Luke then brings up the song “If I Were A Carpenter” and explains he found out it was covered by Johnny Cash and his wife (June Carter). These guys really are music heads. Neil: One question and a five minute answer… (they all laugh) // Luke: The other day I ended up bringing up Karl Marx during an interview… // Neil: We try to stop him speaking (laughter).
Neil: We can talk our way into trouble, but we can also talk our way out of it!
CGCM: Now one of the things about seeing you guys live is that you are fun to watch, you are having a good time and bring the audience along. You are nearly always smiling and have some lovely self-deprecating humour going on. However, the converse is how serious you can be when you speak about the Samaritans. You even collect for them at gigs I see. In fact at one point when I saw you in Scotland you told folks to ignore buying merch and just give to the charity. It means a lot to you. Can I ask why and how it came about that you work for them or at least as a supporter of them.
Breaking The Stigma
Luke: The thing with music is that it transcends everything, I think everyone has a song they can put on that can cheer them up. When we write we want to write music that can help people, make them feel better. Music gives emotions. We between us have lost people to suicide and we have people around us that have also lost others to suicide.
There is still a stigma about it and the Samaritans are doing an amazing job saving lives every day, so if we can help with that, spread the word and also help to encourage boys and girls to talk about their mental health then thats what we need to do. OK we piss about onstage the whole time but that is the only serious point we want to get across during a show.
CGCM: You gave a figure onstage about how many suicides in a space of time…
Luke: Yeah, it is about every half hour in the UK a male between the age of 5 and 55 attempts suicide.
Neil: The thing is I hear Luke say that onstage, and I, I always have to stop and think especially about kids around 5. When I was 5 years old I didn’t know anything about the world as I was lucky and had a great upbringing, a lot of love, I mean imagine being 5 year old and knowing about and actually thinking about suicide. That is terrifying.
Personal Involvement
Luke: It is a true statistic. I have worked with young people for many years, and in the space of a year in a part of Birmingham two 11-year-old boys killed themselves. I work closely with them and it is happening. They think it is the only way out. We have to stop that. It has to stop.
CGCM: I think it has been a stupid thing for years when it comes to guys especially that you shouldn’t show emotion, shouldn’t cry, be the strong man which is crazy. Blokes have tear ducts too.
Luke: Yeah, it is bullshit, absolute bullshit. Boys can cry and get sad too. We need guys to know it is alright to cry. I mean the world has gone through a lot in the last few years, financial issues, health of course, and the state of the country today, but I won’t go into that… // Neil: (jumps in laughing) You have already mentioned Karl Marx folks can guess where you stand… // Luke: quotes Marx… // Neil: (laughing) now he is on party pledges… //
Many Struggling, No-One Talking
Neil: The thing is he is right you know. The thing is being in the band you have a microphone in front of your face and you have options, you can either be that aloof band that say nothing and try and be cool or you can send a message of hope and goodness to the world and if people understand you, get you and see that 3 lads from Birmingham can get on a stage and say stuff, maybe, just maybe they will go home and talk to their mates about it, or their dad, uncle, mum, sister, whoever if they are struggling in any way.
That stat, every time we come offstage someone comes up to us and says they have lost someone and are struggling. At Wildfire (the Scottish festival I first saw the guys at) there were 2 people in floods of tears, never met them, never knew them, we were hugging them, chatting with them. I look around and Luke is crying as a woman told him her story and I thought it was amazing as we are just 3 blokes from Birmingham saying things as we see them and it seems to connect with so many people.
The terrifying thing is that many people are struggling but no one is talking. That scares the shit out of me. We need to talk to each other, we are here for a very short time, we have to look after each other. Regardless of who you are and where you are, if everybody helped each other everything would be a lot, lot better. We seem to be doing a shit job as a human race at looking after each other. You know being in the lucky position of being in a band and having people sing your songs back at you, you have to realise the amount of power you have got and what influence you can have on people…
Stage
Luke: The stage is my favourite place to be in the world but it isn’t all about ego but rather trying to spread a message and to hopefully help people. We regret that we couldn’t help the people we have lost, we so much regret that, so we talk about the Samaritans to hopefully help other people. When I think about those people now I just wish they had reached out or that I had reached out to them. Don’t want this for other people.
CGCM: We don’t ask people “are you OK” enough, or at least it is never taken as a serious question most times.
Neil: I have a rule of 3. Whenever I ask a mate if they are alright, their first reaction is “yeah I’m fine”. I then ask again and they say they are OK. I then go “no,no,no, I am asking if you are actually OK?”. On the third time it is when sometimes they will open up and let me know something is a problem. It takes me 3 times normally to get folks, my best mates to open up.
Of course, being prepared for an answer of perhaps “yeah I could do with a chat”. It seems our natural defence as human beings to go “everything is fine”, to be like a swan, paddling like hell under the water but looking so graceful up top. If you are struggling you should say so. If the folks around don’t help you then they aren’t truly your friends. Get rid of them. Move on. Find other friends who will help. If you can’t do that then definitely phone the Samaritans. That is what they are there for. We have raised something like two grand for them which is about 380 calls, all paid for. £5 pays for one call (roughly). To us, if we get fans to put about a fiver in the bucket rather than merch, or even another pint then we have paid for someone to call.
Luke: And remember the Samaritans are completely impartial. They are great at what they do. They are better trained for what they do than most.
Mental health
We then discuss in general the problems of lack of mental health assistance in the UK and what should be done about it. We also chatted about our own personal moments of stress and how we were lucky to be able to chat with friends or family. One of the things I took from my time with the guys is just how much they care and want to help others. This is a massive part of what they do and what they are about.
We spent as much time on discussing mental health as we did the band and their music. Despite the heavier nature of some of the chat there were plenty of light hearted moments and the guys have such great interaction and obviously are great friends. Of course this is a music site here but there is room for serious discussion outside of music where it is fitting.
The guys are an excellent band with Neil being a terrific singer with quite the range and a ton of soul. I will post links to their socials below so please check them out if you haven’t heard the music. Please also note links to the Samaritans. If anyone is struggling please speak to someone and if you are not in a position to do so contact them.
A huge thanks to the guys for their time and on behalf of CGCMwe wish them all the very best for the future. They have a good number of tour dates to come including a series of shows with Laurence Jones. Check out all dates HERE
Official Website // Official Facebook // Official Merchandise
The Samaritans Contact Page // UK Free Number … 116 123
