The reason why Elliot had given us the Freedom album by Neil Young was that he thought it was something we might find
interesting as a band. Elliot was trying to encourage us to find our feet in the 90s & find a new sound for the band, and
he thought giving us the Freedom album was something that might be a good positive influence. I think it was, it made us
think that we should strip away all the things that we'd learnt in the 80's, all those over production things. We knew that
we needed to address that and strip everything away back to the basics and that was really the acorn that began the Raw
album.
Also at the same time when we'd come from the Change album, there'd been a lot of the things that we've just described that
happened with my sister & it put a lot of strain on the band. A lot of things were happening, our lives were all changing.
Dave & Nige were going to live in America, they'd met and were marrying into American families & that had a big effect on
how we worked as a band. When we'd finished the Change tour with the Pontins concert that was the benefit for the Towyn
floods, initially we decided amongst ourselves that we'd take a bit of a break, recharge our batteries, maybe take in some
new influences & check out some of the new music. Sharpy went over to America and started digging into all the things he
was into and playing some shows; he put a little band together with The Barnstormers, started playing some gigs and hooked
up with GE Smith, the guitarist from Dylan's band, and played a show with him for WNEW the radio station.
I was being at home, and I must admit during the time when we were doing the Change album, when we were doing the British
tour, after we'd played with Neil Young in the December, I think really I'd lost a lot of my drive for the band at the
time. I felt my role in the band was to keep everyone together & do all the cheerleader bit, but when all that happened in
my personal life, my focus wasn't there. I sort of started to disassociate myself from the band. I was coming home a lot
after shows because I wanted to be with my family, and I wasn't staying at the shows and hanging out after the shows like
we'd always done, and I think that led to a bit of a gap opening up. With all these other things going on, it was a lot for
us all to deal with and we all felt that we needed a break from each other because we'd spent the best part of ten to
fourteen years travelling in a tour bus and making records in studios and rehearsal rooms, and it just felt like we needed
a bit of a breather.
So we took some time out, but when I actually got home and we all sat down to do our own thing, we all started to miss each
other a bit really. I certainly felt weird just sitting there not having a band to be a part of. And Miles Copeland who ran
IRS could see that we were struggling with the way we were set up at that time. He was fearful of a long layoff between
Change and what would ultimately become Raw. He wanted to put out the Standards album and record a couple of new songs to
go with it. He phoned Eddie and I and asked us if we'd got any songs. At that point, we'd demoed so many songs for Change
that we hadn't really sat down & written that many songs.
So Eddie & I got together at my place and we started working on a song called The Road. We actually really got into it and
did a demo in the house with a couple of acoustic guitars & a bit of drum machine. And we started to really get into it and
we started writing a load more. We started writing Raw, Eddie brought that in as a title and I thought that would be a good
concept for the album, and we started to get excited.
Dave had come back from America, so I went round to see Dave & Nige and said "look, let's make an album. We're going to go
in and make these tracks for Miles, but let's go in and do what we've always wanted to do. Let's write the songs together,
let's share it all out equally the way we work together creatively, let's go and make a stripped down, back to basics, raw,
aggressive Alarm album." And that was the basis that we went to make what became the Raw album. And this is the title song
from the album, and it goes something, I hope, like this.
Raw
So Eddie and I were working on this track called The Road, so I went up to see Sharpy & Nige and I played Dave The Road and
he really dug the track big time. While he'd been in America, he'd written some songs as well. I remember we sat outside
Nige's place (Nige had place up in Trefnant, south in the valley there) and we sat outside Nige's house and he played me
"God Save Somebody", and I thought it was a brilliant track, great lyrics and I'm going to have a go at a version of it a
little later on. We went in to record the song The Road and it was going to be a single, that was the plan as Miles
Copeland really loved the demo as well.
So when we went to record it, I always felt it was a big part of the Raw album. It was included on Standards because we
felt we wanted something exclusive on Standards, 'cause we knew everyone was going to buy it because it had all the
greatest hits on it and people would want it for their collection & be supportive of the band, so we wanted something brand
new on there. So we left The Road out of the Raw album. I think in hindsight, we should have put it on there because I
think it encapsulated the spirit of what the album was all about. There was a hole in the album because we left it out.
The version which was on Standards was actually mixed by Mick Glossop who did The Stand for us. When Miles heard our mix of
it, he felt it didn't fit in with all the other songs on Standards, it didn't sound the same alongside Absolute Reality,
Spirit, The Stand and all that. So he got Mick Glossop in and Mick did a remix and we all liked it and it went on the
album. We forgot all about the version that we'd mixed ourselves until I was putting the remastered version of Raw together
& I came across the version that we'd actually mixed ourselves in Amazon Studios in Liverpool. And I'll tell you what, it
sounds ten times better than Mick Glossop's version, I don't know what we must have been thinking. Anyway, I've included
the version that we mixed ourselves on the Raw album and it does sound a bit killer, and it's slightly longer because we
edited some of it out on his version. Anyway here it goes, this is a song called "The Road".
The Road
It went something like that anyway.
A line in that song sums up the spirit - "The Road opens up in front of my eyes, the only limitation is in my mind" - that
was the kind of spirit we went in to make the Raw album with. When the album came out, it actually had some of the best
reviews and I think it is a misrepresented record in the Alarm catalogue. Now, when you get the new version, I think it has
a much better running order & makes a lot more sense and I think you'll get into it.
Part of the thing we were doing with the record was we wanted to make it quite fast. We actually recorded the album in
about three weeks, mixed it ourselves, produced it ourselves and it was a fun time making the record in Liverpool.
This is a song that we actually wrote for the Eye Of The Hurricane record. It started out that long ago and we actually
recorded a version that we half completed. I actually hoped to find a version more completed, but there isn't one
unfortunately to record on the re-issues. We did demo the song for Change as well, but it didn't make that album either. It
was a song we were always committed to as a band, and we were glad we were able to cut it for the Raw record and it's one
of the better songs on the record. It's a song called "The Wind Blows Away My Words".
The Wind Blows Away My Words
This is a song that Dave brought into the Raw sessions and it's a song that I first heard probably just a couple of miles
away from this building. It was a beautiful simmers day & Sharpy played it to us out in the country lanes there. It's a
song called "God Save Somebody"
God Save Somebody