Following my recent review of Galahad’s superb new album, The Last Great Adventurer, I made contact with founder member and vocalist, Stuart Nicholson. Below you will see a wonderfully comprehensive discussion between us regarding the new album, previous works, and some incredibly personal reflections.

Included within the interview, as ever on this site, are links to music by the band. Please do buy the music if you like what you hear. It is only our support which guarantees that the artists we love can continue to produce the music which moves us. As Stu makes clear below, there is a world of difference between streaming and owning for the artist. This website fully supports Bandcamp and other outlets making music available to own at a fair price and support for the artist. The Bandcamp link is at https://galahad1.bandcamp.com/ and the band’s website is at https://www.galahadonline.com/

Stu, firstly thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. A new album out in 2022 and critically very well received. You must be a happy chap!

We really are. Generally, it’s been very well received, more so in fact than we thought would be the case. There seems to have been more of a buzz around this album than for the last few which is very encouraging. Plus, we seem to have gained quite a few new fans which is always a bonus. Obviously, there are a few negative comments here and there, but the vast majority are positive for which we are very grateful.

 I will concentrate on the new album first before a few questions dealing with the history. The notes accompanying the album talk of a long gestation with much of the work pre-dating 2018’s Seas of Change. So, talk us through in detail the process and execution of The Last Great Adventurer.

Dean and I always have quite a large bank of music and songs in reserve and ready to work on and develop as we are always writing and coming up with new ideas, several of which made the cut on TLGA which had been around for a few years.

However, when we had the idea for ‘Seas of Change’ we felt that as the subject matter was very much of that time thus, we had to get that album finished and out as it was so relevant to the moment, a kind of ‘zeitgeist’ album I suppose. Hence, working the other songs was put on the back burner until after SOC had been released, promoted etc.

After SOC was released we carried on finishing off several of other the other tracks we had been working on and then got together with the rest of the guys at various times in 2019 to rehearse and finish off these songs before going to Thin Ice Studios in December 2019 where we recorded Spencer’s drums with Karl Groom to the almost finished backing tracks.  Then at the beginning of 2020 everything changed because of Covid.

Because we were not allowed to meet up in person and the studio had effectively closed we recorded all the remaining parts at our various home studios including the vocals which I recorded and engineered at home which was quite a scary process as I’d never attempted it before and had no producer/engineer to guide me or bounce ideas off, so I basically recorded lots and lots of vocals, some of which I’m sure were quite dubious in quality, but it did give me an opportunity to experiment a little with different ideas as far as melodies and lyrics were concerned as there was no clock watching going on as we weren’t in the studio, thus it was positive from that point of view.

All our various parts were then sent to Karl who basically spent some time tweaking and mixing it all together. He did an amazing job to be honest in bringing it all together and making it sound so good and consistent from a sonic perspective.

The relationship between an intelligent band and the engineer/producer has always been critical, and the new album was again mixed and mastered by Karl Groom. Please provide my readers with your perspective on this relationship and how it manifests itself in the “final product” put out (in this regard, I discuss below Sleepers, and I have Karl’s 2015 remaster of this, and it sounds fantastic).

As I alluded to above Karl is an amazing studio engineer and as such has been an integral part of the album making process ever since we started working on our ‘Empires Never Last’ album back in 2005.

He is the first studio engineer/producer we have ever worked with who has a complete understanding and empathy with what, we as a band, are trying to achieve with our music and songs on albums. It helps that he is also an incredibly good and versatile musician himself including being a very talented guitarist and is also a great listener which is crucial for us to end up with exactly what we are hoping for from a studio recording.

Mark Spencer is a new addition on bass, a Twelfth Night alumni. Please give us a background as to how Mark replaced Tim Ashton and what Mark brings to the table which is different to his predecessor.

To be honest it’s been a bit of bass ’merry-go-round’ in the last few years. Tim actually re-joined the band a few years ago after his initial stint with us in the late 80s/early 90s. However, as with at that time when he left to go abroad and work in Japan, in 2018 he decided he wanted to spend the majority of his time living abroad in the Philippines which wasn’t really conducive or practical as the band had just finished an album and had touring plans to promote the album in the UK and Europe, plus of course we would have to rehearse. So, a difficult decision was made that Tim being in the band just wasn’t tenable.

We had known Mark for years and he’d been in the band before and still had a great relationship with him, so it made sense to ask him if he’d like to come back into Galahad fold which he did with open arms. Both are great bass players in their own way, but this was more about geography and at least Mark lives in the UK!

I would like to talk about Neil Pepper and Another Life Not Lived. The song was originally written by the pair of you way back in 2009. I am listening to it again as I set out these questions, and the music is vital, the lyrics when they talk about the pain seeming too much to bear struck me as being relevant to Neil’s illness and eventual passing, but I gather that this is not the case, instead the song being written for an impossibly sad situation of a young man meeting his illness with courage. With your permission, I would wish to share the lyrics below, and ask you to provide us with the backdrop to this exceptional piece of music.

It was ironic in a way that we wrote ‘Another Life Not Lived’ at a time when Neil himself was seriously ill although the song is about the sixteen-year-old nephew of my closest friend who also passed away from cancer. But it was not lost on me at all when we were writing the song which I found quite difficult knowing that Neil was also seriously ill with a similar condition.

Lyrically, I was just trying to imagine, not necessarily totally successfully, what it must have felt like as a parent of a young person who had not had the chance to really live or reach their potential in life and who knew that they would not survive into adulthood. Just listening to the details of such a horrendous situation was utterly heart wrenching and knowing that the emotional scars are never really going to heal it was almost incomprehensible. 

The execution on the album of the song is modern, vital, and crackling with emotion. Of course, the recording must have brought back painful memories, but in addition pride in a much-missed friend and colleague with a cathartic statement that he will always be a part of the band and never fade away. That release of grief through loving memories and particularly of life contributions is so important, is it not?

Agreed. I personally find writing very cathartic, none more so than when dealing with and trying to articulate emotions relating to difficult times and in-particular the loss of loved ones and very close friends. Neil is and will always be a massive part of Galahad history and is still thought of by us all the time and will be missed for as long as we are still here.

And as hope melts away
You try to raise yourself to face another day
Though the pain seems too much to bear
And nothing at this point in your life seems fair
And it’s not enough, it’s just enough to know
That so many family and friends really care
It means nothing at all, nothing at all
When the centre of your world has been taken away so mercilessly

Another life not lived, a young life unfulfilled
A life full of promise and hope, on the cusp of living
Another life not lived, a young life unfulfilled
A life full of promise and hope, cut short by a cruel twist of fate

And finally, reality takes a cold grip
This is not a phase, there’s no escape
And you question what is there worth living for
Nothing makes sense to you anymore
And you question, how are you going to carrying on
Surviving your one and only son……

And as you try to picture all the good times that you shared
A show reel of memories playing through your head
You crack a smile but it’s not real
you cannot hide the devastation
The devastation that you feel deep inside, so deep inside…

Another life not lived, a young life unfulfilled
A life full of promise and hope, on the cusp of living
Another life not lived, a young life unfulfilled
A life full of promise and hope, cut short by a cruel twist of fate
Another life not lived, a young life unfulfilled
A life full of promise and hope, on the cusp of living, living….

But deep in our hearts you will forever be
You will forever remain, never fade away
You will always be a part of us
You will never fade away

Alive. Not merely in the life sense, as important as that is, but as a functioning band some 37 years after forming, and the opening track exemplifies that so strongly, particularly how the fans provide the energy to keep it all going. The intensity on this track is very noticeable, and it strikes me that you are still enjoying this prog and rock nonsense. Correct?

Absolutely. I wanted to write a song that acknowledges and thanks all those who have supported the band and our endeavours and in so many ways over the years and play a massive part in inspiring us to keep going and writing new music and going out performing when possible. Although we generally write for ourselves, those who follow and accept what we do play a very big part in motivating us to keep it all moving forward. The energy and dynamic between a band and its fans are crucial to maintaining the interest and passion to keep going, playing and creating new material.

I do love the ‘prog nonsense’ as you say but it’s more about writing and being creative in general as I mostly don’t write with any musical boundaries in mind. I just love writing and recording songs and going through the whole process of watching and hearing ideas gradually morph into the finished item.

The actual genre isn’t so important as you’ve probably noticed we tend to incorporate many more different influences into our music these days which I find very exciting as we never know at the beginning of the writing process how the song will turn out. We always have an idea but invariably things change and sometimes take on a life of their own in the most unexpected way, ‘Seas of Change’ being a prime example of this.

I think we’ve come a long since our so called ‘Neo-prog’ early days plus, of course, the band in 2022 is a completely different beast to that of the very young enthusiastic but quite generic Galahad of the late 1980s.

I think it’s natural to change, evolve and progress which I’m sure we have over the years although there will always be nods to our original influences in our songs as that’s where we came from in the first place, plus it’s also quite amusing to see if people spot the references, some more obvious than others.

Omega Lights is the second track which has a radio edit. I am interested in how an act such as Galahad in 2022 can publicise its music, especially single edits, to the wider media beyond the “usual suspects” such as my website and online specialist internet radio stations. The landscape for music has changed so radically since you started off, has it not?

It’s not easy to break out from our niche market (within whose support we are very thankful for) into the wider commercial mainstream, almost impossible in fact especially for bunch of seasoned old prog rockers like us who aren’t so easy on the eye and never have been to be honest, lol!

The two single edits were produced purely to try and gain airplay on a few of the more commercial rock radio stations most of whom won’t play anything over four or five minutes long!

The landscape has changed massively over the years. In some ways it’s better and some ways it isn’t.

It’s very easy and much cheaper to record these days with so much relatively cheap software and equipment out there but, of course, you still must have good ideas and have access to expertise in relation to engineering/arranging/mixing the songs etc. It’s also much easier to get music out into the aether, as it were. The problem though is that there is so much out there these days and the difficult bit is getting heard above all the noise. Luckily, we have built up a loyal following over the years many of whom have followed us from the early days, thus our demographic is generally a bit older and luckily for us most are still interested in buying physical albums i.e. CDs or even vinyl these days which has made a bit of a comeback in terms of popularity, although still quite niche in terms of overall sales. Although, we still rely heavily on downloads and streaming which pays a pittance.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be a new band starting now as I just don’t know how they are able to fund themselves as most younger fans which would be their demographic don’t want to pay for music and at best will just stream which will provide such small financial returns. I guess the only way to make a decent go of it would be to build up a large live following but that obviously comes with its own costs.

I must say that in a world where there is justice, this paeon to your locality would be a monster smash. Tell us about home, please, and how it continues to inspire you.

I love the area in which I live in Dorset near the coast and it, along with many other things, does massively inspire my writing on a regular basis.

Omega Lights is inspired by a stretch of land/beach called Sandbanks, near the entrance to Poole Harbour which I have visited many, many times over the years either alone or with friends and Lin, my wife, and which is one of my favourite locations in the area especially on a warm summer’s eve plus it’s a bonus that it is so local.

I gather that Lee Abrahams first recorded with the band in 1999 on Following Ghosts, before joining properly for Empires Never Last in 2007 and then re-joining for Seas of Change. I think that his solo albums are wonderful, and he is one of my favourite musicians. So, please tell us of the Nicholson/Galahad and Abrahams history and what you feel he brings to the table.

Lee wasn’t involved with Following Ghosts. He joined the band whilst we were recording ‘Empires Never Last’ at Thin Ice. He answered an advert which we had put out as we needed a bass player (again!) Lee answered, we met in a local pub for a chat, he seemed like a really good guy plus he also knew Sarah Bolter who appears occasionally on our releases and that was that.

He learned all the parts in double quick time which was so refreshing to have someone join with such enthusiasm which was backed up with putting the work in too, which isn’t always the case as we’ve found over the years.

In my album review, I described Blood, Skin, and Bones as a track about the heart of human life, with all its beauty and desperate negativity, something familiar to all who take more than a passing interest in current affairs. I have always taken meanings from songs personally, and quite often been a million miles away from the original intent of the writer. I do not, in fact, regard this as a problem, as such, because I think that intelligent music can talk to so many different listeners in different ways, but I am interested in whether my interpretation is an accurate one and if you could expand on this please.

I think it’s good that songs can be interpreted in different ways and work on different levels. It all depends on how the words are written. Sometimes I’ll write in a very literal way, a good example of which is the title track but sometimes I’ll maybe dress the lyrics up in such a way that the meaning isn’t immediately obvious.  I think BSB is a kind of mixture of the above.

I’m just trying to say that underneath all our apparent physical differences we are actually all the same, made up of the same ‘ingredients’ as it were, but… also encompassing all our various idiosyncrasies, issues, different views and opinions which, of course, do make us different from a psychological angle. But, perhaps we should all take a step back and show a little more understanding of each other and not be so quick to judge and pillory, idealistic I know but perfectly easy to do by some of us but not others it would seem, especially if you’re a power crazed, narcissistic megalomaniac….mentioning no names of course! 😉  

I am fascinated by Enclosure 1764, and after listening to the track did some further research. The original spelling of the various laws was “Inclosure”. What started off as an innovative idea, certainly driving progress in agricultural techniques, became a source of abuse of poor tenants (who had fought hard to throw off the yoke of feudalism in a previous era) by rich and greedy landowners, often leading to displacement of tenants from rural villages and towns to larger conurbations to find work, the effects of which are still felt in many rural communities to this day. Plus ca change?

I’d say human nature has not changed at all in hundreds of years. The same issues, problems, prejudices such as greed and lust for power, control etc. exist today as they always have done albeit dressed up in a facade of fragile modernity.

When I first heard Dean’s music for this song, I felt straight away that it needed something more than a straight-ahead Stu vocal and lyric, as to me it seemed so cinematic and widescreen. I felt that it needed something more poetic somehow so I started looking for poems that might fit by some of my favourite poets such as Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and the Dorset Poet William Barnes but nothing really clicked and then I spotted ‘The Goose and the Common’ online purely by chance and it all just seemed to fit into place, the words, the music, the atmosphere etc. It was a very old poem but somehow still seemed so relevant, an allegory for ‘all times’ if you like. So, I recorded several versions including spoken- word, sung plus combinations until we ended up with what made it on to the final version which I think works so well, plus it’s something a little different for Galahad.

Again, in my review, I described Normality of Distance as “a track written about someone (female) known to the writers, talking as it does about beneath the surface of a happy person, a victim of bullying lies, and once the paper-thin veneer is removed, the sadness and tears are exposed.” Tell us the story from the writers’ perspective, please.

You’ve actually summed it up very well.  Initially this was difficult to write as I know both protagonists but the ‘victim’, if you like, is actually a very close friend of mine who was being bullied and effectively ‘coerced’ in to living her life the way she really didn’t want to, a situation which I think is far more common than people realise. The title refers to the fact that, from a distance, it really wasn’t apparent, well not at first until it gradually became so obvious as to what was happening. Needless to say, she eventually managed to gather the strength to deal with the situation and is now in a far better place.

Okay, the title track, a deeply personal tribute to your father, Bob. To quote from the track:

“Everywhere you went, you made your presence felt. An unsung English pioneer out in the cold in the heat of British industry”. Tell us about Dad, please Stu, and a whole lot of detail as you wish to give will, I know, be very much welcomed by my readers.

Dad had lived a full and diverse life. He started his working life as an apprentice with the London Electricity Board and was involved updating the city’s electricity supply in the years after WW2 as much of the energy infrastructure had been destroyed plus much of it also still had to be converted from gas to electricity. It was a dangerous job and several of his colleagues were sadly electrocuted.

He spent his national service in the RAF in Cyprus and was involved repairing and maintaining aircraft as his commanding officers realised that he was a very practical guy being well versed in electrical and mechanical engineering.

He also enjoyed the outdoors and climbing and joined the London Mountaineering Club, where he became acquainted with Eric Shipton, a famous English mountaineer in the mid-20th century. Hence the picture of my father on the cover on the album. He took part in several expeditions to the European Alps and was even offered a place on an expedition to the Himalayas but simply couldn’t afford it as, unlike many of his fellow wealthy ‘adventurers’, he was working class and had to stay at home to work and provide for his Mum and her sister after having lost his Dad, my Grandad who I never knew and who never really recovered after having ben gassed in WW1 in France at the last battle of the Marne, but at least he survived the war otherwise none of us would be here.

He also worked on numerous other large engineering projects including on the development of Concorde in the 1960s at Filton, near Bristol, where he was involved in developing the mechanism which enabled the nose to go up and down. He was also involved with the Rutherford laboratory near Oxford in relation to particle acceleration research, so a pretty clever guy back in his day.

At home he was always building, creating, or mending something. He built a 20-foot sailing boat from scratch and always did any building or electrical/heating work on the house himself. He built go-karts and skateboards for us kids in the 1970s and a large tree house at the bottom of the garden. He was just ridiculously practical unlike myself as I haven’t got a practical bone in my body. But then I guess we can all be creative in different ways.

The photograph on the album cover is of Bob climbing. Where, please?

The front cover photo is of my dad just above an ice flow climbing Gross Glockner, the highest mountain in Austria in the late 1950s.

 What comes across to me is the love a son feels for his father. My own Dad is 82 tomorrow (on the night I write this) and I feel a huge love for a man born in the heat of the siege of Malta and who has seen a massive amount of change in his life. In our minds, our fathers are always the last greats of their disappearing generation, and I believe that this track speaks so strongly to this basic human instinct and feeling in loving families. I adore this intelligent piece of music, especially when it talks of the impressive range of places witnessed. The heart of the song, though, is simply Dad and that gratitude, yes?

Yes, again very well summed up. The song is a definite tribute to Dad who I think was a bit of an unsung hero in many walks of life as he was generally very humble and quiet and just got on with things, was quietly determined and never took any accolades that I feel he deserved. Whereas many of his contemporaries, colleagues etc. often did purely because they shouted louder than anyone else but didn’t have an ounce of the humility that my dad had. I know I’m probably biased but it’s also very true.

I adore the jazz grooves created by Mark & Dean following the main vocal passage, interspersed with an altogether darker guitar riff created by Lee before we enter the smoky, classy jazz club, including at the close that unspeakably “disgraceful” act of lighting up for a smoke at the end (I gave up in March, and could still absolutely murder one!). I take it Dad was a live jazz (and smoking) fan?

Thank you. The Jazzier sections in TLGA were a conscious decision as my dad was a big trad jazz fan, especially of Gene Krupa who was a well renowned jazz drummer in the 30s and 40s thus I wanted to incorporate some of his influences in the song as part the homage. I’m not sure if he ever smoked in his younger days but that final section is more just a bit of fun and, hopefully, just helps to reinforce the ‘jazz club’ atmosphere. Although I did relent on saying ‘nice’, as in the Fast Show, right the end of the track as I think that may have been just a little too corny. 😉    

Before we go back in time, The Last Great Adventurer to these ears has the sound of a band who are looking forward, an act full of confidence, and secure pushing boundaries. Where do you see Galahad in the future, please?

We haven’t thought too much about the future other than the fact that we are already mixing another brand-new album (working title ‘The Long Goodbye’) now which we hope to release later in 2023. We also want to get back playing live shows again which has, obviously, been difficult in the last two or three years but as well as the Covid emergency, Spencer, our drummer, has had a  recurrence of his brain tumour (first diagnosed in 2006) for which he has had two rounds of chemotherapy in the last two years, the first didn’t work but the latest which incorporated a different mix of drugs seems to have worked so far, thus we had to cancel all our planned shows as there is no way he would well or strong enough to play these gigs.   He is still in recovery at the moment, but we hope to start rehearsing again in early 2023 and plan some more shows at last.

Okay, one of the disadvantages of a long career such as yours is that it allows interviewers such as I an opportunity to ask a pile of questions. So, let us go back to those heady days of the mid-1980’s. The UK second wave of progressive rock subsequently labelled as “neo-prog” (a label I feel has been abused over the years) had landed. We had Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night, and yourselves in Dorset, cradle, of course, of the mighty King Crimson. You started off doing some live shows and covers, I believe, and supporting some of the bands I have mentioned. When was it that you all decided to take musical life more “seriously”, as it were?

As you intimate above, we started just for fun playing in local pubs and clubs a mixture of covers and a few of our own songs. We didn’t really want to play covers, but most local venues insisted on it for us to play so we threw in a few prog standards plus a few ‘newer’ prog songs at the time by the likes of Marillion, Twelfth Night and Genesis etc.

In fact, we didn’t even know that there was a small ‘prog’ scene in the UK and Europe, albeit quite fractured as I’d heard of the likes of IQ, who were relatively local, and Pallas and Pendragon but hadn’t really equated them with any movement as such.

Then a friend showed me a few articles in Kerrang! and Sounds about these and other bands in the same or similar genre and we thought there’s obviously something in this so let’s try and organise a local show including some of these acts. So, we put on a three day ‘mini-festival’ of prog/rock music at the Regent Centre in Christchurch in November 1987 which included a few local bands but also Haze from Sheffield and Pendragon, whom we supported. It was the first time I’d met Nick Barrett and I think Clive Nolan had not long joined the band. It was great fun and we’ve kept in touch ever since plus, obviously, recording at Thin Ice Studios which was owned by Clive.

A few months later in March 1988 we played with IQ, also at the Regent Centre, who were promoting their new ‘Nomzamo’ album which was their first for a major label. Again, it was great show and we felt that we held our own at both these shows and the feedback was positive, so we decided to take it a little more seriously and branch out and look for shows further afield and write more material with a view to recording a complete album which we had never done before.

Unfortunately, not everyone was of the same opinion so the band went through a few changes and eventually we settled on a line up that would record our first mini album ‘In a Moment of Madness’ which featured the local Cerne Giant on the cover which we knew would help with publicity due to its ‘phallic’ nature!

We sold the cassettes at gigs along with copies of our first single ‘Dreaming From the Inside’ and managed to raise enough funds to go in to the studio again and record our first proper album which would be become ‘Nothing is Written’ which was some achievement for a bunch of youngsters, three of whom were still teenagers at the time, who had no backing/management or guidance apart from the encouragement of some of our parents.   We just got on with it and did it and what fun it was! 😊

Your 1991 debut, Nothing Is Written, is available on Bandcamp. I confess that listening to it tonight is the first time in many years. You got a fair bit of publicity via Tommy Vance (who remains my favourite ever DJ) on his Friday Rock Show. Did you send him demos, or did he pick you up via live work or another source? I seem to recall that much of this material had been floating about for a wee while before the formal recording?

I haven’t listened to it properly for years to be honest! The BBC Radio One Rock Show airplay was fantastic for us as it resulted in us getting publicity/reviews and small articles in various national music magazines that we had never had before. The most significant of which was Kerrang! who were at best lukewarm to us to be honest but at least it was exposure, and you have to remember that ‘Prog’ was still a bit of a dirty word and incredibly unfashionable at the time but Kerrang! was the only mainstream weekly that would even consider us.

I’d sent a four-track demo containing new songs from ‘Nothing is Written’ to various record companies and radio stations, including BBC Radio One, but wasn’t holding out any particular hope. In fact, I had received enough record company rejection letters to paper a small downstairs bathroom and that was just those that bothered to reply!

Then one day when I was working, as usual, for a firm of accountants in a small office in sleepy Fordingbridge, Hampshire, I received a phone call completely out of the blue, from the BBC and the lady on the end of the phone told me that ‘they’ (they being Tommy Vance and producer Tony Wilson) liked one of the tracks from the demo ‘The Automaton’ because it had quite a commercial but rocky sound and that they wanted to enter it in to the BBC Friday Rock Show ‘Rock War’ competition which if we won would be given the chance to record a studio session at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in London. At first, I thought it was a wind up as it was so out of the blue and, obviously, out of context. However, I also thought why not, let’s just go for it so I agreed.

Amazingly, the song progressed through several rounds and eventually won the overall final with, apparently, the most votes ever for any band up to that point in that competition. This, of course, was very exciting for this still young band as we were all big fans of Tommy and the Friday Rock Show.

As a result, we recorded a session for the rock show at the state of the art BBC studio in Maida Vale using their new ‘flying faders’ SSL desk and we even went up to BBC Broadcasting House to take part in an interview with Tommy which was broadcast a couple of times that year as was the resulting recording session.

As an unexpected bonus it was also the first time we had been paid for a recording session as we had always had to pay for studio time before, it felt like we were living the dream, momentarily of course.

It was a very exciting time for us as a young band and the exposure did help us to get to a larger audience relatively quickly such was the power of national radio in those days. Even now I occasionally have people asking me if I am in the same Galahad that was played on Radio One all those years ago!

What do you think about the album artistically looking back over the years?

Although we were very young, quite naive musically and inexperienced at the time and so was our studio engineer as he didn’t really understand what we were trying to achieve as he didn’t really understand ‘prog’! It was all very exciting, and we had so many ideas and literally threw them all in to the recording ‘melting pot‘ which ended up being a bit messy and cluttered at times and, of course, still being quite young we tended to wear our influences on our sleeves lot more in those early days. We could have probably also done with a producer to bounce ideas off, but we didn’t even think about that to be honest. BUT considering all the above I think we actually did a brilliant job and am very proud of what we achieved given our inexperience plus lack of time and funds. It did give us a lift up though as we realised that in order for people to take us seriously, we needed ‘product’ to prove that we existed, and it has actually gone on to sell consistently well over the years.

But Galahad circa 1990 was a very different beast to Galahad 2022 of which only me and Spence are left!  

Although I think that much of the material was actually quite strong in itself although the sound quality and mix wasn’t the best but things have moved on so much in the last 30 years or so and there are a few songs I’d love to re-work if having the chance or time ever arises again.

 Listening to Evaporation, I really like that duality of progressive rock with pop sensibilities, which was, of course, the hallmark of much of the music of that era. Is it time for a twenty-first century band to revisit this type of material and garner a massive streaming hit?

Ha! It’s all pretty subjective. I do love Evaporation, but also Middleground from the ‘Sleepers’ album, which was quite commercial sounding and I think has a bit of an It Bites feel about it.

I personally think that we’ve written many songs with potential commercial appeal as I’m sure many other bands think the same. Prime examples being ‘Seize the Day’, Don’t Lose Control’ and ‘This Life’. But I think there’s so much more to it. It’s a lottery, a game of chance to a certain extent, knowing the right people, contacts, finding support, a good manager, funding, being in the right place at the right time etc. Who knows, would ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which is not ‘commercial’ sounding at all, have ever been a hit without the manic support from Kenny Everett one wonders? Thank goodness it was.

I am not sure that the worldwide record deals you secured after the success of this album would be possible for a new band in 2022 in the progressive rock space. With the benefit of looking back over nearly 40 years of performing, how do you feel the commercial landscape has evolved in that time, and how do you see it moving forward, if at all? I am particularly interested in your thoughts on streaming.

I think I’ve covered much of this in a previous question re: Omega Lights. 😉 To be honest we rationalise the likes of Spotify, whose income benefits its directors and shareholders far more than the artists it purports to support, by just seeing streaming a way of marketing and promoting our music out there on the web as the income we earn from such platforms is relatively insignificant. One CD sale is roughly the equivalent, at best, to about 4,000 streams! But it is what it is, and we are quite a pragmatic bunch so just we just quietly incorporate any changes in the way the industry works, of which there have been many over the years. Keep calm and carry on as they say. 😉

My first real memory of your music (and the first I physically purchased) was Sleepers in 1995. Firstly, that cover brought about a fair bit of media fuss. Tell us about this, please.

Karl our keyboard player had a good friend called Bil who was a photographer/graphic designer for a large advertising agency in London who offered to design our album cover, booklet etc. We discussed various ideas and then one day it transpired that Bil had a friend who worked at a large London hospital and mentioned that they had an unidentified young woman in the mortuary who had been brought in and had passed away. I was later told that the likelihood was that she was possibly an illegal immigrant from Eastern Europe, and she was never identified which was very sad.

As the album was called ‘Sleepers’ Bil said that he may be able to take a few pictures of this woman and use one as the actual album cover, which seemed to make sense. To be honest I wasn’t sure about the whole idea at the time but went along with it as the general band consensus was that we should go for it! He showed us the full reel of film and we chose an image for the cover which is actually a very beautiful picture.

To this day I’m not sure how true the story was as it was all a bit cloak and dagger and we, obviously, weren’t there at the time the pictures were supposedly taken. The story also somehow leaked out and we ended up being contacted by various journalists and newspapers including the nationals and at this point I felt quite uncomfortable although I knew it was good publicity for the band. But, I decided, being the person who invariably had to front it, to not say another word as it just didn’t seem right, but the story has endured and is one of the more bizarre chapters in our long history.

The notes accompanying this album on your Bandcamp page speak very clearly about the incredibly difficult gestation of this album, especially the extremely long time it had to come to fruition. Your recollections of this would be really appreciated.

I’ll try and keep it brief it as you could write a book about it! In fact, it is discussed in more detail in our official band biography ‘One for the Record’.

After ’Nothing is written’ had been released we decided that we needed a more experienced producer to record our next album and possibly someone with industry contacts that could help to raise our profile.

I had been dealing with Rob Ayling at Voiceprint Records who was helping us with distribution, and he mentioned Tony Arnold who was a very experienced engineer/producer who happened to live very near to us and had worked with many well known artists over the years including Robert Fripp, Andy Summers, Gordon Haskell and Toyah to name but a few. He also used to own the studio called ‘Arnie’s Shack’ where we recorded our first single ‘Dreaming from the Inside’ in 1987. So, we set up a meeting with Tony, had a long chat with him as chats were never short (!) and he very kindly offered to record our new album for us at his studio in Cranborne, which used to belong to Robert.  This was in 1992 and were all very excited by this as we felt it would help us build on all the momentum that had built with the previous album.

Although it started well, and we managed to record most of the drums using the old Manor mobile desk at an old church in Bournemouth called ‘King Arthurs Court’ and then started recording all the other parts at his studio shortly afterwards things didn’t quite turn out as we’d hoped. Gradually we realised that Tony had far too many irons in his fire thus dates were organised to record at his studio, and they just kept being either cancelled or pushed back which was frustrating to say the least. Weeks turned in to months which turned into years.

Quite often when we did go over hoping to work on the album, he would spend most of the time talking and reminiscing about various bands/artists he’d worked with over the years which was interesting to begin with but which became quite tiresome after a while plus, of course, we were paying for studio time! Costs were going up and we had no album finished to re-coup those costs, but Tony insisted that we pay him as we were going along. One day we turned up and there was just a space where the mixing desk was supposed to be as he had taken it out and bought another one which he was going to install which seemed to take an age.

Then at one point he even tried to charge for a day at the studio when I knew we were never there on that day because it was my birthday, and I was out doing other things.

We considered going elsewhere but of course he had all the tapes including some of recording on rare 16 tracks 2” tape which not many other studios had plus he also had recorded some our music onto music software on his computer! So that really wasn’t a practical option.

The whole situation put a huge strain the band relationships as well as my own marriage as Lin was involved in running the band and helping with band administration including writing to Tony to try and get things moving and finally finished.

During this whole long, drawn out and painful process we even managed to put out a few other releases to raise funds to pay for ‘Sleepers’ which was just haemorrhaging all our cash! These releases included ‘Not All There’ by the Galahad Acoustic Quintet which consisted of Spence, Roy and me from Galahad plus Mark Andrews, our previous keyboard player and Sarah Bolter (Quilter) and this was her first appearance on a Galahad related album. This album was recorded almost all live for less than £1,000 at another local studio and did manage to raise some much-needed funds to help finish Sleepers. We also released a ‘Radio Sessions’ EPCD with Voiceprint who also put out ‘In A Moment of Madness’ on CD for us which included three extra tracks in addition to those on the original cassette.

Tony finally finished mixing in early 1995 over three years after agreeing to get involved with the project in the first place.  When Tony finally handed over the master tapes it was akin to the ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral’.

We literally met in a field, and I handed over the final money due in exchange for the master tapes! The relief was tangible.  Although it had come at a huge cost, literally! All the momentum gained in the previous few years had melted away. The band was just about hanging on, Roy wanted to cancel the whole thing and I persuaded him that we needed to see it through. Karl ended up leaving the band within a couple of years and the whole album cost over £20,000 which was a lot of money in those days for a self-financed band with no record company backing to pay the bills!

The biggest achievement of the whole ‘Sleepers’ episode was that we manged to sell enough albums to pay off all the money that we had borrowed from band relatives and make a small profit on the album which could be ploughed back into the band for other projects.

A highlight to these ears on that album is Julie Anne, a wonderful ballad looking back on a loving relationship. A story behind this?

Oddly, it is about somebody who I was very close to although her name wasn’t Julie-Anne. Karl Garrett, our keyboard player at the time came up with the name Julie-Anne and the melody for the chorus which inspired me to write the lyrics around that simple motif. Still one of my favourites Galahad songs from that era. Karl is now a music professor at a university in China of all places!

So, to Year Zero released in 2002. You had the late, great, John Wetton singing on three tracks. How did that collaboration happen, please?

We knew John quite well as we’d met a few times at various shows he had played locally plus he lived literally down the road from us on the outskirts of Bournemouth having moved back to the area where he grew up. We also had a lot in common as we both knew various other local musicians plus he, like me, loved the Dorset countryside and we were very familiar with many of the same land marks such as Knowlton Church, images of which appeared on a Galahad album  ‘Following Ghosts’ and a John Wetton Album ‘Arkangel’ although he always said that he preferred the image, we used, lol! 😉. Roy, our then guitarist, also knew Robert Wetton, John’s older brother who was a very good organist and choirmaster.

I just asked him if he’d be happy to contribute and he agreed. We recorded his vocals at a local studio in Poole although on the day of the recording he was, shall we say, not completely one hundred percent with it and his performance was not the best but we managed to take the best parts and use them on the album. Oddly he also wanted to record and layer a few tracks of ‘Sole Survivor’ on the album towards the end which seemed odd as it wasn’t relevant at all to the album, but we agreed to include it but mixed it quite low in the final version although you can just about hear it.  

John was a lovely, friendly chap when on good form and had some very interesting and amusing tales to tell. He even came to one of our Galahad Christmas meals and was great fun. But unfortunately, he did have his demons but he did seem to deal with those as time went by but then tragedy struck when he contracted colorectal cancer and sadly passed away at the beginning of 2017. A massive loss to the Prog fraternity.

This album marks the first appearance of Dean Baker on keyboards, and his contribution is instantly noticeable. Tell us, please, how Dean came to join the band and how you feel he continues to present an indelible stamp on Galahad’s music.

Actually, Dean’s first album was Following Ghosts which marked quite a shift in the Galahad sound and resulted in quite a varied and eclectic album. Unfortunately, Karl had decided to emigrate to Australia with his wife, who was Australian, so we need a keyboard player rather quickly to finish off and record our next album ‘Following Ghosts’. Dean was recommended to us by the assistant engineer at a local studio where we used to record and indeed recorded ‘Following Ghosts’.

We met up and he seemed such a friendly and enthusiastic guy who, also, wasn’t your typical ‘Prog’ keyboard player, which appealed as it felt like he’d bring something different to the band which as it turned out happened to be very much the case.

We introduced Dean to a lot of ‘Prog’ music to give him an idea of what our contemporaries were up to and where we came from musically which I’m sure he’s very thankful for. 😉

That gorgeous clarinet of Sarah Quilter on Hindsight 1 accompanying piano is wonderfully evocative, and then we segue into part 2, a most lovely pastoral piece of music. I often look at old reviews when I research my interviews, and a feature of this album, and piece especially, is the comparison to Fish-era Marillion. As a fan of theirs since the Marquee days, and someone who has attended virtually every tour since, I regard myself as a little bit of an authority on that band, and to these ears, this and much else here sounds bugger all like Marillion, but more like Galahad, with some nice classical, jazz, pastoral, and rock music. Does this sort of what I regard as a lazy comparison ever annoy you?  

Oh Yes, massively!! I get it to a certain extent in the very early days as we had to play ‘covers’ in pubs in order for them to give us gigs so we played mainly ‘prog’ covers including a few Marillion tracks as of course they had a few hit singles during that period and of course I auditioned for them in 1988 when Fish had left the fold so there is a ‘link’ there I suppose.

But, from Following Ghosts onwards I’d say that that Marillion comparisons were so off the mark. It’s almost as if people were just looking for similarities which is a bit silly and unfair but still happens, on occasion, to this day. I like to think that over the years, although there will always be nods to our original influences from way back in our music, that we have found our own Galahad ‘sound’ which has very little to do with Marillion or so called ‘Neo-Prog’ or any other ‘Prog’ bands for that matter.

Empires Never Last – there was a movement within a movement, as it were, at about this time for the survivors of the 1980’s to segue towards a heavier sound, almost metal. I have to say that at the time, this was not a favourite of mine. I was, though, a wee bit of an outlier, and I have listened to the CD again today and feel I have been somewhat harsh looking back. The album did, I know, bring a fair degree of success to the band, so in view of the fact this album is a firm fans favourite, I would really be interested in how the final product was created, from initial ideas to the theme, to the heavier feel & etc.

To be honest I wasn’t aware of any ‘movement’ as such but we were looking for someone new to record ‘Empires’ to try and give the music a bigger more full and cinematic sound at times and also to make the guitars sound heavier which was something we felt was always lacking on our earlier albums as most of the engineers we’d worked with didn’t really understand rock never mind ‘Prog’ so the hunt was on to find a new engineer for the next album.

We had known Karl Groom a long time through his association with Clive Nolan at Thin Ice Studios plus his work with Shadowland, Threshold, and a few other projects. I’d also heard some of his work including on Threshold albums and was very impressed with the sound and recording quality so called him up one day. We had a long catch up and he agreed to record ‘Empires’ for us. Working with Karl was a breath of fresh air as he completely understood what we were looking for, he also listened and was just a really friendly and helpful guy and obviously, still is to this day.

Is it an exaggeration to state that the success of the album provided you and the band with the spur to believe that a future, and a bright one, still existed for Galahad?

‘Empires’ did very well critically and sold well which did encourage and spur us on to be honest and generally gave us a new lease of life. We also played some great shows promoting that album all over Europe.

When I reviewed Seas of Change in 2018, I remarked that it was an incredible commentary on the state of modern British politics. Tell us, please, of the thoughts and inspirations behind this.

I think the track itself is self-explanatory.  I just remember the whole Brexit situation becoming more and more farcical with high profile politicians talking nonsense, contradicting themselves and seemingly not even knowing themselves what was going which was becoming increasingly frustrating with a constant diet of nonsense on the TV together with a huge dose of misinformation from all sides to be honest. So, I just began to write about the whole situation almost from an outsider’s perspective and ended up with an album worth of lyrics! Whilst it’s a serious sometimes cynical album there are, hopefully, plenty of humorous moments with a healthy hint of satire and sarcasm thrown in for good measure!

Eventually we had so much material that the track soon morphed from what was originally a ten-minute piece into a whole album.

I listened to it again recently for the first time in a while and was amazed that we managed to write it and pull it all together the way we did. I’m actually very proud of that album and it does make me smile when I listen to certain sections. We even went out and performed the whole album live a few times!

Mind you, 2018 looks like an oasis of calm compared to 2022, does it not? As a matter of interest, four years later, how do you think matters in Britain have improved politically, I ask with more than a sense of mischief.

You’ve summed it up perfectly. Back in 2018/19 we didn’t think it could get any worse…but it did!  Hopefully, fingers crossed things will gradually improve although I have a sneaking suspicion that things could get worse before they get better both here in the UK and globally. It’s a very strange world that we live in now, not so full of hope unfortunately at the moment. Although, in terms of subject matter there is plenty to cogitate over and write about!

Once again you have Sarah, whose wind playing is just about the perfect accompaniment to your music. Tell us, please, about the collaborative history between you.

Sarah is my age and is an old school friend so have known each other a very long time and our occasionally crossed in studios, at gigs or various local social events. She is primarily a full time jazz musician and teacher these days but is also very versatile (alto and tenor sax, clarinet, flute and voice) and is always happy to contribute to Galahad related projects when asked but doesn’t have the pressure of being a full time member of the band which I’m sure she’d never have time for anyway plus the money isn’t great, lol! But she has contributed some lovely playing and singing on several of our albums over the years.

The new album is the first since Seas of Change, but we have, of course, had a couple of side project Galahad Electric Company albums brought to us, this yourself and Dean. Previously, we also had Galahad Acoustic Quintet. Please provide my readers with a history of these projects and how they add to the musical journey you have taken over the years. I am especially interested in how or why these did not manifest themselves as full-blown Galahad albums.

The GAQ project came about as a result of the ‘Sleepers’ saga as already mentioned above.

During lockdown we just wanted to keep busy and work in new material. In additional to the backlog of material we had built up Dean also came up with a lot of new musical ideas and to be honest I struggled to keep up!

The whole surreal situation meant that we had lots of time to think and that sparked off a lot of lyrical thoughts and ideas. Plus, of course with the passing of my mother my head was all over the place and it was very helpful catharsis to write about how the passing had affected me and just good to get thoughts down on paper and many of these gradually morphed into poems and songs which was my way of processing what had happened. Plus, of course it wasn’t easy to discuss or talk about with other family members as we weren’t seeing other and not everyone wants to spend hours on Zoom!

So, Dean and I decided to re-generate the ‘Galahad Electric Company’ during the Covid Emergency period and lockdown although we were also working quietly on two new Galahad albums as well so it was a very busy and creative time.

Much of the material was obviously electronic and keyboard orientated in nature, plus recording real drums was impossible at the time so it made sense to use GEC as a vehicle for these releases and of course we didn’t know at the time how long the situation would last. Also, I’m not sure the experimental nature of some of the tracks would have necessarily been welcomed by all the Galahad members although we are quite an open-minded group.

Dean and I always find it very easy to work with each other and as a duo it’s easier and quicker to make decisions so it was actually a great and very productive way of working and I think we both really enjoyed it plus, of course, there was no pressure and no financial constraints and it enabled me to get used to recording proper vocals and not just demos on my home Pro-tools system which I had never really done before. It was quite scary recording on my own without an engineer or someone else to bounce ideas off, but it worked very well although it seemed strange recording so much material without ever actually being in each other physical company at any time.

We basically just sent music/vocal files back and forwards to each other until we were happy with the results. We did a similar for the Galahad albums too, although they are a little more complicated.

There are still certain songs from those sessions which are yet to be released including at least one more GEC album, plus I think some of the songs, re-arranged, would work in the Galahad band context but time will tell.

Overall, it was a very productive time, and we are very both proud of what we achieved in the most unusual of circumstances and although the albums were recorded incredibly quickly, especially when some Galahad albums have taken years to finish, they still sound fresh and of good quality to my old ears.

I think Soul Therapy is exceptional. I know that much of the album relates to your mother’s battle and subsequent passing from cancer. Although the subject matter itself is extraordinarily sad and personal to you, as with much such music, there is something upliftingly cathartic in the release of these emotions. Because of Covid, you were unable to record this with Dean face to face, so please tell us of the unique challenges this brought in the recording.

Maybe see above partly for this question but yes it was very cathartic writing those songs and putting my thoughts down on paper and help me deal with a very difficult and emotional situation. Much of Soul Therapy is a kind of dedication and homage to my mother. She had been battling with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for five years and things took a turn for the worse at the worst possible time during lockdown which meant that when she was in hospital we were unable to go and see her and finally managed to get to see her properly only five days before she passed away which was horrendous as there was nothing we could do at all. But at least we had a little time to say our goodbyes and luckily, she was fully lucid in the days before she quietly passed away in November 2020.

I am particularly proud of ‘Belly Full of Stones’ the last song on that album as it encapsulates perfectly how I felt at that time. 

To conclude, thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions. Where does Stu Nicholson see himself and Galahad moving forward into 2023 and beyond?

We have no grand plans, but we will concentrate on getting the next studio album released, hopefully in the Autumn of 2023 and plan to get back out playing shows once Spence has recovered and is strong enough after the recurrence of his cancer. We’ll also start writing more new material with the current line-up asap. There may also be another GEC album at some point, but as is always the case it’s just a matter of fitting it all in with our parallel lives in the real world. 😉

My very grateful thanks to Stuart for such an incredibly detailed interview.