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INTERVIEW WITH...
LEIGH MARKLEW
TERRORVISION
Photo: Neil Ferry
Interviewer: David Weddle
Iconic British bad Terrorvision are back with their first studio album in 13 years, We Are Not Robots, we were lucky enough to catch up with founder member and bass player Leigh Marklew.
Order your copy of We Are Not Robots here
Order your copy of We Are Not Robots here
We Are Not Robots, is your first studio album in 13 years, what took you so long?
We ask ourselves the same question. It's a combination of many things of you know, band relationships, losing drummers, COVID, just being happy enough, I suppose, playing the songs we've been playing.
We tried a few of those tours, you know where you just play one album all the way from start to finish? They worked quite well for us, so they were fun. Then we went on a package tour with The Wildhearts and Reef, and that was fun. And then we thought, Ok, we've started to get an itch right now to write again, so we started that, and then COVID happened, which curtailed us for a few months, and then we got stuck in and demoed loads of songs, and then our drummer left, then we got another drummer, an old friend of ours, and everything's been hunky dory since then, so I do apologise (laughs).
The other thing is that it's not 1995 anymore, and we all have other things in our lives. Back when you're young and stupid and you don't have to worry about paying the bills, all you want to do is make music 24/7. Well, I say that, probably make music one hour out of the day and the other 23 well, you can imagine. And the other thing is that these things take time, just maybe it shouldn't have taken so long. So there you go; it is what it is.
The artwork for the album is something that everyone will recognise when they see it, the Captcha screen, what was the idea behind that? Did you all get together and decide what you were going to do?
I'll be totally honest, the concept of the artwork of the album is totally down to Mark, and he came to us with a sketch because he didn't think we would know what he was on about. We were like, "Of course we know what you are on about, everyone has seen these screens and been infuriated by them." all those shitty photographs that you see on those things that use things like traffic lights or zebra crossings and they're all crap low resolution kind of stuff.
So we just said, Why don't we do our own crappy photographs? But we will do them of things relating to the band's history. So we spent one very cold Sunday morning, a long time ago, I guess it must have been the beginning of the year to do all these photos. I don't know how hard you looked at the artwork, at least one of us is in each shot apart from the central one, none of us are in that one. So yeah, it was just a bit of fun, and I think people are kind of liking it from what we've heard so far.
The album itself is a real mix of styles, starting off with a really punky song, "Electrocuted" then goes to a bit more chilled vibe with "Opposite", what is your favourite track from the album and why?
You know, you said everything is different, and that's us all over. It's been our best value and also our worst trait, we don't have a style. Terrorvision have never really been; well, you can't pigeonhole us down to one musical style. I think that makes life more fun for us because we can write what we want without standing out like a sore thumb, but then people, you know, fans, music listeners, and critics over the years have really struggled to understand what the hell we do. So yeah, you're totally right that this is yet again an eclectic mix of stuff.
With that in mind, what is your favourite song on the album and why?
Right now, as soon as we started work on 'You've Got to Want to Be Happy," that was instantly one for me, and that was really simple to record.
We did this album with a guy called Rick McNamara who plays and writes with a band called Embrace, and we ended up working with Rick for no other reason than he was recommended, and he lives just over the way from us, so it turned out to be really good. We weren't really into Embrace's music or anything, and we weren't looking for that sound, so it was quite a strange mix, but we cracked on, but yeah, Happy was kind of a tryout track that we did with him, and we were like, "F***in hell, this guy," and he just made it dead easy for us to sort of relax and just rock out. So yeah, I love that one.
There's also a track on their called "Don't Spoil Tomorrow," which is even more chilled out than some of the chilled ones, but it changes every day. After these gigs, I think we are playing five songs from this album. We'll dip in to a couple the people have heard of and maybe a couple more, and then when we're back out next year, we'll explore some of the other ones. So after this week it might be different, it could be steered by how well they go down. I'm enjoying just playing some new songs, you know what I mean. We've played some of them for maybe 30 years. I wouldn't say you get bored of playing stuff, but it's nice to play something different.
I don't know if this was intentional, but Lucifer reminded me of Alice Cooper's (Feed My) Frankenstein?
You know what? It wasn't. I'm aware of the track, but you know, its a weird one. That's a real sort of collaboration. It started out with just literally a ten second guitar riff that didn't sound like that. Then I took the guitar riff and changed it to that song, and Tony added the vocals and lyrics, but yeah, that melody line on the chorus sounds like something else as well, but I'll take Alice Cooper all day long. But you know what? Another fun fact for you. That song I'm sure was written by Zodiac Mindwarp; he was a British like a Grebo rock group, a bit novelty a bit from around the time The Cult first came about, but he wrote that song yeah.
So with that in mind do you all have similar musical influences or do you all have a mix of influences?
I think we all have a common thread, you know what I mean? There have been music and bands throughout history, starting back with rock n roll, The Beatles, and Stones stuff like that. Right through to the present day, there'll be bands that all of us just kind of appeal to us, but outside of that, everybody goes out on different tangents massively. Especially now, our new drummer, Chris Bussey, he writes music; he's a like producer, I suppose. He does video games and adverts and things, so he's got an even more wider knowledge of modern music than we have. He's like studied jazz and shit, so he's into some really bizarre stuff, and he's been in some bizarre bands that you just can't get your head around.
I mean there is the classic stuff; you know, there's AC/DC, The Beatles, Alice Cooper, Sabbath, Motorhead, and The Ramones. All the classics across the years and then some of the modern stuff as well. We've all got a love of the ones everybody likes.
Going back to Motorhead, the track on the album "The Night That Lemmy Died", is it an ode to Lemmy?
It was kind of another one; the concept original idea, riff, and stuff came from Mark, who's certainly the biggest Motorhead fan in the band. Mark came with the concept, I threw in that quite random middle eight riff, and Tony came in with the lyrics, and its a good typical Terrorvision collaboration that one. Because we toured with Motorhead back in 1993 I think it was we did a European tour with them, you know I think we can validate our right to write an ode or a homage to Lemmy, because we did the hard miles with this crazy band you know.
Did you learn anything from touring with such a big name band so early on in your career?
Yeah, I learnt loads from those bands. From signing to EMI, we supported The Ramones for a week in the UK; we supported Motorhead; Def Leppard took us out for a huge European tour; and we learnt loads from all of them, but all different things. Motorhead nearly killed us, in so many ways, just (laughs) abuse and shame that kind of thing. Def Leppard were the ultimate professionals, and really, Joe Elliott, their singer, really looked after us royally. There's a phrase, 'Behave nicely on the way up because you might see them on the way down', but that never happened with us and Def Leppard, they're still playing stadiums in the States. And then there's the Ramones, who were massive musical heroes of ours but were just the most miserable bunch of men.
Yeah, we learnt a lot.
Speaking of touring, you are just about to embark on your We Are On Tour tour, kicking off in London on 20th of September and finishing up in Glasgow on the 29th so quite a short run. How do you find touring has changed for you over the years?
The pace, the amount of touring is a lot less than it was. The main thing is just the partying, (laughingly) it had to stop. I don't mean stop, I should say it had to be turned down. We wouldn't be here, you know, so I guess when you are in your twenties you can just shrug it off, can't you? But in our heads we are still partying; we have a night every once in a while.
You know what? Has it changed that much? I don't think it has, and I think that's the beauty of live music, and we all know, don't we? That lots and lots of bands, and we are a typical example of, the only way we can fund what we do is to play live, and if you're good at it, people pay money for tickets to come and see you, and that's what's funded this album. Theres no multimillion-pound record deals or any record deals; you kind of do it all yourself, and hopefully people can help you out by supporting you. The music industry has changed, but playing gigs? The nuts and bolts of it has stayed pretty similar, and thank God for that.
In terms of what's next for Terrorvision, do you have any plans for the future after the tour?
We want to do more live stuff in 2025, we'd like to pick up some more gigs and fill in some of the places around the UK that we didn't get to on this one. We'll be trying to get to some cool festivals, which are always good for getting you in front of people who don't know that much about you. And we would really like to try and get back to Europe if possible, and that might be through festivals or it might be a few club shows. We did quite well in places like Spain and Italy back in the day; there's ambitions to go back out and get some sun on our faces.
And we might write again because, the band, I think, we're in a good place in terms of getting on and feeling great, so yeah, maybe some new stuff.
And finally, do you have any words of wisdom for people starting out in the music industry today?
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to shamelessly nick a quote that Mark, our guitarist, gave the other week: "The only advice that I've got for anybody is to take it easy on the first night."
You know what? It wasn't. I'm aware of the track, but you know, its a weird one. That's a real sort of collaboration. It started out with just literally a ten second guitar riff that didn't sound like that. Then I took the guitar riff and changed it to that song, and Tony added the vocals and lyrics, but yeah, that melody line on the chorus sounds like something else as well, but I'll take Alice Cooper all day long. But you know what? Another fun fact for you. That song I'm sure was written by Zodiac Mindwarp; he was a British like a Grebo rock group, a bit novelty a bit from around the time The Cult first came about, but he wrote that song yeah.
So with that in mind do you all have similar musical influences or do you all have a mix of influences?
I think we all have a common thread, you know what I mean? There have been music and bands throughout history, starting back with rock n roll, The Beatles, and Stones stuff like that. Right through to the present day, there'll be bands that all of us just kind of appeal to us, but outside of that, everybody goes out on different tangents massively. Especially now, our new drummer, Chris Bussey, he writes music; he's a like producer, I suppose. He does video games and adverts and things, so he's got an even more wider knowledge of modern music than we have. He's like studied jazz and shit, so he's into some really bizarre stuff, and he's been in some bizarre bands that you just can't get your head around.
I mean there is the classic stuff; you know, there's AC/DC, The Beatles, Alice Cooper, Sabbath, Motorhead, and The Ramones. All the classics across the years and then some of the modern stuff as well. We've all got a love of the ones everybody likes.
Going back to Motorhead, the track on the album "The Night That Lemmy Died", is it an ode to Lemmy?
It was kind of another one; the concept original idea, riff, and stuff came from Mark, who's certainly the biggest Motorhead fan in the band. Mark came with the concept, I threw in that quite random middle eight riff, and Tony came in with the lyrics, and its a good typical Terrorvision collaboration that one. Because we toured with Motorhead back in 1993 I think it was we did a European tour with them, you know I think we can validate our right to write an ode or a homage to Lemmy, because we did the hard miles with this crazy band you know.
Did you learn anything from touring with such a big name band so early on in your career?
Yeah, I learnt loads from those bands. From signing to EMI, we supported The Ramones for a week in the UK; we supported Motorhead; Def Leppard took us out for a huge European tour; and we learnt loads from all of them, but all different things. Motorhead nearly killed us, in so many ways, just (laughs) abuse and shame that kind of thing. Def Leppard were the ultimate professionals, and really, Joe Elliott, their singer, really looked after us royally. There's a phrase, 'Behave nicely on the way up because you might see them on the way down', but that never happened with us and Def Leppard, they're still playing stadiums in the States. And then there's the Ramones, who were massive musical heroes of ours but were just the most miserable bunch of men.
Yeah, we learnt a lot.
Speaking of touring, you are just about to embark on your We Are On Tour tour, kicking off in London on 20th of September and finishing up in Glasgow on the 29th so quite a short run. How do you find touring has changed for you over the years?
The pace, the amount of touring is a lot less than it was. The main thing is just the partying, (laughingly) it had to stop. I don't mean stop, I should say it had to be turned down. We wouldn't be here, you know, so I guess when you are in your twenties you can just shrug it off, can't you? But in our heads we are still partying; we have a night every once in a while.
You know what? Has it changed that much? I don't think it has, and I think that's the beauty of live music, and we all know, don't we? That lots and lots of bands, and we are a typical example of, the only way we can fund what we do is to play live, and if you're good at it, people pay money for tickets to come and see you, and that's what's funded this album. Theres no multimillion-pound record deals or any record deals; you kind of do it all yourself, and hopefully people can help you out by supporting you. The music industry has changed, but playing gigs? The nuts and bolts of it has stayed pretty similar, and thank God for that.
In terms of what's next for Terrorvision, do you have any plans for the future after the tour?
We want to do more live stuff in 2025, we'd like to pick up some more gigs and fill in some of the places around the UK that we didn't get to on this one. We'll be trying to get to some cool festivals, which are always good for getting you in front of people who don't know that much about you. And we would really like to try and get back to Europe if possible, and that might be through festivals or it might be a few club shows. We did quite well in places like Spain and Italy back in the day; there's ambitions to go back out and get some sun on our faces.
And we might write again because, the band, I think, we're in a good place in terms of getting on and feeling great, so yeah, maybe some new stuff.
And finally, do you have any words of wisdom for people starting out in the music industry today?
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to shamelessly nick a quote that Mark, our guitarist, gave the other week: "The only advice that I've got for anybody is to take it easy on the first night."
WE ARE ON TOUR 2024
FRI 20 Sep - London: Islington Assembly Hall
SAT 21 Sep - Norwich: Epic Studios
SUN 22 Sep - Manchester: Manchester Academy 2
TUES 24 Sep - Leeds: Project House
WED 25 Sep - Bristol: The Fleece SOLD OUT
THU 26 Sep - Wolverhampton: KK's Steel Mill
FRI 27 Sep - Stockton-On-Tees: Georgian Theatre
SAT 28 Sep - Aberdeen: The Lemon Tree
SUN 29 Sep - Glasgow: Slay
FRI 20 Sep - London: Islington Assembly Hall
SAT 21 Sep - Norwich: Epic Studios
SUN 22 Sep - Manchester: Manchester Academy 2
TUES 24 Sep - Leeds: Project House
WED 25 Sep - Bristol: The Fleece SOLD OUT
THU 26 Sep - Wolverhampton: KK's Steel Mill
FRI 27 Sep - Stockton-On-Tees: Georgian Theatre
SAT 28 Sep - Aberdeen: The Lemon Tree
SUN 29 Sep - Glasgow: Slay