Jedd Beaudoin: "More Exotic Ways To Die" is interesting because there's a concept-based song cycle, but that concept doesn't really occupy the whole of the record. That shows a lot of restraint, in a way. Were you consciously trying to create that balance or did it just work out?

Andy Tillson Diskdrive: The ‘concept’ part of this album is really very simple, five actual stand-alone songs that are only really linked by the lyrics. There are a couple of musical themes which prevail during these songs but the connection is mainly lyrical. I wanted to make an album which was loosely conceptual, but which could be listened to a song at a time without getting bogged down in the story. Which isn't even a story really, it's just a few thoughts of a fictitious character. I suppose it's like saying the lyrics this time are actually by a fictitious character.

JB: For those who don't have the album yet, can you provide a little insight into the concept?

ATD: The songs in the linked section are concerned with a very normal person... the kind of person that we meet every day, but very often ignore and see only as a person ‘doing their job’... we don't see beyond that. In this case, a bank counter clerk. He wears the nametag, the ‘uniform’ of the company. And we pay our checks in, do our business with him, and never stop to wonder who he actually is. And of course, lots of us are actually like him. He's middle aged, has a mortgage, a family, a job, an ordinary car and of course the world of exciting media passes him by.... The targets of the fashion houses, the record companies, the film makers and TV program makers tend to be younger people nowadays, and it's very easy for a person like this to feel alienated and ‘left out.’ ‘He's a real nowhere man,’ to [borrow] a phrase, and these songs are really voicing his frustrations about living in a world that seems to ignore him....

JB: The lyrics really strike me on this record, more than a number of things I've heard over the past year or so. How do lyrics figure in your writing process?

ATD: They are very important to me, but not to everybody. I try to deal with real life issues rather than any kind of sword & sorcery stuff. The lyrics are often quite politically motivated, harking back to the time when my previous band GFDD used to work on the Anarchist Punk music circuit. I still feel a lot of the same emotions about ‘the state of the world’ as I did then, and I try to incorporate them into the songs. In the past few years I've written songs about overpopulation, religious zealots, the pollution of outer space, peer pressure through advertising, and over dependency on petroleum... Then there are the more personal songs like the ones about the headaches I get, and other reality based issues. Sometimes the lyrics come first, sometimes the music... there isn't a formula, it just happens. It can be triggered by a TV documentary, or a conversation, or just by thinking to myself. I want to write more than a simple love song, and more than lyrics that sound nice and mystical. It's a challenge. Sometimes I worry that I ‘preach’ a little, but I always take as much blame in the songs as those to whom I sing....

I often get accused of being ‘depressing’... but I think that is unfair. By choosing to keep my lyrical feet in the real world, I make a choice, which can lead people to see my words as depressing. In fact, I love Roine Stolt's totally uplifting lyrics and listen to them a lot and admire his passion and love for life that enables him to write them. I too have a love for life, but I choose to highlight problems that I encounter and ask for solutions. In this respect, I feel that what I do is a positive rather than a negative thing. I am a predominantly cheerful person... a lot of people are surprised at this, and expect me to be some weird person surrounded by bats.

JB: ‘Embalmed in Acid’ and ‘A Man of Thin Air’ are two real standouts, both musically and lyrically. There are a lot of layers there. Can you talk a little about the origin and evolution of each?

ATD: OK, lyrics first. ‘Embalmed in Acid’.... The ‘Acid’ to which I refer is the caustic atmosphere of the workplace, the soul destroying 9-5 existence that so many of us live to satisfy company whims. This song deals particularly with how our character feels at work. Having to dress the part, having to behave in a way for which he has been trained. ‘He feels all his skin peeled away, replaced by a shield for the day’.... This shows how, like so many of us, he feels that he must become someone else in order to function here. The music for this is one of my favorite parts of "MEWTD," the track was recorded in one take in our original recording sessions. Then Dan Watts took it to his studio and did a very odd ‘remix’ of the track, which featured quite a lot of it going backwards. The result was that we had one very ‘plain’ version of the song... and a very extreme weird version of the song. The version on the album was accomplished by literally mixing the two together, not mixing the ideas, actually mixing the two versions at the same time. One is going forwards, the other backwards. I love the sound of it. On stage we play the backwards version through the amps from a CD, and of course play the song forwards ourselves.

‘Man of thin Air’ is a very simple ‘Nowhere Man’ concept, I've already dealt with this in an earlier question really; suffice to say that wherever any of us goes we will frequently ignore people who do not seem important, and never realize that we ourselves are being ignored for exactly the same reasons. This song is a co-written piece, the music is by Dan Watts, myself and the rest of the band. A lot of it was jammed out. It's a nice cyclic riff in 7/8 that lends itself well to atmospherics, funkiness and out and out metal, so we tried to use the riff in as many ways as possible. The result is a highly dynamic piece that changes suddenly, yet keeps that riff as an anchor point to hold the whole thing together. It really worked, I think, and a lot of people rate this song highly.

JB: And ‘A Body in Free Drift’? There's a live introduction to that one. How much of it is live and how much is studio and did you, in fact, use material from live shows throughout the entire record?

ATD: ‘Free Drift’ ties the bows up for the conceptual part of the album. Lyrically it's simply this character wondering what his life is all about, and whether there is any point to simply ‘drifting’ through middle age. The nuts and bolts of this song were recorded live on stage, but they have been processed and overdubbed quite a lot. We just found that the live version of this song had something a bit special, so we used that instead of the "studio" based thing, even though none of the album was recorded in a formal studio. This is the only song that has live stage work on it... but having said that, we recorded the whole album ‘live’ in a farmhouse—not a studio—and then did the overdubs at home. This song is only different in that there is an audience there, instead of sheep!

JB: ‘Petroleum Addicts’ is a little bit different from the other songs, it's more ‘political,’ will ring maybe a little less personal for some listeners. Or, is it in fact equally personal?

ATD: Yes, ‘Petroleum Addicts’ is a ten-minute stand-alone song that is not part of the concept for "MEWTD." It deals pretty obviously with our society's reliance on petrol... our addiction to it shows all the symptoms of major dependency. No matter if we know the consequences, which include pollution, environmental change, road congestion, road deaths, global exploitation and political trickery that must take place to keep the stuff flowing, none of us can stop using it. Even rock bands that sing songs about it (i.e. us) use the stuff to get to gigs.... It's a very true story about a teacher who got told off for being late for work because one of her students had been killed in a traffic accident and caused a hold-up. At the time, the area was flooded by abnormally heavy rains (which some attribute to climate change caused by global warming) and there was a petrol shortage caused by fuel protestors going on. It just occurred to me that even though:

1. There might be no petrol next week, month or year

2. Kids get killed by cars on their way to school

3. The climate is changing for the worse, sea levels are rising and some parts of England are falling into the sea

4. Petrol is unbelievably expensive

5. Our planet teeters on the edge of all out war on a regular basis, simply for control of the stuff

... We still just can't stop using it. No matter what the cost to us and our future. This is like a heroin addiction, where the sufferer is fully aware of how much damage is being done to their body, but still shoots the stuff up all the same. Me too!

JB: To this point, your gigging outside the UK has been somewhat limited, is that right? What are your hopes for gigs abroad in the coming year? Quite honestly, I can see where you might be able to gain a reasonable large live following in the U.S. and Canada. I imagine your shows as being somewhat stimulating visually as well as aurally. Am I on the mark?

ATD: Gigs are very difficult for Po90. We have a strong fan base throughout the world, but we haven't yet reached a Flower Kings or Spock's Beard level where we can do tours. People do tend to book the obvious sellers rather than a band like ours. Because Po90 isn't a straight-forward 'Prog Band' people think twice before booking us for such gigs. Those people who have booked us have been very surprised with how energetic our performance is—the group is at its best live and always has been. We do hope to play more live, and are trying to organize gigs at home and abroad in winter of this year. If we can get to the states, we will...

JB: So, if this is the first Po90 disc somebody buys, where should they go next? Obviously, they'll want one of each, but . . .. I guess what I'm also asking is: Where do you see this record in your body of work?

ATD: Each Po90 CD is a clear ‘move on’ from the last one... that is what we are about. The idea of this band is to be a genuinely "progressive" band, and we work with 2002 in mind rather than 1972. The band's members are of many ages and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. This album is a development on our "Unbranded" set. It’s more up-front, more live and has more contributions from the other members. While it still has prog rock overtones, it is designed to be a modern rock record in the way that Muse or the Cooper Temple Clause make modern rock records. Check out "Unbranded" though, this remains a personal favorite for me; I was really happy with the songs on that one and the beginnings of the group intermeshing. Where I see this new album is where I always see the latest Po90 album... we are trying to push the envelope of what can be done with progressive music, we want to bring it to new ears, revitalize it and make it matter again. That's what it was always about, not about pompousness or the usual criticisms.

JB: We should mention that there's a wealth of bonus material "MEWTD." Anything you want to entice readers with?

ATD: We decided on a shorter album (50 minutes as opposed to 70) this time... because that's how long it was. We do have an enormous archive of older stuff and we just decided to put it on a multimedia section. We've seen a few very disappointing multimedia sections with a couple of crap videos etc, so we wanted to make one that was actually useful. So here you get a full compilation album of the band since 1996, from all the previous Cyclops CDs, and there's also an album that was made in 1989 too. And yes, there is a complete live version of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" which we recorded at a party in 1996.... That’s just there for a bit of fun, but a lot of people like it! As well as all this we even put a video on it as well, so this album has the 50 minutes of new music for your CD player, but stick it in a PC or Mac and you get an extra 2 hours. Value for money, eh?

JB: Let's talk about your bandmates for a moment, shall we? How do you feel playing with a second keyboardist? Do you spend a lot of time working things out or do the two of you have a kind of feel for each other's playing where you don't have to talk about it?

ATD: We have two keyboard players because there is a lot of work to do. Also, my role as the singer in the band does mean that I have to hand over parts so that I can concentrate on the vocals. Sam is a terrific musician who works in an entirely different way from me and the result is that she puts her own indelible stamp on the overall sound. Both of us flit between lead and accompaniment work, Sam concentrates predominantly on pianos and synth textures, Mellotrons etc, and I'm the organ/monosynth player, but that's not a hard and fast rule, because I do some piano bits and Sam plays organ. We are one keyboard player, with four hands! We do spend a lot of time working stuff out, it wouldn't be possible otherwise. We try not to be too self indulgent, we don't normally go for huge solos, just make them to the point, and as effective as possible.

JB: Dan Watts, Alex King and Ken Senior add a lot of nice textures to the music here. Their touches are so very subtle.

ATD: Well, not always subtle! The band are excellent musicians, but more than that they are innovative. They are controlled, willing to experiment, and know how to give the song its best, rather than simply turning the songs into showcases for their own virtuosity.

Dan Watts can play like Steve Vai. The really good thing is, he doesn't play like Steve Vai, he plays like Dan Watts. He finds the exact right thing to do, and does it. Like you suggested in your review he will happily play one perfect note instead of the 50 that other guitarists might choose, but when we need the 50, they'll be there! In this respect, he's a Robert Fripp kind of guy.

Alex is a superb drummer who I often compare with Guy Evans from Van Der Graaf Generator. Both Guy Evans and Alex play with a kind of flow that is less technical than say Chester Thompson or Neal Peart, but has more in keeping with the likes of Mitch Mitchell from the Experience, or Ginger Baker from Cream. He has a good, groovy feel if you don't mind me using such outmoded language! He can still do all the technical stuff, but it just motors along so well.

As for Ken, he is just a brilliant all-rounder. He's started doing backing vocals on stage recently, and this has opened up a few more possibilities. He can play any style he wants but with Po90 just keeps everything together in the way greats like John Entwhistle do. He plays all sorts of other instruments, and is a very good lead guitar player, but he sticks to bass in this band and never troubles Dan by picking up his guitar!

JB: The name Diskdrive? I have to ask: Whence?

ATD: It is a long and very boring story.

JB: Anything else you want to say?

ATD: Yup, we just think that a lot more people ought to give us a lot more time. Progressive Rock has a very bad name because it simply hasn't moved with the times enough. Bands like Po90 are trying to rectify this situation by actually making it relevant again. We often feel that our work is ‘undone’ by the type of people who make CDs called "Music Inspired By Lord of the Rings" (although Bo Hansson is forgiven, he was there first). These people have set back the cause of good progressive music by a couple of decades, and prolong the image of the music as socially irrelevant, self indulgent and pretentious. Po90 is an anathema to that image. If you want to hear prog rock that actually does what it claims, give us a listen. A prog rock fan might not relate to it first time in the easy way that some albums allow, but if anyone remembers the first time they heard "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway," they'll remember that it takes time to get to know the stuff that's really going to last!