If somebody ever will get spherical to drawing Galahad’s household tree, they might nicely discover it doesn’t resemble a tree in any respect – extra of a tangled bush, a lot of whose branches sprout, blossom, wither and die, then re-emerge additional up the vine.
“We give Sure a run for his or her cash with regards to altering band line‑ups,” admits frontman and sole remaining founder member Stuart Nicholson, grinning ruefully as he sips a lunchtime beer in a central London pub. As we converse, they’re about to have up to date band images taken within the gentle of the most recent departure from their ranks, which has been confirmed for the reason that publicity pictures had been taken for his or her tenth studio album, Seas Of Change.
It seems Tim Ashton, who was first a part of Galahad for 3 years across the flip of the 90s and who then returned to the function in 2014, has jumped ship for a second time.
It’s a well-known downside spherical these components. Pursuing a much less commercially profitable model comparable to prog in 2018 is commonly a case of arranging gigging, rehearsing, recording and promotion round day (or in a single case, night time) jobs and home commitments.
Nicholson himself manages to steer the ship both aspect of working in that the majority rock’n’roll of professions, accountancy, and has right this moment travelled as much as London from his Dorset base partly to fulfill with a piece consumer. However the band nonetheless come first. A few of Galahad, through the years, have struggled to make the identical dedication.
“Tim likes travelling,” Nicholson says of Ashton, “which is why he left the band within the first place [in 1992]. Then he ended up within the Philippines, and he was nonetheless going again and ahead there for some time, even after he rejoined us. So we mentioned, ‘Look, Tim you may’t hold flitting backwards and forwards and count on to nonetheless be within the band. Then final yr he had a number of private and monetary points and he determined to return to the Philippines. He appeared to suppose there was no different possibility for him. So we parted firm once more simply earlier than Christmas and now we’ve obtained [erstwhile Twelfth Night and LaHost multi-instrumentalist and singer] Mark Spencer on bass – who, mockingly, was the person that Tim initially changed again in 2014.”
Such is the tangled internet that Galahad weave. However few of their personnel modifications have been as unusual because the departure of founding guitarist Roy Keyworth, confirmed earlier than the discharge of final autumn’s assortment of shorter compositions, Quiet Storms. On this planet of web courting, there’s a phenomenon generally known as ‘ghosting’, the place a correspondent instantly stops responding to any kind of communication and mainly seems to be hiding behind a digital couch till the knocks on their door subside and their suitor goes away.
This state of affairs isn’t typically related to bands, however that’s mainly what occurred right here – Keyworth merely went AWOL. And though he shaped Galahad with Nicholson again in 1985, this wasn’t the primary time he’d achieved a bunk.
“He first left in 1998,” Nicholson explains, “straight after we completed recording Following Ghosts, which was weird as a result of we had gigs lined up. However he’s not excellent at seeing different individuals’s viewpoint. As an illustration, he works nights, and when he first informed me about that, I mentioned, ‘How are we going to do the band?’ and he hadn’t actually thought of it. So finally we might solely do issues on Sundays, which is hardly best.”
Nonetheless, there was little warning of what got here subsequent.
“We’d simply obtained again from a gig in Holland in November 2015 and he was strolling up the drive together with his girlfriend, and he mentioned, ‘Let me know if anything comes up.’ However then instantly he wouldn’t return calls, ignored us on social media, emails, messenger… We despatched him demos of 20-odd tracks together with Seas Of Change and he simply didn’t reply. We despatched him a vinyl copy of [2007 album] Empires By no means Last when it was reissued, and he loves his vinyl. Didn’t reply. I requested him to play guitar on Quiet Storms. Didn’t reply.
“So he by no means really mentioned he’d left the band. Finally we requested Andrew Wild, who wrote our biography, to see if he might get a response and he informed him, ‘Andy, I’m now not within the band and I’m promoting all my gear.’ It’s fairly unhappy, however we have now to maneuver on.”
Whereas the demise of such a long-standing working relationship and friendship is at all times going to be a supply of dismay, it additionally meant that Galahad wanted a brand new guitarist. And simply in time to report the extra formidable materials we discover on the 43-minute suite that includes new album Seas Of Change, Lee Abraham has stepped in, having beforehand performed bass in Galahad from 2005-2009.
No fewer than 21 individuals have been members of Galahad through the years (and two of them have sadly handed away). Nonetheless, the trio of Nicholson, co-songwriter and keyboard maestro Dean Baker, and drummer of 30 years Spencer Luckman hold the band’s coronary heart pumping powerfully. And Seas Of Change serves discover that Galahad’s music stays as very important and related in 2018 because it has ever been.
This one-track album takes as its lyrical subject material the turbulent instances presently going through this nation of ours, as Brexit and its fallout tear on the social cloth of this sceptred isle. The blissful classical piano, flute, sweeping strings and ethereal feminine vocals of its opening passages are punctuated by a classic spoken phrase pattern warning us ‘the logic of energy was shifting in direction of its conclusion’. Then we hear a crowd hush and a toastmaster suggest a toast to ‘complete confusion, served up with a wholesome smattering of understated incredulity, topped off with a heady dose
of utter bemusement’. Hints of black humour however, it’s the introduction to thunderous flashes of symphonic prog over which Nicholson sings, ‘Batten down the hatches, girls and boys, in readiness for the storm forward.’
So, ‘confusion, incredulity, bemusement’… we take it Galahad’s lyricist wasn’t anticipating the referendum end result we woke as much as on June 24, 2016?
“It does broadly describe my emotions,” he says. “It’s not purported to be a political album as such, simply somebody saying, ‘What’s occurring right here?’ It doesn’t make sense: screwing our society, making individuals argue with one another… There’s been a lot vehemence and antipathy, and it was very divisive. It really obtained a bit scary at instances.”
Elsewhere, the lyrics trace at the opportunity of social unrest within the wake of all this.
“Yeah, I assumed that due to what was being mentioned, it’d all kick off – the final time that occurred was the ballot tax riots, however there have been instances just lately when it regarded like issues might get out of hand.”
However for all of the drama of the image Galahad paint, there are additionally playful moments. ‘A way of revolution is forming within the air,’ Nicholson sings in the beginning of aspect two, accompanied by an arresting synth riff, ‘and the wall of dying is lowered in Parliament Sq..’
An alarming, dystopian picture… or a cheeky nod to the lyric of Genesis’ Fly On A Windshield? You resolve.
Nicholson smiles on the point out of it. “It’s a little bit of enjoyable, actually. I at all times attempt to get one thing in to acknowledge the place we’ve come from – typically it’s refined, typically it’s not.”
It’s a mirrored image of a band that also take inspiration from the golden age of prog but in addition sound in tune with Twenty first-century progressive music. The swathes of synth rock and the usage of classic radio samples may remind you of Public Service Broadcasting, however then Lee Abraham’s breathtaking guitar breaks channel Dave Gilmour, and Nicholson’s quivering alto vocals have at all times sounded redolent of Fish, a lot as our interviewee may tire of the Marillion comparisons.
That’s maybe to be anticipated, provided that Galahad shaped across the peak of neo-prog within the mid‑80s… then discovered that the bandwagon had already moved on. Or, extra seemingly, they didn’t know there was a bandwagon.
“We didn’t really find out about bands like IQ and Twelfth Evening or Pendragon after we began – it was nice to seek out on the market had been bands enjoying that form of music, however we simply occurred to be influenced by the similar bands as them.
“However our timing was really crap!” Nicholson laughs. “By the point we made our first album Nothing Is Written in 1991, a lot of the bands that adopted Marillion had pale and labels had been now not thinking about prog.”
One path to additional publicity for Galahad that Nicholson briefly explored was an unconventional one – in direction of the top of 1988, he auditioned to be Marillion’s singer.
“Yeah, that’s 30 years in the past this yr. Christ!” he says. “After Fish left, I naïvely thought I might hold Galahad going and nonetheless be part of Marillion. However I didn’t even count on to get an audition – my demos had been horrible. To make my tape, I sat by my music centre with a microphone, and had Marillion information on the left hand aspect and my vocals on the proper hand aspect – as a result of that was all I had! I sang to Kayleigh or one thing and despatched it off.
“Amazingly, they requested me to return as much as London to audition. However that was additionally surreal as a result of it was the day of the Clapham rail crash, and I’d chosen to drive as much as London and never get the prepare that day. I used to be sat there ready to audition with all this carnage on the TV, and I’m going white, considering, ‘That might have been me!’
“Anyway, the fellows had been all actually pleasant, and we tried out a number of songs – Forgotten Sons, Blue Angel, Bitter Suite. After all, nothing got here of it, nevertheless it really ended up being good publicity for Galahad and it resulted in us getting our first gigs in London on the Royal Normal in Walthamstow.”
Nonetheless, Galahad nonetheless confronted an uphill battle to seek out an viewers.
“There was no web so that you wanted press protection,” Nicholson explains. “However the music papers wouldn’t contact us, and we weren’t rock sufficient for magazines like Kerrang! and Steel Hammer.”
Youthful self-belief is a robust drive, nonetheless, and after the web made it simpler for progressive artists to seek out their market straight, Galahad discovered a brand new lease of life, likely helped by promotion in magazines like this one.
For all his fears for British society surrounding Brexit, Nicholson sees optimistic indicators for Galahad and British prog within the years forward.
“We’ve had our greatest ever suggestions by way of social media, and we’ve had robust pre-orders for this album – with over 50 per cent on vinyl! We’re doing black, turquoise and an image disc and a few individuals are ordering all of them…
“Individuals are much more broad of their tastes than they was after we began,” he provides, “and extra ready to hear. That mentioned, I nonetheless like the concept of belonging to a little bit of a tribe, and the prog scene is a bit like that – in a optimistic means, I feel.
“The music is spreading and I take my hat off to somebody like Steven Wilson – I by no means thought a band of this era can be in style sufficient to fill the Albert Corridor. Issues like that give me hope for the long run.”
And even when Galahad’s line-up continues to resemble a recreation of musical chairs, you watched that with such a decided driving drive behind them, they gained’t be disappearing off the radar any time quickly.
This text initially appeared in problem 86 of Prog Journal.
