Gary Stringer - Reef (09/04/2012)
The 59th Sound had the pleasure of catching up with Gary Stringer, lead singer of 90’s Brit Rock band REEF, to chat about their ‘93/03’ complete works release, touring down under after more than a decade, other projects and that uncomfortable feeling when watching footage of yourself acting young and dumb at nineteen.
Hi Gary, where are you at the moment?
I’m in Somerset, just came back from London went via the beach Monday; we had two shows for this Saturday and Sunday in London. I don’t know if you know, we just released a box set on Monday, of all of the stuff we’ve ever recorded and we did two shows playing rarities and B-Sides to fans up in London.
Speaking of which, you’ve released ‘93/03’ the complete works of REEF so that’s 9 CDs and 1 DVD, how does it feel to have such a comprehensive record of your career?
It feels bloody brilliant to be honest Nazia, I mean for a start it’s really flattering that someone would think to do that for us, these last three years have kind of been like some of these doors were shut and then they’re being opened again. We did our last show with REEF in 2003 and I thought that was it. I had enough anyway by then, after having ten years of really enjoying being part of this gang sort of marauding around the world and having fun with music and playing to people in different countries and releasing songs that sold loads and having really good times, the last six months was starting to feel a bit like work you know.
I didn’t want to sully the memory, so when we were asked if we wanted to do it again, I think if it had happened earlier…I mean I started making music again probably in 2006/2007 with Jack, we made a knucklehead rock record called ‘Them Is Me’ and we toured that for 18 months and then we made an acoustic record totally different, totally bare, quite naked but that was good fun. We just finished touring that last year; we went out to New York and did our last show out there for StringerBessant the ‘Yard’ album.
I guess it was the winter of 2009 we were asked to do the REEF shows, we booked studio time for the first StringerBessant album February and March, Charlie Caplowe at Xtra Mile signed us up and asked us to do the demos of the acoustic stuff and really liked it. To be on his label was really cool I’m a big fan and we went and did that and then we had April free so we basically finished mixing that record and started rehearsals. We did about a week’s rehearsal and went and did seven sold out shows in the UK. We’re still laughing about having 7 years off and 7 days on, that’s kind of the REEF way you know.
It’s great to have a box set from the first handful of spring shows in 2010, we did Glastonbury festival, we went out and did some more shows in the winter and they sold great and we did some festivals last year. We sort of mixed and matched with StringerBessant through this summer, and it’s the same issue where we are now. We start work in May, we have a handful of festivals in the UK and a couple of festivals abroad with StringerBessant, we go to Portugal before we come to you in Australia and then end up going to Czech Republic when we get back with StringerBessant. So it’s just mix and matching with the bands and making music and it just feels really good.
So REEF have reformed after being on a bit of a hiatus; do you still feel like the band is a core part of who you are?
Maybe not, I mean you know I’m thirty nine this year, I guess I wouldn’t want to define myself by being in a rock band but I guess that’s a huge part of my life and I’m really proud of it. With the box set, we’ve looked into a few dark corners you know, we’ve listened to loads of b-sides and all these songs you’ve kind of forgot you recorded and it’s something you feel really good about. I think the uncomfortable stuff is when you see footage of you when you were like nineteen, and we got given high end cameras to go out on these first tours. I’m nineteen and I’m young and dumb and full of myself and all those kind of things that are uncomfortable. I don’t know how old your are Nazia, but when you get near your forties you look back at yourself at nineteen and you think ‘what a tit’, and I think most people would kind of feel like that.
But yeah it’s all good, really the success of this band allowed me to make the ‘Them Is Me’ record and the StringerBessant record. With ‘Them Is Me’ the biggest show we did in London was to four hundred people and we go out in a van with two techs. When we used to go out with REEF and even now, when you go with a tour bus you’ve got couple of semi tonne trucks taking your gear around. You got crew coming out of your arse, we’d go out with forty or fifty crew members, so it’s sort of extravagant to the past, kind of coming up trumps now because you’re able to do what you want. Which I guess is what anyone wants to do really musically, it’s a good vibe to be able to do that to go and make a knuckle head rock record and then go and do totally the opposite, make a really bare and naked acoustic album all the same time, although it feels like we’re going to do a REEF show.
Especially after we’ve been doing acoustic shows as a duo, me and Jack, and they’re really intense and really precise. Acoustic is kind of like that, you can’t fuck about with an acoustic guitar in the same way as you can fuck about in a rock band with electric guitars. You can’t toss your hair about, get a bit of feedback and you’re off, you can’t do that with acoustic gigs. So when we do the REEF shows it’s kind of like a party, feels like you’re really letting off steam, it’s a good band and I feel really happy being in it at the moment.
So all of the band members are involved in side projects, you’ve joined forces with Jack in both Stringer Bessant and Them is Me, how did those two projects come about?
Just basically from, I was saying earlier doing our last show in 2003 with REEF in a festival down here, actually in the South West of England in August, and I thought that was it. I think I got offered like a stack of money to do some festival a couple of months later I went and put a band together from friends and we did some cover versions mainly and that was good fun but I didn’t do any work for two or three years, I hung out with my kids. When we were getting down to 2006/2007 I would be at home here in the West country and I’d have all these words going around in my head late at night. Like at three or four in the morning I’d find myself awake when everyone else was asleep and I would just start to write some things down and using a Dictaphone and singing into it and setting up a guitar.
Don’t know how much detail you want, but first of all we actually wrote and I rang Jack and said I feel like I want to make music again and he was on the same vibe and he’d gone off circling, he’d gone to Ireland and did his own thing for a few years. We’ve always been good friends since we were sixteen and we got back together and started doing our studio in an old pig sty, an old chicken coop basically a stone barn and put electric in. We actually started with the acoustic songs that would form ‘Yard’ two years later, but as soon as we got electric in that building we chucked a drum kit up one end and started cranking out this sort of pseudo metal.
We just felt like we were teenagers again head banging and doing daft stuff and we made the logo, a friend or ours designed it you know, just like school pals, it just felt great. Then we got that out of our system I guess, we went and did that for eighteen months, that’s kind of how it came about. We’ve got studio time to go in at Metropolis and make a second album with StringerBessant and I think we’re going to ask Dom the drummer from REEF to do some shows with us through the summer and maybe move StringerBessant more into a band with an electric piano maybe and electric guitar and a drummer, maybe make it more like a Neil Young band.
It seems you have quite a loyal and varied fan base, do you think you think your fan base has changed over the years?
Well they’ve got old like we have and if it’s anything to go by what we’ve played over here in the UK and Europe seventy five percent of them are the same age as us or slightly younger or slightly older and a few newbies knocking about in there as well.
The band got to open the premier league season at Wembley stadium last year?
YEAH! You’re the first one to ask me that, like cool man that was incredible! That day was brilliant, we drove up to London the night before and into Wembley Stadium ninety thousand people, played the song ‘Place Your Hands’, watch a game of football. But yeah we had to leave, not to sort of bang on about StringerBessant again, but we had a show down in the West country on a beach with StringerBessant that same night. So went from playing to ninety thousand people with REEF at lunchtime, to playing to three hundred people on a beach Lusty Glaze in Cornwall with StringerBessant, that just about sums everything up I think.
You’ve played alongside some legendary artists such as The Rolling Stones, Paul Weller and Soundgarden, what have been some of the most memorable performances?
Well performances I remember the big festivals, Glastonbury festival performance wise was always good fun and it was close to home for us. On a personal level connecting with people, Paul Weller heard the first seven inch we pressed and he really liked the b-side ‘Choose to Live’ and he put us on his ‘Wild Wood’ tour as a result of that. He looked after us a treat and made us feel so welcome to music and playing the Royal Albert Hall. When we moved up to London we lived maybe three miles from the Albert Hall out West and driving up to it was just fantastic. He took us up to the duplex and he’d come and watch us at sound check and made us feel like we’d arrived at Albert you know, I’ll never forget that, he’s a top man and a great musician.
Is there anyone you would like to share the stage with that you haven’t yet?
Oh yeah geez, I mean Stevie Wonder, B.B.King, Fred Hibbert, Toots & the Maytals, AC/DC, Jesus come on I mean I’m as much as a music fan as anyone else. I’d sing or head bang or play triangle with any of those guys, we’ve done alright and we’ll see what happens, but yeah I wouldn’t turn down any of those guys’ bands.
It’s been over a decade since you visited Australia, are you looking forward to coming back?
Yeah too bloody right! I was genuinely surprised when we got asked to come to Australia, kind of like what I said earlier with some things, we thought the doors shut. We always did well in Australia, we sold records there and we must’ve come two or three times and I remember the place in Sydney we’re playing The Metro. I can remember the Gold Coast and Melbourne and Perth you know, I can remember the place fondly, we had really good fun yeah so of course I am, can’t wait.
The band is set to play four shows here in June, bit of a whirlwind tour, what experience would you like the fans to take from those shows?
For me when I play REEF now it just feels like a party, kind of like a house party or a celebration really. Feels like a bit of an explosion of energy really, I guess when we did it ten years ago we did it all the time and now we do it some of the time. But it feels viable to me, it feels exciting still. I think if it hadn’t have had that sort of heartbeat when we tried it again, I don’t think it would have lasted this long and I don’t think I’d want to be a part of it. So yeah it feels good, singing songs people still relate to.
What’s next on the cards for REEF? Any new material?
No we haven’t, been asked that a couple of times today, truth is no, I wouldn’t rule it out but as you probably gathered I’m kind of on the tiff of doing new stuff really, I wouldn’t rule out writing with REEF. Metropolis have offered us to make a record but it’s the same way if you say come and do this show and say ok let’s try these songs and they feel right on. It feels exciting, if it didn’t I wouldn’t want to do it, that is that same thing. I don’t know wanna just say yeah we’ll go and make a record, yeah lets do it you know, let’s see if we write some songs. Let’s do it the right way round and at the moment the songs I’ve been writing and Jack has written some amazing wicked songs and were gonna make a great second StringerBessant album. So when we finish this summer’s touring, that’s the songs I want to record so let’s get to the end of this year and see what happens but I’d never say never.
Thanks for your time and I’ll see you in June!
Take it easy Nazia!
Nazia Hafiz
Hi Gary, where are you at the moment?
I’m in Somerset, just came back from London went via the beach Monday; we had two shows for this Saturday and Sunday in London. I don’t know if you know, we just released a box set on Monday, of all of the stuff we’ve ever recorded and we did two shows playing rarities and B-Sides to fans up in London.
Speaking of which, you’ve released ‘93/03’ the complete works of REEF so that’s 9 CDs and 1 DVD, how does it feel to have such a comprehensive record of your career?
It feels bloody brilliant to be honest Nazia, I mean for a start it’s really flattering that someone would think to do that for us, these last three years have kind of been like some of these doors were shut and then they’re being opened again. We did our last show with REEF in 2003 and I thought that was it. I had enough anyway by then, after having ten years of really enjoying being part of this gang sort of marauding around the world and having fun with music and playing to people in different countries and releasing songs that sold loads and having really good times, the last six months was starting to feel a bit like work you know.
I didn’t want to sully the memory, so when we were asked if we wanted to do it again, I think if it had happened earlier…I mean I started making music again probably in 2006/2007 with Jack, we made a knucklehead rock record called ‘Them Is Me’ and we toured that for 18 months and then we made an acoustic record totally different, totally bare, quite naked but that was good fun. We just finished touring that last year; we went out to New York and did our last show out there for StringerBessant the ‘Yard’ album.
I guess it was the winter of 2009 we were asked to do the REEF shows, we booked studio time for the first StringerBessant album February and March, Charlie Caplowe at Xtra Mile signed us up and asked us to do the demos of the acoustic stuff and really liked it. To be on his label was really cool I’m a big fan and we went and did that and then we had April free so we basically finished mixing that record and started rehearsals. We did about a week’s rehearsal and went and did seven sold out shows in the UK. We’re still laughing about having 7 years off and 7 days on, that’s kind of the REEF way you know.
It’s great to have a box set from the first handful of spring shows in 2010, we did Glastonbury festival, we went out and did some more shows in the winter and they sold great and we did some festivals last year. We sort of mixed and matched with StringerBessant through this summer, and it’s the same issue where we are now. We start work in May, we have a handful of festivals in the UK and a couple of festivals abroad with StringerBessant, we go to Portugal before we come to you in Australia and then end up going to Czech Republic when we get back with StringerBessant. So it’s just mix and matching with the bands and making music and it just feels really good.
So REEF have reformed after being on a bit of a hiatus; do you still feel like the band is a core part of who you are?
Maybe not, I mean you know I’m thirty nine this year, I guess I wouldn’t want to define myself by being in a rock band but I guess that’s a huge part of my life and I’m really proud of it. With the box set, we’ve looked into a few dark corners you know, we’ve listened to loads of b-sides and all these songs you’ve kind of forgot you recorded and it’s something you feel really good about. I think the uncomfortable stuff is when you see footage of you when you were like nineteen, and we got given high end cameras to go out on these first tours. I’m nineteen and I’m young and dumb and full of myself and all those kind of things that are uncomfortable. I don’t know how old your are Nazia, but when you get near your forties you look back at yourself at nineteen and you think ‘what a tit’, and I think most people would kind of feel like that.
But yeah it’s all good, really the success of this band allowed me to make the ‘Them Is Me’ record and the StringerBessant record. With ‘Them Is Me’ the biggest show we did in London was to four hundred people and we go out in a van with two techs. When we used to go out with REEF and even now, when you go with a tour bus you’ve got couple of semi tonne trucks taking your gear around. You got crew coming out of your arse, we’d go out with forty or fifty crew members, so it’s sort of extravagant to the past, kind of coming up trumps now because you’re able to do what you want. Which I guess is what anyone wants to do really musically, it’s a good vibe to be able to do that to go and make a knuckle head rock record and then go and do totally the opposite, make a really bare and naked acoustic album all the same time, although it feels like we’re going to do a REEF show.
Especially after we’ve been doing acoustic shows as a duo, me and Jack, and they’re really intense and really precise. Acoustic is kind of like that, you can’t fuck about with an acoustic guitar in the same way as you can fuck about in a rock band with electric guitars. You can’t toss your hair about, get a bit of feedback and you’re off, you can’t do that with acoustic gigs. So when we do the REEF shows it’s kind of like a party, feels like you’re really letting off steam, it’s a good band and I feel really happy being in it at the moment.
So all of the band members are involved in side projects, you’ve joined forces with Jack in both Stringer Bessant and Them is Me, how did those two projects come about?
Just basically from, I was saying earlier doing our last show in 2003 with REEF in a festival down here, actually in the South West of England in August, and I thought that was it. I think I got offered like a stack of money to do some festival a couple of months later I went and put a band together from friends and we did some cover versions mainly and that was good fun but I didn’t do any work for two or three years, I hung out with my kids. When we were getting down to 2006/2007 I would be at home here in the West country and I’d have all these words going around in my head late at night. Like at three or four in the morning I’d find myself awake when everyone else was asleep and I would just start to write some things down and using a Dictaphone and singing into it and setting up a guitar.
Don’t know how much detail you want, but first of all we actually wrote and I rang Jack and said I feel like I want to make music again and he was on the same vibe and he’d gone off circling, he’d gone to Ireland and did his own thing for a few years. We’ve always been good friends since we were sixteen and we got back together and started doing our studio in an old pig sty, an old chicken coop basically a stone barn and put electric in. We actually started with the acoustic songs that would form ‘Yard’ two years later, but as soon as we got electric in that building we chucked a drum kit up one end and started cranking out this sort of pseudo metal.
We just felt like we were teenagers again head banging and doing daft stuff and we made the logo, a friend or ours designed it you know, just like school pals, it just felt great. Then we got that out of our system I guess, we went and did that for eighteen months, that’s kind of how it came about. We’ve got studio time to go in at Metropolis and make a second album with StringerBessant and I think we’re going to ask Dom the drummer from REEF to do some shows with us through the summer and maybe move StringerBessant more into a band with an electric piano maybe and electric guitar and a drummer, maybe make it more like a Neil Young band.
It seems you have quite a loyal and varied fan base, do you think you think your fan base has changed over the years?
Well they’ve got old like we have and if it’s anything to go by what we’ve played over here in the UK and Europe seventy five percent of them are the same age as us or slightly younger or slightly older and a few newbies knocking about in there as well.
The band got to open the premier league season at Wembley stadium last year?
YEAH! You’re the first one to ask me that, like cool man that was incredible! That day was brilliant, we drove up to London the night before and into Wembley Stadium ninety thousand people, played the song ‘Place Your Hands’, watch a game of football. But yeah we had to leave, not to sort of bang on about StringerBessant again, but we had a show down in the West country on a beach with StringerBessant that same night. So went from playing to ninety thousand people with REEF at lunchtime, to playing to three hundred people on a beach Lusty Glaze in Cornwall with StringerBessant, that just about sums everything up I think.
You’ve played alongside some legendary artists such as The Rolling Stones, Paul Weller and Soundgarden, what have been some of the most memorable performances?
Well performances I remember the big festivals, Glastonbury festival performance wise was always good fun and it was close to home for us. On a personal level connecting with people, Paul Weller heard the first seven inch we pressed and he really liked the b-side ‘Choose to Live’ and he put us on his ‘Wild Wood’ tour as a result of that. He looked after us a treat and made us feel so welcome to music and playing the Royal Albert Hall. When we moved up to London we lived maybe three miles from the Albert Hall out West and driving up to it was just fantastic. He took us up to the duplex and he’d come and watch us at sound check and made us feel like we’d arrived at Albert you know, I’ll never forget that, he’s a top man and a great musician.
Is there anyone you would like to share the stage with that you haven’t yet?
Oh yeah geez, I mean Stevie Wonder, B.B.King, Fred Hibbert, Toots & the Maytals, AC/DC, Jesus come on I mean I’m as much as a music fan as anyone else. I’d sing or head bang or play triangle with any of those guys, we’ve done alright and we’ll see what happens, but yeah I wouldn’t turn down any of those guys’ bands.
It’s been over a decade since you visited Australia, are you looking forward to coming back?
Yeah too bloody right! I was genuinely surprised when we got asked to come to Australia, kind of like what I said earlier with some things, we thought the doors shut. We always did well in Australia, we sold records there and we must’ve come two or three times and I remember the place in Sydney we’re playing The Metro. I can remember the Gold Coast and Melbourne and Perth you know, I can remember the place fondly, we had really good fun yeah so of course I am, can’t wait.
The band is set to play four shows here in June, bit of a whirlwind tour, what experience would you like the fans to take from those shows?
For me when I play REEF now it just feels like a party, kind of like a house party or a celebration really. Feels like a bit of an explosion of energy really, I guess when we did it ten years ago we did it all the time and now we do it some of the time. But it feels viable to me, it feels exciting still. I think if it hadn’t have had that sort of heartbeat when we tried it again, I don’t think it would have lasted this long and I don’t think I’d want to be a part of it. So yeah it feels good, singing songs people still relate to.
What’s next on the cards for REEF? Any new material?
No we haven’t, been asked that a couple of times today, truth is no, I wouldn’t rule it out but as you probably gathered I’m kind of on the tiff of doing new stuff really, I wouldn’t rule out writing with REEF. Metropolis have offered us to make a record but it’s the same way if you say come and do this show and say ok let’s try these songs and they feel right on. It feels exciting, if it didn’t I wouldn’t want to do it, that is that same thing. I don’t know wanna just say yeah we’ll go and make a record, yeah lets do it you know, let’s see if we write some songs. Let’s do it the right way round and at the moment the songs I’ve been writing and Jack has written some amazing wicked songs and were gonna make a great second StringerBessant album. So when we finish this summer’s touring, that’s the songs I want to record so let’s get to the end of this year and see what happens but I’d never say never.
Thanks for your time and I’ll see you in June!
Take it easy Nazia!
Nazia Hafiz