INTERVIEW – ROGUE MALE’s JIM LYTTLE

By Shane Pinnegar

The original ROGUE MALE, Jim Lyttle answered the phone in his unmistakable Irish brogue and I’m immediately struck by how cheery he is – what happened to the serious behemoth hulking about on ROGUE MALE’s album covers looking like Mad Max meets The Terminator while having a bad day?

Well it appears a few years off from the music business has taken a load off the man’s shoulders – but there’s no denying it was a wild ride for Lyttle, and whilst he may not seem outwardly bitter about his experiences in the rock n’ metal wastelands, there is no doubt he is wary of the industry, and with good reason after being ripped off and backstabbed mercilessly as the band amost went supernova in the 80s. It took Jim six years of legal shenanigans, but he finally won back the rights to his music, and now licences Rogue Male’s output through his own RM2K company.

Jim Lyttle 2011 may not be as hot property as the Jim Lyttle that was touted as the “next big thing” in 1985, but coming off the back of 2009’s excellent “comeback” album “Nail It” (Read my review HERE) he is laughing down the phone line from Ireland and having a fine craic, even when I remind him of his eighties albums…

Jim Lyttle: Hows it going?

SP: Very well indeed, thanks for making time for us.

Jim Lyttle: No bother (laughs).

SP: Where’s home anyway?

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) Where’s Ireland? Great start!

SP: (laughs)

Jim Lyttle: I ain’t talkin’ (laughs)

SP: No, no – I mean which part of Ireland are you in?

Jim Lyttle: I’m in a little place in Tipperary, you have probably heard of that?

SP: Absolutely.

Jim Lyttle: We are on the edge of the world here.

SP: (laughs) That’s how we feel sometimes mate.

Jim Lyttle: (laughs)

SP: I literally have in front of me the original vinyl albums of ‘First Visit’ and ‘Animal Man’ from back in the day.

Jim Lyttle: Wow! (laughs)

SP: “Nail It” is great, it really encapsulates the Rogue Male sound from the first two albums. At any point were you tempted to update and make it a more modern sounding thing?

Jim Lyttle: Umm no, no I didn’t. The way I look at it is that I started out, and I mean even back then, back in the 80’s, I mean, we kind of our own sound, you know we were kind of, we were setting our own style you know?

SP: Yeah.

Jim Lyttle: And yeah, I think we just, for me personally, I think I’m just sticking with it really you know, I think what I did try to do on the album is I tried to get a bit of a live thing, make it sound more like a live thing so what I did was I just set up the equipment and we just took it and we went through it and took it in one take basically we didn’t touch up or anything, you know, just wanted to leave it as raw as we could you know.

SP: It’s really got that animal ferocity to it still, that old school sound, I really dig that.

Jim Lyttle: Yeah.

SP: I don’t think it would have worked if you’d gone all nu-metal, put it that way.

Jim Lyttle: No, no, that’s not me really, to be honest with you.

SP: (laughs) Thank goodness for that (laughs).

Jim Lyttle: (laughs)

SP: (laughs) Good to see there is still a few of us left (laughs). Now the guys you got to play on the album are pretty much heavy hitters, the GMT guys [Bernie Torme, John McCoy and Robin Guy}, how did you enlist their help?

Jim Lyttle: Well basically, I knew Bernie and we played back in the 80’s and stuff, you know, and when I decided that this record company in Poland ‘Metal Mind Productions’, they re-released both the albums and when they did that it kinda kicked off, you know, a lot of interest n’ stuff you know, so I thought, well yeah, maybe the time is right to get back into it again you know.

Jim Lyttle: So I sort of like started looking for guys to see if we could get a line up together and couldn’t really find the right, you know, chemistry… So what happened was I then rang Bernie and put it to him, you know, would he be interested in doing it. Bernie has his own studio anyway, so I thought right ok, well you know, we can cut a few corners here, so I went over to meet Bernie and John McCoy and Robin and have a chat with them and we got on great together. Then I put together a disc of just myself playing acoustic guitar and the songs, and gave it to them and they had it for a few days to kind of get it into their head and then I went over and just put it together, roughly there for about ten days, and we knocked it out.

SP: And it’s great.

Jim Lyttle: Yeah.

Rogue Male's debut album "First Visit", 1985

SP: (laughs) You must be proud, you’re obviously proud, I can hear it in your voice.

Jim Lyttle: And then what the funny thing was that happened when I got back to Ireland, we started getting phone calls from all sorts of people and ended up having to get a Rogue Male line up back together anyway (laughs).

SP: Yes (laughs) and John Fraser Binnie is back with the band now?

Jim Lyttle: Yeah.

SP: So how did that feel?

Jim Lyttle: What happened to Johnny, Johnny was actually touring up and down the country, up and down England with his own band actually that was a Zeppelin Tribute Band called ‘Stairway To Zeppelin’ and he had been doing that for the last ten years and he’d just had enough of it, and when this came about, it was actually the bass player, the new guy Peter, Pete D, he contacted him. He and Johnny were actually, had been in touch with each other anyway so he put him onto me and well as soon as we heard each other again it was like yeah lets get back into it you know.

SP: And you have said that this line up of the band is possibly the strongest yet?

Jim Lyttle: Yeah, I mean well, that’s (laughs) that’s a hard one, umm I think that’s Pete’s words you’re quoting actually - he’s a young pup and he’s rather enthusiastic, you know!

SP: (laughs) Of course.

Jim Lyttle: But that was the idea as well, we had to get a younger bass player and a younger drummer so that, we actually tried a few of the old farts first and they couldn’t hack it you know (laughs).

SP: (laughs)

Jim Lyttle: We tried out our old drummer and after about four songs his legs gave out (laughs).

SP: (laughs) Oh no (laughs) Oh dear. Back in the 80’s…

Jim Lyttle: We will have to get a young pup on drums.

SP: (laughs) Yeah fair enough to, for a bit more energy. Feed them Redbull that’ll help

Jim Lyttle: (laughs)

SP: Back in the mid 80’s you had Kerrang and everyone calling you the next big thing and the future of rock n’ roll. Was it hard to go about the business of being in a band with that sort of pressure laid onto you?

Jim Lyttle: Ah not really, we realised, we’re just down to earth guys, me, myself and Johnny and we just do what we do and don’t really take much notice, just didn’t notice really you know. I mean it was nice to be attributed those titles and stuff, it was quite good, you know, we got great reviews everywhere we played and everything, we got, you know, when we toured America and stuff we got great reviews and stuff, and there was no doubt about it, it was beautiful thing you know.

SP: Yeah which is always nice when you’re young and…

Jim Lyttle: Sure thing, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I suppose it’s definitely good to get praise you know but, I don’t think it went to our heads really you know. I think we’re down to earth enough to keep a lid on it you know.

SP:. How do you think the industry and music fans in general perceive the band now?

Jim Lyttle: Uuuummm… well it’s early days yet but going by the few gigs that we have done over the last year, we were playing in London all of last year really, and we got a great reception and were really surprised to see a lot of younger dudes coming you know, so I think things are looking quite good actually you know. And we have had a few good write ups as well and you know, and the album has been reviewed in the press and its been good, its been positive and you know. We haven’t reached ah, it didn’t reach out anywhere amongst like the last two did but (laughs)… but then again we haven’t had any promotion or anything, like you know, I just put it when we were puttin’ the LP together I just put it out myself or on my own RM2K label and just have it up on our own website but then that’s basically all we had, you know. In retrospect its not really had any promotion you know. I think this year it may well, you know, I got the management company involved and we have an agent involved and a PR company so hopefully this year it will take in the action a bit, you know, a bit more positively.

SP: Well maybe one of these days we will get you Down Under for a tour.

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) Yeah it would be great I would love to get Down Under, in actual fact, back in the 80’s we were actually supposed to do Japan and Australia, just before it all caved in. Yeah, geez we were looking forward to that you know.

SP: I bet. So that big legal fight you had with the ex-management and labels and all that sorta crap, that took about what? Six years to resolve? But it ended up that you got awarded all the rights to your music and everything so obviously worth the struggle in the long run, but were there times when you thought it might have been easier to give up along the way?

Jim Lyttle: Well I tell you man, that’s just the reason why we actually split up because it just took so long you know, and it just drained us really you know, and we just… I think imploded really after that, it just took that long and we couldn’t do anything, I mean we couldn’t even get gigs, people that we thought were our friends turned their back on us and even gigs that we had planned regularly wouldn’t book us again for some reason, we don’t know why and when we actually parted company with our manager he had in effect booked us into lots and lots of gigs that we didn’t know about and of course we didn’t do so it was like you know I think he did it deliberately give us, to blacken our name you know.

SP: Well, it’s a completely different industry now…

Jim Lyttle: Exactly yeah.

Second album "Animal Man", 1986

SP: Assholes are always going to be assholes aren’t they, so…

Jim Lyttle: Mmm, and really it’s more independent now, we’re actually more in control of our own destiny now you know.

SP: What do you think might have happened to Rogue Male in 1986 if the industry was set up like it is now days so you had independent control?

Jim Lyttle: Well I think it speaks for itself really because back then I don’t think we could have put a foot wrong really, as I said, everywhere we played the crowds loved us and we got great album reviews and that’s another thing, just to hit on it - the albums, I mean the first album it went haywire really and everyone was expecting it to go, you know, through the roof really, and to a certain extent it did, we got all, as I said, it was ‘album of the month’ worldwide, in all the magazines worldwide we can remember. We never, ever got paid for anything - the band never, ever got a cut from the management or the record companies, it was Music For Nations that we were signed to, and we were well into the second album by the time that it was actually the solicitors advised us, that you know, we should get out of our contracts because we actually weren’t getting a cut and there was a lot of money about back then, I mean we were signed for a million dollars, you know.

SP: Wow.

Jim Lyttle: And the first advance we got off them was one hundred thousand dollars, you know, and we never seen any of it. - we got one hundred and twenty thousand dollars advance and back then that was a hell of a lot of money you know.

SP: Well it’s just staggering that it just vanishes, you know when you are dealing in figures like that, if it’s not trickling down to the people who should be earning it then yeah you really gotta scratch your head about who you’re dealing with.

Jim Lyttle: And of course we were naïve, I mean I didn’t do anything about the business side of things back then you know, we didn’t really know what the fuck was going on!

SP: (laughs).

Jim Lyttle: I just wanted to play my guitar you know, basically.

SP: Well it’s the old story isn’t it mate, you sell your soul for rock n’ roll and then you end up with nothing. So what did you do between the two decades of disbanding and ‘Nail It’?

Jim Lyttle: What I did was return to Ireland and I mean I sort of looked up and down for you know, in the north, cause I’m actually from Belfast you know, so I went there first, I started looking for musicians to get another band, another line up together, and I couldn’t really and I tried lots and lots of different line-ups but you know, that magic was just never there for some reason and I thought maybe because I had lost enthusiasm or whatever, I could never, I could just never feel that magic that was there you know. And then we moved south, moved down to Tipperary, I’ve been living there, and the same again started looking around for musicians and still could not find that ingredient, you know, and throughout that time I carried on writing songs and everything so, I now have a backlog of songs that I hopefully get around to doing, you know.

Jim Lyttle: And you know the old story as well, I started hanging around with a few lads, bikers and stuff so you know, we kinda get into doing a lot of partying and drinking and time flies by, you know what I mean?

SP: (laughs) I do indeed. I’m a bit of a drinker myself so I might have an inkling on what you’re talking about.

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) Yeah, that was highlighted to us back in the 80’s when we did start the legal proceedings, we were actually told by our solicitor when they started looking into that our manager was actually helping themselves to four hundreds pounds a day and that was for office expenses. So that just gives you an example of what we are up against.

SP: Wow - hard to find someone you can trust in the industry isn’t it?

Jim Lyttle: Mmm yeah.

SP: So yeah, having John back on board, has that affected the live set list at all?

Jim Lyttle: Yeah, the thing, that ingredient that I was talking about, it’s there between me and Johnny, as soon as we start playing, it’s like hitting a switch and the two of us are electrified you know. That’s what it was that I was always looking for that I could never get, you know, so he just feeds off me and I just feed off him you know - and I think that’s really what you need in a band you know.

SP: Yeah cool, so look I have to ask, looking at the album covers in front of me, do you still have those old Road Warrior costumes?

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) No we don’t actually, no (laughs). Well we still kind of like, we started off that kinda look and we are still kinda going for that sort of look, but just a little bit more honed in, you know! The actual, real sort of science fiction sort of look that would have been on the third album cover, those costumes were actually donated to charity for children’s charity.

SP: Ah cool.

Jim Lyttle: You know, for Christmas pantomimes and stuff like that.

SP: (laughs) I don’t remember seeing a panto dressed like that…

Jim Lyttle: In Ireland (laughs)

SP: If it’s anything like the clothes I had in ’85 or ’86 they certainly wouldn’t fit on you anymore anyway so.

Jim Lyttle: (laughs)

SP: (laughs) So every promo, I remember reading Kerrang religiously, I used to subscribe to it back in the day and still do to Classic Rock Magazine and everything. Every promo pic I ever saw of you guys, even on the road in the States next to your tour bus and everything you always had the costumes on. Did that ever become limiting in a Kiss like sort of way?

Jim Lyttle: No no, no no and that’s the thing about it, we actually wore those clothes just, you know, we didn’t just wear them on stage, like that’s what we were actually like all the time you know, I mean, I was a punk rocker and that’s the clothes that I wore you know, basically, I mean there were other gadgets [we could take off] like the shoulder pad things and stuff, you know, but most of the time it was generally what you see there is how we actually just lived our lives really, you know. I remember like when we were on the bus touring and we were probably lying around I shorts and t-shirts you know, but most of the time when we were going out anywhere, dinner or anything then that’s how we dressed you know.

SP: So travelling on your tour bus through the mid west of America, down in the deep south and so on, did that create any interesting experiences trying to buy a sandwich in a roadhouse or something?

Jim Lyttle: Oh yeah man it was just that completely, you know when we did that, we were in a transit van, you know. (laughs) You can imagine the difference when we jumped on that big bus thing, you know. It was like, it had everything in it, kitchen, every bloody thing you know. It was fantastic you know, and, you know, travelling down throughout America and meeting all these different people it was absolutely, it was just a real eye opener - I really loved it you know.

SP: Have you got plans to hit America again? From what I gather you really have a strong fan base over there still?

Jim Lyttle: I’m absolutely amazed at how many hits we’ve had from the computer from people in America asking us to come and play and do this and do that and look, Christ, absolutely amazed at the people who seen the band back then have contacted me, friended me on the Facebook and the MySpace, I’m absolutely amazed and it’s incredible, some of the comments they have been sending me, you know. I’m quite humbled by it all to be honest with you.

SP: And you know you have got a bit of a celebrity journo fan in Sleazegrinder!

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) Yup.

Then...

...and now

SP: Going back to the whole touring around America sort of thing, you must have attracted some intense fans to put it lightly, can you tell us about the craziest fan experience you’ve had?

Jim Lyttle: Mmm oooh (laughs) well there was plenty of that. (laughs) Ahh the craziest, let me see, what was the craziest experience? I think Holland actually, we went to Holland and it was probably the craziest. Actually no, it may well have been in Texas when we played in El Paso, there was all these Mexican guys and the theatre that we played there was like three levels of floor levels you know, and these guys were actually diving off the top level, I had never seen anything like it. They were actually diving off the top level, down on top of the crowd, run around, run back up the stairs, it was just a continuation of up the stairs, back up, dive, and just constant diving down into the crowd, I had never seen anything like that.

SP: Bloody hell.

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) It’s a wonder those guys didn’t hurt themselves. It was just mental, you know. And the other thing was in Holland when we played this place called ‘The Stoned Club’ and (laughs), an appropriate name, these guys were all lined along the front and these guys were actually head butting the stage. And they were absolutely covered in blood, they just didn’t seem to mind how much damage they were doing to themselves you know - I mean, I am quite amazed really, they were all lined along the front, covered in blood you know. That was a bit crazy.

SP: Yeah, just a little bit, yeah, yeah.

Jim Lyttle: We had all encountered a few dangerous things where a couple of stalkers and stuff, we’re not sure, but somewhere in America there was a guy driving around and around the bus in a pick up truck with a shotgun hanging out the window! That was a bit of a weird one - we didn’t know what was going to happen there and our bus driver actually was armed so he kinda, this was all a new experience for us having a bus driver who carried a gun as well. So stuff like that [happened a lot], a bit crazy you know.

SP: It all makes for good stories to tell the grandkids doesn’t it?

Jim Lyttle: (laughs) Yes.

Rogue Male 1986, Jim far left

SP: So what’s next for Rogue Male and what’s next for Jim Lyttle?

Jim Lyttle: Well, what we are hoping to do now is, we have new material lined up to get that recorded as well, we’ve got a couple of great new songs, one in particular called ‘Liar’, you can guess what that is about, it’s about all the bent politicians and stuff, you know what I mean (laughs), bad deals getting dealt to the public you know.

SP: Cool. Well as I wrote in my review of “Nail It”, you have always been great at writing protest songs.

Jim Lyttle: With this new manager now we’ve hooked up with, this year we would like to pull a tour with somebody like Motorhead or someone you know. If we can do that we’re laughing, we’re back up again, so fingers crossed, we’ve got a few gigs lined up and hopefully by the middle of this year we will pull a tour and hopefully get back up, you know.

SP: Cool, well we look forward to the next album. Jim, what is one piece of music that you wish you’d had a hand in creating?

Jim Lyttle: Oh, that’s got me really (laughs). Oh, that’s a hard one.

Jim Lyttle: Hmm, let me see now, umm, I would have liked to have been involved in (laughs) What was that one with the kangaroo? ‘Skippy The Bush Kangaroo’? (laughs).

SP: (laughs) Oh yeah, that’s a classic chart topper, you can do a cover version if you tour Down Under.

Jim Lyttle: I think umm, well, there are so many things you know, but I suppose I would have liked to have been involved with the Sex Pistols… somewhere along the line I would have liked to have touched base with them you know, they were a big influence. That “Never Mind The Bollocks” album, when I got that I just played it to death you know. Or I would have loved to have met those guys out of The Who, you know The Who were a big influence on me. Of course, there is just so many things that I would have loved to have been involved in you know – [even] some great movie scores and stuff that made a big impression on me you know. The ‘Mad Max Theme’ and all that kinda thing.

SP: And so lastly we ask everyone we interview, for you, what is the meaning of life? That’s another easy one for ya.

Jim Lyttle: What is the meaning of life? (laughs).

SP: Yeah (laughs).

Jim Lyttle: Oh my, errr, the meaning of life for me, umm, well I think really it’s all… I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in religion, I believe in the Human Race, and I think that we have the potential to be great you know. If we can just learn to respect and be cool with each other, I think that’s, you know, that’s what’s in my head there as far as that’s concerned you know.

SP: It would be nice wouldn’t it.

Jim Lyttle: Mmm.

SP: Cool mate, thank you so much for your time.