I first saw FM way back on their first ever headline tour of the UK back in the day, when they were supported by White Sister. It wasn’t a show I’d expected to see, but one that my girlfriend at the time dragged me down to, we missed the bus back to college and spent the night in the cold in Nottingham, but that’s another story. I hadn’t really expected to like the band as at the time they seemed a little ‘light’ for me, but that night made me a lifelong fan. Just before their new album ‘Synchronized’ hits in April they are paying their first ever visit down-under to join us at the Melodic Rock Fest. I caught up with bassist Merv Goldsworthy for what turned out to be one of my favourite interviews in the 11 years of the Rockpit.
Merv: Hi Mark
Mark: Hi Merv how are you?
Merv: I’m good thanks
Mark: Thanks for taking time to talk to us today, how’s things going over there? The weather is getting nice and warm for you guys coming over
Merv: Well not quite yet, not here in London, it’s still dry and overcast, but we are all just getting ready for the new album to come out and the tour to kick in, one more time on the ‘merry go round’ really.
Mark: Yes its fantastic news, tenth of April the new album ‘Synchronised’ is out, and I’ve seen the track list there and been teased by the fact the new video and single is on its way very soon.
Merv: We shoot that in February in Birmingham, that’s when it all kicks off, and then our first shows in Australia
Mark: So I guess I have to ask are you going to play anything off the new album for us. Do we get an exclusive?
Merv: We’re not sure, do people want to hear new songs? What do you think?
Mark: Well, it’s interesting isn’t it? I’m always a big fan of hearing new material but I’ve been down here so long now it’s been a while since I’ve seen you! I used to live in Nottingham in the UK, but I’ve been here in Australia for almost 30 odd years now, I’ve seen you play twice, once on the ‘Indiscreet’ tour and once at the ‘High Rock Festival’ in 2013 – now that was a great festival! But I personally love it when bands play new stuff.
Merv: Yeah well, I think it will probably depend on how long we get to play because I know we have got an hour set at the Melodic Rock Fest, and we have a lot of albums, I suppose the decision could go either way, we are going to arrive in Melbourne and go straight into a rehearsal for a couple of hours, so that’s when we will decide, sort of last minute.
Mark: Yes Twelve albums is a huge amount of material to go through
Merv: Yes that’s the problem, it’s picking a set which causes us no end of problems coz we don’t know how much old stuff to include, so we are trying to freshen it up each time, sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong, but we will do our best.
Mark: Yeah I loved it when you re-did ‘Indiscreet’ a few years back, it sounded fantastic, I think that was one of the things I really enjoyed about that, you got the balance right – treating the songs with reverence but giving them a great sonic boost.
Merv: Thank you.
Mark: One of the things that has always intrigued me about FM is that the fact you don’t often get song writers who are bassists and drummers, but I know you and Mr. Jupp used to write some great songs together.
Merv: We still do there are some songs we’ve written together on the new album, it’s always been sort of a team effort, when Chris was in the band he used to write a lot of lyrics for the band, Steve is a little bit like a jukebox he just writes non-stop – the songs just keep coming, I don’t know how he does it! We try to mix it up, Pete’s songs are different to my song, my songs are different to Steve’s, Jim’s and Jem’s songs are great and that’s how we get the blend I suppose.
Mark: It must be great to have a band where everyone writes, how does the process work for you guys? Do you bring full demos to the band or do you all bring your ideas and work on them together? Or is it a case of making the best use of technology?
Merv: There’s no real blueprint for the best way of doing it. I mean we spent a long time working on this one, we’ve had these songs kicking around for a couple of years now as we always write more songs than we need so we had some left over for this album. I think the way we do it now is we demo the song either with Pete or Steve and two of us will work together on a song as we can all play different instruments, so we’re all capable and then we just present it to the band. Sometimes we just change a few parts and that’s it the songs done! And of course over the years technology has changed which makes the process so much easier in that respect.
Mark: Take it all the way back for us Merv, FM wasn’t your first band was it? There were a few bands before like for example ‘Samson’?
Merv: Yeah that’s where I first met Pete, I first played in a band called ‘Street Fighter’ with a chap called John Sykes who ended up in Whitesnake and then I joined ‘Samson’, only for about the eight months. We toured with Gary Moore and Europe, but before that I was in a band called ‘Dynacape’ as well, and I left them to join Samson. I wanted to do something more melodic, so I said to Pete I’m going to leave Samson after this tour and try something a bit more melodic and Pete said “I quite fancy that myself”, so we started playing with different people, eventually we hooked up with Steve and Chris even though Steve and Chris were in a band ‘Wildfire’ who were signed to Swansong who had Led Zeppelin and Bad Company on the books! Pete was managed by Peter Grant who managed Led Zeppelin, so we had all sort of dabbled in bands before, so when we came together we had all done a little bit before, done tours and things like that so the experience was there. So we said we would give it three months and see if it works and if it didn’t then that’s it, but within three months we had a record deal and we went out on tour with Meatloaf and that’s where it all started, if you would have said then we would still be going now, I would be totally gobsmacked!
Mark: I was amazing to an outsider in those pre social-media and internet days, as it all seemed to happen so fast and before we knew it you were touring with the likes of Meatloaf, Gary Moore, Foreigner and Magnum!
Merv: Lots of heroes of ours really. The very first tour we ever did in England was with Gary Moore and Phil Lynott got up most nights to play, and that was FM’s first experience of going on tour, and my first experience before that in a band was supporting Black Sabbath so I’ve been very lucky in that respect with playing with lots of bands that I never expected. Even in the last few years you know, last year over summer we were touring with Kiss and Def Leppard! Its dream stuff, even at this late stage in our careers. You have to pinch yourself sometimes that you’re still doing this you know. You know what I mean?
Mark: It is incredible. And a lot of people must have seen you supporting Bon Jovi on the ‘Slippery When Wet’ Tour, heady days back then!
Merv: When that tour first came in we’d heard of Bon Jovi, we’d heard ‘Runaway’ and the first album and they’d even toured with Kiss in the UK but we had no idea what that would turn into. I think the first gig was in Bradford and really it was their first headline tour, they’d just come off a tour in America supporting Ratt so they were really, really proud to be headlining in another country. And they were such a great band to tour with, very respectful, very humble and really good to us. So that was our first impression but half-way through the tour their manager went into their dressing room and told them they were number one in America and so from that moment on everything changed. It was like we were at the centre of the universe for a little while, and it was a bit of a shock for us to be part of that. There were so many females at the gigs!
Mark: I can imagine.
Merv: Heady days for sure!
Mark: So what can we expect from ‘Synchronised’ more of the great FM sound? Or something a little different?
Merv: I’ll be honest with you it sounds very 80’s to me, more than stuff we’ve done in the past and I don’t know how that has come about. We never really have a plan when we go to write and album we never think this one will be heavy or this or that, we just write the songs and see how things turn out. This one was weird though, two songs made it at the eleventh hour and a few things like that, so you never know what you are gonna get. We had a heavy touring schedule towards the end of last year so all the stuff was being mastered while we were on tour so we never really got to listen to the finished product until over Christmas and New Year. So we’re really still taking it all in at the minute. And there’s a lot of different styles on the album so I hope everybody likes it. There’s always trepidation when you’re just about to release an album (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Merv: I actually think it’s some of the best stuff we’ve done so hopefully it goes down well, you know.
Mark: I’m looking forward to hearing it. I love it as a reviewer when you get a killer album a few months before it hits. It’s hard to contain things sometimes knowing it’s gonna really connect!
Merv: I hope you like it (laughs)
Mark: You have the Melodic Rock festival in March down here in Australia, it’s the first time for the band. Have there been any close calls in the past?
Merv: You know what, never. It’s always been on the bucket list but it’s tough for a Rock band from the UK to play in Australia. We’ve seen a few bands do it in the last few years like Thunder and bands like that but we always thought maybe it was a bridge too far for FM. So when this opportunity came up we just went for it we were so pleased, you know. I’ve never been to Australia and neither have any of the band members, so it’s gonna be an absolute shock to the system! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) We’re not that bad!
Merv: (laughs) To think that people on the other side of the world know your songs is an absolute shot in the arm.
Mark: Melbourne is really our most European of Cities so hopefully it won’t be too much of a shock. And it’s a great line-up too with a few other bands from the UK on the bill.
Merv: It’s amazing how they’ve put it all together and I’ve gotta take my hat off to them. We did a similar thing organised by Andrew McNeice in Chicago a few years back and it was great fun but in this really strange place in the middle of nowhere 30 miles outside of Chicago, but people just seemed to come from all over the world. And in Australia we’ve got quite a few people flying in to see us from the UK because you know it might be a once in a lifetime thing.
Mark: I first saw you many years ago in Nottingham on your first tour, it’s hard to think how long ago that was!
Merv: Amazing, we just did Rock City a month or so ago, it’s a great City and a great place to do gigs, it’s always on the schedule every time we do a tour. It’s where we made our comeback at Firefest in 2007. We’d been away for like 12 years so it holds a special place in our hearts Nottingham.
Mark: I used to practically live at that venue as a teenager. I did want to ask you about that comeback though.
Merv: After we split we were still around, still working as session musicians, still playing but not really doing much. To be perfectly honest with you when we split up and Grunge took over we thought “Well we’ve had a good go at it but we’ve spectacularly failed” (laughs)
Mark: That’s a bit harsh (laughs)
Merv: (laughs) FM really never came up much at all in my life during that period and I saw the other guys now and again, but it was like ‘Chapter finished book closed’ really. And it didn’t really think much about it all and then maybe after about nine years we got the first call about doing this festival called The Firefest, and I remember saying to Keiran (Dargan) “This is not going to happen, we don’t have a fan base anymore and no one’s interested.” I remember telling him I thought he was barking up the wrong tree but he rang year on year and he managed to convince me that there were fans out there and it would be really successful. And even though we didn’t believe him we finally said “OK we’ll give it a go” it’s one gig out of your life and we’ll see what happens. I thought “We’ll be playing to 200 people and a dog” but the gig sold out and people came from all over the world. It was the first time Firefest ever sold out and made some money. And it was an incredible experience for us because we never knew we had all these fans from all over the world because we’d never been to Spain and Greece and Italy and all these other countries that since we’ve been to.
Mark: It must have been a great feeling.
Merv: And now Australia comes up and just the fact that people there know our music is a real shock to the system after all these years. We’ve had some of the most amazing gigs the band has ever had in Italy, Spain and Greece and they weren’t even on the radar eight years ago.
Mark: And you’ve been together again now for a while.
Merv: Yes, this line-up of FM has been going longer than any line-up before now. It’s all so settled now and it seems like it has been for a long time. The 80’s seems like a past life now! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) another time!
Merv: That’s right, and we still remember parts of it!
Mark: So when did you find out about the offer from Australia?
Merv: We were backstage at the ‘Ramblin’ Man’ Festival which we did with The Darkness and we told them that an offer had come in from Australia and what did they think? We were looking for the TV cameras, thinking it was a wind-up! (laughs) They love Australia so that convinced us and it all came together after that.
Mark: They’re here again just after you I think.
Merv: And the Quireboys are over too
Mark: Yes and we played our little part in making that happen. They’re playing with a wonderful Australian band called ‘Palace of The King’ you have to check those guys out – you’ll love them.
Merv: I will certainly do that. We did a run earlier in the year with The Quireboys what a laugh those guys are! There’s only one Spike –he’s an absolute one-off that fellah! It was good fun, we had a laugh! They’re one of the best bands to tour with you know.
Mark: And like FM another band from the 80’s who are making some of the best music of their careers.
Merv: I loved their last album. I think you’re right as long as you are hitting the mark on the new stuff, that’s what keeps you going. You know yourself with the gigs when you’re coming off stage how it’s gone and if it was as good as the 80’s. Some of these big Festivals last summer have felt like the best gigs of all time where everything just clicks together and you feel “Wow, what a great night”
Merv: We had some great nights back in the 80’s but they’re dim and distant memories now but as long as the gigs are still good and the records are still good I think we’ve got every excuse to keep going really, you know what I mean?
Mark: I do. Now for something a little different – if you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened, what would it be and why? What’s the album that most resonates with you?
Merv: Blimey! Well it would be a Thin Lizzy album for absolute sure, one hundred percent, but which one? Maybe ‘Johnny The Fox’? ‘Jailbreak’, ‘Johnny The Fox’ one of them two, but that’s a tough question. Those albums shaped my playing and my life so much. That version of Thin Lizzy you know: Brian Downey, Brian Robertson, Scott Gorham, Phil Lynott – that was something else! I saw that line-up a lot of times when I was in my teens so you can imagine to my shock when John Sykes joined the band you know! The guitarist that I was in a band with had actually joined Thin Lizzy! I would have liked to have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for that too (The ‘Renegade’ album that John Sykes featured on) – Chris Tsangarides producing, they must have been magical times you know. Phil was a genius in the studio and I got to know him in the last couple of years of his life. He was an absolute genius you know.
Mark: That must have been very special, especially as a fan.
Merv: An amazing musician. He let me use some of his equipment. He was very, very good to me when I first came into this business with FM – we were in London with not a lot of money and equipment was scarce, so for him to lend me his bass to record was amazing. When you think back all these years later to have had that opportunity – wow! And the first FM Tour was with Gary Moore so we knew Phil well. He was ‘around’ you know what I mean? He’d come over when we used to rehearse and things like that – they were heady days for a young man from ‘up north’ you know!
Mark: (laughs) Merv with stories like those I could talk all night!
Merv: (laughs) So next question then is it!
Mark: Before that we will have to catch up in Melbourne I could talk Lizzy all night.
Marv: You’re a big Lizzy fan then?
Mark: Yeah they were the band for me and I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to Scott a few times over the last few years and catch up with him a couple of times. He’s a lovely guy and for our tenth Anniversary of the website last year he and Ricky sent us this wonderful video birthday greeting, it made my year. Very cool indeed.
Merv: We did that last tour with Lizzy when Brian Downey was in the band and they had the guitar player from Def Leppard. So we did the last UK tour and it was funny because Scott didn’t like doing the sound checks so Ricky said does anyone know ‘Jailbreak’ and I just jumped up on stage and did the sound check! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Merv: It was a dream come true for a massive Lizzy fan. It’s amazing how things endure, he’s (Phil) probably more famous now than when he was alive. I think he’d be such a proud man if he was still around now to see how many people and bands respect his music and his memory. I’ve never met anyone quite like him, and still to this day, and it’s a long time ago that he died. I think he just had this amazing effect on people.
Mark: I’d have loved to have seen those early shows and I’d have loved to have seen the band that Brian Downey put together recently to play those shows, I got to chat to him a few years back, very nice guy, but what a drummer!
Merv: Oh man, when you could stand behind Brian Downey and just watch him play! I got to see Phil close up on the Gary Moore tour, I saw Lizzy play a lot of times I don’t know, it’s that moment in your life, everybody’s got one – the soundtrack of your life! For most people it’s Led Zeppelin but for me it was Thin Lizzy.
Mark: For me I think as far as greatest of British bands go, it has to be Lizzy and maybe then UFO.
Merv: Great yeah, Jem our keyboard player used to play in UFO and he’s got some fantastic stories! (laughs)
Mark: I’ll bet he has!
Merv: In fact we were opening for them when we stole Jem and he’s been in the band ever since. Another legendary band, you know.
Mark: And sadly on their final tour this year.
Merv: Yeah but it keeps running on. I think about four years ago we were going to play on the last tour Scorpions were doing, that was four years ago and they are still going!
Mark: I flew over to The States in 2010 to see their final tour!
Merv: (laughs) and they’re still going.
Mark: Not only that they’ve been to Australia twice now after taking almost 40 years to get here first time and they’re back in a couple of weeks with Whitesnake for a third time!
Merv: (laughs)
Mark: Let’s get all hypothetical now. When you get to Melbourne we’re going to book you a table at a restaurant and let you invite four musicians from the whole history of Rock music to spend the evening with – who would you invite?
Merv: Well this is probably going to be a bit boring! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs)
Merv: It’s probably going to be the same answer as the last one! But that would probably be it though for me – the big four! The Thin Lizzy that made those fantastic albums in the 70’s that’s my pick. I was at the Classic Rock awards and I got to sit next to Chris O’Donnell who was their manager at that time and to get insights from someone that close to the band! Wow! He’d tell you stories about when they had no money, when they opened for Queen. Amazing! But to answer your question those four guys would fill in the gaps – what a dinner that would be!
Mark: And we always leave the easy one till last – what is the meaning of life?
Merv: Oh my lord (laughs) that’s really set me up on a Friday afternoon! I don’t know but music has a lot to do with it. I don’t know where it fits in but it has a massive amount to do with it in my life. Everywhere I visit around the world everything is music based so wherever I go music takes me there. When I set foot is Australia I’ll be thinking of AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Jimmy Barnes, you know. But the meaning of life… I mean I don’t know…
Mark: Music does pull us all together. I’d never get the chance to chat to great guys like you without music bringing us together.
Merv: Rock and Roll that’s what the meaning of life is! I’m just not sure what the meaning of Rock and Roll is! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) but it must be fun finding out!
Merv: Music transcends a lot of stuff that people don’t quite understand. How it makes you feel the way it makes you feel, you know.
Mark: I know what you mean. I was playing ‘Taking It to the Streets’ earlier today, that’s one of yours that I don’t play too often, but I thought, that’s a cracking album I hope it gets a look in when you play?
Merv: Well that album was just a transition, people don’t realise we had to make that album to keep the band going, there was no money around at that time and Chris (Overland) had just left the band and we had ‘Aphrodisiac’ (FM’s 4th album released in 1992 a year after ‘Taking It To The Streets’) already recorded more or less. So we said we’ve got a lot of songs here and we need something to keep the band going for another six months so we could put ‘Aphrodisiac’ out. So that’s really the story of that album, it’s just really the songs that didn’t make it – except ‘Only the Strong Survive’ and ‘Heard It Through the Grapevine’ which should have been on the ‘Aphrodisiac’ album, but we switched them. There’s always a backstory to everything mate nothing’s ever as it seems, you know what I mean (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Brilliant, I’ve loved talking to you Merv and I’ll bet you’ve got a thousand more stories!
Merv: It’s been brilliant mate!
Mark: I shall see you then in a few weeks Sir, have a safe trip.
Merv: Thanks Mark. Come and say hello and I’ll introduce you to the guys. It’s been an absolute pleasure mate see you soon.
