It’s been 30 years since Jagged Edge released their sole album ‘Fuel For Your Soul’ a first and last long player before the band split. It was an album full of great songs and hinted at what might have been. It’s also the first in a series of interviews where we’ll look at the best Hard Rock albums of 1990 with the people that made them. Myke Gray of course went on to form UK rockers Skin and is currently working on his ‘Shades of Gray’ project, but we’ll get to that later. First let’s revisit that Jagged Edge record with Myke 30 years on.
Myke: Hey Mark how you doing? You OK?
Mark: Not too bad at all thank you Myke, I hope you’re OK too mate. How’s things? And thank you so much for doing this!
Myke: It’s an absolute pleasure. Things are a little bit crazy at the moment aren’t they?
Mark: It is wherever you may be. We’re quite lucky here in the West of Australia in that we have no cases so it’s business as usual with our daily lives but even we have restrictions with closed borders and as usual no one is coming to see us.
Myke: We are, as you know, in a very different position to that.
Mark: Indeed you are, my family and friends keep me updated, it’s very different and then when you look at the States its different again, I heard Florida is opening up completely and from our bubble here that just seems crazy, almost like giving up. And as a regular visitor home I just selfishly want things back to normal.
Myke: My girlfriend lives in Florida so what they’ve done there for instance is given kids the option of going to school or being taught at home which is what her daughter does. But of course as soon as you get a case at school those kids have to go home. So it’s not ideal but the UK is just hitting record numbers, I think the last two days have been the highest numbers ever. So not good. From the live music perspective not good at all.
Mark: I was talking to Cormac from The Answer the other day and he was saying that in Northern Ireland they are trying new things like playing in the car park of clubs rather than the clubs themselves, so people are trying new things.
Myke: And how was he doing? What was his mindset on it all?
Mark: He seems quite philosophical about it, it has a huge effect obviously but he seemed to be channeling his energies positively into creating and keeping busy.
Myke: Yeah, I’m very lucky I’ve got my own studio, so because I can do all the parts myself it does enable me to create music through this time. But if you’re a young band it must be very depressing.
Mark: But it must be horrible for you though Myke because I guess the two things that you do have been greatly affected by this thing that has affected us all.
Myke: Yeah, my career has ended. that has just literally come to a standstill, because most of my clients are in the financial sector and they’ve all been told to work from home. These big institutions where most of my clients came from, they were give a mandate to work from home. Then they started to come back and no it’s like “OK everyone back home again”. So you’re stuck with online training but of course with a lot of my stuff you need to be hands-on to physically manipulate a body or a bone. So it’s a strange thing and the forecast is that they don’t think that is going to change until at least the middle of next year.
Mark: It’s crazy. It’s heartbreaking but also fantastic and heart-warming when you see the support that you got when you put up one of your guitars the other week for auction. And not to mention the signed posters you have for fans at the moment, seeing those took me right back.
Myke: I am so, so blessed that I have people that have supported me through Jagged Edge, Skin, Red White and Blues. I’m very lucky that I have such a strong and loyal following. You’re absolutely right, absolutely.
Mark: So what I hoped we could talk about today is really two things. The first of course is what you’ve got going on now, and the other is to take a look back 30 years to 1990 which I think was one of my favourite years for music. I just put together my Top 30 list for that year and I was looking through the names thinking of people I could call and one of the first people I thought of was you because of course Jagged Edge’s ‘Fuel For Your Soul’ came out that year. I remember buying that in a record shop in Nottingham called ‘Way Ahead Records’.
Myke: I remember that store.
Mark: I think I got it the day it came out, after buying the EP and seeing you guys play the year before.
Myke: We had the 80’s the 90’s and the 70’s – where we had such phenomenal music. That was my first big release under the name Jagged Edge, as you said we did the ‘Trouble’ EP but it seemed like there had been about ten years of work to build up to that. I’d gone through about fifteen different line-ups of Jagged Edge with so many band members. And then the way that came about if you’re interested in it was – I was being managed by Rod Smallwood who was obviously the manager of Iron Maiden and I had a singer who used to be in a band called ‘Baby Tuckoo’ Rob Armitage who had been the singer in Accept for a while and we were chasing around trying to get a record deal with this band and we got very, very close. we supported Ozzy Osbourne on the ‘No Rest For The Wicked’ tour, and they came out to see us in Ireland and we were so close to a deal, and then we had to do this one show at the London Marquee and all the heads of the company came down and it really felt like they were going to make a decision. And so we played the show and they came back and they said “The good news is that we’re gonna give you a record deal” and we thought “Fantastic!” Then they said to me “The bad news is, is that it’s not with anyone else that is in the band except you”.
Mark: Oh wow.
Myke: And I was like “Oh” and they said, “But we’ve got this singer called Matti Alfonzetti who is in a very similar situation to you which is we like his voice but we don’t like his band”. Then they told me “We like your playing and your songs but we don’t like your band, if we put the two of you together we’ll give you a record deal”. And so we were basically thrown together in a room to see if it would work. So we went into Factory Studios and Chris Tsangarides, god bless him, produced the demo. We did one song and the day afterwards we were given a record deal. It was a song that I’d written and Matti just sang it. So the next thing was that we realised we were going to have to get together now and see if we can work. So Matti was sent over for I think three days and he stayed in the Columbia Hotel which is a very Rock and Roll Hotel in Bayswater. So I went there in my car and I brought my guitar and a little practice amp and literally the first song that we wrote, and within like 30 minutes was “You Don’t Love Me”
Mark: Really!
Myke: It was the first riff that I played him. I said “I’ve got this riff” and he just said “I could sing something like this” and once he sang the verse I said “Maybe we should do this bridge” and then he said “OK then let’s do this chorus” and it just went “Bang, Bang! Bang!” and it all came out.
Mark: That must have felt good.
Myke: It was. The initial writing sessions were very, very easy and we did get together a good chunk of the album probably within seven to ten days of knowing each other. And then we did the little EP (‘Trouble‘) because Rod our manager wanted to get us out there as quickly as possible so we did that EP to buy us a little bit of time and generate momentum and give us more time to record the album because as soon as they heard ‘You Don’t Love Me’ they said “This has to be put out now.” They just thought it was ‘the song.’
Mark: So the other band members, did Fabio (Del Rio) come from a recommendation from Rod, because he obviously played with Bruce Dickinson?
Myke: Yeah it was all around the same sort of time. We had this guy called Harry Mohan who used to work for Rod, and he was very much their ‘feet on the floor’ who knew all of the musicians and everyone that was out there. Almost like he’d built up this database of musicians and he’d say things like “I know this bass player” and he was the guy that suggested Andy Robbins (Bass, ex-Tokyo Blade). But I’m not entirely sure, I think Fabio, if my memory serves me correctly, used to live with one of the secretaries who used to work for Rod Smallwood. And I think she said “Oh I think I know a drummer.” So that’s how the whole thing was put together, all through the power and connections of Sanctuary and Rod. So that all came together, and at the same time that Jagged Edge was putting together our first album, Fabio did some work with Bruce. So that was kind of running parallel.
Mark: All those connections lining up!
Myke: And there was more. When we went on tour with Bruce that’s where I first met Dicki Fliszar (Skin’s future Drummer who played with Bruce and Vamp) who was then playing drums for Bruce. So it was very incestuous, but when we got our little EP together then we got the final line-up together and all the songs, we then went to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record ‘Fuel For Your Soul.’ You know the studio that’s recently been in the Queen documentary where ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was recorded. We were so lucky that we got to record our first album in one of the most famous studios in the world. And to have Jeff Glixman as producer.
Mark: There is a Demo tape going around and I see it going for strange amounts of money on places like Discogs, it has three songs on it ‘Money Talking’; ‘Skin on Skin’ and ‘Jane.’
Myke: Oh wow. Well ‘Money Talking’ I think that is on ‘Fuel For Your Soul’ but ‘Skin on Skin’ and ‘Jane’ were demos that never made the cut. I’ve actually got a lot more. I’ve probably got another ten songs on demo that are locked away in my studio that have never been released.
Mark: Now that would be cool to hear!
Myke: I have recently been thinking about creating that sort of media where people can hear them.
Mark: As you know over the years I’ve been a big fan of your song-writing and at the time I remember really loving ‘Fuel For Your Soul’ as a home-grown band who sounded as good if not better than many of your American contemporaries, but I was always really disappointed when it all came to an end. As a fan it seemed that Jagged Edge didn’t get the right support from Polydor?
Myke: Yeah, I mean at the time, and I can tell you the story very, very clearly. The label had The Almighty, Little Angels and Jagged Edge and the guy who signed us was a guy called David Munns and he was a big friend of Rod Smallwood. And so whilst David Munns was head of the label, we had that support, but then he moved on to another area and a guy called Jimmy Devlin took over the label, and his band was The Almighty. He loved them. So they just basically made a decision that they couldn’t afford all three and Jimmy basically made the decision that Jagged Edge would be axed. But at that particular time the relationship between myself and Matti Alfonzetti had deteriorated completely. There was just this huge power struggle within the band. Matti would only sing what he had written lyrically and there were a lot of things I didn’t like lyrically, and that of course caused a lot of tension between the two of us. So as soon as that decision was made, that Polydor was going to drop us there was no desire between the two of us to continue working together. And Rod didn’t want to manage Matti he only wanted to manage me, so as soon as that fell apart we went about putting Skin together.
Mark: Now of course I’m going to ask the reasons why!
Myke: Well if you want to know the reasons. Once we recorded the album we got Paul Lani to mix it. Jeff Glixman originally did some mixes but they didn’t sound like we wanted them to so we got Paul in, and Paul had done ‘Black Velvet’ by Allannah Myles and he’d also done the Enuff Z’Nuff album. So we went over to L.A. the two of us, Matti and I, to mix the album. And so we mixed one song and then Matti said “OK I’m going back now” and I said “What are you taking about you’re going back, we’re here to mix an album” and he said that he wanted to go back and see his girlfriend “We’ve done one, just make all of them sound like that.”
Mark: (laughs)
Myke: At the time I thought “Well that’s a bit odd” but he did go back and he left me to mix the album and then when we’d finally finished the whole album and played it back to him he said “I don’t like that, we’ll have to do it again.” And I just said “Brother that’s not how it works.” So it was little things like that which just made the situation unbearable. So when the band finally broke up it came as a huge relief because I wanted to work with Neville MacDonald. But looking back we did make some good music.
Mark: And there were some great singles that should have been huge ‘Out in the Cold’; ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and ‘Hell Ain’t a Long Way’ were all great songs but there’s more great music on the album. Looking back after 30 years what are some that you’d pick out?
Myke: It’s funny for me, if a relationship breaks down with someone, and here I’m just talking personally, sometimes I can find it very hard to look back and be objective because the scarring of the relationship kind of taints the work. But a little while ago I was contacted by a singer called Mike Pascal and he sings in a band called ‘Departed’. So he sort of reached out to me and said “I’m a big fan of your work, and I really love the song ‘Out in the Cold” and I said “Really? How do you know that?” it turns out he’d been a fan for some time so he asked how I’d feel doing an acoustic version of it? And I was doing Shades of Gray at the time and I don’t normally like to break up what I’m doing, but I said “OK I’ll send you some acoustic tracks and let’s see what you can do” So I sent him three acoustic tracks and he put together this whole backing track around it, and he released it and it got about six thousand views. And it was just really surprising to see that this song was still liked and so a few months ago, I don’t know if you saw what I did on the internet, I went to K.K.’s Steel Mill and I recorded nine songs and I recorded ‘Out in the Cold’ again with Mark singing, but this time with a full band playing. And it just seems amazing that these songs – ‘You Don’t Love Me’ was sung by Daniel from ‘Revival Black,’ that were written 30 years ago are still being listened to and liked. And it is something as a writer you always dreamed of being able to do. So it was very rewarding and a little bit surreal to start playing songs that I’d never played for so long again. And seeing this new line up, this new band play it. It did bring a big smile to my face.
Mark: Great songs always stand the test of time and I do think the album listened to today has really stood the test of time.
Myke: Thank you very much. There is just one more story I’d like to tell you about the ‘Fuel For Your Soul’ album because when I look back it’s one thing I’ll never forget. On ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and Loving You Too Long’ and one other song that escapes my memory for the moment we had Don Airey come in to play keyboards.
Mark: I must admit I had forgotten that until I saw it on the credits when I pulled the vinyl out.
Myke: I remember Don came in, and I’d never met him before but he was of course and still is a legend. So we thought well if we were going to have keyboards let’s see if we can get Don. I think it was Jeff Glixman who knew him as he played on the Gary Moore album that he did. So we were all quite excited that Don Airey was going to play on our album so he walked into the studio which was at Factory Studios and he just set up his keyboard and said ”OK what do you want me to play?” So we played him the song once – just through the monitors with him listening from beginning to end and he went “OK then let’s have a go.” I didn’t tell him a single chord, I didn’t tell him a single note, I didn’t tell him the key of the song – and what you hear on the album is what he played in one go!
Mark: Wow.
Myke: Mark, as he did it our mouths were open! It was just a perfect part and when he finished he went “OK what else would you like me to play?”
Mark: (laughs)
Myke: And then he did the next song in exactly the same way and I think the third song he did twice. But when you listen, everything that you hear was done with him in and out of the studio in one hour. It was flawless playing. I just wanted to give you that little story because it’s something that I’ll never forget.
Mark: It’s great to get that insight, thank you for sharing it. You can get hold of the album on CD of course but the mint gatefold vinyl copy I have is going for a fortune these days and seems to be a bit of a collector’s item.
Myke: I couldn’t believe it myself, the only reason I found this out was because the drummer of my touring band, a guy called Neil Ogden was a huge Jagged Edge fan and he told me “I paid sixty pounds for your album!” I thought “Wow” I knew they were pretty rare but I was a little bit shocked myself. I was even shocked to see that a vintage Jagged Edge T-Shirt was selling for eighty dollars!
Mark: I’ll have to look through the collection, I know I have a few Skin ones but I’m not sure I have a Jagged Edge one.
Myke: I know very, very rare.
Mark: I mentioned the Jagged Edge demo I had earlier because someone sent it to me about six months ago as I collect old demos especially on cassette and I know you mentioned to me in the past that you had other recordings, not just Jagged Edge. I think that’s something that fans would love to hear.
Myke: I’ll try and dig those ten songs out. I also have some demos that I did with Bruce Dickinson
Mark: Wow, really?
Myke: Yeah, you’d be amazed at how many demos I’ve got that have never seen the light of day.
Mark: I love that stuff, the thought of all those unreleased treasures on cassette waiting to be rediscovered!
Myke: That’s one of the benefits of lock-down!
Mark: (laughs)
Myke: (laughing) it gives us time to clear our houses out!
Mark: It just amazed me when I heard ‘Jane’ a song that I’d certainly not heard before.
Myke: I could remember the chord structure but if you asked me to sing the melody at this point in time I’d have no idea! I’m going to have to dig it out myself now!
Mark: Let’s forward right up to day now and look at ‘Shades of Gray’, we’ve seen the teasers heard a few songs and a lot of us are eagerly anticipating the album. How did the project start?
Myke: The way that came about was that I’d been working with Kim (Jarrett) over the course of a year, and when I initially approached her about recording an album she was very enthusiastic, but then over a period of time she decided that she no longer wanted to do it which was, you know, obviously disappointing. And over time I’ve got more into the swing of becoming a producer, so there was a period just prior to Christmas of last year where I was just sitting around thinking “I’ve got nothing to do here” so I just thought “OK I’ll write a song and just record it myself” just for a bit of fun. Originally I wasn’t even going to call it Myke Gray, which is of course how Shades of Gray came about, but I just thought I’d do this little song and base it upon a genre of music which I love. And because of the singers I’ve always worked with – people like Matti and Neville, who are two of the best singers in the world, but they come from a sort of a Bluesy and Classic Rock background which I of course love. I also have this huge love of Glam Rock –bands like Slade and Sweet
Mark: So we’re talking the song ‘Wam Bam’?
Myke: Oh yes. The whole of ‘Shades of Gray’ was meant to be all about my love of bands like Alice Cooper and W.A.S.P. as well, and of course Twisted Sister which is the sort of music I love to listen to and always have done. I’m a big fan of that style of three minute Pop song – even something like ‘Living After Midnight’ by Judas Priest- I love that world. And so I thought when I wrote ‘I Get Up’ it was very much based around that whole sort of Motley Crue vibe, and when I made the video I thought because no one’s gonna be interested in this I’ll disguise myself in the video and so that’s what I did. So it was a great shock to me when it got play-listed on Planet Rock and all of a sudden I never ever thought I would be singing a song. But it gave me this huge amount of confidence, I thought “OK if I can do one song maybe I can do an album?” So what I’ve been gradually doing over the course of 2020 is recording one song at a time and then releasing it with the intention of releasing the full album in 2021. So that is how ‘Shades of Gray’ came about and I’m currently on song six.
Mark: And there’s so much variety so far too, which is great. And a song like ‘Wam Bam’ is so ‘70’s vintage Glam’ it sounds like it could have been recorded back in 1974.
Myke: I actually wrote that song one hour after Steve Priest died.
Mark: Oh wow, that was a sad day.
Myke: I was a massive fan of The Sweet, that era, Chinnichap, songs like ‘Ballroom Blitz’, ‘Blockbuster’ and ‘Action’ these are some of my favourite songs ever. And I always liked Steve Priest the most out of the band, because he was the most outrageous out of all of them. And it just made me really sad when I heard that he’d gone and I just picked up my guitar, and wrote the song from beginning to end “Bam.” I took about 30 minutes and I tried to do everything as quickly as I could because I wanted it to sit around the time that he died, but I’m not particularly quick in the studio (laughs)
Mark: Yes I always loved the Sweet and Slade too, and I actually am lucky enough to interview one of my heroes Jim Lea very soon to mark the release of their new compilation.
Myke: Oh wow, that will be cool. I do have a story about Slade. When I was about 4 my sister used to run a club called the Zig-Zag Club and Slade came in one day to shoot the video for ‘Ruby Red’ I think it was the single after ‘We’ll Bring the House Down.’ And I used to hang around the venue all the time, I remember I used to pester every guitar player who came there, whether it be Phil Collen or Brian Tatler, you name it anyone that came into that venue I used to hassle them to let me play their guitars. So they came in and I started talking to Dave Hill and he was unbelievably friendly, and I told him I was a guitar player and could I play his guitar? He was a little taken aback and then he said “Yeah, yeah, sure” and he led me up to the stage and I got to play his guitar and he showed me a few things. I was very lucky like that just from having no fear I used to be quite successful at getting guitar players to teach me things! (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) Thank you so much for taking the time today Myke, and thank you so much for being one of our first to talk about one of our “Best albums of 1990” It’s always a pleasure to chat, and for a lot of us out there your songs have meant so much over the years.
Myke: Thank you so much Mark, you spend your life dedicated to making music and it’s always good to hear you’ve not been wasting your time!
Mark: You certainly haven’t done that, you’ve got a huge number of loyal fans out there and I know lots of our readers and listeners fall into that category too. Like me I’m sure that every one of them is following the new material as it comes out. Take care and thanks so much.
Myke: Thank you for your kind words Mark and I really appreciate you giving me your time to chat, and for keeping the music alive. Thank you brother.
Here’s a version of ‘Out in the Cold’ filmed at K.K.’s Steel Mill earlier in the year. Myke wrote the song for Jagged Edge 30 years ago.
You can hear more from Myke and Shades of Gray when we explore his ‘Albums for Isolation’ in one months Rockpit Podcast.
Pre-order the album HERE
