Twister’s long awaited debut album ‘Cursed & Corrected’ is set for release on Friday 13th November, and it is an album that is well worth your time and consideration. Twister’s sound is based on huge riffs, great melodies and killer lyrics and if you’ve seen them live then add a stunning live show to the list. They’re also a band at the forefront of what is now being called The New Wave of Classic Rock, with a sound that will appeal to Rock fans of old but also those that are looking for that modern ‘twist’. We caught up with Stevie Stoker to find out more about another contender for album of the year…
Mark: Hey Stevie how are you?
Stevie: Hey Mark I’m good thank you how are you?
Mark: Not too bad at all mate, always good to be talking Rock. How’s thing’s back in over in your crazy country?
Stevie: Oh it’s interesting, especially as there are no tours.
Mark: You are managing to get out a bit though I see?
Stevie: We’re trying our best Mark, That’s all we can do isn’t it? We’re trying a few things, so let’s see if they all come off.
Mark: Before we get stuck into the album I have to ask, what’s the Greek connection? I see you’ve been out to Rhodes a few times, it’s a beautiful place.
Stevie: Yeah, it’s wonderful there and we’ve done a lot there over the last four or five years and I just tapped into the contacts I’d made because their season is up and running and they’ve only had like six cases on the whole island. So I called up and said what’s the chance of getting some gigs and they said come on over, so me and Dave our guitarist hopped over and did three gigs one week and I’ve got five gigs next week so I’ll head back out there.
Mark: Cool, and great lateral thinking! Obviously the live scene in the UK is seriously curtailed so I like your thinking! You should stop off here too, no cases in Western Australia at all, no one wants to visit us at the best of times!
Stevie: (laughs) Oh mate I’ll come over, I’ll go anywhere at the minute!
Mark: (laughs) I’ll put the kettle on!
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: I have to tell you about my introduction to the band – a month or so ago one of my mates asked me “Do you like Twister?” and I looked at him a bit strange and said “Well I’ve not played it for a while and I’m not as flexible as I used to be, but I’d give it a go…”
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: But then of course rather than pull out the kid’s party game he introduced me to some very fine music. I’ve almost done the review but I must admit I found it hard, there’s so much in there, so much variety, and I love what you do with the guitars, but it’s hard to say that you sound like anyone else out there. Obviously there’s the great melodies the big choruses and some great riffs, but I was getting everything from early 80’s Indie Rock, to Arena Rock, Classic Rock, it’s all in there?
Stevie: It’s a big mixing pot isn’t it, there’s quite a lot of different varieties and timbres in there. That’s one thing I always struggle with when people say “Who do you sound like?” And I go (Stevie shrugs) I hate it when bands say “We don’t sound like anybody else” when they clearly sound like Led Zeppelin but I genuinely think we don’t – sure there’s bits of this and bits of that but I don’t think we sound like anyone in particular.
Mark: It’s a breath of fresh air, but people do like their tags and boxes there days. I guess when they come out and see you live all that will change. I’ve been watching some of the steaming stuff you’ve been doing and I’m very impressed I must admit. I have to get back over to the UK when all this nonsense subsides. So take us all the way back if you will, especially for our readers down-under where the band is a bit of an unknown quantity. When did you realise that music was going to be something more than a hobby or a passion?
Stevie: Well for me it was early. I started off playing guitar in my Granddad’s band when I was twelve. And I loved their vibe, because they had started around the same age as me and they’d been together ever since. 54 years he was in that band before he sadly passed away. So I was very much in the school of ‘if it doesn’t work right now, keep working on it till it does’ So I started Twister when I was thirteen. We started at school and so it started with “we want to learn this song;” then it was two songs, then we wanted to write our own material. It was just setting ourselves little goals and then the goals just started to get bigger as time went by. We’ve had a few line-up changes, we’ve got close to things blowing up for us on a couple of occasions, we’ve had drummers drop us in it left right and centre, but the line-up we’ve got now has been solid for the last couple of years and we’re a really good team now and trying to plough on as much as we can.
Mark: There’s definitely a chemistry there and it’s brought about a great album. Like all the best albums, it’s one of those where I can’t pick favourites as it changes every listen, like all the best albums. Today it’s probably ’61 white Lies’ but tomorrow it will be something different I’m sure.
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: Had some of the songs been around for a while or were they all written for this album?
Stevie: Because we’ve been a band for the thick-end of 16 years now, which is frightening, but in that time we’ve had various line-up changes, but this version of the band has been together two years now. Some of the tracks are around five years old and they’ve been on EP’s that we’ve released but everything in the past we’ve done to a budget or we’ve been held back in certain areas. With this album we wanted to make sure if we were gonna do this and give the songs the platform that we think they deserve, we need to do everything right. So we decided to pick what we think are our best six songs, or rather the six songs that we think fit this album the best, there’s still a couple of songs that didn’t make the album that I still play every day. So we picked the best six and then we wrote another six to go with them and we’re really happy with the way they came together and the album turned out.
Mark: So what’s the newest song on there, what was the last one you wrote?
Stevie: The newest song on there is a song called ’Wild and Lonely’ or ‘Fingers Crossed’ as we were calling it all the way through recording it. So we had to leave ‘Fingers Crossed’ in there as it was part of the song’s DNA. But that song just came together the week before we went into the studio and finished the album.
Mark: And you have a live stream coming up on the sixth of November?
Stevie: Yes, the sixth.
Mark: Followed by and, I’m guessing, limited capacity ‘weekender’ at the Chop House in Southport.
Stevie: That’s the one. We were toying with ideas about what we really wanted to do to release the album because we’re all big fans of doing the massive party type of thing, but we can’t really do that at the moment without breaking every law known to man! (laughs) So before the Chop House shows came around we thought let’s do something for the mass audience, let’s try and reach everybody especially the week before release because pre-orders matter more than ever. So we decided to do this live album show. It’s basically half way between a gig and a music video – so it’s a full streaming show but we’ve even brought all of our techs back, so our proper lighting techs, guitar techs –and so we’re just gonna try and blow the show up and do it all over social media. It should be great for everybody.
Mark: It sounds great, you have to adapt and do what you can I guess in these strange times. Was the album another covid-delayed release or was it always planned for November?
Stevie: To be honest we weren’t planning to release anything at all. It all started when we did HRH’s ‘Highway to Hell’ competition last year and things sort of blew up from then. Things escalated very quickly after that, people interacting online went up, people buying our albums went up and we started to get pressure from ‘Off Yer Rocker’ (the label) saying you need to release something. But we’d only just released something so we didn’t have anything ready yet. But we thought let’s be realistic about it, we needed to capitalise on the people who had become interested in us due to the competition, they wanted to know what we were doing right now, they might not want to know in a years’ time. We needed to keep them entertained. So we locked ourselves away at the back end of the year last December and we wrote the rest of the tracks. We went in the studio in January. It was finished by the beginning of February and the idea was that we were supposed to do a tour with The Quireboys in April, we were going to release a single while that was on and then the album in May. But all that fell to bits.
Mark: We helped them get over earlier this year, they played some great shows, we were hoping to get them over again. Maybe next time you could tag along with your label-mates?
Stevie: Hopefully, that would be really good fun. We are doing Europe with them so we should all pop over.
Mark: Now that would be cool. Now let’s get to the bottom of this sound and talk influences, you started young and I’m guessing there was lots of music around growing up, but as a vocalist who do you look to?
Stevie: That’s a strange one because what I like and how I sing and play they can be two very, very different things. So I love Country music so anyone from Kenny Chesney to Zac Brown, and I’m a massive, massive Classic Rock fan so I love AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Zeppelin obviously. But for me it’s always about the song itself, so I fall in love with lyrics. So I’ll start melting at a certain line, so someone like Paul Simon for instance, I love Paul Simon I think he’s wonderful, but my favourite band at the moment and has been for some time now is Biffy Clyro.
Mark: Great band live. What about as a guitarist? Everyone of course is shocked today by the news of Eddie Van Halen passing.
Stevie: Eddie was my favourite of all time by quite a substantial margin. I started out with my Granddad in his skiffle band so I was playing all sorts of random stuff, mostly in B-flat if I’m honest
Mark: (laughs)
Stevie: But it was all weird and wonderful, then I started to get into punk stuff – everyone gets into Green Day don’t they when they are thirteen! Everyone has a Green Day phase, but I don’t think I really grew out of it! But then I heard a Van Halen track, in fact it was their version of ‘You Really Got Me’ I heard (originally by The Kinks) and it wasn’t even them playing it was a cover band playing their version and I loved that, they did the whole ‘Eruption’ intro into it, and I just love that solo he played in that song. Then I just listened to more and more Van Halen, more of his guitar work, so much to learn, that you’ll never get close to! I was devastated last night when I heard.
Mark: Yes I think the Rock world has lost a real innovator, I’ve never seen social media blow up like that with outpourings of such love for the man. I sadly met him only once very briefly they came over to Australia a few years ago and played one show headlining a Festival with Aerosmith.
Stevie: That’s not a bad gig to go to is it!?
Mark: (laughs) It was a memorable day.
Stevie: (laughs)
Mark: If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great Rock album throughout the history of rock what would you like to have seen being created in the studio?
Stevie: I’d have loved to have been in the studio for ‘Appetite for Destruction’-when you hear the stories about what went on in the studio, I just want to be there and be part of that!
Mark: The good old days of debauchery and rock and roll to the max! Who wouldn’t have want to have been there for that! And we always close with the easiest question of all – what is the meaning of life?
Stevie: Rock Music, clearly! It’s about listening to music that makes you feel something.
Mark: So everyone out there has access to the singles and should be checking them out, but I just wanted to pick up on a couple of songs that aren’t singles that the office latched onto. Two of our favourites I think. The first was ‘Trading Hearts’ – what can you tell us about the lyrics to that song?
Stevie: ‘Trading Hearts’ is an interesting song really. When that came about it was probably one of the easiest songs to write, it just kind of ‘fell out’. It’s a song about loving somebody who doesn’t totally love you but you’re always there for them. That’s the personal meaning – being in love with someone who doesn’t really love you but kind of puts up with you, but it’s also about letting people know that they’re not on their own. That they’ve got somebody that will listen to them. We did a music video for this a couple of years ago but sadly it’s not online at the moment due to this release. In the video we got a load of our fans together to pass this note around between each other while walking through a city. So they were walking through the streets, casually passing this note around and the note read “I’ll be there for you.’ If ever you need anybody and sometimes it might be the most unlikely person but somebody will listen to you.
Mark: Nice concept. What inspired ‘Fist Fight by the Waterside’ and was it a true story?
Stevie: (laughs) It’s not a true story it was an analogy. A lot of my analogies come when I’m mildly intoxicated!
Mark: (laughs)
Stevie: I was thinking, I want to write a song that’s quite creepy. So it started off with the line “all of my life I’ve been searching for you” that was the first thought and became the first verse lyrics, and it kind of got turned into what was this battle between good and evil. The place where we rehearsed at the time was right next to the River Tees in Middlesbrough and that’s where the title ‘Fist Fight by the Waterside came from because it was on the River Tees.
Mark: And the name of the album itself is interesting ‘Cursed and Corrected’ what does that idea mean? Where did it come from?
Stevie: It is a lyric in ‘Young and Affected’ – “We are, we are the cursed and corrected” it’s kind of a ‘group’, ‘safety in numbers’ thing. Everything that we do and all of our merchandise has that theme, and we use the hash-tag ‘#TeamTwister’ – it’s all about creating that community between us all and together we will be as strange or as whacky or a weird as we want to be. Nobody looks down on anybody, we are the ‘Cursed and Corrected’ that’s who we are.
Mark: A band of misfits!
Stevie: Yeah, the weird and the wonderful.
Mark: It’s been great to talk to you Stevie, it really is a cool album and everyone I’m pushing your way is loving it so far. We‘ll catch up again I have no doubt!
Stevie: Thank you so much for having me.
Mark: I expect big things from you guys so don’t let me down! (laughs)
Stevie: We’ll keep trying! (laughs) Bye, bye.
CURSED AND CORRECTED IS OUT ON OFF YER ROCKER ON 13TH NOVEMBER 2020
