Sometimes you have to sit with an album for a while to properly appreciate it rather than blast off a review and only capture part of the magic. 4 albums in, you see, Midnite City has managed the almost impossible – they’ve managed to top an already impressive first three records with one that could well be the best of their career so far.
So if you love huge choruses and arena-shaking anthems like we used to have in the 80’s then you need more Midnite City in your life. Mark caught up with frontman Rob Wylde to dig deeper into album number four. We did actually talk to Rob some time ago now, but were waiting on an announcement that never came, so with a hasty edit here he is… we talk all about the new album, song writing and news on both Teenage Casket Company and Tigertailz. If you only buy one album this year then make it ‘In At The Deep End’.
Mark: Hey mate, how are you?
Rob: I’m alright mate, just trying to figure out what to do, my laptop crashed last night and I had everything on there so just trying to work out this one, I’m on Amy’s. How are you anyway?
Mark: Not too bad, we’re just heading into Winter down here so a little colder, a bit like an English Summers day today, 20 degrees and a little light rain.
Rob: (laughs) exactly!
Mark: Whilst we get the computer issues sorted, I head from a couple of reliable sources that you might be doing a one-off Teenage Casket Company reunion later in the year?
Rob: We certainly are, yeah in October which will be fun. Yeah we decided to do it ’cause what happened was we did a massive gig just before Christmas where Dave Kerr’s band Silver Jet opened up and Rob Lane was also playing bass that night, he was filling in on bass. So we jammed a TCC song and then we had a little chat afterwards and said “why don’t we do just a one-off gig.” So we’ve booked it, it’s in Nottingham on October 14th. So it should be cool, we’ve not announced it or anything yet, that’ll be done at the beginning of July. It is just going to be a one-off gig. The band’s not getting back together or anything, we just thought it would be a fu thing. And then, this was all decided before Christmas, and then the Marvelous 3 thing kicked off, that was our band as far as how TCC sounded and stuff, so when we announce it I think everyone will think we’re jumping on the bandwagon (laughs) but we did actually decide on it beforehand. (laughs) But it should be fun, it’ll be seven years since we’ve done a gig together, so it should be a fun evening I would have thought.
Mark: I was hoping to get back a little later in the year, but I’ll see if I can pull that forward if I can.
Rob: Oh that would be great mate, it would be great to see you. It will be a great night, we’re looking forward to it very much. So we’re gonna start putting stuff together for that soon. I’ve been speaking to Rob, I see him all the time now, I see him more now than I did when we were in the band to be honest with you! I see him at least once a month, so we’re getting all that together over the next couple of weeks.
Mark: I’ve still not seen the full band live, the closest I got was when you and Rob did the acoustic supports for Mike Tramp.
Rob: That’s right! It’ll be interesting learning all those songs again! (laughs) At one point I had the lyrics to about 150 songs in my head when I was in Tigertailz as well, so it was like oh shit! So thankfully I can forget about all those lyrics, but now I’ve got to re-learn all the old TCC stuff! And also get back to the guitar, because obviously I don’t play guitar live these days! So that will be quite interesting to actually go back and play guitar again.
Mark: Is it something that’s easy? I know I can sing along to old songs from the 80’s I’ve not heard for years, but when it comes to more recent stuff it’s a lot more challenging.
Rob: (laughs) Yeah, sometimes you’re playing and you think “Ah, that’s not the lyric!” Sometimes you really have to get in the zone of which band you’re in. The guitar playing thing is actually quite easy, but you are stuck to one spot, it’s not like Midnite City where you’re running around and performing, you know. But with TCC I’ll be stuck in one place, but it’ll be fun.
Mark: I know it will! Moving on to the new album: you know what it’s like when you hear a band that’s put out some great albums, when you hear they have another on the way you sit down and think “They’re never going to top that!” Well that was me the week before I got ‘In at the Deep End’ and you blew that thought right out of that water. I definitely think that this is the best thing you’ve ever done.
Rob: Oh thanks mate. I think so as well, I think it’s our best album by a long way. It’s kind of a weird thing because on the last one – the ‘Itch You Can’t Scratch’ album, that entire thing was written and recorded in the Covid period, so it was a weird album because we didn’t get together literally once for the entire thing. It was all done in different studios, and everybody, you know, was pissed off. Everybody was pissed off with the situation because we’d been on such a high with the last album before that, and not long before that we’d been to Japan and then a couple of months later we came to Australia, and we had an absolutely amazing time there. It just felt we were going up and up and up and up, and then suddenly it all fell over and all the momentum was lost. Nobody was in a good mood, so I think that was why it was a heavier album, and a little bit darker in places. But this time it definitely feels like, and I think you mentioned this in your review, it definitely feels like going back to the earlier sound of the first two albums. It’s just a much more ‘fun sounding’ album really. As you know we had the line-up change parting company with Pete, and that added a bit of stress to the band for a while as well. But then we got a new drummer in and he brings a lot in, he’s such a positive guy, he’s one of these guys that is great to be around, just a ball of positive energy. So he helped get us back on track a little bit. But I agree, and I know everybody says that, but I really think it is our best so far.
Mark: I know everyone says that but I think this time it’s true. ‘In at the Deep End’ is a wonderful album from start to finish, when I can’t skip a track I know it’s going to past the test and be n the car a long time.
Rob: (laughs)
Mark: How does it all start for you? Is it always a melody?
Rob: Yeah, usually for me. Everything is written on this bad boy (Rob holds up his acoustic) my trusted acoustic guitar. That’s the way I’ve always written songs, I don’t think I’ve ever written a song on electric guitar plugged into an amp ever. It all starts on an acoustic, and usually it’s a melody, more often than not it’s the hook or the chorus melody that will come into my head. And that can happen at the strangest of times, like I can get up in the middle of the night (laughs) and rush in here, get the phone out and it’s like “I’ve got to get this idea down” even if it’s just me humming it into the phone. And that’s usually how it starts and I kind of work the song around that. But writing on an acoustic always works I think because if it holds up with just one guy and an acoustic guitar you know you’ve got a good song. And then like we do with the Midnite City stuff there’s just so much that goes into those songs with the guitars and the keyboards and a ridiculous amount of harmonies – everything is OTT really. But at the same time every single one of those songs I could pick the guitar up right now and play them and you’d still pick the melody and the hook would still be in your head. And that’s really important – I always start with the melody and then kind of work backwards from there. And then how the song feels dictates what I’m gonna write about lyrically. So if it’s got a ballady-feel I’m now going to be writing lyrics akin to ‘Ready to Go’ – the mood of the song dictates where I go lyrically.
Mark: So what stage do you take it to the band?
Rob: When it’s done. When everything is completely done. So I’ll write on the acoustic and then I’ll do a full demo where I’ll play everything on it. Usually what I tend to do when we’re doing an album is that we tend to do three songs at a time. So I’ll go in the studio and I’ll usually spend a day doing three demos and then they’re basically done, they’re written and ready to go. Then those demos will go to the guys and they will put their own slant on things. I always let Myles come up with the guitar solos and stuff because that’s his department, but everybody adds a lot to the songs. But they’re not just rough ideas and we go from there – the songs are completely finished before they go to anyone else.
Mark: I think when you mentioned going back to the sound of those first two albums it’s definitely noticeable, but the band sounds so tight as well. One of the things I really loved were the keys, I think the keys really add something this time, they’ve been given more freedom. One the first two records they were more in the background.
Rob: They definitely were, and that was one of the main things that we decide on when we started working with Chris on the mix because on our previous albums the keyboards have always been really, really buried in the mix. And it used to kind of annoy me a little bit and it definitely annoyed Shaun obviously as they keyboard player because the keys are a massive part of this band. There’s so many Melodic Rock bands out there that have keys – The Defiants for example – there’s keyboards on all of those records but because it’s a much more guitar-oriented band and there isn’t a keyboard player in the band – they’re just to fill out the sound. Whereas the whole point when I put the band together I wanted a keyboard player because keyboards were going to be integral to the band like Bon Jovi or Danger Danger or whatever. So I think Shawn has been really underused really because he’s an incredible keyboard player – a really talented guy and unfortunately he’s kind of been pushed into the background on previous albums. So when we started with Chris on the mix he asked us what we were going for and we told him we wanted a keyboard-heavy mix. Because when we play live…
Mark: Absolutely.
Rob: … he’s a massive part of that sound. Because also with our band if you want to write really hooky, catchy, melodic songs the musically the songs have got to be quite simple. You know, if you have riffs all over the place, there’s no room for a melody because one gets in the way of the other. So the actual guitar parts by and large, and there are exceptions are quite simple. Whereas the keyboard parts are more interesting, so on previous albus we’ve been pushing the guitars when it’s the keys that have been doing most of the interesting stuff. So that was a really big decision to really bring those keyboards up on the mix and I think it sounds so much better for it, I really do.
Mark: It is, it’s a fuller sound and that especially becomes apparent on the ballads as well because you have three ballads on there.
Rob: Yeah.
Mark: You’ve written some great slower numbers over the years in bands that you’ve been in but I reckon these are some of your best. ‘It’s not me, it’s You’ is the one I keep going back to of the three but that one if you had travelled back in time to the late 80’s with a radio edit, that would have been huge! And ‘Hardest Heart to Break’ is fantastic as well.
Rob: Thanks ‘Hardest Heart to Break’ is actually going to be the third single and video. So we’ve got ‘Girl’s Gone Wild’ next week and then ‘Hardest Heart to Break’ just before the album comes out.
Mark: It’s a wonderful album, and one of the things I have to ask about is ‘Beginning of the End’ – did you consider having a big solo in there? For me if I could have slightly changed one thing on the record it might have been adding a solo to that song to really drive it home?
Rob: Yeah. if I remember rightly we were running out of time a little bit. Basically with this album, going back to the stress of the situation, we initially started to work on the album, before we’d even completed the first song, I started working with Pete and we even had a release date in mind, and the tour that was starting in three weeks time had been booked. So when Pete was suddenly no longer in the band, we thought OK, so now we have to find a new engineer, a new studio, a new drummer, a new guy to mix the album, and all of this has to be done and the album finished by the beginning of March. At that point it was already the end of October. So there was a lot of pressure otherwise we would have had to cancel the tour and put the album back and all the rest of it. So I spoke to everybody and said “Look if we want to get this done, we’ve got to work.” Not rush it, because we didn’t rush it, but we had to work and pretty quickly. Everyone had to be on the ball. So we had that pressure and Beginning of the End’ was one of the last songs we did, certainly one of the last two we recorded. But having said that Myles has got some great solos on this album.
Mark: He has, some of them are sheer genius. The rockers are perfect ‘Ready to Go’ being one of my favourites. But there is variety on there too they don’t all sound the same. ‘Girl’s Gone Wild’ had me thinking 80’s Kiss.
Rob: Definitely mate.
Mark: But one of my favourites was the final track on the album.
Rob: Oh cool! Well that one was an interesting one because that was the only co-write on the album. That was Shawn’s idea, and that was actually the last song we recorded for the album. Shawn just sent me the riff idea and I thought it was really good. It has that kind of Rick Springfield feel to it, a bit of The Outfield feel to it as well, two artists he’s a big fan of. And I’m a huge Rick Springfield fan as you know. So I basically went over to his house and we wrote it in an afternoon. And that was quite interesting as Shawn hadn’t written anything on the albums before, it’s always been just me doing all the writing really.
Mark: He’s set the bar pretty high for himself!
Rob: He has (laughs) it turned out great – a really fun, snappy song – three and a half minutes, verse-chorus, verse-chorus – more of a kind of Power Pop feel. That could have very easily been a TCC song back in the day definitely.
Mark: One of the things I always get asked to ask when people know who I’m talking to is about the songs that got away – were there any others written that didn’t make the album that might see a later release in some form?
Rob: Not really no. Usually when I write for an album I have a very definite vision as to what I’m doing – so if I’m writing a song that I don’t think is up to scratch I just get rid of it. I’m not one of those songwriters that will just finish a song anyway. Occasionally I might write something that might be cool but isn’t gonna be a Midnite City song, so I’ll put it to one side for something else. So there are a few of those songs – mainly acoustic songs that I’ll save. But for this album everything that was written was recorded. And then we also did a Japanese bonus track as well. On the first two albums we did the usual acoustic version, but we did a bonus track on the last album. But this album, as we were getting towards the end of it, it was just going to be a ten track album but the label wanted an acoustic version, but we just said let’s just do another song, so we did ‘Only a Matter of Time’ for the Japan release. But all we wrote made it onto the album.
Mark: Take us all the way back Rob. Can you remember the first song that you ever wrote?
Rob: Yes, I can actually. I wrote it when I was eleven (laughs) it was really funny actually. I’d been playing guitar for about two years. I used to have guitar lessons with this school teacher that lived across the street from me. I remember writing, and it was really weird because I wrote a song but didn’t realise I’d written a song! (laughs) What I mean by that is I was getting to that point where I’d put on an album and I’d pick out little bits of songs – a Bon Jovi song or a Europe song and I’d think “Oh that’s that chord” and I was starting to work out how to play a few of my favourite songs. And I was doing that all of the time, and in the middle of that I kind of wrote my first song. And I remember sitting back and thinking “Hold on a minute, I’ve actually written that, I’ve created this.: And that was such a landmark moment as a little kid when you hadn’t done anything like that before. It was kind of important looking back, especially if that’s what you want to do as a living. The title was ‘Leaving’ and it was actually about my first crush on a girl at primary school (laughs). It’s pretty funny! I found out that her family was moving away – so I wrote a song about it.
Mark: A heartbreak is a wonderful inspiration!
Rob: (laughs) Yeah that’s it! It all started there. And what was really funny is that years later, and we’re perhaps talking fifteen years ago she cropped up on Facebook and I was like “I’m sure that’s the girl!” And sure enough it was, and she was thinking “I’m sure that’s the kid I used to go to school with” and I told her that the first song I ever wrote was written about her! (laughs) Thankfully she was really flattered, but it’s a good job she didn’t hear the song because it was absolutely fricking terrible! (laughs)
Mark: Not one we’re likely to hear then!
Rob: (laughs) No it won’t be making it onto the next album!
Mark: (laughs) I know you have big plans for ‘live’ over the Summer I’m sure they will be packed out.
Rob: Yeah we have the UK Tour kicking off June 2nd in Birmingham that goes all through June then we have Hard Rock Hell Sleaze Festival in Sheffield in August – they’re always great, then we have the Glam Slam Festival in Belgium in September.
Mark: Always a great line up there. I love that Festival, I’ll have to get over one year.
Rob: Yeah we got asked to do that August last year and the line up is absolutely killer! And I’m not sure If I should say this because it’s not been announced but we’re going to Japan in December. Two gigs in Tokyo and Osaka.
Mark: And we’d of course love to have you back Downunder. Everyone that saw you at Melodic Rock was talking about you. Let’s just hope it happens at some point.
Rob: We’d love to come back.
Mark: And just before you go, I have to ask about the end of your time with Tigertailz?
Rob: Oh God where do I start with that one! (laughs) That didn’t end very well. let’s put it that way. What people don’t understand is that I was in that band for ten years. If you look at Wikipedia I was actually one of the longest running band members. It was a weird thing really. It wasn’t really anything to do with playing the gigs or anything like that because I thoroughly enjoy playing the shows. I never had any problem doing that, if anything it was quite cool for me to just turn up, sing and go home rather than have to deal with everything else that I deal with Midnite City, which is pretty much running everything. It was almost like there was no pressure. You would just turn up, do your job, have a great time and go home, while somebody else took care of everything else. So I had no problem with doing that at all, it was the stuff that was going on behind the scenes. I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus but there was so much going on behind the scenes that it just made it an impossible situation to continue with really.
Mark: We’ll leave all that till the book comes out!
Rob: (laughs) Exactly mate!
Mark: Always great to catch up mate, have a great tour!
Rob: Thanks mate, and thanks for the great review too! I’m so glad you’re liking the album.
