It’s difficult to believe that it has been thirty years since The Screaming Jets unleashed their debut album, ‘All For One’ on the world, which peaked at #2 on the ARIA charts. The second single from the album, ‘Better’ was the song that introduced the band to the rest of the world, and saw The Screaming Jets embark on their first world tour which took them to Europe, the UK, USA and Canada.
Fast forward to 2021 and as a 30th year anniversary celebration, the current line-up of the band has re-recorded the ‘All For One’ album with a fresh new take. Overseen by original producer, Steve James, the album has been repackaged with new artwork with a clear reference to the original. But all was not to be the plain sailing one would hope when the pandemic put paid to any group studio sessions with the band was instead forced to record their parts from the various corners of the country, leaving Steve James to magically pull it all together and the results are simply fantastic!
We managed to converse with front man Dave Gleeson on the eve of the re-release to discuss the logistical issues of recording apart, Covid kilos problems and the excitement of getting The Screaming Jets back out on the road…
Sean: Hey Dave. Sean from The Rockpit over in Perth. How are you?
Dave: Good mate, how you doing?
Sean: Good thanks mate. Well, let me be one of the first to congratulate you. Its so hard to believe it’s been thirty years since the release of the debut album ‘All For One’.
Dave: Thanks mate. Yeah, it’s unreal, isn’t it? I’m not one who usually looks back but there has been plenty of times over the last two years for intraspectrum and looking back over the years we’ve certainly packed a lot in. Sometimes it seems like an age and other times it seems like a minute.
Sean: The strange thing is, the last time we spoke we were discussing the EP ‘Bitter Pill’ and the fact that that had to be recorded during this lockdown scenario, but this must have been a whole new ball game. Having to rerecord the whole debut album but under similar conditions.
Dave: I guess it worked so well with ‘Bitter Pill’… well, in the respect of the recording process because the EP didn’t really see the light of day, but we kind of realised then that the restrictions were going to last a longer than initially thought and that we could record songs that we already knew, when we were all in isolation. We were worried we weren’t going to get a good sound out of it which we then did so we moved that concept to the re-recording of the ‘All For One’ album and it worked out really well.
Sean: A few bands have done this revisiting of debut and early albums and you have done some already with The Angels but sometimes these can come out feeling a little bit more polished or cleaner, but this almost has a live, dirty feel to it. Steve (James) has really captured the band’s sound of the present with these songs of the past.
Dave: Yeah, well that’s the thing. We’ve played a lot of these songs live over the thirty years. A lot of them have been in our sets. I kind of approached it like I was doing a gig, so I went in there and just smashed out one after another [laughs]. If I stuffed up, I just went back in and had another go because we know this time what we are supposed to be playing. You have to remember when we first recorded them back then, we had only known some of these songs for maybe two or three weeks or a few months before we took them into the studio so now, after playing them live for thirty years you can kind of really let go on them.
Sean: Have you tweaked many, if any of them? I suppose after playing them live over all these years they have evolved and changed slightly in one way or another.
Dave: The two main ones that there are changes in are ‘C’mon’ which now has a lead break in it, which it never had when we originally recorded it and ‘Shine On’ has just got this massive part in the middle, which just grew from being played live on stage, so when we came to record it we just knew it was the version we wanted record. The thing is you don’t want to muck about too much with it. I remember Choirboys reworked one of their songs ‘Fireworks’ for a greatest hits album and I was mortified. I was like “What are you doing? That’s one of my favourite songs!” So, you have to be very careful with what you much around with.
Sean: It’s like Angus Young playing a completely different guitar solo during an AC/DC classic. Everyone would wonder what the fuck he was doing [laughs]
Dave: Yeah, they’d think he’d messed it up [laughs]
Sean: I must admit ‘Shine On’ has always been a bit of a favourite of mine, but this version is one of the real stand outs on this album for me.
Dave: It’s become kind of autobiographical. Paul (Woseen) wrote it about himself. He was travelling down to Canberra on a very regular basis from Newcastle on the train to play with a band he was in called Steve Grieve and the Mourners. Paul was like the ‘cred’ in the band, you know? His musical roots were 60’s and 70’s English kind of stuff like The Jam and those sorts of cool bands so very blues influenced in his rock so that song has kind of taken on the meaning now that the whole band is moving out into the big bad world and even now, we are still going towards the light [laughs]. It’s grown as a song within the band as well.
Sean: Well, with the way the world is moving that light is certainly getting brighter and its lovely to see so many tour dates locked in for 2022. We can slowly see the country opening back up and a fine example of that was catching you sneaking into WA with The Angels the other week for a show which I only found out about around 72 hours before it happened [laughs]
Dave: It was really strange because I thought initially it was a closed event and we didn’t have much information and even two or three days before I was asking John (Brewster), “Are we still going?” [laughs] Even though it was a bit of a strange one it was nice to get on a plane again and sit in the Virgin Lounge and go and do a show, so that was really good fun.
Sean: What was unusual about it, and I know we have spoken about this before, is that there is Screaming Jets Dave in his tee-shirt & jeans and then there is Angels Dave in his waistcoat, shirt and occasionally tie. This seemed very much Screaming Jets Dave out there having a blast with The Angels.
Dave: Yeah, I know. I tried on a few shirts before I left home but they were all a bit tight around the middle [laughs] so I had to improvise. I’ve got to lose a few covid kilos before I get back on the road [laughs].
Sean: [laughs] That’s what six months of no live shows does for you. But it was great to see you all up there crashing through those songs – it was such a great night. I even had to text Rick (Brewster) just to check you were coming because we had no information either this end.
Dave: With all the uncertainty its so hard. Promoters and venues are gun shy but like you say, with the light shining through next year hopefully we can get some clear water in front of us. Obviously its not going to miraculously go back to exactly how it was but anything we can move ahead with is welcomed by me.
Sean: So, what is the plan for the tour? Will you be playing the album front to back?
Dave: Yes, and I’m really excited about that because we never did that, and I don’t think many bands do. Normally you bring out an album and make a set list around it but its not until bands are doing the anniversaries of albums for ten years or twenty years or whatever that they think about playing it front to back and people know it – that’s how they know that album and they know the order its in in their head. For fans that have listened to the album 1000’s of times, they expect the songs to come up when they should so that will be really good fun, I think.
Sean: Well, we have you here for two shows in WA, at Port Beach Brewery in Fremantle which is just such a great venue…
Dave: Yeah, love it…love it…
Sean: …and the iconic Charles Hotel as well.
Dave: A Rock room if ever there was one [laughs]
Sean: It still has the same sticky carpet from thirty years ago too [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] If they got rid of that then some of the ambience would go.
Sean: I’m sure one of your old ticket stubs from the debut tour is still stuck to the floor there somewhere [laughs].
Dave: Just hope you can get the chewy out of it [laughs]
Sean: So, it’s been a pretty settled line-up for The Screaming Jets for a while now with Jimi (Hocking), Cam (McGlinchey), Scott (Kingsman) and obviously Pauly but did you all feel there was a bit of pressure to deliver with this re-recording? I know you are a pretty down to earth & humble guy Dave, but this is an iconic Australian rock album and I’m sure some die hard fans will be dreading it to be tinkered with like with what you said earlier with Choirboys ‘Fireworks’, which must add to that pressure.
Dave: You definitely want to make people realise why we did it, you know? And with any musician who is putting out anything, you want to be putting out the very best possible work that you can. I’m lucky that Pauly and Scotty and Jimi and Cam all hold themselves to such high standards, so I know that they aren’t just going to fluff anything so once it gets to me, I have to perform [laughs] otherwise its like instead of putting chocolate icing on the cake, its like putting dog pooh on there instead [laughs]. The great thing about working with Steve James is that he kind of taught me this technique when we did our first album. I do three takes start to finish and then I pretty much say to Steve “do your thing” because when anyone asks me what I think I’m like “oh I don’t know man.” I’m not going to sit there and say, “Oh my God that sounds amazing! What did I just do there? Oh my God!” [laughs] So once I’m done, I just leave it in the lap of those guys, and they have never done me wrong.
Sean: Another thing I have been enjoying are the short video clips you have been posting up on the band’s socials, showing the various formats we can get the album and I’m patiently waiting my signed gatefold vinyl but now I feel the need to get ‘All For One’ on damned cassette tape because of you [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Awesome… the cassette. Its brilliant! I actually listened to it on the Sony Walkman the other night and it sounds unreal.
Sean: I still have mine to. I got the auto reverse one when I was younger [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] That’s cool. I remember when I bought my first Walkman was when I went to the States and like any band when you go to the States you go to New York and you walk into those shops where you haggle with the guy and he goes (Dave slips into a deep New York accent), “Hey you killin’ me here on the price!” and I’m asking if I can get it for $120… “Man, I’ve got kids in school” and all that stuff and that’s where we got all our electronics so I got my Walkman on my first trip to the Big Apple.
Sean: Did it have the big bright orange sponge earphones? [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Yeah, with the wire that went over the top of your head.
Sean: I just love it when bands think of all these quirky little things, and I’m going to jump online tonight and grab myself one. We can’t wait to see the tour and we are all still so glad your able to put new music out during these still quite tricky times.
Dave: The great thing about this has been it given us all something to look forward to and to keep us all together. I used to hate band meetings and now I look forward to them on zoom just so I can see the ugly faces of the boys. But the album came out so well and that’s kind of brought us all together even though we haven’t been able to clink a glass in a very long time.
Sean: Of course, I saw your early rise from the other side of the world, with UK magazine Kerrang picking up on what you were doing with ‘All For One’ so to get to talk to you thirty years on about an album I really connected with back then is a real privilege Dave, so thank you.
Dave: That’s awesome to hear mate. Thank you, that means a lot. Thank you very much.
Sean: The other thing I wanted to ask was with ‘All For One’ you are re-recording your own work but is there an increased sense of pressure when you have re-recorded the early Angels albums, knowing that they were Doc’s vocal on those early recordings? Is it three or four now you’ve all done?
Dave: Yes, we’ve done three now; ‘Face to Face’, ‘No Exit’ and ‘Dark Room’ which I’m not sure has been released yet – it might have been released but we just haven’t toured it yet. Once again, I just treat it like a performance so I just look at all those songs there and the boys put all the tracks down and believe you me John & Rick don’t let anything slip by [laughs] so when I go in there I just feel like I’m doing a gig and I just say “hit record” and off we go and if I finish one and ask them if its good enough and they will say “yes I think we got everything” or sometimes they will tell me to do it again but most of those ones I did in one go [laughs]. It’s awesome because I love that type of recording. For years I’ve always wanted to record with an SM58 in my hand, but no producer has ever let me do that… well, they have but they’ve always told me they will use that as guide vocals then they get the SM7 out, the super funky microphone you’re not allowed to touch.
Sean: Well, its great to hear these iconic albums re-recorded. I really enjoyed The Quireboys debut ‘A Bit of What You Fancy’ that was released earlier this year.
Dave: The other thing about it is, these young bands and every one of them will tell you this, you get shafted on your first record deal and that makes all the artists a bit of an industry joke, “Yep, we got that one!” [laughs] No one has their masters. I mean very, very few bands in their original contracts at twenty-one or twenty-two knew about where the masters would be in twenty or thirty years’ time. I never knew what ‘in perpetuity’ meant and I signed it [laughs].
Sean: I thought you were giving me an exclusive and that that was the name of your next EP [laughs]
Dave: In Perpetuity? [laughs]
Sean: It’s always fantastic to talk to you, Dave so thank you for your time as always. We wish you and the guys all the best with the 30th Anniversary ‘All For One’ album and look forward to catching up next time your over here in WA next year.
Dave: Always great Sean. Thanks mate.
