The Rev – The Howling – Interview Exclusive
Written by Johnny H
Sunday, 09 October 2011 05:00
He’s played guitar with bands as musically diverse as Towers Of London, The Prodigy and Dirty Harry, tasting the highs and the lows of a touring musician’s life along the way. Now with his new band The Howling, the cool as fuck axe slinger known to you and I as The Rev draws on his experience so far to deliver a sound that is as likely to have you dancing around like an idiot as it is to have you banging your heads. I caught up with the band member everyone wished they were when they saw Towers of London live and started by asking him about The Howling’s recent lead track ‘Dance Of The Skeletons’ and its lyrical themes regarding prescription drug addiction…
Hey Rev it’s great to see you back and rocking but are you and your new band mates really hooked on the Prozac (laughing)?
With what were creating there is absolutely no depression in The Howling! So there’s no need for Prozac. (laughing)
The Howling is going to be a new name to a lot of Uber Rock’s readers, tell us about how the band came together and who is involved.
Well hello Uber Rock readers. The Howling was formed in 2009 by Myself (ex Towers of London / The Prodigy Lead Guitarist) and Blacky (Ex Red Star Rebels frontman) as we’d been friends for many years and always talked about working together. As our original projects came to an end and we moved onto other things within the industry we remained close, and many a night out turned into long talks about how we were both ready to get back out there and set right where we went wrong with a new project. We began working together in January 2009 on what is now The Howling. Initially we were just writing and forming our plan of attack but when it came to putting the band together we knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find members so we held auditions across the country and kept going knowing the right guys would walk through the door at some point. Things started to really motor with the arrival of Chappel (Rhythm Guitar / Programming) and soon after we heard The Glitteratti had split up we tracked Billy James Mitchell (Drums) down and he blitzed the audition. Having been through a number of drummers it finally felt like a band, and Oscar Hendriksons completed the line up in July 2011.
And how would you describe The Howling’s sound to those who haven’t yet heard you yet?
It’s full on big guitar riffs, big choruses, howling vocals, heavy bass lines, and live drums smashing it out alongside processed beats. Its punk electronic and in your face!
You’re just about to do some dates with Rise to Remain and I also see you’re also due to play with Uriah Heep soon as well, that’s a pretty diverse range of audience you’re going for there fella…What’s the aim of these shows?
The aim of these shows is to play to the widest range of people we can and find our crowd. We just played the first run of dates with Rise to Remain and the shows were killer. It’s important for bands to put themselves in the ring and fight and that’s the reason. We’re not afraid of anything, give us a stage and a crowd and we’ll take it as our own.
We’ve all seen the video to ‘Dance Of The Skeletons’ here at Uber Rock and heard the tracks up on Facebook, can we expect some sort of physical product from The Howling anytime soon?
We are just about to go back into the studio with Dan Weller (Sikth, Young Guns, Enter Shikari) this October to finish our Debut EP. You can expect a single and video in the New Year with EP to follow.
And then what? When can we expect an album from you guys? If so have you got a deal lined up etc?
We’ve been working hard in the studio since The Howling’s conception and we’ve got the makings of our debut album bubbling away like lava. We’re constantly writing so when the right offer lands on the table we’ll be ready to bang out the album of the year.
Having been a bit of an uber fan of one of your previous bands ‘Towers Of London’, I hope you won’t mind answering a few questions about them for me?
Go for it.
It took me a while to actually get into TOL, (I initially thought it was all a bit fake if I’m honest) but at a Reading festival in the Radio One NME tent one year it all clicked for me, and suddenly you were the best new band in the UK. In hindsight what would you say to my fake comment now?
Nothing we did in Towers was fake, we never set anything up, never pre-empted any event for publicity, it genuinely was as you saw it, which ultimately made me want out. Who wants to be in a band when after 5 years together you’re still pissing your record deal cash up the wall and fighting with each other. The only thing that was fake was towards the end was when we promised a second album to rival the first. The truth was certain members couldn’t even make practice on time.
How much input did you, Tommy and Snell really have into the TOL musical direction in those early days?
A lot of song ideas would always be brought to the table and Donny wrote most of the lyrics but all arrangements and riffs were worked on as a band. Dirk’s guitar playing alone, I should point out that he didn’t write the opening riff to ‘I’m a Rat’.
‘Blood Sweat and Towers’ still sounds like a fucking great album, what do you think of it 5 years on? And what do you think about the legacy you guys left behind?
I’m proud of every guitar part on that record, I put everything into that album. I didn’t listen to it for 3 years after I walked out on the band, but occasionally it will pop up on my Ipod randomly and I’ve grown to look past all the internal bullshit that came with being in Towers and appreciate that I ripped all over that record.
I think the last show I saw you play with TOL was at London’s Islington Academy, and the place was buzzing that night. What went wrong within the band after that show? Was it as I saw it that Donny and Dirk really believed the Psychic Sally type bullshit you were being fed at that time and thought themselves bigger than the whole?
Totally that was my last show with the band you saw. All this big brother bullshit had gone right to the head. Truth was there was egos the size of Bono’s back there and it just didn’t match up with the work ethic. We’d stopped writing, only played live and couldn’t get it together as a band. A lot of damage had been done during our Japanese tour where the brothers had fired me, Snell, and our manager Nathan McGough. We flew home early and even after crisis talks with the label and a negotiation to come back, my heart had gone and the hate had set in. I’d mentally left the band and was looking for a logical way out. That’s when Liam Howlett and Keith Flint from The Prodigy approached me. I was off that tour bus after the last show quicker than you can say “Fire”(starter). (laughs)
Have you ever listened to ‘Fizzy Pop’ and if you have what did you think of it? (It sounds like some poor Oasis demos to me)
Exactly! It’s a collection of tracks that never made the first album cut. ‘Start the Rupt’ was a riff I wrote when we were struggling for ideas. I was actually sent a copy by Rocksound magazine and their reviews tore it to pieces, I gave it a listen and in no way was that Towers. The ship went down with that album, shame.
Tell us a Mad Pete story that is actually printable…
Ha! The legend that is Mad Pete! Say hello will ya, I didn’t speak with him much when the TOL camp was divided, I believe he went the other way. I’ve many happy memories of the Mad one, none printable though (laughing). However his ever presence with TOL was a story in itself, he travelled the world with us and was a real diamond!
And then of course as you’ve already mentioned, you and Snell left and you found musical solace playing with The Prodigy, what was that like for you?
It was unreal, one week I was on the TOL tour bus and while the rest of the band was upstairs playing rock star, myself and Snell sat downstairs listening to Prodigy albums (I’d actually got the call and offer to work with Prodigy halfway through a 3 week Towers tour) they had no idea I’d been offered the gig. It was unreal ! I stepped off that bus on the last date wrote a long e-mail explaining my departure and the next weekend I was flown first class to Portugal and stepped out in front of 60,000 people playing with the heaviest band I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. Amazing guys, amazing times, and a totally self-indulgent release!
What did you personally learn from working with those guys?
I learnt what it felt like to get the fire back! I learnt a lot from how focused and professional they were when it came to playing the show, and how you can still let rip and have the big time but be a tight focused aggressive band. The time I spent in the studio with Liam opened my eyes to a whole new genre of music I hadn’t been exposed to yet and I learnt a strong work ethic that I’d always had, but it had been suppressed towards the end of Towers.
We’re all huge fans of Mighty Boosh here at Uber Rock; tell us about working with Noel Fielding and how you and Snell’s character Dick and Donny Brain Damage came into existence as part of series 3.
It was such good fun working with Noel. He’d been present through the breakdown of the band and it was his idea for the character names. He called me and told me he’d written a part for us both but we might not be up for it given the tongue in cheek references. We love Noel and the Boosh and laughed so hard all day during the shooting of that!
You also worked with Dirty Harry for a while, what was that like and is it still a going concern?
I put a band together for her and toured supporting Gary Numan; it never held any importance for me. It was at a time when all I wanted to do was play.
Back to The Howling then and I’ve already mentioned some of the gigs you’ll be playing soon, what else in the pipeline gig wise that you can share with us?
We’ve got some key London shows coming up throughout the year and have plans for more touring. If anyone out there visits http://www.thehowling.co.uk/ and then hits “Like” you can be sure you’ll be the first to know when we hit your town.
And who would you Howling guys love to tour with in the future?
The Prodigy is an obvious one for us boys as we love the punk attitude they have, and they’re legends. Kasabian, Beady Eye, Motorhead – anyone with balls and attitude. Who knows what things will be thrown our way. We aren’t afraid of rising to the challenge.
If you could do one thing with The Howling you’ve not yet done in any of the other band’s you’ve been in, what would it be?
Make it to album number 3! (laughing)
Finally I’d like to get inside your musical mind by asking you to take the Uber Rock random music test where if we were to do the random first five tracks on your I Pod/I Phones/ MP3 player right now what would come up? (No cheating OK !!!)
‘CHAMPION’ – The Howling
‘I Need Air’ – Magnetic Man (Ft. Angela Hunte)
‘Tell ‘Em’ – Sleigh Bells
Beating Heart Baby – Head Automatica
and Love Turns To Hate – 80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster
And with that we’d like to once again thank you for taking the time to speak with us at Uber Rock,we’ll hopefully catch up with you sometime soon here perhaps the Bristol show with Uriah Heep, so until then we wish you and the gang every success with the upcoming tour promoting ‘Dance Of The Skeletons”…
Cheers Johnny you’ll be on the list for that Bristol show, get ready to “HOWL!!!!”
Photo kudos – Emma J Levin Woolhouse Studios