Nick Parsons – Supercharger – Interview Exclusive
Written by Gaz E
Sunday, 12 June 2011 05:00
What impressed us most here at URHQ when ‘Wrong Side Of The Head’, the debut album from Supercharger, turned up for review was that, apart from the fact that it was an uber-approved monster of a record, the band didn’t dwell on the fact that their frontman Nick Parsons had previously been a member of The Almighty, supported the likes of Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Slayer, and released numerous well-received albums – never even mentioned it, in fact.
In the months that have followed, many a late night has been accompanied by an instant message or two from Nick, many of them asking me what album he should listen to next – ‘Third Eye’ by Redd Kross being one of my most popular choices – and many of them answering my questions about his musical history, all answered with a refreshing honesty. I suggested we should get all the details down in a good old fashioned interview…which gets us to here. It should also be noted that all of this went on while I was sat in a house whose previous occupant was a member of one of Nick’s previous bands. So, I guess that’s a good place to start…….
How small a rock ‘n’ roll world is it when I’m replying to your late night messages while sitting in a house that a former Whatever drummer [Lee Kendrick] lived in?!
It’s a very small world mate. The older you get the more people you bump into that you were in bands with, slept with, took drugs with; Funny how I still never bump into a lot of people I actually went to school with, maybe that’s a good thing. Although recently I have been back in touch with a few old blasts from the way past and it’s been very pleasant.
You’ve just played three gigs in 24 hours with Supercharger – how were they?
Three gigs in 24 hours is not a good thing to do, believe me – very stressful! We turned up at Gig 1 Friday in Darlington ok, then do Gig 2 in Sunderland next night – set up, soundcheck, play really early, before fuckin’ doors if truth be known, then drive across to Newcastle for Gig 3 and as were loading the gear in realize my fuckin’ prized Gibson Les Paul isn’t there – SUPER FUCKIN STRESS coz this guitar is like irreplacable and worth a lot of cash. So we go get me another guitar and do the gig. I am stressed to fuck, while our driver goes back to Sunderland and salvages me Les Paul. All ends well but fuckin’ stressful man, just nee need when all ya wanna dee is play some Rock ‘n’ Roll…..
It’s great to see someone like you still out there making great music, but if I can take you back through some of your musical past? What can you tell us about Energetic Krusher, the noisy band that you released an album with in 1989? Wasn’t future Wildheart Danny McCormack in the band too?
Fuck me, Energetic Krusher – a very long time ago now. I was 17 when I did that and yes, Danny was in that as well. Very noisy thrash metal band I suppose. We did one album called ‘Path To Oblivion’ – we all piled down to Wales to record that, got a few funny tales from that session, Danny and dead frogs as the main event, but we were very young, that was my first proper recording seesion ever. Not a bad album looking back to when it was done, but we did a few good gigs with that band and then all fell oot, as bands dee..haha..No, not really, I left to join fellow Geordie thrashers Hellbastard and Danny went to go be a Wildheart. I was with Hellbastard for a couple of years, toured with Napalm Death, did various gigs with Carcass, Morbid Angel, wrote a few tunes for ’em then quit in the early 90s; times were changing, music was changing and Whatever was about to happen.
Whatever was certainly a musical departure from that band – what vision did you have for the band, musically?
The vision for Whatever was at first the grunge thing, I suppose. Me and Graham [Williamson – bass] had been doing the thrash thing a good few years and we just started listening to different bands, Graham was a massive Pixies fan and I loved the whole Nirvana thing and all those bands that came with that. We still loved our thrash bands, I still do, but things were changing and so were we, so I started trying to write more alternative kinda songs from the thrash I had being doing. I 
think that’s why Whatever had that sound, though it’s all owed to thrash metal, coz my rhythm style was still very much that, big chunky riffs, tight sounding but with melody to accompany them.
It must have been a bonus, publicity-wise at least, recruiting drummer Stidi after he’d left The Wildhearts?
Yeah, fuckin’ big style. That’s what made people, press and record companies at the time, take interest in us, it was huge for us and yeah we played on it, Stid played on it as well. We did our third demo with Stid and ‘Hooked On Monday’ was the first track, we knew we were onto a winner and then we did a gig at Trillians in Newcastle and had three record companies and management after us, we’d also been getting some very good press in Kerrang at the time as well, best unsigned band, great live reviews – it was kicking off.And ‘Sugar Buzz’, that debut album from Whatever, wasn’t exactly under the radar either, released on Music For Nations and produced by Andy Sneap – how exciting were these times?Doing that album was a FUCKIN’ NIGHTMARE, awful experience. The band at that time was splitting apart, we had a much older guitar player at the time called Ken, absolutely fuckin’ awesome guitar player but he was a lot older than us so that bullshit came into play, “you need to sack him and get someone younger,” Graham and Stidi just didn’t get on, in fact to be honest Stid didn’t get on with anyone at the time, alcohol and drugs never helped and there was always too much of both, so in the time we recorded that album Ken got sacked and replaced by Youngy, a 17 year old kid, Stid and Graham were on the verge of killing each other and I was a drunk a lot – sad times. I’m amazed how that album actually sounds as good as it does, but that was down to the
engineering skills of Mr Sneap and I suppose our will to get it done in the end. But that album came out to great press reviews and from there we went on to open for The Wildhearts, Warrior Soul, Paw, Sperm Birds, then we parted company with Stidi and found a new drummer Lee Kendrick, went on to open for Skin, were up for best newcomer at The Kerrang awards, toured constantly, opened for Bruce Dickinson, then Lee left due to commitments back home in Wales and we were ready to do another album.
And what of that album, ‘Lies & Gold Dust’?
‘Lies & Gold Dust’, for me, was my proudest moment. It’s basically just a diary of the twelve months before and all the bad shit that happened. I wrote that entire album and I guess it is a concept album as far as what it’s about, a year in the life of Nick. When we did that album the band was fucked, me and Graham were still at the helm but the ship had long sunk. We had a hired drummer, two other guitarist surplus to requirments and had a record company that no longer believed in us, but with the help from Ralph Jezzard we managed to make a fuckin’ awesome album. After we finished that album we recruited a new drummer called Daz and went back out on tour ending in Venice in Italy with Skunk Anansie. When we got back Youngy (guitar) and Stratty (third guitar) both left the band for reasons I won’t go into. We had another tour booked with Skin to do and we got an old mate in Billy G to do second guitar duties, and he did a fantastic job. It was a good tour that one, fairly chilled from the usual dramas, but we got back from that and I think our deal with MFN had pretty much collapsed. We were supposed to go out to Germany to do some shows and that went tits up, I’d had enough and called it a day.
You were originally named as guitarist in The Chasers, the band that Danny McCormack put together when The Wildhearts had split in 1997, who would later become The Yo-Yos. You never hung around this project for too long though – what happened?
Oh dear, The Danny McCormack Project. Can I just say I was never really a part of that thing. I went down to a little cottage in Herefordshire and got pissed and took drugs with Danny, we very loosely put a few average songs together, went to London, recorded ’em, sounded like Slade, went to Zoe Ball’s 30th birthday bash, took more drugs, then I came home to Newcastle and was no longer in that band.That whole gig was not for me and I know I wasn’t what Danny wanted for that project either.
Tell us how you came to join The Almighty, replacing Pete Friesen?
After Whatever and my very brief stint with Danny, I became an arsehole; drunk all the time, constantly doing speed and generally being a nightmare, frustrated and mental. I went to see 3 Colours Red at The Riverside and Chris McCormack, who was a good mate as I’d known him for a long time, put me in touch with Ricky Warwick, said they were looking for a new guitar player, so I ended up going down to London, auditioned for The Almighty and got the job.
Were you a fan of that band before you joined?
No, I wasn’t an Almighty fan at the time but I had seen them a few times. I became a big fan of their music though and still am.
Some might be surprised to find that some of those songs on your two albums with The Almighty, 2000’s self-titled affair and its follow up ‘Psycho Narco’, were actually solely credited to you, ‘Broken Machine’, for example
That was what they wanted, someone to come in and be involved and that’s exactly what I did, wrote a bunch of tunes, some stuff I already had that we used and some I wrote solely for them; ‘Broken Machine’, ‘Stop’, ‘Soul On A Roll’, it was all good.
How do you feel looking back on your time in The Almighty, your most high profile work?
Lookin’ back I loved being in The Almighty. I put four years into that band, I just wished we’d done more at the time in terms of gigging really. When I went down for the audition I stayed down in London for a few days with ’em and then we never got together again for nearly six months due to lots of red tape and stuff that needed tying up, but we finally met back up in Glasgow and started rehearsing and it was great. My first two gigs with them were opening for Def Leppard in Belfast then next night in Dublin, not bad first gigs really. We then went out to Japan, headlined a sold out Astoria, opened for Iron Maiden and Slayer in Paris, toured Germany and the UK, did the Bulldog Bash as well, good times but all good things come to an end eventually and so it did.
How did it end?
Ricky got offered a solo thing in America with Def Leppard – why the fuck not, I’d have done it. Again, the band was kinda over. We had a UK tour booked for the December but ticket sales were shit, so he was given an opportunity and took it and it paid off for him; look what he’s doing now, and all the very best to him. I had nothing but good times with those guys.
You then formed Runt with bassist Gav Gray who had joined you in The Almighty and drummer Ronnie McLean who had also been in Whatever….
My God, the world is a tiny place – back to Question 1….it’s all very incestious this band malarky, innit?! Runt was awesome, the ultimate power three piece band. We had great songs, great attitude and a killer look. Me and Gav put that together after The Almighty. I knew Ronnie wasn’t playing so got in touch with him and BANG – power trio from hell. We gotta bunch of songs together pretty quickly, went into my mate’s attic studio and recorded ’em. Then we went back and recorded another session and another, hence The Attic Sessions. Now this is where the world gets smaller again; I was working in a music store and in walks Scruff, former Hellbastard mainman. I hadn’t seen him for years, so we got talking and I ended up passing him a Runt disc, next thing he wants to sign us to his fledgling label FURY76. So we take him up on his offer and he released The Attic Sessions through his label. But Gav and Ron weren’t too into doing a lot of gigs so consequently Runt never really got itself out there and the whole thing kinda just fizzeled out….but out of that came Supercharger…..
Tell us how Supercharger came together and what you guys want it to be…
Supercharger came out of the fall-out from Runt and The Flamin Eights, which was JD’s band at the time. We were sitting in a bar and said why don’t we just put what we both like together and see what happens and so we did, hence Supercharger, a full-on rock ‘n’ roll band. We wanted big riffs, pop choruses, rock ‘n’roll attitude, so Supercharger was born. With me on guitar and vocals, JD guitar/vocal, Aran on drums and Neil on bass, the original line-up got it together pretty quickly, did our first gig then the bass player quit. We got a new bass player Pete, went and recorded the ‘Smashing Up The Future’ EP, did a fair few local gigs, then due to the usual shit got rid of Aran and Pete. Denz and Nash found us by sheer luck I think and we’ve never looked back since. We 
get on like brothers, we all like the same music and we all love playing in The Charger, it’s a super tight band unit.
When the Uber Rock-approved ‘Wrong Side Of The Head’ turned up for review we saluted yet another cool UK act who seemingly knew their way around a tune and had the right attitude – how happy are you with the album?
I think overall The Charger are happy with that album, we worked really hard to get that together from the bare bones of songs in the rehearsal room to laying down the tracks in the studio. Sure, looking back on some of the tracks we would do it different now but it is what it is and the fact it’s all ours, we paid for it and we don’t owe no-one nothing for it.
The thing I like about Supercharger, attitude-wise, is that you have never dined out on your past with The Almighty etc, you guys hardly mention anything about it in your press –
you happy for the music to do the talking?
We are a new band now in 2011. If people want to ask me about the old days I’ll gladly tell ’em, but in terms of what The Charger are doing now, I want people to hear that not The Almighty.
Supercharger has already supported a legion of fine acts and released a great album – what’s next?
Who knows? I think we’re gonna start recording a few new tracks in the next month or so, do like an EP type thing with three new tracks. I’ve also gotta mate doing a couple of really weird remixes of a couple of album tracks, so we’ll see how they turn out. We’ve pretty much got another album written but think we might hold onto it for a while and just do this EP back end of the Summer.
You have to tell us about the video for ‘Deadheads’, a video that Ginger commented made him feel like he did in the “dark old days”….
Oh, “the dark days.” I think that anyone with a hangover from whatever you choose to have been on, that vid is ganna relate. We had a lot of fun doing that. We went down to Leeds on a Sunday afternoon and did the performance piece which only took a few hours then we bo
oked the room in the pub and got a load of people down and the Burlesque girls, again it was all relaxed and good fun. We’re really chuffed the way that has turned out, a fine jod there Dave..
You are a huge fan of 90s music, a decade that many others are only too happy to quickly forget. What is it about 90s music that does it for you?
The 90s was my time musically. Every band that came out then was new and amazing, way too many to list but it was the decade of some of the coolest guitar bands ever.
You’ve obviously done your fair share of great gigs, but what about shitty ones?!
Yeah, last Saturday – two gigs in one neet, bollocks! No really, opening for Iron Maiden in St Etienne, France. 7000 people and someone had put my guitar in the wrong tuning – total nightmare. Stidi falling off the back of the drum riser mid-song in Germany was hilarious, not for him though – it was about a six foot drop.
Finally, the ultimate way to show everyone how cool you really are – iPod or mp3 player – first five songs on random, what are they?!
Kiss – ‘Black Diamond’
COC – ‘Sleeping Martyr’
Fishbone – ‘Pouring Rain’
Dark Angel – ‘The Burning Of Sodom’
Pearl Jam – ‘Half Full’
That was really iPod shufflin’!!!