The Chemistry Set are one of the best British psychedelic bands of the modern era. Taking the 60s sound as a starting point, this duo’s range of influences ensures that their feet are firmly planted in the now. As they release another superb vinyl offering, Jason Barnard talks to the duo – Dave McLean and Paul Lake.
What was the spark of inspiration behind new single ‘Paint Me A Dream’?
(Dave) “Paint Me A Dream” lyrically, is about the power of visions and the transformation from the grey into technicolour. It begins with a group of mystics, singing together and playing dulcimers and lyres, who become hypnotised by these serenades and this in turn evolves into powerful visions and a request to the divine eye to paint them a dream (travel from the grey to the technicolour). As the painted dream multiplies and embraces them further, they meet Orpheus, the Greek musician, poet and prophet who plays the lyre, travelling further in time and space to encounter translucent orbs, stratospheric emanations and transcendental oscillations. It’s a trip!
Musically, we wanted to achieve a huge wall of guitars, so layered multiple rhythm guitars. I use a 1963 Fender Esquire with custom pick-up’s (the one the Syd Barrett used) and Paul has a beautiful Gretsch with TV Jones pick-up’s. Both offer a different tone, so that adds to the wall of guitars. The song is (like most Chemistry Set songs) riff heavy and these riffs were put through vintage fuzz, tremolo and 60’s tape delays, offering different textures and dynamics. After the first guitar solo we give a bow of appreciation to the band HP Lovecraft, we do some harmonies in a similar style to a part of the live version of HP Lovecraft’s “The Drifter” – we also finish with “The Drifter” riff but it’s in a different key to the original but keen ears and fans of HP Lovecraft might notice!
Your cover of Mark Fry’s The Witch also draws from psychedelic sound of The Bee Gees and The Red Krayola. Why this track and what is your approach for recording cover versions? Is it important to add a twist/take a new approach?
(Paul) If you’re going to cover a song it makes sense to mould it to be your own version, otherwise it’s just a karaoke copy with no thought put into it. The Witch seemed such a good choice of a cover, it’s so similar in style to what we write ourselves, that it seemed like it was one of our own! We changed a few of the lyrics to give the song a new twist in the story– For the intro we wanted something ethereal and decided that the Gregorian chants from the beginning of The Bee Gees “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You” were apt. We did a 5-part Gregorian Chant, which was a lot of fun and achieves the ethereal vibe we wanted.
We’ve been wanting to do a bit of Red Krayola style free-form-freak-out for a while and this song was the perfect vehicle to do this on. We had a collection of interesting instruments to hand: Persian setar, acoustic cigar box guitar, strangely tuned 12 string acoustic, vintage keyboards, various ethnic percussive instruments and even a half full whiskey bottle hit with a knife!
Is it important to get a physical release?
(Paul) Always nice to have a vinyl copy of the record. I’m lucky enough to have a vintage 1968 Hacker Gondolier GP42 valve-powered record player with the separate amp (Google it!) so the whole listening experience becomes an authentic ‘event’ as soon as the stylus hits the first groove.
How did you link up with Los Angeles the “Hypnotic Bridge” label?
(Dave) We have known Stu for a long time now and he is a huge believer in Psychedelic music. He he has created a wonderful record label, with brilliant bands, artwork, the whole package. We wanted to be a part of it.
How have you managed during the COVID period? Did this have an impact on how you wrote and recorded?
(Paul) Regarding COVID, being in lockdown has given us the opportunity to look at alternative ways of writing and the instrumentation to be used in that process. For example, I have been experimenting with unusual open tunings on the 12 string and various home-made cigar box guitars, including one made out of a kitchen sink as well as the Persian Setar. Dave has been honing his Mellotron and Farfisa keyboard riffs, collecting bizarre percussive items and practising his Gregorian chants to magnificent effect as you can hear on the Bee Gees intro to the Witch.
Going back to your 2017 Fruits De Mer EP. I can hear strains of the Small Faces, The Beatles and The Kinks on ‘Lovely Cuppa Tea’. What was your inspiration?
(Paul) First and foremost the biggest influence was Nanny Millie, my grandmother, who despite smoking and drinking ale and scotch all her life managed to live to be 93 years of age….she always swore that tea was the elixir of youth…the greatest placebo against the stuff life throws at you!
I know the Kinks did a song called “Have a Cuppa Tea”, but as much as I love the Kinks, I never intended to use a similar title, but the phrase “Lovely Cuppa Tea” just seemed to fit in the chorus and it stuck. Musically I can’t deny there is certain “Sgt Pepper”, “Good Morning, Good Morning” influence.
Originally the lyrics were about nursery rhyme characters that had turned to crime but drank tea to pretend to be good….like “Lucy Locket picked a pocket then she legged it like a rocket, Simple Simon mugged a pieman, sold his pasties to a fireman”…but it got so perverse and weird I abandoned it in favour of people with mental health issues, loneliness and convicted felons…you know, quite normal really!
Paul Lake
‘The Rubicon’ has a more muscular sound, it sounds like a positive call to arms and criticism of the narrow minded. Was the political climate we have been living in over the last few years that was spark?
(Dave) Yes it was. I don’t know if it is because I am getting older but the last few years I have noticed that some people are becoming more selfish, narrow minded, unhelpful and bitter. Life is hard, but we can all do something to improve that by being polite, helpful and accommodating to our fellow human beings. It’s not hard. It also makes you feel good, try it! That plus Trump, people being screwed around the world by Governments and Brexit, it wrote itself. I wanted the music to reflect the lyrics and Paul made the loudest (and best in my opinion) guitar solo ever. Paul played a Gretsch with a bigsby vibrato and we got a custom repeater pedal (like the Electric Prunes used) and a wicked custom fuzz pedal. Put them together with the amp turned up to 11 and you have that solo.
In classic Fruits de Mer fashion on the 2017 EP you sprinkled magic over a 60s psych classic – why did you choose The Moody Blues ‘Legend of a Mind’ ahead of the many potential choices? It’s an instrumentally ambitious track to choose.
(Dave) After finishing ‘The Endless More & More’, I was listening a lot to The Moody Blues ‘In Search Of the Last Chord’ and kind of got obsessed with “Legend of a Mind”. I was also reading Timothy Leary’s autobiography (Flashbacks) and thought we have got to cover this song but it was a huge challenge to do it justice and also give it a twist. So it just stayed in the back of my head until we knew we were doing the EP. I made a demo using a 12 string Rickenbacker and Paul put on some almost country licks on an acoustic guitar. I started laying some riffs down on the Mellotron (some following the original, some new) and it began to come together. We always thought the middle 8 was a bit weak, so we brought in some brass and added a fairground organ. For the rest of the song we added a healthy dose of fuzz guitar, analogue echoes, reverse noises and voila, we had our version!
You must have been nervous when you heard Ray Thomas was due to listen, but delighted when he said you ‘made a cracking job of it’….
You never know what someone will think, when you cover their song. So to say I was nervous was an understatement. He turned out to be a true gent and was very gracious with his praise.
You’ve recorded a range of covers over years – what’s been your favourite and why?
(Dave) ‘Legend’ because of the challenge to get it together (never give up!) and make a decent version. I am also very happy with our cover of Del Shannon’s ‘Silver Birch’ because that song wasn’t so well known and is one of my favourite songs.
(Paul) Dave and I take turns to choose the covers so whoever chooses a particular song arranges it and does the most work on it, so for example I did a lot of work on Hendrix’s “Love or Confusion” and made it folky with 12 string acoustic and sitar while Dave added the mellotron flute and tablas. Dave chose “Legend of A Mind” and did fantastic 12 string Rickenbacker and mellotron work while I added the bass and slide guitar. For me these two would be my favourites because they are songs that we could have quite easily wrecked, but thankfully we just about got away with it.
Your album ‘The Endless More And More’ received universal acclaim including Mojo, Q and Shindig. Looking back what’s your reflection on the material and how it went?
(Dave) It was the first thing we have recorded in nearly 30 years, that when we finished and played it back, we were totally happy with and I still wouldn’t change a thing. In typical Chemistry Set fashion, all the songs were refined several times before we got to the studio. We are obsessives about detail and getting the best out of a song. We knew in the studio we had something a bit special. We were blown away by the reaction. I mean we finally got into the mainstream music monthlies. Q, Mojo, Classic Rock and Prog. They gave us 4/5 (8/10 Classic Rock). The editor at Mojo (Phil Alexander) really caught the bug and invited us to contribute a track for a CD they were releasing and also ran a competition to give away the box-set and played us regularly on his “Mojo Rocks” radio show. Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 radio also played the album. We have spent nearly 30 years in the underground and that is where we are happy and belong, but it was nice to get some mainstream recognition.
(Paul) I know this is going to sound horrifically corny but Dave and I really do have chemistry when we get in the studio, where we can kind of read each other’s minds. Neither of us has to tell the other what to do because we already know! For example Dave knew what ‘HP Lovecraft-esque’ keyboard blips and licks to add to my cigar-box guitar riff on “The Open Window” and I knew what wonky fairground guitar break to add to Dave’s wobbly tremolo guitar and weird stomp-box effects on “Albert Hoffman”.
I think the songs really do reflect experiences we have had over the years and how emotionally we have dealt with things….both of us ended up writing songs that were deeply introspective in many ways from the emotion of “Elapsed Memories” to the pub knees up of “Crawling Back to You”….both of these songs each reflect our life experiences and perhaps an underlying melancholia yet sound poles apart upon first listening to them. We’re both very self-critical and we really wanted to try and make every song as meaningful and as strong as possible. We would never be happy to record any filler material because that’s totally pointless.
How do you write and record your material – is it a solo or collaborative process?
(Dave) Both but regardless of who had the original idea, the song will change with input from the other person. As I mentioned above, we are obsessive about perfecting songs and they go through multiple cycles before we get into the studio. That is where the magic begins and even then the song can change again. I live in London and Paul in Cambridge, so we share lots of ideas digitally and bounce songs to each other. It is very organic and open and we are not at all precious about who does what. Absolute credit must go to our engineer, Chris Coulter, who has worked on everything we have done in the last 9 years. He is the best engineer we have ever had.
Which artists past and present inspire you?
(Dave) Arthur Lee & Love, HP Lovecraft, Gene Clark, Pearls Before Swine, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Fallen Angels, Moby Grape, Electric Prunes. There are a number of interesting worldwide contemporary bands giving psych a twist, like Hurricane Heart Attacks (Argentina), Psychic Ill’s (USA), My Expansive Awareness (Spain), Lorelle Meets The Obsolete (Mexico) and Throw Down Bones (Italy).
Dave Mclean
(Paul) The Beatles, particularly from ’66 onwards, Rolling Stones 66 – 71 period, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Cream, Nirvana.
The Chemistry Set has been around for around for 30 years. How do you think your sound has evolved and what tracks from your earlier material do you still like?
(Dave) I think when we started, we were actually more ‘indie’ than Psychedelic. We were an indie band with a psychedelic slant. There were some great times and great gigs but when I listen back to the recorded music I am not happy with it. The ideas that we had in our heads and in rehearsals didn’t transpose into the recordings, which was a shame because we had some great ideas.
The difference today is that myself and Paul are totally ‘tuned into’ what we want to achieve and how we want to sound. We may encompass different styles of music but every song is embossed with a distinctive Chemistry Set sound. We also produce ourselves, so this allows full creative control. We want first and foremost to produce a great song, with melody and harmony but equally we want the song to sound great sonically and allow the listener to repeat listen many times and hear something new. We have learned so much about sound in the decades since we first started and that translates into confidence in the studio. The key today is ‘obsession’ and ‘enthusiasm’. We have both of these in abundance.
(Paul) We were barely out of our teens when we first started gigging around London. The band in those days was much more orientated towards playing live and we were a really great live band, so when we recorded in the studio we recorded as a live band too which gave an overall sound that maybe lacked finesse and was rougher than now but it had great energy. One of our greatest achievements was a fantastic performance supporting Hawkwind at Brixton Academy 1990. I still like “See Emily Play”, “Don’t Turn Away” (Romilar-D 1989 version), “Wake Up Sometimes”, Under The Valley, “Some People Never Learn” “The Look Inside” and “Orange Juice Sun”
What plans do you have in store for The Chemistry Set?
(Dave) Me and Paul spent a lot of time working together on the new single and coming up with other new ideas, melodies and riffs, that we will continue to work on and will bear fruit in the next album. We also had some festivals booked last year (and cancelled) one of which was a festival with Bevis Frond that we were really looking forward to. We hope we can play some festivals in the future.
Finally, how do people connect with you and get the new single?
The single will be available at the end of January direct from Hypnotic Bridge – https://www.hypnoticbridge.com/
And also available in the UK from Heyday records – https://www.heyday-mo.com/catalog/chemistry-set-/-paint-me-a-dream-the-witch-single.html
A digital version will be available end of February, with bonus tracks (awesome Swordfish remixes of The Witch) at our Bandcamp – https://thechemistryset.bandcamp.com/
Finally, stay up to date with all the news at our Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TheChemistrySetUK
