The Chemistry Set, the duo of Dave McLean and Paul Lake, continue to redefine psychedelic rock and pop with new album ‘Pink Felt Trip’. Jason Barnard speaks to Dave about their new LP, influences and the group’s history.
So ‘Pink Felt Trip’ is a vinyl release on Fruits de Mer.
Yeah, it’s going to be vinyl, as always. And then we’ve got a special edition vinyl where the front cover is real pink felt with pink felt bubble-gum and various giveaways. And we’re also going to have a limited-edition CD and then digital. But the regular vinyl is sold out now through Fruits de Mer on pre orders, which is fantastic, as we only started advertising it about four weeks ago. But it is available for Worldwide customers via Clear Spot in Holland.
The cover is pretty cool.
Yeah, that was great by Robin Gnista from Sweden. I really love Victor Moscoso. I don’t know if you can see behind me, there’s an original 60s Moby Grape poster by Victor, who is my favourite 60’s concert poster artist. I really wanted to get a modern version of his style. Robin has worked with so many different people. He’s created artwork for John Cale, The Black Angels, Levitation Festival and Television. He’s an exciting artist. So, we wanted to work with him and he’s the sort of person that he only works with you if he likes your music We’re really pleased with the art.
So it’s the first long player since ‘The Endless More and More’? That record had a great critical reception, didn’t it?
Yes, we had a couple of singles in between, including one for Hypnotic Bridge in Los Angeles. ‘The Endless More and More’ had the best reception to date, but I’m happy to say that we’re equal to it now and the record has not even been released. Mojo and Classic Rock are reviewing it. We’ve got an article in Record Collector in a section called Under the Radar. Prog and Shindig has come out already and Goldmine in the US. So, it’s looking great. I think ‘Pink Felt Trip’ is a bookend to ‘The Endless More and More’. The two of them sit nicely together but there’s a progression with our new record.
You’ve hit a rich vein where you’re throwing in different influences and sounds.
Yeah, we wear our influences on our sleeves but equally we want to be as original as possible. So, it’s one of those where we want to take the best and twist it. I’m not interested in recording on a four track and just getting a Ludwig drum kit on. It was great at the time, don’t get me wrong, it sounded perfect, but I want to get the best sound possible. On ‘The Witch’ for example on the outro where it goes all ‘Colonel Kurtz’ freak out, we’ve added the riff from Syd Barret’s ‘Candy and the Current Bun’. I’d love someone to find that and then there’s also a Red Krayola riff in the outro of that. Then also on ‘Paint Me A Dream’ there are vocal harmonies that come from HP Lovecraft’s ‘The Drifter’ but the live version. But we’re not out to put Easter eggs in every song because that’s quite ridiculous. ‘The Witch’ was great because we love the original, but we kind of feel like once it gets to the middle… I know a lot of people like that part, but for me and Paul, it was kind of then the song had gone, so we wanted to go much further and go wild with it. And then also the beginning, the Gregorian chants were from The Bee Gees ‘Every Christian Lion-hearted Man’ will show you. So, for me, it’s the favourite cover that we’ve done, because I think it sounds absolutely bloody great, but we’ve also got a nod to many people within that.
And you’ve got the full gamut of lyrics in there. Everything from ‘Lovely Cup of Tea’, which has got that sort of psychedelic 60s feel, but then you’ve got something like ‘The Rubicon’, which is more topical.
The Rubicon was just pure anger at Brexit at the time. I want to re-edit the video and put Boris Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries in there, because that’s what the song was all about. It was people trying to jump over you, get ahead of you, screw you up, keep you divided and so on. So, I think that is still topical. So, I must reedit the video and take Theresa May out. I try to avoid politics in songwriting, but I really felt strongly at that time. I’m a European. I’m coming to you from Madrid now. I’ve always felt that way. I totally understand both sides of the coin. But for me, we’ve just gone backwards.
You’re coined as psychedelic. What’s your take on that?
I am very proud of that. You know, better than I do about name tags. It’s just easy, isn’t it? I think we’re a psychedelic pop/rock band, but you can hear lots of fresh sounds as well.
The band name fits as that is your sound.
Absolutely. And it was funny when it was created back in 87. I remember thinking, oh, that’s too blooming twee. I love it now. You’ve got the creativity (Chemistry), and inference to people like Albert Hoffman and Timothy Leary and so I’m happy. The alternative name I can tell you for the very first time is not the most exciting. We were going to be called The Burning. I’m sure we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we did.
In the late 80s, you were more seen in that sort of indie genre and have grown into yourselves. Do you think that’s true?
Indie psychedelic is fair. Yeah, it’s funny talking about gigs now there’s hardly any venues left. But we were playing two or three times a week. We played The Marquee and The Borderline in London. Did we sound indie? No, I think if you want to say indie psychedelic the unreleased album ‘Sounds Like Painting’ you can hear the style there. We had a fantastic four or five years where we were in so many fanzines around the world, Australia, Sweden, Spain, Mexico, America, flexis coming out of your ears. It was amazing but then the problem is that there are four people with different points of view. We had half a page in Sounds music newspaper saying something like we could be the next big thing. But we imploded basically and then three of us continued and ended up on Polydor Records which was the worst time of our life. That was after years of being with indies so be careful what you wish.
After you reformed you started to benefit from advancements in technology.
I stayed out of music for a long time because I was so burned out by the experience. Going on to psychedelic chat rooms and websites around 2005 to 2007 I was really encouraged. People were talking about the past in the 60s, but they were also talking about the neo psychedelic movement, and you had new bands coming through, Asteroid No.4, bands like that. I enjoy listening to new psychedelic music as much as I do the old. I think the last ten years have been great. I can’t believe how much good music is out there. Bands in Brazil, Argentina, a plethora of bands in the West Coast of America, Australia. A friend of ours from America set up a myspace site and we uploaded all the old songs, and we have two and half thousand fans within a couple of months, couldn’t believe how many people loved the old stuff. But at that time our focus was on putting out the unreleased album, but the master tapes had degraded so rather than knock it on the head, me and Paul started writing new songs and we have gone from strength to strength. Normally when bands return, they are not as good as the first time, but I am happy to say that not one single person has said “oh that lot were better in the 1980’s”. Most of our fans now, never knew or heard of our music then. But we still have a great group of core fans from the 80’s and they have never stopped supporting us and for that we are extremely grateful.
But it’s not easy to do many shows now?
For us, it is easier to release music than to play live these days. It was a real conundrum Jason because when we came back and we really wanted to play live again, so we put the band together with a friend of ours who’s a DJ from Barcelona. We had a drummer, we had a mellotron. We had the kitchen sink, and we had a video jockey who did amazing visuals. She was from Argentina, and we had a bloody good show, but it was expensive to put on. So, if you play a festival in Spain or France, no problem at all. But I remember playing in London and it broke the bank of the promoter, not because we’re greedy and we want money. We had to cover the airfare and we had to cover the hotel, so it was prohibitively expensive. So, we did two or three years of that. And I really, really enjoyed it. And we played some huge festivals in Spain. We played one to about 5000 people, and it was amazing.
But the Half Moon in Putney. I’m from Putney, and it’s a great venue, but you can’t put it on. It’s impossible. They’re going to give you 150 quid if you’re lucky. So that put an end to that then. A few years ago, we did the Fruits de Mer festival down in Cardigan. Keith had been saying every year, ‘Why don’t you come down? Even two acoustics.’ And I always said, no, because the whole unplugged thing is not for me. Neil Young, fantastic. But for The Chemistry Set, no because of the amount of stuff we put in the studio. But he kept saying it for five or six years. So, we spent about three months rehearsing. Paul lives near Cambridge. I was in London, and I was going up every weekend.
We bought a machine from India. It’s like a tiny little radio, transistor radio, but it’s got the most amazing tablas and the most amazing drones. It took about six months to arrive, but we thought, that’s great, that’s our rhythm, that’s our backing and drone. And then we started using loop pedals and keyboards, and then I got loads of loops onto the pedals. When we played Cardigan, it was okay. It wasn’t live drums, but it almost was like a full Chemistry Set. But it was difficult. You’re remembering, ‘When should I press that pedal?’ But it went down well. The last one was ‘The Open Window’ and I played vox continental there and it was amazing. But it was a lot of work to put in for 40 minutes. So will we do it again, yes, we will. But we desperately don’t want to do it without a band. We grew up in the 80s playing live. We played live more than records. Now it records more than live. But yeah, we’ll be back.
When working with Paul, is it you both throwing over ideas and sending them back rather than live in the studio?
Absolutely. When we got back together in 2007, we were sending tapes to each other, we had four tracks. And it was romantic doing it that way. So, there was a lot of that and then we moved into digital, which is a whole lot easier. We can read each other’s minds, which is incredible. We never had it the original time. For example, the finished ‘Paint Me A Dream’ is absolutely zero like my original idea or even the original demo. So, what I really love about our relationship is that we’re not precious. So, I think that’s marvellous. And that’s why we enjoyed it so much now that it’s an absolute pleasure to do this as opposed to before where it was a chore in the end. What we are both incredibly proud of us is that both of us do all the instrumentation and vocals. I do the drums; rhythm guitars and keyboards and Paul is one of the best lead guitarists ever and incredible on the bass.
So, there’s always something that you’re thinking about or you’re on the lookout for an idea.
100%. Every day I’ll pick up a guitar. We have got a lot of songs that didn’t appear on this album. There are songs that didn’t appear on The Endless More And More. Quality control is a biggie for us. I’d much rather wait five years and release an album that has a beautiful sequence, and it sounds great in its totality, which I don’t know if a lot of fans think about that. We’ve got huge files full of songs, but no, they’re not good enough. And so, the day we haven’t got something new coming or visiting a song on our file from four years ago, is the day to give up. The Self-Expression Trinity didn’t begin as a trilogy, but the first part is Cesar Manrique, a tribute to the Spanish sculptor and environmentalist. He’s had a really big influence on me. The way he lived his life and what he did for the islands of Lanzarote. He literally stopped it from becoming another Costa del Sol. And what he did for the environment just really affected me. I’d seen a classical concert by a young composer, a young woman who had done several pieces about Lanzarote. And it really stuck in my mind and was amazing. I wrote to her and got in contact. And I don’t normally write in a classical way. This Woman and Cesar Manrique. I woke up at 03:00 in the morning, and I had one of the motifs there, and that happens regularly with me. Three in the morning, a riff will come.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t come as much as I’d love it to come, but that’s most of the ideas, either a riff or a lyric will come to me. It’s a symphony with mellotrons that sound like string sections. And then we’ve got classical percussion on various things, and I’m absolutely chuffed with that. And the reaction to the whole trilogy has been great. Parts two and three were kind of one song that we’ve written. There’s a little bit of a tribute to Love in the beginning of each song. There’s the bass boom, boom from Forever Changes. We worked on them, and I like it. So, the first part is classical, and then you move into Once Upon a Time in Liberation. So, the theme continues throughout, and it’s just fun to put the three together.
Further information
- The Chemistry Set, Pink Felt Trip LP + bonus CD is on sale on 5 June 2022: fruitsdemerrecords.com/pink
- Much of The Chemistry Set’s back catalogue and social media links can be found at: thechemistryset.bandcamp.com
