The immortal doo wap band from the 90's are back again, another sold out tour, another amazing show crammed back to back with countless banging anthems and the captain of the helm, Mr Tony Wright sits down with me after a super charged soundcheck to spin a few yarns t'Leeds Music Scene.Another tour, not so many dates this time around. How did you feel it went after you had played your last gig on the come back tour the year before last?
Yeah, it were good. It was really good to do and I really enjoyed doing it. We enjoyed doing it for all those people that came out and wanted to support some really good live music, and that's what it were, so that were a really good thing. It's like with tonight's gig, there'll be loads of people here, who kind of own that moment in time and that way of thinking, you know what I mean? No one else really does it, although the Kaiser Chiefs do it quite well don't they? We're not like one of these bands that are up their own backsides, there's loads of 'em that are but they're not really saying owt.
The group dynamic obviously changed with the departure of Leigh Marlew, how did it affect you as a band?
Well it's just that he didn't want to do these gigs. If someone says they don't wanna do it, they just don't wanna do it, especially when it's not about having to do anything. It's more a case of 'Shall we do it' and everyone's like 'Yeah alright' or 'No, I don't wanna do it'. We get emails and stuff all the time from people asking us to play and reform, but Sark [Mark Yates] has another band and I've got Laika Dog and we just write the songs that we write now for the bands that we're in now. He hasn't really left, he just doesn't want to do these gigs, and Danny stood in and he really wanted to do these gigs.
Terrorvision had 12 top thirty hits, sold out shows everywhere in the UK, 4 Kerrang! awards, but you never really cut it in the rest of Europe or the States. What was wrong with these people - discuss?
We never got released in America. We'd send people over there and say just go get us a record deal and we'll go and tour out there, but we never got anywhere, maybe they thought we were shit. We never had a chance in the States. There's a lot of politics I suppose and we weren't one of the bands they voted for.
Do you feel that you missed out because of that?
What us or them? [laughs]
Well obviously they did.
I guess we missed on material things I suppose, but I've been to America and I did things there but I never toured there or released albums there. We get people who send us letters from America who have got our albums, so there are people that listen to us over there.
When Terrorvision were first starting out, what was the most notable thing about being in a northern band with the whole north/south divide?
I think a lot of bands at that time sounded like they were trying too hard. Rather than singing about being a band in the 1990's, they tried to sound like people who had sold loads of records already in the 1970's and the difference was, we were really honest to who we were in ourselves and they were trying to be something they weren't.
That's what rock n roll is, it's honest music.
We [Laika Dog] just did an album and didn't produce it. We rehearsed it for a year and when drums needed to be louder, we hit 'em harder. So when we were mixing it, we weren't all in the studio fiddling with knobs. We recorded it live in four days and you'd be surprised how many people it pissed off. It was as if 'how dare you send me and album that hasn't cost tens of thousands of pounds to make, I'm a serious critique...what are they doing?'
It's weird isn't it...? Some people can stare at the moors for hours on end... same thing int it?
So, which one of your songs best reflects the life and times of Terrorvision?
Erm... I don't really know! I like 'Alice What's The Matter' cause it's the one I first heard people singing. I suppose they do with other songs but...
Or maybe 'Oblivion' 'cause that was our first real hit and everyone was like 'Oh you're the band with the doo waps aren't you'.
Are you not tired of that now?
Well, now we're that band that sing about Tequila [laughs].
I'm not ashamed of 'owt though really.
There's been a lot of contenders for the title of best jesting, comedy rock/metal crown that you have, the main band obviously being Kaiser Chiefs. What do you think to these young impostors, and who would win a fight between you and Ricky Wilson if it came down to it?
I think it'd be one of those fights that would go on for days [laughs] you know what I mean? We'd just spend 10 minutes just staring at each other and breathing, just covered in blood or whatever.
But I think they're cracking, I think they're brilliant. When I put the radio on and I hear some bloke playing along on his piano talking about, oh I don't know, phone books or summat and then you hear them, and it jumps out of radio... I like that! That's possibly a regional thing though, as we're from Bradford and that gets my goat... oh no, gets your goat is a bad thing innit? [laughs] It gets me going, sorry [smiles].
So would you say Terrorvision were partly responsible for putting more Yorkshire bands on the map in this current age?
No... how many bands are from Yorkshire? You had Pulp, Beautiful South, but I think they then became Humberside; well they used to be Yorkshire didn't they?
It's weird, I don't sort of look to the charts or turn on my radio or television for good music, you know what I mean? If I want to know how well a company is doing, like East West Records, then I'll look at the charts, but that's how good the company is doing, not how good the record is. It's different to what we do, maybe being a Yorkshire band you're not that fussed about being famous or a celebrity or summat. We wanted to make good tunes and have a dance and see if anyone else thought the same way, and they did and it were good.
So do you think there's still a demand for bands such as yourselves, given the state of the UK music scene today? And that bands coming out today are looking back to groups like Terrorvision for inspiration?
I think that's already happened hasn't it. It's always gonna happen. These dates have sort of proved that there is still a demand for us, so you can only go on what people do by coming to gigs and they're saying that they want to see us, and on this tour we've sold out tickets wise! It's just what we do.
Again, it's the honesty thing and people like it. I think if you're sat in on a Saturday night, watching X Factor when there's a band playing down the road, then one day you'll come out and go into the bright world and you'll look and you'll say 'I'm sure there used to be a pub there that had bands playing in it'. And it'll be gone, because everyone hitting it big will start at Wembley stadium and then say, I'm not playing that shit tip... you know what I mean? You've got to start and move your way up, so these little venues are ace and should be respected.
So what's next for Terrorvision? Are you packing it all in after this tour, or just wheeling yourselves out for Christmas, or maybe a new chapter in the band?
We'll play at Christmas. We might do some more gigs, but it's up to us really. I'm not gonna say I'm gonna do something, then not do it. I've enjoyed doing these dates, so I can't see why we wouldn't do it again, but at the same time, who knows? Someone else might say "thanks, but no thanks".
Some readers' questions for you now... Tony, what was the last cheese dream you had? [From Sarah Firth]
Cheese dream? [thinks] I do eat a lot of cheese, so I've become quite immune to cheese dreams, I don't really dream at all, in fact I don't really sleep. I don't even remember the last dream I had, I'll have been chased or summat won't I? But not by cheese!
If you could have been the lead singer of any other band, who would it have been? [From Mark Lewin]
I wouldn't have been a singer! I'd have been a rhythm guitarist, so I could have just stood back and played along with my mates. I like bands because of the guitar players, not because of the singers. I wouldn't have minded being able to sing like Freddie Mercury, he's a good singer in the, I wouldn't have wanted to be Freddie Mercury though.
If you knew at 18 what you knew now, would you have done anything differently? [From Paul Fisher]
Yeah, I think I would have done some things differently. I can't tell you what, but I would have done 'em differently, but then again, if I hadn't have done them I probably wouldn't... oh I don't know, I might have been a tax inspector, so I think if you've never made a mistake, you've never made anything. I've got 2 sons and I wouldn't want them to grow up and think I'm not free to learn.
Who from the past, if you could go back, would you have liked to have written a song with? [From Simon Briggs]
I don't know. I right enjoy writing with Terrorvision, and most song are written as they just happen so I don't think I'd ever want to sit down and write a song with anyone. Some stuff I write is what I want to get off my chest so I'd be buggered if I want to do it in front of anyone as sometimes it's stuff even I don't want to listen to [laughs].
I do think there's some brilliant songs that you think, I wish I'd maybe wrote that bit, you know? Like when Neil Young says, 'Thinking about what a friend had said, I was hoping it was a lie.' It makes me think, ahhh I bet he fucking knew when he wrote that and it sent a shiver down his spine. I mean Elvis wrote 'You were always on my mind' I think that were the only song he wrote, and when you hear it, or sing it, it's like woooah! It gets ya proper, it reaches them points where you think, wooooah!
Who are your ultimate heroes in music?
I like Neil Young, but I don't own all his records. I like Elton John, and I don't own all his records, I like David Bowie and I like The Carpenters and Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin and all that sort of stuff.
