Thanks so much Davy Craig for the interview! I wrote about The Sojourners, a band from Tyneside, back in May. There was not much information about the band who were active in the mid 90s. So I immediately asked if he would be up for an interview, and yes, here it is!
++ Hi Davy! Thanks so much for being up for this interview! How are you? Are you still involved with music?
In terms of health, I’m not good. I’m disabled now & have a few other health issues. I’ve still been involved in music in one way or another up until last year, when I had a car crash on 21st October & have multiple injuries, the worst being a dislocated thumb & wrist on my left hand. Being disabled hasn’t stopped me from recording & I was just about to start recording an album of The Sojourners songs a few days after, but I haven’t been able to play at all since. I’m hoping that will change, but it’s not looking good.
++ Let’s go back in time. What are your first music memories? Do you remember what your first instrument was? How did you learn to play it? What sort of music did you listen tao at home while growing up?
The best way to answer these questions is to provide you with a link. I’ve just put a show on my Soundcloud page (a new one) last week & I talk about exactly this in the first two episodes of My Story In Songs. Part Two will be going up tomorrow!
The other way to answer is to say I started on drums. I then bought a bass guitar from a lad who lived in my mate’s street – a Fender Precision by Kay catalogue, I think, for £20 with an amp. It only had 3 strings, so it cost another £5 to get new strings!
I then bought a white Telecaster copy from a girl who was giving up learning. That cost £25 & came with a small amp.
Growing up I listened to The Beatles, The Moody Blues, The Who, Wings, Glam Rock such as Slade & especially The Sweet, then ELO. I liked a lot of New Wave bands & then was into Adam & The Ants, which inspired me to play drums. I had lessons at school & was doing well, but the teacher would whack the back of my hand with a drumstick if I made a mistake, so I eventually stopped. I’d heard Gotta Get Away by SLF & then a school band made up of older lads in 6th Form played it & I decided I’d like to learn to play bass, plus a couple of mates were talking about starting a band, but I was the only one who did anything.
Hearing The Electric Co by U2 was the thing that inspired me to switch to guitar.
By the time I was 16 in 1985 I was heavily into U2, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Smiths, Big Country, & The Cocteau Twins. Hearing The Velvet Underground & The Jesus & Mary Chain had a big effect on me & then I discovered The Cure, who became my favourite band.
Soon after came The Wedding Present, That Petrol Emotion, The House Of Love, Pixies, Big Black & Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
++ Had you been in other bands before The Sojourners?
My first band was at school. I played in the concerts put on by my fellow 6th Formers. They were reviews, really, with comedy sketches, dancing & live bands usually formed just for the purpose of the shows. The band I’d intended to play in were forced to merge with a synth band for the first gig & it didn’t really work. The following year we were better musicians & were just guitar, bass & drums, which was better, but we couldn’t agree on what to play! We ended up doing a few Big Country songs, U2 & Eddie Cochrane.
I was trying to develop my own style of playing using more and more effects & playing things like the flute parts on Moody Blues songs instead of the guitar & pretending I was an extra guitarist in the bands I loved, trying to improvise & play something different along with the songs.
We tried to get bands together outside of school, but no one was into the same music as me apart from one drummer. We’d go to The Riverside in Newcastle together & absorb the music, hoping to meet other musicians, auditioning loads of singers & bassists, but none were right, then I moved to London for university.
I was asked to play in a review by a lad who wanted to sing U2 songs & another lad who asked if I could improvise some blues, which I never really played, for him to sing to, so I did that, but the first lad got cold feet & the second got very drunk & started fights with the audience who started throwing bottles and glasses! It was like The Blue Brothers without the chicken wire!
I was then asked to join a couple of bands at uni & I played a few gigs doing covers, & added electric guitar to a really good Irish band, but they weren’t what I wanted to do.
I had a serious injury to my right hand & returned home with the intention of going back the next academic year, but when my hand healed I auditioned for a local band who were just starting up, called Drill. That was on a Sunday evening & I was asked to join & had to learn the songs for a gig at Riverside on the Wednesday night.
That was great!
We were asked to dplay for a TV show called Elements on ITV, which was showcasing the Industrial north & it’s links with the arts. They said that we fitted that & we ended up being termed as Industrial Rock.
We started to write songs together, mostly playing gigs at local venues such as Riverside & The Broken Doll, amongst others, but rarely ventured anywhere else.
I’d only been in the band for a few months when we were signed by Abstract Records, so I didn’t go back to uni. We recorded the Skin Down album in January 1991, on the same day that the Gulf War started. We went to Impulse in Wallsend to record it. We felt like we didn’t know what was going on & we had the attitude that we could be the last building left standing. It was an extreme form of being enclosed & claustrophobic & we wanted to portray that feeling. No reverbs or any bells & whistles were added to it. Kev, the singer, sang in the old Victorian toilets, which had tiles on the walls and floors to get that natural reverb, but that was it.
I added E-Bow to most songs to give a drone effect along with creating the soundscapes in the background, along with other noises & discordant stuff on the guitar. It was a great experience. We received excellent reviews in all of the majors, along with other music mags & were given album of the month on BBC.
The offers for tours then came in: A support gig with The Stranglers, a support in Europe & UK with Tad (which fell through because they brought a band they were friends with over in Seattle), a Japanese tour & a Los Angeles residency in 3 venues that included the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, but all were turned down.
Two members of the bands were married & had mortgages & didn’t want to go on speculative tours & lose their well-paid jobs at home. I was bitterly disappointed & eventually left because I didn’t see the point of being in a band & not touring.
I sold everything aside from my Gordon Smith Gypsy II guitar, which I still have, & disconsolately looked for a normal boring job, being disillusioned with the music business.
After around a year, I auditioned for a band called The World Of Spam. We were awarded Best Name for a Band on the Steve Wright in the afternoon show, & they dedicated part of a show to all things Spam. I stated that we needed to go into a studio to record something to use this unbelievable publicity, but instead of doing so the bassist and drummer both left so that was that!
I joined another band called Mama, & Chas Chandler from The Animals wanted to sign us (he’d signed Jimi Hendrix), but again nothing really happened & I left when the drummer took over & wanted to push the band into being a covers playing club band. That was definitely not for me!
I then auditioned for a band headed by a lass in Newcastle, who had ME and was on a lot of TV shows talking about her condition & music. A number of the members, myself included, weren’t very comfortable using this as a way to try to get into the music industry & wanted to be defined by what we played & the band broke up.
We’d placed an advert for a new bassist after he was the first to leave & on the day the whole thing imploded, I received a call about the ad. It was from Steve Jobling. Myself & the drummer met him at my parents’ house & we sat in the garden playing. Steve then said that his best mate, who he’d known since the age of three at nursery had a good voice, so we went into the rehearsal rooms at Hoults Estate, where I’d rehearsed a lot with Drill, & Ash Timmins got the job. He said that he knew With Or Without You by U2 & sang that. He was in straight away. We soon sacked the drummer. A nice lad, but he wasn’t great & didn’t fit. Another lad Steve & Ash were friends with joined briefly on guitar, but he was into funk & it didn’t fit. When we did our first demos at Impulse he couldn’t play most of the songs & I was asked by the producer to go back in and redo a lot of his parts. It was agreed that he should go.
We’d already recruited Luke Phillips by that time. A friend of a friend of Steve’s from Newcastle University. He was from near Stoke.
Before Luke we’d auditioned so many drummers & none were right. A lad who worked at the rehearsal place asked if he could audition. He looked like The Kurgen from Highlander!! He literally nailed his bass drum to the floor & we started playing very long dub-style jams. That ended up becoming a song we simply called The Jam & it usually ended up lasting around 15 minutes live & was the song we finished gigs with.
The drummer disappeared and suddenly contacted me to say he was in London with his old band Radical Dance Faction & wanted us to go down for a gig. Nothing was organised, so that fizzled out & he didn’t return. We told Luke that he was still our drummer as he hadn’t officially left, describing his size, intimidating look & behaviour to Luke, just for a laugh! 😉
++ What about the other band members? Were they in other bands too?
None of the other band members had been in any bands of any note before the Sojourners.
++ Where were you from originally?
I’m from Hebburn, South Tyneside. Steve & Ash are from Wardley, Gateshead & Luke was from near Stoke.
++ How was Wallsend at the time ofThe Sojourners? Were there any bands that you liked? Were there any good record stores? Or what about the pubs or venues to go check out up and coming bands?
Wallsend was just where Impulse Studios & the rehearsal room we often used were based. It had no real scene. There was the Buddle Arts Centre that tried to develop bands from that town, but we weren’t a part of that as we weren’t from Wallsend.
There was Newcastle, which had a scene at various pubs, such as The Newcastle Arts Centre & The Dog & Parrot, amongst others, along with Riverside.
We played a lot of gigs in the Newcastle area, but rarely went anywhere else.
I pushed and pushed to go to London & around Europe, but the rest of the band basically didn’t work at it & didn’t bother. That was a huge bugbear of mine. They thought that success would just happen.
The bands we loved playing with were Sleepy People, Bargain Classics & Cactusman, who had Peter Straughan, the BAFTA & Oscar winning screenplay artist, as their bassist. I became friends with Peter & at one point, when I was frustrated with Steve, who was not offering much in terms of effort to the band, I asked Peter if he’d like to join The Sojourners instead of going to London to become a writer. He made the correct decision! I’m still friends with Paul Hope from Sleepy People & Mick Sharp from Bargain Classics.
There were a few other decent bands around, but we didn’t like the attitudes of a lot of them & kept to our own little circle of friends and bands.
We didn’t ever check out other bands unless they were on the same bill as us, other than Sleepy People & Bargain Classics, who were brilliant.
I actually went to see Drill at Riverside just as the band was starting out in 1994 & Si the bassist was explaing about the keyboards & synths they used live. He said that no one could work out what I’d played so I was eventually replaced with sequencers and synths! That was nice to hear.
++ What were your favourite bands in your area at the time? Was there any that you think deserved more attention, that should have been bigger?
Sleepy People & Bargain Classics
++ Was there any lineup changes in the band?
Just on drums. We had more drummers than Spinal Tap!
This is why:
We’d been into Impulse to record a few demos a couple of times. Keith Nicholl, who produced them loved our music from Day 1. He especially loved Pin & Harry, but stated that Blue Skies was potentially “a number one song.”
When we did our second demo he especially loved 61 Miles (To London) & wanted that as our first single, with Blue Skies as the second, to utilise the publicity from the first to aim for number one! Then an album release after that, with 47 Hastings Parade as the third single. He had it all worked out!
He pushed and pushed for Dave Wood from Neat Records to take us on board because Dave basically owned Impulse. The problem was that Neat was a Metal label & had Venom, Tygers of Pan Tang, Raven & Fist, amongst others on the label. We didn’t fit into that at all.
However, Dave Wood decided that he agreed with Keith about Blue Skies & wanted to sign us to release it as a single & push it as far as he could, earmarking an initial £20,000 for marketing & covering the recording costs.
By this time, in ’96 Steve, Luke & myself were living together in Fenham, Newcastle & had a room set out for rehearsals, but they were always out, Ash rarely turned up & we hardly ever rehearsed there. I was becoming more and more frustrated. Ash, Steve & myself had all finished our degrees, but Luke was a year behind. He was also talking about going to South America to study the following year, so the band clearly wasn’t high on his priorities.
We went into the studio to record & Keith Nicholl, who’d told me he wanted to use every Beatles studio technique in the one 3 minute song, which I was well up for, had actually gone down the route of preparing sequencers & synths, which sounded more like Tears For Fears than The Beatles. The major problem was that he’d already programmed drums, as well.
I thought they were a guide track for Luke, but as we began to set up our gear he told us not to bother setting up the drums because they were already done. It wasn’t a guide track after all!
We were all furious & Luke was gutted. I even told Keith that he should have allowed Luke to play & then sequence the drums if need be, but he was adamant.
Luke, who was clearly not 100% moving forward with the band anyway, walked out & left.
We had to go in & record the song knowing that we no longer had a flaming drummer!
We ended up with loads of replacements & they were either not suitable, in other bands without saying, in prison, violent troublemakers, or wanted to take over everything!
++ What instruments did each of you play in the band?
Ash Timmins – Vocals
Davy Craig – Guitars & E-Bow
Steve Jobling – Bass
Luke Phillips – Drums
++ How was the creative process for you? Where did you usually practice?
We practiced mostly at Hoults Estates or at Pauline Murray’s Polestar Studios in Byker.
I’d usually write the music for the songs & sometimes the lyrics as well. Steve wrote some lyrics & Ash would mould those to the music. I’d have an idea of how everything should sound, but would give Steve & Luke a lot of scope to add what they wanted.
++ What about influences?
Everything I talked about in relation to what I listened to and more!
Will Sergeant was the biggest influence on my style, but more from the point of him saying that he couldn’t play anyone else’s stuff very well, but no bastard can play like me! That became crucial to how I played, but by the time I formed The Sojourners it was more about how I played live, adding various sounds here and there.
We liked a lot of the same music, especially The Smashing Pumpkins & Morrissey at the time, then Oasis & Blur were the main things, but they didn’t really influence my style or songwriting. Things just came to me out of the ether, or I’d have an idea and develop it.
++ What’s the story behind the band’s name?
One of my earliest memories is of my dad returning home from work down the pit, having visited Pete Edmonds record shop in Laygate & brought in a new Moody Blues album: The Seventh Sojourn.
++ From what I understand you didn’t get to release any records, is that true? And why do you think that was?
We signed a deal with Dave Wood from Neat Records. As mentioned he was running a Heavy Metal/Death Metal label and we didn’t fit. He saw an opportunity to make some money with Blue Skies & we agreed.
He seemingly loved the song & agreed that it was destined to be a big hit. I was disappointed with the finished song & it didn’t really sound like us at all. The guitars were watered down & the production was way over the top.
I was asked to go to meet Dave & thought that he would want to talk about the next stage of the plan, but he had something else to tell me.
There were a lot of things going on behind the scenes that we didn’t know about, such as him selling Neat to Sanctuary Records & a court case for unpaid royalties, which he lost. I read that in the local news a day after our meeting.
He basically said that he didn’t have the funds anymore. His new plan was to put in an initial half (£10,000) for marketing, etc., but wanted another label to come in with him. The problem was that his contacts were with other metal labels & none of them wanted to touch it & it was eventually shelved.
It was the initial death blow to the band. Everyone seemed disillusioned, annoyed & frustrated, plus we had to look for a new drummer!
We had some interest from other places, but nothing materialised.
++ Was there any interest from any labels?
I’d had an opportunity to join a band partly run by Roger Daltrey, that was basically already signed because of the singer. I was asked to audition & did (in the early stages of the band, just after Luke joined), but they wanted to play a music style that I wasn’t interested in – like Hootie & The Blowfish – & I honestly thought that we were better & had better songs.
I told the band about it after I decided not to take it any further & stated that we had to go for it!
We had interest from EMI, but they stated that they’d only sign us if the older member of the band, myself, was dropped from the band. I was 25 at the time & the lads were 4 & 5 years younger. It was obvious that they just wanted to shape a band of kids, but the rest stated that they weren’t going to go with it. The main reason was because I was the main songwriter, founder, organiser & the whole sound of the band came from me. It was a nice gesture, which mirrored my own decision to stay with the band, but they admitted that they didn’t know what to do without me.
We also had some interest from Food Records, but they stated that they were unsure because they couldn’t see a musical direction within the band because our songs were so diverse in style. Had they come to see us live, or organised for us to play in London for them, they’d have seen how it all came together in a live setting & we wanted someone to capture that.
I was disappointed with our demos recorded at Impulse because of the feel that Keith added, leaving them sounding quite flat & taking away our live sound. We went elsewhere, but then the engineers weren’t good & we never got what we wanted. They all tried to add bells and whistles & we just wanted a simple recording.
++ You did record many songs. which I suppose were put together as demo tapes. If so, how many of these tapes existed? And did you use them to get gigs, attention from the press, or this wasn’t the case at all?
We did use the demo tapes to get gigs, which wasn’t difficult. Once we’d played at venues we were asked back because we had a small following & they seemed, in the main, to like our stuff. We sold quite a few at gigs & thought that was a good sign. Local press would mostly come to see us & review the gigs. Some wanted the demos, as well. Overall it was very positive, but we couldn’t break into the majors because the band didn’t work hard enough. It’s as simple as that.
I fully believe that had we gone to London & built up a following there, had the labels come to see us live, then things may have been different, but it just didn’t happen. When Ash, Steve & myself finished uni, I stated that the next two years were crucial & we had to work at it really hard. Luke just had to get to gigs & we even had the idea that we could do some gigs with another drummer if he couldn’t follow us because of his degree. I also told them not to buy anything major that would tie them to jobs & stop us from touring.
They didn’t listen & Steve bought a car & Ash bought a house! I think that was a major factor in the downfall of the band.
++ And did you work with a producer at all when recording the tracks? Or everything was self-produced?
Keith Nicholl produced the demos. I wish we’d been able to have more control over them. We did, as mentioned, do others, but they were in a lad’s home studio & it wasn’t really up to standard. A later drummer organised that & it didn’t really work out.
++ One thing that caught my attention is that the songs have a lot of variety of styles, was that part of an evolution of the band, or where you playing all different styles at the same time?
We were all into various styles of music, but I wanted us to evolve with a particular sound & style. I wanted a looping bass & drums, not deviating too much, but putting down a proper groove that Ash’s voice & my guitar could move around with, offering different shifts in mood & feel.
Luke wasn’t the type of drummer I really wanted in terms of power, but he was, seemingly, the only one available at the time. He was decent, but he didn’t really smack the drums & keep a groove as I’d have liked. We had a few drummers who could do that & many of the songs evolved as I wanted, but none of them were in the band for long enough for numerous reasons as previously mentioned.
++ There is this song called “47 Hastings Parade”. It is named after the street you lived in Hebburn. How long did you live there? And what was special about that place that made you dedicate a song to it?
I lived there, in Lukes Lane Estate, from the age of 5 to 10. It was a notorious estate & there was always a fight to be avoided. I played football with the older lads, being deemed to be more than good enough to join in with those up to 5 years older than me, but I was small & was bullied a lot away from the football. As a result I both loved & hated it.
I visited a school friend, when I was 22, when he came back from uni & decided to walk home via the estate. Everything seemed the same, but as if in a different time capsule & smaller. No one was about. No kids playing & it felt like I was visting a museum of my past.
I had the words come to me as I walked home, then grabbed a pen & paper as soon as I came in the door. Less than 5 minutes later I went upstairs & worked out a guitar piece to fit the melody & 5 minutes later it was finished.
++ Another location that seems to be important was Leroy’s. There’s a song “Harry” about a guy that worked there. Leroy’s was a local venue and pub, right? It doesn’t exist anymore, correct? But again, what is the story between the band and this place?
Leroy’s was firebombed & subsequently knocked down years ago. I went in a fair bit, but not regularly. Two of my mates worked there for a while. On one occasion I went to the bar & noticed a man sat in the corner talking to himself. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He then came to the bar for a drink while I was being served & shouted at the barmaid,
“Arrghh. Behfhbk, jshiihcijhs, whfjsifjnei!” Or something like that.
The barmaid replied,
“A bottle of Brown Ale, Harry? Yes, I’ll bring it over, pet!”
I was astounded. He’d just garbled total gibberish & she knew what he was saying. I quickly realised that all she needed to know was that his usual drink was Newcastle Brown Ale & there was no other reason for him to head to the bar!
She told me that Harry had worked on the cranes in the shipyard & he spent his whole working life by himself, & apparently he talked to the cranes, so it didn’t matter that he just grunted at them or whatever. He’d been made redundant when Leslies Shipyard in Hebburn closed down & had basically spent his time in the pub after that.
It was very sad.
A few years earlier, when I was at school, my friends & I had been to a night club in South Shields called The Chelsea Cat. That was our regular Thursday night place to visit for all of the 18th Birthday parties that happened at that time. We’d often walk home, which took a while as it was about 5 miles away, & on one occasion it was particularly windy. As we skirted past Jarrow Town Centre we were all shocked & terrified by an almighty sound. It sounded like a giant monster cat wailing in the wind! It was extremely disconcerting & we all said, “Woah! Wtf was that?”
When I heard the sound again, I suddenly realised that it must be the cranes moving in the wind. The sound of metal moving on metal, pushed by the howling wind.
After hearing the story about Harry I suddenly remembered that night & the sound of the cranes. I put the two together & the idea that they were both fine working together, but were useless apart & Harry’s gibberish & the cranes’ wailing were cries fro each other & hope to be together again that was never going to happen.
I went home & wrote the song, with the E-Bows acting as the waling cranes. The problem was that this was a few years before The Sojourners & I’d lost the lyric. I remembered some of it & remembered the music, but not the whole thing. I gave what I had to the lads & Steve & Ash came up with the rest.
I was disappointed when I actually heard the rest of the lyric, but had a total blank in terms of what else to do with it. I’ve rewritten it now, but it’s too late.
++ My favourite song of yours is “Don”, wondering if you could tell me what inspired this song? What’s the story behind it?
Steve had a book of poems & lyrics he’d written & he gave them to Ash. As we played guitar & bass in the rehearsal room, Ash would go through the book & see if anything fit the music. It seemed to be about that period when you leave school & you’re supposed to be grwon up, but you really don’t know what you’re going to do next. All of the fears & concerns that you shouldn’t really have as a kid, about the world, yourself & your future suddenly seem to be enormous & no one provides any answers.
I’ve rewritten the lyric to be a bit more political in nature, a direct attack on politicians losing their souls.
In terms of the music I had been listening to a lot of Donovan & the initial chords were similar, but I changed then to major seventh chords in the changes so that they’d have an uncertain, but hopeful feel to them.
I added the Intro & Middle 8 in the rehearsal room & wanted a Johnny Marr feel to the chords, with a thread running through them in a foreboding, unsure way, that took you into positive major chords with an additional drone note.
We didn’t have a name for it, often the case with songs that Ash cobbled together, & we gave it a temporary name that stuck: Don.
Don was the fella who ran Hoults Estates recording Studios. He was there when I rehearsed with Drill & he was always very good to us and very complimentary on what we were doing. He once told me that as a big Led Zeppelin fan he loved how we played songs in various styles, but they were defiantly & definitely us, just like LZ. I think we took that on board maybe too much, but we named the song in his honour really.
++ If you were to choose your favorite The Sojourners song, which one would that be and why?
My favourite to play live was The Jam, but when we came to record it at the first demo session, the tape ran out before we were really into it. We kept playing for another ten to twelve minutes & Keith said it sounded fantastic, but he hadn’t been able to capture it because the tape he used wasn’t a fresh one & he ran out of time. It had a feel a bit similar to The End by The Doors, but with a dub beat to it. Sadly, Luke never really captured that, but it was close.
47 Hastings Parade & Harry were my favourites in terms of the ideas that I’d written about & 47 still brings me to tears. I was 16 when I wrote Blue Skies & it’s not really like anything else I’ve written & is a bit schmaltzy for me, but I’m still kind of proud of it.
I wrote Silent Screams one morning after being woken up by the screams of the kids next door. I looked out the window & they’d let their Dalmatian dog into the garden at the same time that their rabbit was out of its hutch. The dog still had the rabbit in its jaws & the rabbit seemed to be looking up at me for help. Screaming, silently.
The majority of the song was written that day, but the following day I added a few extra lines as they went straight out and bought another rabbit, who didn’t know “what’s gone before.” I wanted a menacing feel to the guitars.
Beneath The Waves, which is a song written by Steve (I’ve added a middle 8 to it, but it’s not recorded yet), is one I’m very proud of. It’s a great song & the only one solely written by Steve. When I saw the lyrics & heard his brooding bass line repeated again & again, I decided to play the guitar as if on a steady ship at first, basic steady chords, but with an unnerving E-Bow in the background. Using slide with the E-Bow I wanted to try & capture the feeling of going beneath the waves & coming back up for air, with distorted chords adding to the tension. I think the way we did it worked really well & it was a great song to play live.
Heartache is one I wrote in a few minutes. I’ve added drums to it, but not over the whole track. My then girlfriend had been away and on returning said,
“Now I know what heartache feels like!”
As soon as she went home to get changed before we headed out for the evening, I wrote the song. It just came immediately.
A year or so after we’d recorded it, a lad came up to speak to me after a gig, asking if I was Davy Craig & had I written Heartache. He told me that he’d been living in Northern Ireland and split up with his girlfriend when over there. He was in a mess & then a mate of his had been to see us, bought a tape & sent it to him. He told me that it helped him deal with the loss of his relationship & that it probably saved his life. I hugged him & thanked him. That’s one I’m extremely proud of & the fact that it did some good for someone makes me feel that if that’s all we ever achieved, it’s more than enough.
61 Miles (To London) is probably my favourite song, overall. I added some extra guitar licks to it after we’d initially recorded it, so the way it ended up sounding was a bit different to the version you’ll have heard. I think it’s my best work, musically. People thought we’d copied off Portishead, but I wrote the music long before I’d even heard of them.
I went to see Sleepy People around ten years ago after they’d reformed & on seeing the drummer for the first time in around 17 years he said, “Davy Craig! I have to say that I still can’t get 61 Miles out of my head. I love it!”
That was nice!
++ What about gigs? Did you play many?
It’s so long ago. We did play a lot of local gigs & the ones I remember were the ones when there weren’t many people in. It felt like we played a few times each week.
We also ended up forming a separate band called Pseudonym. We needed money to buy gear & the idea was that we’d get enough for our own PA & a van to be able to tour. Pseudonym was us doing covers in pubs & venues that didn’t want original songs. We cheated a bit by supporting ourselves & started off playing our own stuff, then ended up with the covers. Most people seemed to like us & many preferred our original songs. We bought a PA, but the band folded before we had transportation to put it in!
++ And what were the best gigs that you remember? Any anecdotes you can share?
I loved the gigs we played with Sleepy People & Bargain Classics the most. They were just joyous occasions. We were totally different to Sleepy People, so our audiences were different, but it kind of worked. We ended up swapping who would support who, but we usually split it 50/50 & I preferred to play first and then enjoy their sets.
There was one gig where we were supported by a local band & a couple of them were friends with fans of our band. They turned up almost drunk, with no gear & wanted to use ours. In regard to amps & drums, that’s usually OK, as long as settings have been taken down & no damage is done, but they didn’t even have guitars! We allowed them to use our gear & the guitarist, who was being a bit cheeky towards me, to say the least.
They played a quite chaotic set & most of our following gave them polite applause, but a few showed their displeasure with a few boos. They weren’t happy about that, but it was hardly our fault.
We went ahead and played a set that was great to play & hopefully enjoyable to watch & listen to. The reception we got at the end was superb. However, the guitarist from the support band took it upon himself to come up to the stage area & had a go at me, saying that we were “shite!” He was clearly jealous. I pointed out that our reception was slightly better than theirs, but added that it’s never a competition. Some bands felt that it was & he clearly fell into that category. He was clearly annoyed & upset with me & launched himself at me, with his fists flying. Not what I was expecting. I’d just put my guitar down as he did this & came up to meet him from a crouching stance & landed one glancing blow. He fell & at that moment the whole place erupted as if we were in a western bar fight. Even my wife ended up hitting someone, which is something she’d never done in her life! Not how you want gigs to end, but it seemed that they were simply looking for trouble.
We supported Pop Will Eat Itself at Lancaster University’s end of year gig. It was the last gig PWEI played before recent times.
They spent all day soundchecking & aside from the guitarist, who was a nice lad who stayed quite separate from the rest of the band, came across as not particularly friendly people. They had a “do you know who we are” attitude, which really rubbed us up the wrong way.
We literally had to use our first song as our soundcheck because of the time they took – the drummer took over 3 hours!
There was a big crowd for the outdoor gig, a few thousand, we were told & we went down really, really well!
The bizarre thing was when we played Blue Skies, 3rd song in & loads of the crowd started joining in! We looked at each other wondering wtf was going on & they kept on joining in with the rest of the songs & seemed to be loving it, going a bit crazy as we went for it with our last song – The Jam.
We found out later that the head of Entertainment, who’d booked us after getting a copy of our CD, had actually placed it into the Student Union jukebox & it was on regular repeat play! That’s how they knew!! I still laugh at that, but it makes me feel a bit sad because not getting signed meant not many people got to hear us.
Anyway, after we’d played, we headed back into the dressing room & PWEI were being total dicks towards us, then they headed out, saying they hadn’t bothered watching, & why would they? etc.
At that point we noticed the trolley with the rider food & drink that was for us both. We commandeered the trolley & took it to the back of the venue, behind the desk & enjoyed ourselves with the food & drink as PWEI went down terribly & had awful sound problems, with the whole system going down twice due to the noise abatement levels. We sat and laughed as they were booed.
++ And were there any bad ones?
Our first gig was terrible. I wanted the band to rehearse and rehearse until we were ready to explode & have people say,
“Where have these appeared from?”
They all listened, but then Luke stated that we’d been asked to play at his halls in Newcastle University. A number of bands were playing & we were asked to do 45 minutes. We didn’t have 45 minutes & we definitely weren’t ready. Luke was still very raw & he & Steve hadn’t really gelled yet. We were also asked to do a few covers, so we threw in a couple of Smashing Pumpkins songs & a few others I can’t remember. I think there was Substitute by The Who because Ash knew the words!
We turned up & I was nervous because I knew we weren’t ready & felt like we had little control of the situation, but as we entered, there was Don doing the sound. He’d been away for a while & hadn’t been at the rehearsal rooms at all since we started. I was put at ease. However, Steve & Luke weren’t good & Ash didn’t seem to know what to do & I had problems with my sound. I remember someone pointing out that I hadn’t played a single bum note, but that was hardly a compliment! We weren’t good. Just as we seemed to be getting it together, the bass drum pedal exploded & Luke didn’t know what to do. It was terrible & I’m just pleased that not many people were there to see it.
With Don’s support we had a long, intense rehearsal period before heading out to gig. I fixed Ash’s nerves by telling him to use his acting degree & become a character during gigs. I’d usually ask him to be Jack Nicholson from various movies, such as The Shining, or whatever. It worked & he’d go out amongst the audience in character. It really added to the live experience, with Steve & I standing like bouncers either side of him!
++ When and why did The Sojourners stop making music? Were any of you involved in any other projects afterwards? I read you were on DRILL, how different was that band to The Sojourners?
As mentioned, Drill was before The Sojourners.
We had trouble with drummers after Luke left. Finding suitable ones & keeping them wasn’t easy. We eventually found one lad who seemed to fit the bill & he was more of a rock style drummer, which is probably what we needed from the start.
The first problem that occurred was when I had a call from Steve one Friday afternoon. I asked if everything was sorted for the gig that night & he replied,
“Well, not really!”
“Why?”
“We haven’t got a drummer!”
“What do you mean we haven’t got a drummer? Has he left?”
“No, he’s in prison!”
There’d been a court case he hadn’t told us about & lo & behold, he was found guilty. We found a few stand-in drummers to fill in, but on visiting him, he assured Steve & myself that he was innocent, so we stuck by him. There’s obviously much more to that, but I’m not discussing it all here.
When he came out, we started to try & go for it. We’d also recruited Tony from Drill, as well.
All seemed to be going well until the drummer started to conspire with Tony to try & get rid of Ash & Steve. I found myself in the middle & tried to hold everything together. I’d not been happy with either Steve or Ash’s levels of commitment at various times, but other than the time I asked Peter Straughan to join, we were fairly solid together & we were the original three.
This went on for months & I tried to shield Ash & Steve from it. They were usually oblivious to most things at any given time, so that wasn’t difficult.
However, the drummer then started to refuse to play or rehearse certain songs in our repertoire, without any reason other than he didn’t like them. He didn’t come up with any alternatives & was simply making unreasonable demands.
At the same time, something happened where I had proof that he had actually been guilty of his crime & knew that he’d lied to us all. He knew that I knew on seeing my face as the penny dropped & he ramped up the way he was trying to take control of the band.
I’d simply had enough & with no support from Ash or Steve, who I’d fought to keep in the band without them even knowing, I felt betrayed & jacked the whole thing in.
That was that.
My health wasn’t good & I became physically disabled until I recovered from an operation on my back. I then looked to get back into music, but had no clue what to do. I tried getting a band together with a bassist I knew, but we couldn’t find anyone suitable. I then became part of a U2 tribute band, which eventually became my business. That was great fun & I enjoyed playing again. We ended up playing theatres all over the UK, which was great. I also formed an Oasis tribute with a mate of mine & we used the rest of the U2 band & played double headers together.
That was all great fun & at one point, when we needed a new singer, I contacted Ash & he agreed to do it. He was superb in both bands & it was great to be back onstage with him.
Eventually, Steve joined as well, but we were looking at other ventures, & the possibility of playing as The Sojourners again, as well, with Martin, the tribute band drummer, as our new drummer.
It was all going well until after our first gig my back almost collapsed on me & I’ve been disabled since. I couldn’t get out to play live at all, so it ended.
A few years later, I spoke with Steve & we agreed to record the old songs & a few newer ones as The Sojourners, with Ash & Martin agreeing, as well. That was the week before lockdown in 2020 & although I worked on new demos, it really didn’t get off the ground because of Covid.
I was contacted by David Baird, the original Geordie rapper, a few years later & we agreed to work together on some political songs under the name Serum 977. I’m very proud of the songs we worked on together & they were put out by Full On Volume Records, but not being able to play live meant that we had a very limited audience & it was difficult to get any interest when we had no real way of promoting them.
I’ve since released a couple of daft football songs to raise money for the NUFC Fans Foodbank, which was a privilege to do & raising a few quid was good. I was about to start recording The Sojourners songs last October, but, the week before being due to start, I had a serious car crash & can’t play at all atm because of damage to my left hand, wrist & shoulder.
I’m hoping to be able to play in future, but it’s not looking good.
++ Was there any interest from the radio? TV?
We were played a fair bit on local radio & did an acoustic live set for BBC Radio Newcastle. That was the only real interest we received, though. We really didn’t know what we were doing & had no manager we felt we could trust, so I ended up doing everything. We made so many mistakes.
++ What about the press? Did they give you any attention?
Just local press & gig press.
++ What about fanzines?
I was interviewed for a couple, but honestly don’t know what happened with them.
++ Looking back in retrospect, what would you say was the biggest highlight for the band?
We didn’t have many highlights! The reactions to our songs when we played live was probably the highlight for me along with the story I mentioned about Heartache.
++ And aside from music, what other hobbies do you have?
I do a bit of painting, mostly stuff I raffle off for the foodbank & I’ve started a radio show on Blast Radio. They can be accessed via Soundcloud. I’ll be putting more music, especially Serum 977, on there.
I also volunteer for the foodbank & follow Newcastle United as much as I can, home & away, whilst trying to keep my hand in with History, which is what my degree is in.
My wife & I were in a movie that was released in December 2020, called We Are The Geordies. It follows eleven fans through the Championship season 2016/17 & we’re a part of that. I’m very proud to have done that & was asked to take part in a few talks about Mental Health awareness afterwards.
++ I would love to ask a local. What do you suggest checking out in area, like what are the sights one shouldn’t miss? Or the traditional food or drinks that you love that I should try?
Tyneside & the surrounding areas are simply wonderful places to visit, especially the Northumbrian Coast. There’s a lot of history in this region & plenty to see both in the city centre, which isn’t big, or around about. I think the best thing about Tyneside, though, is the people. My favourite thing is meeting loads of people before each football match as I sit to collect for the foodbank. Some know me from the movie, but most simply know me as the fella who sits to collect. We’re a friendly bunch!
Food wise I’d say that we’re quite cosmopolitan in terms of restaurants & we have so many bars to visit. Traditional food to try would be a Stottie cake with ham, peas pudding & mustard, along with a Saveloy Dip from Dicksons pork shop!
Newcastle Brown Ale is not the same as it used to be & is no longer brewed up here so that’s not something I’d recommend. There are some nice local ales, if that’s what you fancy.
++ Anything else you’d like to add?
Keep an eye out for my two sons, Evan & Alex. They’re technically far better guitarists than myself & I hope they go for it.
Evan is a phenomenal guitarist, has loads of great songs & is a fantastic singer, but is concentrating on his studies, work & family at the moment. Alex is a bit more like me in style, in that he does it his own way, & I’m looking forward to seeing his new band, Mantra, later this month for the first time.
