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Interview With Bonehead















THE VORTEX
Live at McQ’s, Bannockburn

Saturday 14th November 2009

......The Vortex may have that well-documented attitude on stage but off it they are perfect gentlemen; opting to sit all night amongst their own fans rather than hiding away backstage in a bubble of their own self-importance. Keen to keep the rock ‘n’ roll myth alive however, the band are earlier spotted before the doors of the venue are opened, indulging in an excessive pre-gig cocktail of steak pie, chips and veg...

Bonehead still enjoys the designer labels and Jaguar motor cars that his self-made wealth allows him but he’s refreshingly grounded. Despite travelling the world more than once as part of the biggest band of the last twenty years he‘s under no illusions as to who creates the best atmosphere.

“I’ve done places like Rio and I’ve done Sydney and I’ve done New York, all these places, and people say, ‘What’s your favourite city in the world to play?’…. Glasgow mate. Why? The people. The reaction. The passion. They do it. It doesn’t matter if you play the Barrowlands or you play an arena. We played in Bathgate last night and they were down the front dancing. They were having it. They were loving it.”

It’s difficult not to mention Oasis when speaking to Bonehead. After all, he was in the Burnage band before a Gallagher had even joined and he was a major factor in creating that ‘wall of sound’ on their best-loved albums. But any thoughts of avoiding the subject of his former band are quickly dashed when front man Mike Price mocks Bonehead during his sound check with jocular taunts of “Supersonic!” and “Live Forever!”

But Bonehead looks back fondly on his time with Oasis. He’s quite rightly proud of what they achieved.

“We were really, really fortunate in the fact that we turned up at King Tut’s, Alan McGee happened to be there, he liked what he saw and he said, ‘I like it. I love it. Do you want a record deal?’ We were in the right place at the right time, simple as that. We were just lucky in that sense.”

And does Bonehead ever wonder what Oasis would have achieved had McGee not missed his train that night?

“We did have a demo but we didn’t hand it out to people. Who knows what we would’ve done. Would we have handed it out to record companies? Would we have got bored with that? I don’t know.”

So what does Bonehead think his band needs to do now, 16 years later, to get a record deal in this digital age?

“These days it’s a lot different. You’ve got MySpace, you’ve got Facebook, you’ve got the Internet, you’ve got a massive tool there.

Record companies aren’t what they were. We were selling millions. Bands don’t sell millions of records anymore. Record companies don’t have any money anymore so who knows? It’s a day at a time for us.”

From multi-million selling albums and sell-out tours with Oasis in the nineties to the unsigned but hungry and ambitious Vortex in the noughties. How did Bonehead get himself back into a band and playing live again?

“I was doing a radio show on BBC Radio Manchester with Terry Christian. Terry left and I ended up doing it with two girls who are big friends with Nick, the bass player in The Vortex, and I got to know Nick through them.

He turned and said ’We’re doing a gig in Manchester, do you want to DJ before we come on?’ I said, ’I’ll tell you what, I might come on and do a few songs with you cos I really like your stuff’ and it turned into a regular thing where the Vortex were playing and I’d jump on and do two songs because I enjoyed doing that.

I really wanted to join them but I didn’t dare ask them and they didn’t ask me so I just butted in… You‘ve got to be cheeky in life.”

Conscious of the fact that Bonehead and Nick do most of the talking and not wanting to be cheeky to the rest of the band, I ask front man Mike how he’s enjoying life on the road. Mike is a little coy about answering questions but has something he wants to get off his chest:

“I don’t do interviews. Chris Martin’s shit though I’ll tell you that and Coldplay are fucking rubbish.”

So that’s why McGee didn’t liken The Vortex to his favourite “bed-wetters” then…

For the full interview please visit www.myspace.com/crash_bang_pow

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