UK outfit BunChakeze is among the bands that can trace their history back to another time and age. In this case the time machine takes us back to London in the early 80's, and a young, promising band called Odin of London. They had good material and dedication to their art, but as live opportunities dried up Odin disbanded. A band without a venues where they can perform their material to an audience is a tad disheartening after all.
Some Odin members decided to form a new band, BunChakeze........... and the rest is history. I caught up with Colin Tench for the BunChakeze story.
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Your biography has been covered in
your
ProgArchives profile so let's bypass the biography details.
But why did you fall in love with
nerdy
progressive rock and wanted to play this type of music instead of
any
other form of music ? Music is much like
everything else you learn when you are very young. It stays with you for
ever and can't be removed. In the 60s you bought 1 album and learnt
everything about it. You couldn't afford another one!
We all grew up with music that changed at an alarming rate. It never
happened before and has not happened since. It was so interesting and
inspiring. One day it was "She loves you" and shortly after, it was
"Helter Skelter" and "I am a walrus". We grew up in the most progressive
era in music. I never got bored with it. It was like an extreme sport. Nobody labelled it as prog.
Anyway, how on earth could progressive become a bad label for anything? Music was a constant joy and inspiration. It was also on the radio. Wow!
The forerunner of BunChakeze was
Odin.
Please tell us more about this band. Odin
was conceived by Gary Derrick in 1980. I met them in 1981 because they
were auditioning guitarists. Although not their aim, they took 2 of us. I
had twin neck and I guess had a sound they liked and the other guy was
John Culley. They couldn't decide and asked us if we minded if they took
us both. I think we both loved the idea. John had a Strat and a
fantastic feel and sound. At first, we didn't know his history. He had
played in Black Widow and Cressida in the early 70s. He even played with
Geno Washington in the 60s. He was a pro and a gifted professional
guitarist.
We wrote, rehearsed and gigged in London. We were a 6 piece and felt
pressure to keep it simple, in order to get gigs. Prog was a very bad
word by then. During the first year we upgraded the drummer and Cliff
Deighton joined us. This was bad because Cliff was totally influenced by
Rush and all things prog. It was good because he took Odin to a much
higher level.
Odin were a true band. All influences allowed. We were a rock band with 2
lead guitars, keyboards, big drums and long songs. We were doomed.
If Odin existed now, we would succeed. In fact, we made enough
recordings at the time to release an album. That album will be released
very soon. It has some of the best guitar work ever heard by John
Culley! There is even a new Culley guitar piece on there.
Odin died and BunChakeze were formed
and then disbanded again. What were the band members up to in the
20
years between the formation of BunChakeze and the reappearance
again
as BunChakeze ?
When Odin split, we sold the PA and never really had a plan to gig
again. The pressures of work are bad enough but the hostilty shown to
bands like Odin made it all seem a little pointless. If you already had a
name, you had chance. We didn't!
We were never starstruck or thought we were great or any such nonsense.
Being realistic, we decided that bending to fads and fashions was silly.
It would achieve nothing. We got an opportunity to help build a studio
and that gave us studio time. Cliff, Gary and I decided to try to find
the right singer, write and record an album, with no expectations of
success, visit a few record companies and offer it to them. No cost to
them and therefore worth a try. We did everything we set out to do and
got absolutely no response. No surprise but a little sad. The
album(tape) went in the cupboard, I emigrated to Sydney for a year,
Cliff went to university and Gary played with various bands in London.
Cliff has also played with a few bands in London. I didn't really touch
the guitar again until 1992. That's when we went back into a studio,
remixed the music, finished off a few sections that weren't right and
went round the record companies again. A waste of time but we had a nice
mix now. Ha ha!
I then proceeded to not play the guitar again and Gary and Cliff kept their hand in with some live gigs.
Joey Lugassy, the singer we discovered back in 1985, had come to London
from Los Angeles. After the recording, he went back. He has been
constantly active in music. He wrote and recorded a rock opera with
DAYSIX. He got 2 Emmy nominations for music written for a drama series
and he wrote and sung "Today" for Amnesty International.
The 4 of us are a mixed bag but have skied and travelled together and I
also spent a lot of time in LA with Joey. We are still totally
connected.
Reviving BunChakeze was pure chance. I was looking for John Culley,
Found Pasi Koivu, who looks after the Black Widow archives. He was
amazed to hear about Odin and BunChakeze and advised us to release both
albums. The last 4 months have been absolutely astonishing. I'm playing
guitar again!
Please give us your long or brief
thoughts on your only album Whose Dream? released earlier this
year.
How would you describe the music ?
It's hard to describe music you wrote, played and mixed but I'll try. To
my ears, it's not technical or full of deep meanings. Gary would
disagree with that so it is purely my opinion. It grows on you because
it has melodies and memorable tunes which are not always obvious on
first hearing. It's easy to listen to and wouldn't scare your mum. I've
been known to call it easy listening prog. That is where I would put
Floyd, the Beatles, early Bowie and even Peter Gabriel to name a few.
I'm not suggesting we are as good as any of them but I do think the
album leaves you feeling good and wanting to listen again. I think we
did end up some very attractive music and it has a lot of variation. We
know that a favourite track of one person is almost pedestrian to
another. This is good. It isn't a 2 track album padded out with lead
breaks and badly written filler material. It even has the feelgood
reprise of Whose Dream? at the end. In the band we all hear it differently too. Again, proof that it was
made by 4 individuals with their own ideas. If you like listening to the
music, you don't need to know what the lyrics are. If you like the
lyrics, you can listen to them without getting hammered by the music. It
works on many fronts.
How is your writing and creative
processes ?
The writing was amazing. In the true band style, we all put everything
into it. We even built a studio together, wall by wall! We had tunes and
lyrics but not very much that formed anything at the beginning. It grew as the year went on.
If I pick out some tracks, Bun Chakeze was a work out and fun to rehearse. It started out as 3 guys jamming. I am guilty of making it into a piece
that requires all the notes to be played just so but that's fun to my
ears.
Walk in Paradise was me playing the wrong instrument. I got the riff on
the keyboard and then transferred it to guitar. It slowly grew into a
long piece around Gary's lyrics.
Flight of the Phoenix was Gary playing the wrong instrument. He came up
with the begining on guitar. The fact that Gary and Cliff did a
parachute jump together created Gary's lyrics. I like that!
The Deal was all about the echoplex. It just built organically and I had
to write lyrics afterwards. It sounds as though it was done the other
way around! It would have drums in a live setting.
Whose Dream? was written around Cliff's lyrics. I think that track was
very well written and proved we weren't just having lucky accidents.
Midnight Skies happened because I found a Strat in the studio. It was
all about the sound. Gary's lyrics made us really concentrate on getting
that one right. I think we did. It maybe the one that we are most proud
of.
To summarise, we concentrated on the sound of each track. Partly because we still had no singer.
When we found Joey, he had to work with the music as recorded. That was
very difficult. We didn't leave enough space for him to really shine as
often as he can. He managed to make it his own. We had tried many
singers but they all failed. Joey understood how to become another
instrument in the music. We were stunned! As soon as he started
recording, we knew we had found THE guy. By the end, we couldn't stop
listening to it. It sounded completely new to us even though we had
heard it 1000 times during recording and writing.
The question of who wrote which bits of which songs is irrelevant. We
had no formula. If any one of us had been missing, the sound of the
album would be completely different. To me, that is the magic of
creating together. Odin had it and BunChakeze have it!
How is your gigs and festivals
situation ?
We have nothing planned because everything hinges on album sales at the
moment. If we get lucky, we cannot wait to get out there. This has never
been performed live and believe me, it will sound fantastic live.
What is the latest updates and the
plans for this and next year ? At
the moment we are keeping our eyes open for 2 more members for
BunChakeze. Guitar and keyboards. On the album, we had a guest playing
piano and of course I did all the guitars. I am so looking forward to
the time when I hear 6 of us playing this music. It would be improved
just by the fact of there being 6 individuals playing a part.
To wrap up this interview, is there
anything you want to add to this interview ? I
spent the 70s listening to Genesis, Yes, Floyd, Focus etc. Then it all
went dead. Recently I never stop listening to the new guys. Pain of
Salvation, Porcupine Tree, Flower Kings etc. The 20 years in the middle,
it was Zappa, Vai, Satriani, Al DiMeola. I guess my brain needs the
excitement. Joey, Gary and Cliff and I, have different musical tastes
and that's why we work well together.
Gary is more rock influenced, Cliff and Gary like Rush, I don't. Joey
loves Early genesis and of course Peter Gabriel but he isn't grounded in
progressive rock at all. I also like Yanni and Opeth. Ha ha!!
Our music is not "TOO" anything. I hope to go forward with the same
approach as ever. Find a sound together, mix it up, compliment each
other's ideas and end up with something unique to that band. That's the
point. That's the magic of music.
http://www.myspace.com/ancientpasi - is a visionary and a keyboard wizard. He really has put us on the map. He is 100%
responsible for what is happening now. Our thanks and great respect go
out to him.
Thank you to Colin for this interview
Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5848 - and their homepage http://www.bunchakeze.com/ -
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