Warren Bennett

This interview is strictly © Pipeline Magazine & should not be reproduced without permission of the magazine.   This interview originally appeared in Issue 63 of Pipeline Magazine which also included an extra special bonus for readers namely a free 6 track Vibratos CD which consisted of 6 exclusive recordings which are unavailable elsewhere.  Thank you therefore to the Pipeline Editors; His Warren ness & George Geddes for their permission to upload this interview to my  Web site; and finally, now you have read this interview there really is no reason why you shouldn't subscribe to Pipeline is there so click here for the details.

When and where were you born?

I was born on the 4th July, 1962, in Palmers Green, in my parents' house. I was born at home. Dunno why, but...

When did you realise that your Dad didn't have a 9-5 job the same as other Dads?

Somebody asked me that once before, and I don't really know, to be honest. Actually, I remember someone asking Ben the same question and I asked him afterwards what he'd said and it's funny...

I remember they did the Thunderbirds thing, I'm not sure which year, but I was a fan of Thunderbirds and I remember going to where they made them and being shown around by Gerry Anderson. I think I remember thinking "Oh, this is good, Dad's a puppet!" And I sort of thought, that's quite good. I remember going to a Poll winners concert with Dad in the car, and people banging on the car, but I don't remember any one particular point.

When did you become really interested in music?

I think when, on one of the summer holiday breaks we had when I was young, they used to do that thing in cinemas where they had a different film on every day, they had 'Summer holiday' - it was all musicals - and I saw 'Hard day's night' and 'Help' and I thought 'Wow, that's good!, I'll do some music.' I had a sort of pretend group with Dwayne, Bruce's son, and we used to do concerts at Bruce's house, that he shared with Olivia. What we'd do was play the records, and I'd play drums along to the record and Dwayne would sing. But then I kind of gave that up and wanted to be a journalist. I did a little journalism course through the post, but when I was just about to leave school I started forming a few bands, and decided I wanted to be in a band. I suppose it's quite late, about fourteen, fifteen. I had that bit where I wasn't sure. I remember my grandmother said to me 'What do you want to do?' and I said I might do  something musical and she said 'You'll never be as good as your dad' and I felt that maybe I should do something completely different.   

At that age you're very conscious of what other people think.....

You are......

Your Dad was involved in writing some music for your school?

He did a thing called 'The Hobbit Suite' and I wasn't involved in it, but it was for a Cancer Trust benefit night and he wrote this for the school orchestra and the choir, which was good. I think he did something else for Mill Hill which was called 'The Ballad of Solomon Pavey' and I think it won an Edinburgh Fringe award

Is it true you were at school with Vanessa Feltz?

I was! I didn't know I was at school with Vanessa Feltz, I do remember a girl called Vanessa in my class but I didn't know it was her. Somebody told me they'd read an interview with her in a magazine and she said that she went to school with me and Dwayne.

I think that the first time your name became noticed was 'The girls back home' from the 'Rock Dreams' album.

When we wrote it, I think I was about 14, I think I was nearly 15 when it came out. I had sort of started to write songs at home, I was a big ELO fan, and I used to copy ELO songs but write my own words. Dad was making 'Rock Dreams' and he was just looking for songs and he was writing a lot at home. He wanted to do a Beach Boys song, and he couldn't think of any words. I remember one morning at breakfast, I think he'd been up all night trying to get the words, and he said "Have you got any ideas for this song?" and I thought "Oh...." and I just wrote all the words and showed them to him. He pretty much used them all , which was great. I couldn't believe it.

That must have been quite a boost!

It was, and at  the same time he was doing one of his library albums, which I now do a lot of, and he was writing something and I helped him write one song around the same time, and it got used for the summer promotion for ITV. I couldn't believe it when I got this cheque in! I thought  "'Blimey, you can actually make money doing this!" I never thought of my Dad as making money - I thought he just played the drums and had a laugh! When you're younger you don't think about bills and where you live.

Then you moved on, and the next thing Shadows fans would notice would be  'You rescue me' on the 'Life in the Jungle' album.

Yes, that was another thing where they'd written this song, Dad, Hank and Bruce, and they couldn't think of any words. Hank phoned me up and said "Do you want to try and write some words?" I wrote this lyric out, gave it to Dad to take to the studio and went on holiday the next day. When I came back, there was a cassette on the doormat, and I thought " They probably haven't used any of it", but they had... That was great, and they did play it live on one tour but they dropped it after three nights, because I remember going to Oxford and they sang it. That's when I started to think about a career in music.

Tell us a little about your band 'Glass Ties' which had a couple of singles on EMI in the 1980s

That was an offshoot of my school bands, with Russell Emmanuel - he was the bass player in all my bands, and I was the drummer - and we decided to keep going after school and met a guy called Mike Christer who, strangely enough is now my brother-in-law, but that's another story... I was writing then and I wanted to sing the songs so I stopped playing the drums and went on to the piano, used the Wurlitzer, and we were called a couple of things, and then we changed it to Glass Ties. I think Dad and Bruce finally came to see us once in a pub in Fulham and Dad said to me "That's not bad, you know, some of that stuff" They were signed to EMI at the time, the Shadows, and this is where people say "It's easy, I'm sure you can get an 'in' ". Well, we got an 'in' to EMI because of them, but we didn't get the deal because of them. We just got an audition and so we made two singles for them. We got played on the radio a lot, but didn't really do much. We did make an album, but it never came out.

Are you self-taught?

Completely. I had a few violin lessons, a couple of double bass lessons at school and I had a term of piano lessons with this piano teacher and I was probably about 14 or 15. She must have been about 22 and she was just gorgeous, and that's why you had piano lessons. [Laughter] She left, and the next term there was another woman who came in who was about 80. So I bought a chord book and learned from that. I used to buy a book like 'The best of the Beatles' and that's how I learned my chords.

How did you make the move into 'library music'?

Well, I had a job, funnily enough, a real job, working for Bruton Music, as soon as I left school at 16, and I was their kind of coffee boy and made all the tape copies and I persuaded them to let me do one half of an LP. Amazingly enough they said "yes" and so I just got into it like that. I think now I've recorded about fifty library albums. It  got me into being able to not have a job as after a few years I got a few bits of royalties.

It's a very different kind of music...

It's writing to nothing. You get a brief from someone and they'll say "Right, this album is 'News' and you say 'OK' and they want 'World news ' and 'Current affairs', a big fanfare theme, something for somebody to talk over, so you write twelve pieces of music and they go on the disc. I remember being in a hotel somewhere on tour with Hank,  putting the news on and going "Oh, it's my music!". You don't always know what it's being used for but you do get paid.

Your first solo project for wider consumption was a New Age album, 'Pathways to Love' in 1989.

My parents used to have a cottage in Somerset. My younger brother went to school at Millfield,  so they had a little cottage so they could go and see him for the weekend without having to do the drive with him there and back. I went to use it one weekend and went into Glastonbury and I went into this shop, with this weird music and I thought "I'll buy that ". Jane, who was my girlfriend and is now my wife, she was a beautician and said she would use it while she was doing aromatherapy. I said "You don't want to use that, I'll do one for you...". So I just made this thing up at home and she played it and people kept saying "What's this?" and she said it was her boyfriend's tape, so I sent it in to the people who had done the tape I'd heard, and they said they would release it. Then they asked me to do another one! I think it was the number one New Age album of one particular year for this company. I didn't get any money for it, though, as it was one of those companies who say "It's all peace, man, and love..." and they're living in a massive mansion.

Another thing which didn't quite work out the way you would have liked was re-recording classic instrumentals for a Dutch company.

That was a company which was connected to one of the library companies that I worked for. They do cover versions, the sort of thing you used to get on those Top of the Pops albums, where it wasn't the actual artists. I used to record three hit singles a month for them, the latest whatever... They'd also make albums and they said they wanted me to do the greatest guitar instrumentals. So I got Mark to play lead guitar, we chose all the titles, and we went into the studio and recorded to just a drum machine and bass, all the lead guitars. Dad put on some proper drums, Cliff Hall played a bit of piano, and then we were going to finish it off and put real bass on, and do a proper mix.

The guy that asked me to do the album got made redundant so the album sort of sat there. I didn't know what to do with it. I'd done some rough mixes for him to hear. He'd left them in the office and someone, thinking it was the finished thing,  sent them off to this guy in Holland, who released it on a double CD with other tracks that were nothing to do with me, and put on the front "featuring Brian Bennett". I didn't know anything about it until somebody sent a copy to Dad to sign, and he said to me "What's this?" and I said, "Don't know, never heard of it". I put it on and realised it was my rough demo mixes! I've got the tapes now, so I've spoken to Griff about it today, actually, because we came up in the car together and I said "We really should do something because it could be really good".

There are still copies around on the Continent.

I know. I really think we should have a crack at it, because Griff's guitar playing is brilliant on it. Things like 'Memphis' and 'The cruel sea'.

In 1994, you were involved in the Marvin, Bennett and Sons tour, which was Hank's first solo tour. What was the background to that?

I think because I'd done some arrangements on the first two solo albums. I don't think Hank actually wanted to go on tour. He did these first two albums and Dad and Hank produced them, and Dad said to Hank "We should get Warren to do some arrangements", so I did. Then Hank decided he would go on tour, and I think Dad supported him in a way, because I don't think Hank had been on tour on his own, ever. I don't think he'd ever played with anybody on a big tour, apart from the very early days. So I think Dad went along as a support as much as anything else. And then it was "Who are we going to get in the band?". Dad said "Warren could do it..." and Hank said "Well, I suppose Ben could do it..." and that was it. I hadn't seen Ben since they left to go to Australia, when he was about four foot tall, and then he came back, like eight foot tall! It was great! We did it properly. I asked him over to my place a couple of weeks before Ben was going to come over, and I sat in front of Dad and played 'Wonderful land' and 'Atlantis' on keyboards, just to say to him "Look, I am doing this properly"

I think a lot of people just thought, you know...   Ben is a lot younger than me and we were nervous to start with, I remember Ben being very nervous on the first couple of nights. After about three nights, he was fine.

One of the things about Hank's tours is that Ben has really come on as a player.

Oh, yes. This band that he's got now, I think they've finished making their album, and he's great, because he's a different guitarist from Hank, which is really good.

What about your involvement in some of Hank's solo recordings. Was that just being in the right place?

I guess so, yes. I think they just wanted a fresh thing. Also, I think if Hank had made his first two solo albums, and Dad produced them, and Cliff Hall had done the arrangements, I think a lot of people would have looked at it and said "It's a Shadows album without Bruce, what's the point of that". Whoever it was going to be, they wanted something different. Personally, I think on the first album, the arrangements are quite different from how the Shadows would have done those songs, because we didn't necessarily stick to the way they were recorded, like copying the records. After the first tour, Dad then said to Hank "I don't want to do a tour that long again" because it was very long, sixty dates or something ridiculous. Hank went back to Australia and he decided to do his next album on his own in Australia, the Cliff one, but he asked me to keep doing the arrangements, which was nice, and I went to Australia and worked in the studio, which was good.

You managed to get yourself a hit with the 'Mirage' album in 1995.

That was through Polydor, a guy called Brian Berg, who was in charge of all those Shadows albums which were TV advertised, and did all the Hank albums. He always has these ideas for TV advertised albums like twenty hits played on a Hoover. There were all those panpipe moods, and so on, and he just said had we any ideas, and Dad said "just nice guitar, classical guitar but with popular tunes" so we did it ourselves. In fact, the guy who played the lead guitar on that album is Mike from Glass Ties, so there's still a connection.

In 1996 you collaborated with Mark Griffiths to produce that superb album 'Close to the hedge'

We were on tour in 1994, and I said to Griff that we should do something. We didn't want to do the sort of thing I'm now doing with the Vibratos, we decided to do something completely different. I think a lot of people bought it and discovered that it wasn't what they thought it was going to be. I actually think it's better than people think it is! To me, it's a shame that a lot of people bought it, put it on and went "Oh..."

They were expecting something different.

They were expecting the Vibratos sort of sound, really. I still like the CD, I still play it.

Even the Shadows numbers were different.

Totally different. I've been trying to get Hank to do 'Geronimo' since 1994, but he won't play it. He promised me last year, he promised me on the phone from Australia, when we were working out what songs to rehearse, he said "I'll do 'Geronimo' this year for you." I said "Oh, great!" We got to rehearsals and I said "Are we going to do 'Geronimo' and he said "Nah, I've changed my mind". He said he hates it. I think when you write stuff, sometimes you just don't like it, even though you've written it. We decided to play it at Shadowmania, to open with it, and get it out the way! I've always wanted to play it.

I've just been listening to the new album from the Charades, and it's the opening number on their album.

Yes, I've got it.. with the organ.

Completely contrast to that was the Darren Day version of 'Summer holiday'. How did you get involved with that?

Again, just doing arrangements and playing, which was quite interesting. Dad was involved with the musical, I think in the same way Bruce was involved with 'Buddy'. Then they said they would make an album with Darren. I don't think Dad really wanted to sit down and work out arrangements for things he'd played years ago, so he just asked me to do it, and I tried to keep it as close to the original as possible. We got Hank to play some stuff and we got Cliff on backing vocals. When he turned up at the studio, Darren had done all his vocals and we were waiting for Cliff, and we were playing, I think it was 'Move it' and he walked in and he said "Is that me?". It was Darren singing but it was so close on some of the recordings that he thought it was him. That was quite good fun.

Not terribly demanding...

Not really, but I liked a lot of the songs, some of those songs that don't get a lot of attention like 'The La la la song'.

You worked with your Dad on a version of the 60s 'Batman' theme to a compilation 'The No. 1 Sci-Fi album'. Is there a story there?

WB: That was Brian Berg again, It was another of his TV  albums and I think what he did was he got all these tracks and he pressed all the sleeves but he didn't get permission for 'Batman' so they were stumped and they wanted someone to re-record 'Batman' so we just re-recorded it.

 Again, not really demanding...

WB: I think it was done in a day. It was good fun, but a bit silly, really! It's a bit like the thing I did on the 'Gladiators' album. It was an instrumental version of 'Another one bites the dust' and some other Queen songs like 'Under pressure' and 'We will rock you', and it's got on it "performed by Warren's World" and that's me and Mark.

That'll send the fans scurrying out to look for that one! I think something which has impressed a lot of people is your ability to capture the feeling of a 60s instrumental but writing something new. Something like  'The ghost of Old Compton Street'  which you wrote for Jet Harris to play on the Local Heroes CD. It's not 60s but it is 60s, it has the feel of a 60s number.

It might sound ridiculous, but do like the Shadows stuff, particularly the early stuff, from the beginning up to probably bits of 'Dance with the Shadows'. Some of that I don't like.

The pre-tuxedo stuff?

The EPs and so on. I've always liked those guitar instrumental things. I think the wrong way to try and write  a good instrumental is to try and make it sound too much like something, unless you're trying to do a copy. If you're trying to write something new, and you try too hard to make it authentic, I think you'll end up with something where you're not quite sure what you're doing.

Then people start listening for a bit of this tune and a bit of that tune

Yes, so I think the best way to do it is to try and write the tune and then arrange it in a certain way. With 'The ghost of Old Compton Street', Barry Gibson 'phoned me and said he was making an album, had I got any tunes? So I thought I would write one for him and it was good, his version, but when Dick and I decided to do the Vibratos thing, I thought I would do my version  of it. I think rather than copy, you've got to evoke the feeling. 'The ghost...' has synths in it, but it still sounds as if it could have been recorded then.

I suppose your bread-and-butter work really is TV and film work. Something like 'London's burning', 'Wuthering heights',  'The knock', 'The ambassador'.

That's what I do. With the library music, that's my job, I guess. Things like the Vibratos or other bits and pieces, it's not a hobby as such, but I might say to Dick "I've got two weeks off coming up" if there's a gap in 'London's burning' "are you working with Dad?" - because he engineers for Dad all the time - if not, we get together and we do it like that.

Have you got a particular way of working with film scores?

Probably much like everyone does. For instance I've just done a film that's coming out in April 2004, called 'Chaos and cadavers' and first of all I get sent the script, have a read at that, see what it's about, then go and meet the director and producer, for an audition kind of thing, then you write something that fits the script. At that stage I haven't seen anything. When you get the job, you wait till they finish filming and they send you a video of a rough edit. You meet again with the director and producer and you watch the film and they say where they want it to start. If you're lucky, you might get three or four weeks to write the whole film, and hope it all fits. That's it.

With 'London's burning' it's more difficult because each series is sixteen episodes and you're trying to cram that all into six months. You can't do anything, really, it's like one after another.   You've got to write forty minutes of music per episode and it's got to be all new, and record it. On 'London's burning' , I had a guitarist called John Parrichelli come in but apart from that I play everything myself. I did 48 episodes of that. So I know how to put a fire out! [Laughter]

But you still find time to do these side projects like the Vibratos. How did that actually start?

WB: I remember it really well, we were in the studio and we were doing an episode of 'London's burning' and we were watching the telly at lunch and I think we were flipping through the channels and an old programme came on and I said "That would have made a great instrumental, the Shadows should have done that". Then we started running through all the names, 'Bonanza' and all that stuff. It was going to be a Western thing, but then we thought  we would just do tunes we really like, and I've always been a massive John Barry fan. I'd done 'Dances with wolves' as a demo for Hank for  'Marvin at the movies'  but for some reason he didn't want to do it. Somebody said to me why did we do 'Dances with wolves' because nobody knows it. But I said "It won an Oscar!". So I said to Dick "I've got 'Dances with wolves' and I've got 'Old Compton Street' and we chose seven each - I liked 'The persuaders',  'Joe 90' and 'The Ipcress file' - and that's how it started. Dick thought of the name, and we just did it. Then we thought "What are we going to do with it?" We just had it on a tape. I said "I did that thing with Griff, so why don't we just press them up and see what happens". I remember sending it to John at Leo's Den and he said "This is great!" So I said to Dick "It sounds all right, apparently. We might be on to something!"

It's not like a band trying to sound like an old band, though, but it's just got that feel.

What's next for the Vibratos?

We hope to have our third album 'Tornado alley' out in April or May of 2004. At the moment, I think we have more than enough tracks, too, for another EP.

I have to confess that I've been sitting for months now trying to write a review of 'Zookeeper', your  collaboration with Ben Marvin. It's not that I don't like it, it's just that I'm trying to get a reference point for it.

Let me get this right. On the tours, sometimes you're allowed to sell some product. We sold a few 'Close to the hedge' CDs. On the first tour we did with Hank, I sold a few of these relaxation albums. Ben and I had always said we wanted to record something, and when I went to Australia in 1995, to work on the Hank album, we had a few days off and we recorded at Sh-Boom a Robert Palmer song, 'Johnny and Mary'. Ben was on guitar and I sang, and we did this track and mixed it. We thought why don't we go to a record company and say '"We're on tour with Hank..." - nepotism -  we thought "We're the nepotistic twins!"  and we actually rehearsed it to open the second half of the 'Hank plays Cliff' tour but it got vetoed. We were going to try and sell our record, get a band going. I'm glad we didn't, because Ben's stuff is much better.

We then thought, "Well, we should just do something and have a laugh" and we had about a month before the last tour we did to muck around and do something. So we literally just sat down, the two of us, in my home studio and started from scratch and just did anything we wanted to do. I didn't want it to be the Vibratos or 'Close to the hedge' or anything like that. It was just going to be instrumental weird music. Our attitude was that we didn't care what people thought of it, it was just going to be what we wanted it to be, and we really like it. The only thing we did was that 'Frightened city' thing, which was a bit strange.

One review in Tony Hoffman's magazine said "It's not what I thought it was going to be..." He didn't like it, obviously, which is fair enough, and then he said what it should have been. And that just made me laugh, because  it shouldn't have been anything, just what it is! It makes me laugh, a lot of it, it's supposed to be slightly tongue-in-cheek, off-the-wall. The problem is I don't think you can seriously recommend it to anybody, because I don't think you can say "If you like X, you'll like this". Someone could say "What are the Vibratos like?" and you can say "Well, if you like 60s guitar tunes, and you like film themes, played on the guitar, you'll like them" but I don't think you can do that with 'Zookeeper' which I think means that we've done what we set out to do. I wouldn't bother reviewing it, if I were you! I'd just say 'Zookeeper' is out - you pay your money...

How important is the 'live' side of music to you?

Well, I really enjoyed all the Hank tours, because I used to like doing all the gigs in my early bands, four or five gigs a week, we had a Transit van and all that. I do like playing 'live' and I did enjoy Shadowmania, but with the Vibratos, there's only so many things you can do a year, and I don't think you can keep doing the same ones, either. I'm really pleased that Bruce has asked us but I don't think you can just do Shadowmania every year, otherwise people say "Oh, I'm not going to see that lot again!" I don't want to just do all the guitar clubs. I said to Dick recently that I'd rather do two or three really good gigs a year, and keep it to that. Unless the Shadows  wanted us to be their support act  [Laughter]  That sort of thing would be good, if they wanted an instrumental group to do twenty minutes, that would be great. I like 'Pipeline' because it's not a Shadows thing.

Leo's Den were talking about a boxed set?

I'll tell you what that is. We were making the first EP and we did it with Leo's Den, we were just laughing and mucking around about what we were going to call it . I said to John about putting a golden ticket in one of the EPs and whoever pulls it out wins a bar of chocolate or something? We couldn't think of anything to do and I said just give them everything that Waffles Music has done. They've only made one and it's just a bit of fun!

And what else does the future hold?

There's a BBC documentary called 'Moon Power' (which was broadcast on BBC2, 9th November 2003) which Dad wrote the music for, and I did the arrangements and played keyboards. Also, we are working with a Scottish singer called Eileen Hunter on a single 'Falling' (the John Farrar song). I'll be working on two films in 2004 which are currently in pre-production.

I will be doing a CD for Cube with some of Dad's film music, things like 'Terminal choice', 'the American way' and 'The harpist'. That should be out around May 2004. And Waffles Music are going to be releasing Licorice's first ever solo album. I know he's guested on other people's CDs but I think it's time he had his own. I've sent him stuff to work on, and it will be a mixture of things he's done before, like 'Dakota' and 'Stranger on the shore' and material he hasn't done before.

And having started out with some work for the Shadows many years ago, you're back working with them on a very special track.

The composition 'Life Story' was, I believe, the last piece of music that Jerry wrote. His initial idea for the piece was that it should be a piano concerto, and one of the demos he recorded was presented that way. I first heard the piece around 1991/1992 when it was suggested for one of Hanks early solo projects, but we never followed it through. It was around this time that Jerry visited Hank in Perth, Australia with the view of co-writing some new material. I'm not sure if anything exists from this projected collaboration.

When The Shadows decided to re-form for one last tour, it was obvious that there would be a re-release of Shadows material to coincide with the tour, and I think around this time it was mooted that a new track would add some extra interest for Shads fans looking for something extra to add to the same old packaged stuff. Time-wise and logistics etc. ruled out a completely new album, and so it was decided one track would be the best option.   I met with Claudine Lordan and my dad in a London Hotel at the beginning of December 2003, and she gave me some new demos of 'Life Story'. Firstly, I did an arrangement and recorded a demo of the track, which I then sent to Hank, Bruce, Dad, Brian Goode and the record company. We then had a meeting at Honeyhill with Bruce to discuss the arrangement and add a few finishing touches.   Recording started at Honeyhill Studios, with Dick Plant engineering, on January 5th through to January 7th 2004. During this time we laid down the keyboard parts, Cliff Hall on piano, Mark Griffiths on bass, Bruce's acoustic guitars and guide drums and guide melody line. The tapes were then couriered to Hank in Perth and the following week he spent two days at Planet Studios with Les Williams engineering his lead guitar part. Having got the tapes back, we got back into Honeyhill Studios on the 19th January to recorded the drum parts. We then spent two days, 20th & 21st, mixing the final version.

On a personal level, it was a great project to be involved in. The idea of the arrangement is to get back to The Shadows early sound, Wonderful Land, Atlantis etc., with a predominant band-feel with orchestral backing, as they had on a few of Jerry's early compositions. I think Bruce's guitars sound awesome on this track, and the drumming's not bad either!!

I'm sure most Shads fans would have liked a completely new album, but I hope this is the next best thing. If it is the last studio track they record, it feels like a completed circle, instrumentally. 'Apache' through to 'Life Story', both composed by Jerry Lordan, arguably the finest writer of the melodic guitar instrumental.

Warren, many thanks for your time and we look forward to hearing more of your music.

Footnote: My thanks for Warren for being such a patient and entertaining interviewee. The basic interview was done under less than ideal conditions while we did double duty looking after the Vibratos gear at the International Students House, just prior to the 2003 Pipeline Convention. This was updated by several telephone conversations and e-mail exchanges so that Pipeline readers can have the latest information available, George Geddes (2004)

2nd April 2007 - at work!

What are you up to with your music at the moment…..

I've just finished working on ‘New Tricks’ for the BBC along with my dad, we’ve written all the music for the eight episodes (the series starts on BBC television on the 9th April 2007 - see more details on the BBC web site here), after that I’m doing some more library albums and also a couple of solo projects for my Waffles Music label.  I’ve also started laying down quite a few songs I’ve written over the last four to five years,  not sure whether I'll release these yet, we'll have to wait and see;  also after the success of last year's CD/EP Warren Bennett,  I plan to do a full instrumental album of my own (this is largely at the request of John at Leo's Den, who is great 'champion' of my music)

Can you fill us in a bit on your John Barry orchestral project (as mentioned on your father’s web site)...

This project has been on the back-burner whilst work on New Tricks was completed however, this project will now be the main focus and we have some very interesting plans all of will be revealed soon...... what I can tell you though is that we’ve chosen some of John Barry’s most melodic tunes, we’re using a full orchestra, along with Mark Griffiths and John Pariccelli on Lead Guitar, Mark Griffiths on bass – Dad on drums, and myself on keys and rhythm guitar.  Dad and I have shared the arranging duties, and also Kevin Townend has done a few arrangements as well, it promises to be a great album and should be finished by the end of the year – possibly with some concert dates to tie in with the release.

What’s happening with your proposed web site?

To be honest I have run out of time! but I do plan to be up and running fairly soon though! However, as a bit of a trial run I have put up a page on Myspace here but I’m slow with this as well as I’m just so busy with other projects at the moment.  The Myspace page is not meant to replace my proposed web site, it's just a bit of fun but I am enjoying 'meeting' some old friends on there as well as meeting some new ones!

When your web site is up and running, do make sure you include a news page on it..

Yes I plan to have a news page

What direction you do you see your music career going in future?

Definitely the composing/scoring direction, it’s what I do for most of my work time.

On the set during filming of "New Tricks"

I know you are an avid Beatles fan, I was bought The Beatles "Love" CD recently and I was really impressed.. I wondered what your thoughts were on this CD as some of the music is presented very differently...

Well, the CD is  a great introduction to The Beatles catalogue, you should go out and buy all the CD's right now!  The album is superb, (some of it moved me to tears actually) so beautifully crafted and intelligently put together with a lot of love and care.

It’s an interesting thought, would such an approach work with The Shadows recordings? (although the purists may be upset I suppose…)

The thing about The Beatles is that their music stands alone from everything else.  The Shadows catalogue, in my opinion, is not varied enough to have this kind of approach taken to it, so no, I don’t think it would work at all, it’s a totally different type of music.

If you could produce anyone in music who would that be?

Well, I’d love to work with McCartney obviously; I’d love to work with Jeff Lynne, Lindsey Buckingham, Ryan (not Bryan!) Adams and Matthew Sweet; and I’d like to make an album with Cliff & The Shadows – along the lines of  'Established 1958 part II'!

With dad at New Tricks session (April 2007)

Is the 2008 Shadow and Cliff reunion a workable possibility? The press is full of Cliff saying he’s up for the reunion., there's lots of speculation on web & I’ve had hundreds of email enquiries via my web site (so the demand is there…)

Very workable ,and very much a possibility I would say; I know early discussions have taken place, however whether it will be 2008 or 2009 is debatable at the moment….

….I'm very pleased Hank’s done a new album 'Guitar Man', are there any plans for him to do a few dates to promote it?

I hope so – Ben and I are pushing it!!

I read on your Myspace page you undertook a  year-long stint as support act for Alan Price’s 1984 UK tour... what sort of material did you do?  rock and roll / instrumental?

We played the same sort of theatres that I later played with Hank in the UK. Generally we did about 35/40 minute set each a night which was a mixture of original tracks that I had written plus some covers.  I remember us doing ‘Nowhere Man’ and ‘Its Only Love’ both Beatles songs. Actually I’ve got a few of the concerts we did on tape – I’ll have to dig them out and have a listen.

Would you consider doing something like this again eg if The Shadows decide to go on a  ‘On Foot in the Grave Tour’?

Don’t know about that, but I’d do a support tour for the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows! may be even get Adriana Lima up to guest on bongos!

I read an interview with Hank recently where he stated he got nervous before a show (I was very surprised at this), do you get nervous before a show?

The opening night of any Tour can be a bit nervy, but once you’re up and running I tend to be ok, unless I have friends or relatives in the audience.   But, one-off gigs like we did with The Vibratos can be a bit nervy as well, as you only have one chance to get things right! at least with a Tour if you make a mistake you have got the next night to correct things!

Not nervous backstage in 94!

Are there  plans for further ‘Warren Bennett & Friends’ gigs? (I hear there’s one lined up for Verden/Germany in October)

Yes, I’m playing the Verden Convention later this year in October, but so far that’s the only date.

Were you pleased to play Bruce Welch’s Shadowmania 2006 again?

I’m always pleased to play it, it’s such a good event.

When Bruce asked me to play last year I wasn’t sure what to do because, The Vibratos had stopped playing.   However, after some discussion it was Bruce who suggested the  ‘and friends’ bit which was a great idea!  The original band line I put together for the Shadowmania gig was: my dad on drums; Mo Foster on bass; Mark on lead and myself.  However Mark subsequently was offered the Dennis Locerie Tour, which meant that he could not make the Shadowmania date;  and because of that Dad said he’d rather give it a miss as well.  So I had to get the new line-up together.  It then transpired that Mark’s tour was postponed until 2007, and so the invites went out for guest slots again &  I was really pleased Mark and my Dad both said they would both then play.  We all had a lot of fun that day.

......particularly nice to see Mark play some excellent lead guitar (which did surprise a few there that day… )

Mark is a great guitarist as well as a great bass player.

You may know Bruce has announced another Shadowmania event in September; have you had the call to appear this year?

No call as yet; I think I’ve run out of friends!!

At work