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Progfreak.com's interview with IQ's Martin Orford: 23/05/2001 It wasn't long ago that IQ, outstanding British progressive rock band, released its latest masterpiece, The Seventh House. The record was voted best of the year by many progressive magazines, fanzines, and webzines, and in turn shocked the staff at Progfreaks.com with its great staying power; a fact that owes much to the band's very capable songwriting talents. With the amazement not having yet disappeared, Progfreaks.com decided to try and interview someone from the band in order to see what had made the album such a gem, and in turn to talk about IQ's past, present, and future. Lo and behold, the band's keyboardist, Martin Orford, very kindly took the time to answer our interview, a massive twenty-four-question ordeal that he answered with diligence and a hilarious sense of humor. But enough of that, here's what we managed to get out of the man himself: part one | part two
Martin: We never deliberately set IQ up as a prog band; the idea was to play lots of different kinds of music. We were all big fans of Talking Heads, and "Beef In Box" was influenced by them. We were writing reggae, jazz-rock, metal, and all sorts of styles then. The early IQ gigs were really weird, because you would get an hour of prog rock at the start followed by all this manic dance music. The audience used to go mad, and it was all rather good, really. I suppose that over a period of time, because the "new progressive" thing was becoming popular, the audiences started to appreciate the symphonic side of IQ more, and we gradually phased out all the dance stuff. We never completely lost that side of IQ though as people that have seen our "silly encores" can testify.
Martin: Making the tapes was an absolute pain; we had to listen through every one and start again if the fridge came on! It was a relief to get albums pressed at last when "Tales" came out, although it took us several attempts to get the sleeve printing right. The original light blue covers are now extremely rare
Martin: It was a great relief when Peter left, and I don't mean that to be in any way critical of him. So much tension had built up in the band that someone had to go, and it could well have been me! For someone to leave was an essential piece of "blood-letting" and I respect Pete for being bold enough to do it. 4 - What about your relationship with record label Squawk? That must have certainly taken its toll on the band's enthusiasm, what with the pressure on you and the mistakes that the label made at the time. There are probably some good memories from that era, such as working with producer Terry Brown, but IQ seems to have been quite hindered by incompetent decision-making from Squawk. When was it finally too much? Martin: Squawk Records always behaved in a completely honourable way towards IQ. I have nothing but respect for Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein, who ran the label. The problem was that Peter and Cliff are primarily managers (Def Leppard, AC/DC, Metallica, etc.), and whilst they put a great deal of money into the label, and IQ in particular, they never had the infrastructure of a major label, and they therefore put the records out via Polygram, with whom they had been working with their other bands. Polygram never liked IQ and did not really want to work with us. Despite countless attempts by Peter and Cliff to get Polygram to do some work on IQ they never did, and it always looked as if they were just waiting for us to lose our record deal so that they could get rid of us. The worst incident was when "Promises" was a big radio hit in Germany, and Polygram never even bothered to press any copies of the single for the record stores. Everyone knew the song, but no one could buy it! Polygram is a dreadful company, and it's a mystery to me how they ever sell any records at all.
Martin: Side four is mainly home recordings made by Mike [Ed. note: Holmes, the band's guitarist]. We thought that it would be nice to release some of the less serious aspects of IQ on what was after all a very limited edition bootleg. Prog purists were appalled of course, which made it even more amusing. We have always tried to deliberately upset the "if it's not prog I don't like it" brigade whenever possible.
Martin: A lot of it comes from Mike, but we all have a pretty silly sense of humour. Prog rock is a notoriously humourless form of music, and we have made it our duty to lighten it up a bit! We thought it was a great laugh to give "J'ai Pollette" a French sounding title that was completely meaningless, and it confused the hell out of our French distributors!
Martin: I like to think of Peter's lyrics in much the same way as I think of an Impressionist painting. The shapes and the outlines are there, but you have to use your own mind to fill in the details. I think a lot of people like that about IQ and we wouldn't want to change it. I also think that Peter's lyrics (whatever they mean!) sound great with the music and are a powerful instrument in their own right
8 - What is your IQ? Martin: I have no idea - pretty low probably, though I am good at pub quizzes. 9 - If you were to steal an animal from the zoo, which animal would it be? Martin: I hope I would be responsible enough never to do that, however I did break into London Zoo once. Gary Chandler [Ed .note: progressive band Jadis' driving force] and I really wanted to go to the zoo, but we didn't have any money, so we got over the fence at the second attempt. The first time we tried it we got into the Wolf enclosure by mistake and had to beat a hasty retreat! 10 - Word association. We write a word down, and you give us your first thoughts on it! Martin: -Mellotron: Old -Wallet: Empty -Medicine: Cabinet -Leather: Jock Strap -Beer: Plenty
Martin: Yes, particularly in a paella.
Martin: Hoover Aristocrat 1400 |