Progfreaks.com's interview with Pallas' Alan Reed

22/11/01

Pallas is one strange cookie. After all, there aren't that many bands that take thirteen years to make a comeback album and then release a live record and yet another studio effort in a relatively short time. Fact is stranger than fiction, however, and with its latest, The Cross & the Crucible, this Scottish act is dead on target on its quest to reclaim a long-forlorn fanbase and to revive what at one point was really nothing but a group of musicians trying to get it together once again. Lineup changes, record label conflicts, lucky coincidences, and a desire to keep going have kept the Pallas history alive for more than two decades now, and Progfreaks.com recently got the chance to interview vocalist Alan Reed and get some answers, including one related to Pallas' early attempts at being a boy band!

part one | part two

1 - When you joined Pallas after the dismissal of Euan Lowson in 1985, getting the job was probably kind of intense. Not only because you'd been a fan of the band previously, but also because Lowson had built up a massive live reputation by performing stunts such as coughing up blood on "Crown of Thorns" and slitting his wrists on "The Ripper." Did you at any moment feel intimidated by Lowson's reputation and the expectation that both the band and its fans would have of you? Do you think the fact that the band had only released Arrive Alive and The Sentinel by the time you joined helped you win over the fans more quickly?

Alan: It wasn't the easiest of situations to go through...I'd been a fan of the band for some time and was well aware of how strong a stage presence Euan was, and I knew I wouldn't be comfortable trying to do that theatrical thing. However, I also felt strongly that what was lacking from Pallas on stage was a proper focus. Fascinating though Euan's approach was, I felt it kind of detracted from the impact of the band's music. On-stage he was kind of divorced from what went on - he only made occasional grand appearances and didn't communicate directly with the audience much. In fact, the first time I saw Pallas he didn't appear until well into the set…I actually thought Graeme [Murray, the band's bassist] was the vocalist until then!

I felt strongly I could add the missing ingredient to the band - which was odd, because up till that point I really considered myself to be a bass player. I didn't really have plans to become a vocalist/frontman. I really wouldn't have considered joining any other band in that capacity - it just felt right!

In terms of how the fans dealt with my arrival, there were obviously some who couldn't accept Euan was no longer involved…It was particularly difficult in the band's hometown of Aberdeen, where Euan was still very much in evidence. The general response was pretty positive however. I was very sensitive to what people thought, but quickly got the feeling that I was generally being accepted. I think it helped that I didn't try to emulate him in any way. He did what he did, and it was pointless to try to match it on the same terms. I don't think that the band's releases so far gave me any sort of advantage or disadvantage. In the UK the band was already fairly well known. I think it was slightly easier in mainland Europe, because they had no experience of early Pallas gigs to compare…I was just the singer in the band when we first went there.

2 - Something that struck me as peculiar once was seeing Pallas included on the Heavy Metal Heroes compilation along with New Wave of British Heavy Metal acts such as Witchfinder General. Not actually because Pallas isn't really a heavy metal band, but more because of the disturbing similarity in how both the British metal and progressive rock revival movements fizzled out only after a few years, with only a couple of their members making it to the big leagues. What was it like to see an enormous level of excitement around such musical activity in Great Britain, only to have it fall as quickly as it had risen?

Alan: Well, our inclusion on that sampler wasn't as strange as you think. Pallas were seen as very much at the heavy rock end of things - particularly live. There were as many comparisons to Rush as to Genesis at that time, and the audience we had was much more of a mainstream rock one than the one drawn to the likes of IQ, Pendragon, etc. etc…The one thing we had in common with Marillion was an appeal to a crossover audience.
The "new wave of prog" thing was very much an invention of the London-based media…we only came across these other bands (with the exception of the Marillos) when we came down to play the Marquee…to be honest, most of them were only playing in London and their home areas, while we were already gigging across the whole of the UK on the standard rock circuit. It never seemed likely to me that there was likely to be a mass movement of bands into the big leagues…most were only really starting to develop, and still needed to cultivate a wider fanbase. When I first saw Pallas, what came across was a band that was likely to make it to the big time on the basis of its ability and individuality. I only became aware of the "prog" thing later…

3 - A curious thing about the band having recorded The Sentinel was that, in order to be able to record with Eddie Offord, Graeme had to sell his Porsche in order to cover the expenses of recording in Atlanta. An obvious conclusion was that the band was extremely excited with the future at that point. When you joined Pallas, was this excitement still around or was there a bit more wariness regarding decisions? Were there any signs at that time of the problems with EMI that were just around the corner?

Alan: There was still a lot of excitement, but it was tinged with lessons from the school of hard knocks. Obviously losing a vocalist is a traumatic experience for a band; particularly at such a sensitive stage in their recording career. EMI were also going through major problems at the time…The day after my first gig at the Marquee, they cut the roster in half - we were lucky not to be dropped. EMI became increasingly difficult to deal with. The uncertainty at the company meant that we kept being given different people to deal with, and it was almost like we were constantly having to re-prove ourselves to them again and again. You didn't feel you could trust them to act in your best interests…you weren't sure that they understood or believed in the band - all those people that had either left or moved on… but they were still writing the cheques!

4 - Some time after you had joined Pallas, you recorded the Knightmoves EP. Was the sole purpose of that to introduce you to the Pallas fanbase and prove that you were the right man for the job? How did it feel for you to move from live playing to actually recording with the band at that point?

Alan: Actually, recording came first…we'd demoed several numbers and had been writing together for a couple of months before I performed live with the band. The Knightmoves was intended to serve several purposes. It would take time to write a completely new album, and it had already been some time since The Sentinel due to the delays of finding a new singer. Obviously it was also an opportunity to give a flavour of how the band sounded with me singing. Most importantly, it was also intended to act as a musical bridge to the new album. We already intended to do something different - it wasn't really sensible to go for another full-blown concept album - so we decided to introduce the idea of change in this intermediate form. We wanted to show that we were still in touch with what went before, but were about to develop somewhat. The title came from the words to another track, "…the Knight (Sentinel) Moves On."

5 - Then came the innovative The Wedge, in which you tried to break with several barriers of progressive rock and crossed over all sorts of borders. How important was producer Mick Glossop in the creation of this experimental mood, and why not use Eddie Offord once again? Since all the time that the experimentation took caused you to finish up the album in a sort of hurry, was there anything you wished you'd done differently after the album was released?

Alan: The band didn't use Eddie again because basically they felt he'd let them down. They'd been very happy working with him, but he'd been left to mix The Sentinel on his own after time ran out and the band had to come back from Atlanta. When they finally got the mix, it was nothing like they'd expected…it had squeezed out all the life…the guitars and drums were way too low. Basically, Eddie had got into another project and did a quick mix which the guys were never happy with. It wasn't the album they thought they'd recorded…
Mick was one of several guys that EMI suggested...he was the only one who seemed to have a real handle on what we were trying to do, which was "progress" (i.e. develop). We worked with him on the Knightmoves, and it wasn't easy, but he made us question every preconception that we had about music…he wouldn't let us use certain musical clichés, and had us focus on song and arrangement rather than intricate parts. He really got us to take everything apart and then put it all back together after exhaustively trying all kinds of alternatives.

When it came to The Wedge, Mick was involved at an early stage; coming up to the farm studio and making us re-think all the material we'd written before we even got to make our routine for the album. He made us listen to all kinds of stuff we'd never have thought of listening to, to make us think past Mellotrons and Mini-moogs. He brought us a Linn-drum to play with so we could start thinking about the possibilities of drum machines and sequencers. I think in some ways we were basically trying to do a heavy rock version of Gabriel IV, with some of the mass appeal of 90125. It was a hard task we set ourselves.
The album was really cutting edge at the time - especially for a traditional rock band. We had to learn a lot of new technology, most of which was still in its infancy and took a lot of effort to get to work properly. Unsurprisingly we ran out of studio time (twice in fact), but EMI were happy enough to give us the extra budget to finish it. It was close though...and we knew the finished result would upset some of the traditionalists.

I suppose in retrospect we were fighting on too many fronts at once...proving to the critics that there was more to us than a taste for seventies prog albums, proving to the audience that rock music could include samplers and sequencers, proving to the record company that we could be an album band and still be commercial enough for them to understand. If there's one regret I have it's that we didn't go far enough in any one direction. Perhaps we should have abandoned trying to write a single and concentrated on making a definitive album, but that's not how the business operated at that time, and we were caught up in all the pressures that went with having a major deal.

6 - After The Wedge was out, you walked out of your contract with EMI, as you weren't happy with the support (or lack thereof) they'd given you. Recordings for a new album, Voices in the Dark, ensued, but the record was never actually released because you always seemed to be on the verge of a new record deal when things fell through. What was Voices in the Dark like? Did you ever consider releasing the record independently back then?

Alan: Voices in the Dark was a refinement of what we'd learnt through The Wedge. It was rockier and had more identifiably "prog" elements, I suppose…basically it was a more confident balance..

We came close to a new major deal on a couple of occasions, and one in particular only failed to happen because of a bizarre coincidence involving a senior EMI executive joining the new company. We did start to record stuff for a label our management had set up, and Mick Glossop was in the frame to produce, but essentially the money ran out and we had to find other ways of making a living.

7 - You left Pallas in 1988; the same year that you graduated in English literature from university. Coincidence?

Alan: The two are psychologically related. I'd completed the last two years of my degree while being on the road with Pallas during our most difficult times (I'd previously put my degree on hold when I'd joined, but later decided to try and fit it around Pallas). I guess we reached our lowest ebb around the time I graduated…I suppose I figured it was time to do something new. It wasn't an easy decision to take. It took the best part of five years before I was ready to get involved in music again

8 - Next year, Pallas released Sketches, a compilation of rough demos that kept the band name alive in a way but which was released when Pallas didn't really have a new album to present to the public. Since you had left the fold the year before, what was the status of the band at that point? What were your thoughts on the release of Sketches at the time?

Alan: To tell the truth I was a bit annoyed, because they hadn't even asked me. I was strongly involved in writing quite a lot of it, so I felt a bit aggrieved. The others were still trying to get something going and were even trying out other singers, but it didn't really gel. Mike Stobbie (who'd replaced Ronnie on keyboards) was living in London, so we kept in touch and he let me know what they were up to, but the magic didn't seem to be there.

9 - Then came the reissue of the Pallas albums in 1992 and the release of the "War of Words" and "Never Too Late" demos, as well a considerable enthusiasm on behalf of the band regarding the immediate future. There was even a lineup change with Mike Stobbie replacing Ronnie Brown on keyboards. What happened then? And why would Graeme and Niall (Mathewson, the band's guitarist) start working with Ronnie again a few years later instead of with Stobbie (ironically, Stobbie had formed part of Pallas before but left in 1979, thus never recording anything with the band)?

Alan: Mike actually joined in '87, when Ronnie left for personal reasons. He'd recorded some of the stuff on Sketches and the early Voices sessions, which we later abandoned. What happened was that Graeme managed to lease back the EMI stuff for CD release and that stimulated interest in the band, which gave everyone a fresh enthusiasm. I'd been asked if I was interested in rejoining and the wounds had healed enough to give it a go. We started writing and demoing - Mike and I in London, Graeme and Niall in Aberdeen (occasionally all getting together to pool our ideas). We demoed about 3 albums worth of stuff, but it never quite came together in the way that made all of us happy. Gradually it looked as if it would never happen.

What happened with Ronnie was that Graeme bumped into him while out shopping. Things had ground to a halt, with Mike and I being in London, and Mike in particular being increasingly busy with other projects. Graeme and Niall felt they needed a keyboard player to help them get some of their ideas down and asked Ronnie if he'd help out - no strings attached. Initially Ronnie had no intention of rejoining the band, but they rediscovered how well they worked together and gradually it became clear he should play a larger role. Mike's still pretty much part of the family, but it was easier all round that he stepped down.

10 - You decided to give it one last shot in 1997, after Graeme had called you and said that there were some really exciting things going on in the Pallas camp. The result would eventually be Beat the Drum, the first Pallas album in thirteen long years. Now, a few years later, how glad are you that you made the decision to try things one last time?

Alan: We're PALLAS again. It's fulfilling in the way that it was to begin with. We're creatively and personally happy working together, without any of the bad shit we've had looking over our shoulders in the past. Pallas always has been like being part of a family, and now it's one where we feel we're doing the right thing at the right time and it's all going our way. It's a genuinely satisfying feeling. It was always great being part of this band…now it feels that the rest of the world has finally come around to our way of thinking.

Part Two: Read on about Pallas' history and Colin Fraser's drum solos

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