After visiting us in 2014 with The Mission and his European tour presenting “Songs of Candlelight and Razorblades”, his solo album, we’ve got an interview with Wayne Hussey. “Our glorious leader”, as their fans call him, talks about the album, the tour, future plans with the band, and a bit of everything. We usually see bands touring and touring with three albums recorded, that’s why we rejoice to have this english music banner, with 35 years of a long trajectory in some of the most important bands of the scene tell us things as “Songs of Candlelight and Razorblades” is a very good album, but it’s done now and I’m already thinking in the next album”. So it goes:

Well, it’s been a while since SOCAR release, and the tour ended last december. How do you feel now about your first solo album with new songs?Ah, the tour was good if not a little too long to be away from home. Some of the shows were very good though. I haven’t listened to the album for quite some time now but playing the songs night after night I don’t really need to listen to it, do I? It’s the same with any album that I’m involved in. Whilst making it I listen to it countless times and then when it’s done I tend not to listen to the albums again unless I have a tour coming up and need to remind myself how the songs are. I think it’s a very good album with some cracking good songs performed very well.

I Like What I Do Interview to Wayne Hussey by Marcelo Simonetti.

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But it’s done now and I’m already thinking about the next album.

And what about the tour? As far as I could read and see, you have played an enormous list of songs. Is it a dvd of the tour on the way?Yeah, I don’t play the same set every night, I like to change it, it keeps it fresh. I have about 100 songs I can choose from so it keeps it interesting for me. And yeah, we filmed and recorded the last two shows in Leeds & Workington for a future DVD release. That’s what I’m working on at the moment, mixing the audio from both shows. It’s taking longer than anticipated as both shows were 3 hours plus. That’s a

lot of songs to mix. Hopefully we’ll have it ready for release in April-May.

Going to the band now, there are some shows announced for this year. Any plans beyond that? New album? Some time ago I read somewhere about a film or something like that.No, no plans for a film. We did film the recording of The Brightest Light but to be honest most of the footage was of the band messing about and I don’t think it would be of much interest to most people. Yeah, we do have a few shows lined up for later in the year and beyond that 2016 is the 30th anniversary of the band so no doubt we will do something to celebrate the event. We are

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working towards a new Mission album to coincide but at the moment nothing firm.

I know you love music, beyond being a musician. Any bands or solo artists you are listening these days (old or new ones)?New bands? I like The Smoke Fairies, The XX, but mostly what I listen to these days is older and older music. I’ve been listening to a lot of the old Delta blues stuff, folk, jazz, and 60’s rock, Dylan being a favourite. To be honest I haven’t heard anything new (or old but new to me) in a while that’s really got me excited so I tend to gravitate back to what I already know I love.

From all of the musicians from other bands, or solo artists you have shared a stage, who is the one you keep the best memory, and which is the artist you’d love to share a stage but you haven’t done it yet?I have fond memories of most of the people I have had the privilege and pleasure of playing with. Most musicians I have found are pretty decent people. There are one or

two exceptions to that rule but that’s my secret. Faves?. I guess The Cure has to be up there for me. I’ve played twice on-stage with them. As for who I haven’t played with but would love to? The list is endless but I’d start off with Bowie, Dylan, Radiohead, Massive Attack, PJ Harvey, and so on and so on…..

About The Mission, if we listen “The Brightest Light” demos, we can hear that the songs were born in a very similar way as your last solo album, and we feel that some of the “The Brightest Light” songs could perfectly have been in “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades”. The songs were always composed that way, or in the beginning it was different, much more a band work than now?Well, some of the songs on “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades” were written at the same time as the songs on “The Brightest Light” so there are bound to be some kind of similar feelings, I guess. I think both albums could’ve quite interchangeable actually, certainly in term of the songs if not the end result. “The Brightest Light” is a rough and raw rock album and “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades” is a little more sophisticated but some of the songs on “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades” could’ve worked very well with the band playing them and some of the songs on the “The Brightest Light” could’ve worked very well with the “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades” approach. In the past I have tended to do quite full demos with drum tracks, bass guitar, guitar lines, etc., but when we sat down to talk about how we, the band, wanted to

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approach the album the band asked me to keep my demos more basic, just guitar and voice for the most part. There have been one or two songs that have evolved from the band just jamming but, to be honest, we’ve never been really very good at jamming so it’s always tended to be songs that I have brought in that have a structure, sometimes very loose and sometimes I have a very firm idea of how it should go. In the end though there are no hard and fast rules and I think we’ve always ended up doing what we think the song has needed.

Since the last reunion, there are no songs from the albums after “Carved In Sand” at the shows, apart from Like A Child Again. We know it’s an agreement, or something like that, you did as a band. Do you think it maybe can change some time in the future and we can listen songs from other albums?Yeah, when we first got back together in 2011 one of the things Simon insisted on, and which was fair enough, was that we only play songs that he played on originally. But that was when we thought that we’d only be playing the one 25th anniversary tour. As it happens we have continued and are now nearing our 30th so my feeling is that has to change. I think Simon is coming around to the idea that for us to continue and thrive we need to also start looking at later albums that he wasn’t involved in. It gets boring for me and, I’m guessing, the audience too when we play the same songs tour after tour. That was one of the reasons we started to consider making a new album – so we’d have more songs to play. I need to work on Simon some more and persuade him that songs like Afterglow and Daddy’s Going To Heaven Now etc., are worth

taking a look at with this line-up.

This February will be Neverland’s 20th anniversary. What do you think about that album? If you remember something about it, of courseIt was a difficult album to make as the band was in a state of flux and our trajectory was definitely downward at the time. We started recording whilst still signed to Phonogram and then they dropped us half way through the album which proved financially very difficult. I’d just gotten married and we had a child on the way so it really wasn’t the best time to be worrying about money. We split with our manager during the recording of this album and went through a few line-up changes. And it was the first Mission album I produced, or co-produced, and in hindsight maybe it should’ve been a single album instead of a double. I also didn’t like the sound of my voice at the time so my self confidence was low. We released Raising Cain as the first single from the album and it was the first single of ours not to chart in the UK. Difficult. But there are a few stand-out good songs there……..

With that album “Neverland Records” was born. Do you remember anything about it?In all honesty it was just in name only. We signed to Equator, an independent label, and to establish our own identity it was thought a good idea to give us our own branding. We never had the power or wherewithal to sign anyone else or release any other records other than our own.

What’s your best álbum until now? The one you’re more proud of, the one you think that has resisted better the years, if it’s an

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old oneWell, like every other musician I always feel my latest work is my best so I’d have to say ‘Songs Of Candlelight & Razorblades’ but I guess if you took that out of the equation then I’d have to say ‘God’s Own Medicine’, the first album. It has an energy, a naïve charm, an innocence that would be impossible to ever recreate. It was also our first success of any note and that was a very exciting time.

Is this an era you like to live? I mean the world we ive in. And which one in the past, if there’s one.Yes, I generally feel that this is a pretty good time to live. Of course there are problems in the world and the advance of technology is not always for the better, in my opinion, but I like my life, like what I achieve, like what I do, like the people around me. That’s not always been the case but then I am 56 years old and have travelled a long, long

road. We all romanticise about other times and I’m no different but there would surely be things we miss about now. I have a big soft spot for the 60’s, from 1965 to 1969, maybe that would’ve been a good time to be young. The whole world was changing and fir the first time it was the youth of the world that was forcing the changes and at the vanguard of a social revolution.

I know you sometimes come to Buenos Aires with Cinthya, your wife, and that you like the city. You were here in 2012 seeing Morrissey, if I’m not wrong. We’d love to see you again this year performing some of the “Songs Of Candlelight And Razorblades” songs. I know, you will have a busy year, but we’re crossing our fingersYeah, I hope so too. I do love Buenos Aires, I always have fun there. It’s my favourite South American city and both Cinthya and I do love it there. I would love to get over later in the year and play a show or two.

Let’s see if we can make that happen, eh?

I deeply thank your patience and attention. It’s always a pleasure talking to you. Hope to see you soon. Cheers

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