Les Holroyd Interview, July 1998
This interview was conducted by Keith Domone for the official BJH fan club magazine, Nova Lepidoptera, and first appeared in issue #42 of NL in September 1998.
NL: I wanted to ask first of all what your feelings are now about the River Of Dreams album.
Les: In what respect, the music side of it, what happened to it or what didn’t happen to it?
NL: The music side first.
Les: I’m never satisfied. I always think I could have done better. I still think it sounds quite fresh compared with the last few albums, but I think we could have taken it a stage further, and personally I think we should have done it in a different studio. I think we should have got away from the area and totally isolated ourselves from all the normal domestic things that go on around you. The best sounding albums, in my opinion, are the ones that we did away from home. Time Honoured Ghosts and a couple of the albums that were recorded in London seem to have something that the albums that were recorded up here don’t have and I put that down to having to having to have two hats on. It’s like being on tour - you’re either on tour or you’re not. At the end of the day you don’t go home and start mowing the lawn!
NL: In recent years the albums seem to have taken a very long time to make, and that’s probably tied up with the same thing, is it?
Les: Yes, I think it probably is. For example, if you were to book time in a studio that was expensive... I mean we spent an awful lot of money recording in Germany and Holland, but that was just circumstances at the time because we were living over there or whatever, and there was that sort of money to spend on albums. Whether it was sensible that we spent that money, but we got dragged along with it, and the albums came out quite well, I think. But if you’re in Manchester and you live in Manchester then it tends to drag on, because people go oh, you know, “I’ll just take the afternoon off because I’ve got to do this with the kids”. It does happen. If you’re on the road you can’t do that, so if you put yourself in that position where you’re in the studio like being on the road and not a nine-to-five job, then you’d probably save some time.
NL: Do you have any favourite songs from the album?
Les: My personal one was “So Long”. I wanted to spend more time on that - I would have liked to have taken it further. It went down very quickly and it would have been rather nice to experiment a bit longer, on all of the tracks really, to have spent more time on it, particularly on the vocals - I wasn’t really too happy with the vocals at the time, I had a cold and one thing and another, but there comes a time when you’ve got to go for it and get it out of the way.
NL: Earlier you touched on the reaction to the album - were you very disappointed by that?
Les: Yes, I was - incredibly. I thought, because of the initial reaction from people involved in the record company, that we were onto something. The reaction from the media was quite good, but when we actually got out there there was an incredible absence of the record company from every event we played. These were big gigs, headlining over Art Garfunkel and people like that. There was a complete lack of interest, and I was extremely annoyed. I can’t put that down to anything except the record company, which as far as I could see was in turmoil at the time, more than normal! I know that John was disappointed when we went on the road that there weren’t that many people around, but there weren’t that many people around for anybody unless you happened to be Bryan Adams! But, if you want to be Bryan Adams, or even Chris de Burgh, you’ve got to go out and work. You can’t go on the road after a two or three year absence and expect it all to be laid there on a carpet for you. This is not 15 or 20 years ago, this is 1998 when the market is completely flooded with all types of music, and we’re in a totally different generation to what’s happening now. No-one owes us anything, that is the bottom line. The promoters don’t owe us anything, the record companies don’t owe us anything and the fans don’t owe us anything.
NL: I’m not sure I’d agree that the fans don’t owe you anything.
Les: Don’t take me wrong on this - I’m saying you can’t expect them to come along and say, “You’ve given us this music for so many years, we’re gonna follow you forever”. Circumstances change for everyone. You can’t say that we’re gonna sell x amount of records this year and the back catalogue’s gonna keep selling and keep selling - it’s not. If you’re not on the road, the back catalogue doesn’t sell, it’s as simple as that. You’ve got to be prepared to work at it, you can’t sit back and say, “Oh well, we’re a cult band, and that’s going to pull it through for us”, because it isn’t. Those days are over, really over. Record companies haven’t got the money to spend, they’re not interested in the future of artists any more. It’s just a product, and if it doesn’t sell they just move on to the next.
NL: Bearing in mind what you said about working, is this a good time for the band to take a sabbatical?
Les: It was decided that for whatever reason, it wasn’t happening, so it was time to take a break. It wasn’t my personal decision, I can tell you that. You can’t go on working when there’s so much that’s negative - you can only do it for so long before you think, “I’m banging my head against a wall here, and it’s not getting me anywhere. I’m writing good songs, I’m doing them well, I’m performing well”, and I personally thought I was performing very well, better than I’d done for a long time. It’s just annoying when at the end of the day, people don’t think it’s happening. The only thing I can say is it was a majority decision, but it wasn’t mine. I would work live, it doesn’t matter if it’s five people or 5000 or 50,000, but we’re not given the opportunity, more than anything from the record company we were with.
NL: Do you personally believe that BJH will record or tour again?
Les: We are actually planning something, which I can’t tell you about, unfortunately, because the band haven’t talked about it. It was just something that was mentioned, involving recording and maybe some gigs, but at this point in time I don’t think Polydor in Germany are interested. I could be wrong, but there’s no use in pushing it.
NL: Did you enjoy last year’s tour?
Les: I did, yeah.
NL: You seemed to be enjoying the solo spots, and they were certainly going down really well with the fans.
Les: Right. Well, that again is something that could be worked on in the future, but we’d have to see what the feedback would be, whether the fans would go for it. It would have to be under the umbrella of BJH.
NL: You wouldn’t envisage touring solo, then?
Les: Me personally? The only time I would envisage that would be if I wrote something for example that was absolutely stunning for guitar and vocals, like a one-man thing, and then you could make a record and maybe do some gigs. There is no way I’d go “right, that’s it, I’m off on my own”. As far as I’m concerned Barclay James Harvest is the three members and whatever happens next time that is with Barclay James Harvest.
NL: What are your own immediate plans?
Les: I’m actually working on something at the moment, which again I can’t tell you about! It’s nothing to do with the band, and at this point in time it’s not totally fixed yet what’s going to happen. It is an exciting prospect - quite big, very big! That’s all I can tell you.
NL: Is it a musical project, does it involve writing songs?
Les: No, it’s not. It involves the entertainment business... No one knows about it, but for obvious reasons I can’t tell you about it because if people find out about it, it’s not going to happen.
NL: Have you been writing at all since the last BJH album?
Les: Yes, I write all the time. I’ve got about twenty ideas in total, and maybe three or four songs with lyrics and arrangements that have reached the point where I’m not going to throw them away. I’m not one for hoarding ideas for songs and bringing them back ten years afterwards. If they don’t work, in my opinion, then they’re not going to work.
NL: What will happen to those songs now?
Les: I will just keep writing at the keyboard, and perhaps if I did come up with something interesting, I’d have to go to Lindsay or David with what I would like to do. Hopefully it’s going to continue. I have been in contact with Mel, we have been talking about what we’re going to do. John obviously is off doing his own thing at the moment, but I’ve no doubt at all in my mind that if someone from England or Germany, France or Switzerland or whatever came up with an offer for Barclay James Harvest to do something, I’ve no doubt at all that we’d get together.
NL: At the moment John is working again with Woolly, and the fans are asking the question “is there any chance that the original four members of BJH would ever get back
together?”.
Les: No.
NL: Well, that’s pretty unequivocal. Why do you say that?
Les: Why? Because that’s gone, that’s past. As far as I’m concerned Barclay James Harvest is the band that exists now. The band that existed for the majority of the time was from 1978 onwards. That’s 20 years, and you can’t just say, “Well it’s not working, therefore we’ll get the four together.” You can’t recreate something for the sake of the few people that want it. I can’t see any benefits to the four members getting back together again. I certainly can’t see it.
NL: Would you like to tour Britain again?
Les: If the time was right, yeah. I’m never going to go out again and bang my head against a brick wall. We’re not 25 any more! A lot of things have happened lately which have changed my feelings about the future, personal things which you can’t account for. From now on I just want to do what I want to do and I will not be pressurised or forced into any situation which I don’t think is right, either for me personally or the band.
NL: Looking back over the band’s career, what have been the best moments so far?
Les: I think it was the early days when we were touring and not thinking about it, like that South African tour and the tour of Yugoslavia, but we were a lot younger then. You could do your own thing and not have to worry about the consequences! The Berlin concert - personally I don’t think it was one of our better gigs, but it was an event. You couldn't recreate that.
NL: What would you like BJH to be remembered for?
Les: Just the music, I think, more than anything. The live performances; people always told me that the band was best when it was performing live.
NL: Any message for the fans who will be reading this?
Les: Just to reiterate that at this point in time, although there is a break, we are actually talking about various future projects. I personally think we should go out on the road - the band as it is now. I don’t envisage any major changes in the band.
NL: Thanks very much for your time, and the best of luck with your projects.
Les: I’ll let you know nearer the time if I can. If it does happen it will open up new avenues which are not that far from where I am now.
NL: Thank you.
Les: Thank you very much.