Q: How did you and John hook up together to record?
GH: I asked him - simple as that. I didn't expect him to say yes, but he did. John's that kind of guy - in music for TOTALLY the right reasons (dare I say, unusual for a pro!), is very kind, and treats his friends very well.

Q: -why did you choose the songs you did? who's idea to do a medley?
GH: I was going to submit One Day for the tribute, that was all. When I sent down a rough demo of it to Rob Corich, to give him an idea of what I had in mind, I also put on a few of my MIDI files - nothing to do with the tribute, just for interest. He came back and said he liked One Day except for the vocals (mine at the time), and really liked the MIDI stuff. He suggested I put together a medley of them for Heepsteria. So I had done all the songs as complete MIDI files beforehand. It was just a case of finding two or three which would work together, and finding ways of joining them together smoothly. They are all definitely favourites of mine. I didn't think the backing tracks would work on their own - they needed the melodies. Doing MIDI melody lines would have sounded naff, so I asked John if he would sing them, and he kindly agreed.

Q: How was it working on Byron songs with Lawton?
GH: What an honour! Amazing! I had a CD made of the backing track and sent it down to John, and he was going to take it down to Neil's studio and do the vocals. A couple of days before he was due to go, he rang me and asked if I wanted to go down there with him. What a great day out! Neil and John are both real pros, but they really involved me in the whole thing...."What do you think of this, Graham?"...."What would you like us to do here?" etc.....even on the Gunhill songs they recorded the same day.

Q: what's your take on these versions?
GH: I love 'em. Especially Wonderworld. This one has the scope for doing a lot of different things, and John did very much his own thing. That's exactly what I was hoping for. A totally different vocal take to Byron's. And the last note is something else!

Interesting facts about the Gunhill songs:
1.CBTM arrangement was completely different to the one they did live up until that day. They used to do it on acoustic guitar, but Neil wasn't happy with the sound they were getting in the studio. So it went electric. It was John's idea to give the guitar parts a kind of Hendrix' "Little Wing" feel, and it worked really well. So much so, that this new arrangement has been the one they take on stage with them until this day.

2. The way these songs were recorded was very unusual: When Reuben joined the band, the old line-up with Chris Jones (I assume - although it's possible that it's Justin Shefford) and Brian Bennett went into the studio and recorded all the songs from the set in one take "as if live". This was to give Reuben a tape to learn the songs by. Anyway, the drum tracks were fine to use for this project, so they used them, and just re-recorded everything else. This was a very difficult process, because on both songs, the drums don't come in till the second verse. So to record the intros and first verses (before drums), they had to add a click track for Reuben to play along with, so that the first verse finished in the right place. This was a really fiddly process.

3. If I'm right about the drum tracks being Chris Jones' , that means these songs feature a line up of Lawton, Kavanagh, Jones, Kane........a line-up which never actually existed! :-)

Q: Any other comments or future plans w/ John?
GH: No. We're just good friends. And John is a true friend. I wouldn't want to, or be good enough to, or be in a position to do anything in a professional sense, anyway. But if there's another chance to do something together for fun, I'd jump at it. Roll on HV2000!

Graham

(Note:
As this issue was being prepared, word has it from Graham that he has been asked to guest in and play bass for a night at a Gunhill gig on March 25th, at the Rose and Crown, King's Langley !

Rock On Graham !!!)