For those of you who aren't familiar LIGHTHOUSE is a Canadian band from the late 60s / early 70s.

The band was jazz-blues and rock based, which saw the band blend brilliant pop and rock material with horn, wind, and string instruments and spectacular productions. The band had a string of huge hits including "One Fine Morning", "Sunny Days", "Pretty Lady" and "Good Day". In 1993 the core of the band - Paul Hoffert (keys), Skip Prokop (drums & vox), and Ralph Cole (guitar & vox) put a new version of the band together, and released "Song Of The Ages" in '95. This album saw the debut of new singer Dan Clancy who was brought in to replace Bob McBride - who had sang on so many hits during the band's heyday. McBride post - Lighthouse days saw him release a number of solo albums before falling into various personal problems that regularly hit the press. He sadly died last year.

The best intro to the band on CD is now available through True North Records on the albums > "Sunny Days Again : The Best of", "Live", and "Song Of The Ages". You can also find out more on the band, as well as sound clips and tour dates at their web site > http://home.istar.ca/~lghthse/home.html <

This interview featured Dan Clancy, Paul Hoffert and Skip Prokop on the Q107 Rock Report.

A second interview on this program took place just around the time "Song Of The Ages" was released, and will be at UNIVERSAL WHEELS very soon.........

Enjoy!!

Q: How are you guys doing?

PH: Good, very excited about playing in Toronto in many years - 3 or 4 or 10!?

Q: I think it was 11. I think it was 82.

SP; Yeah it was 82, and that was the last thing we did.

Q: Why so long?

PH: We really just didn't like Toronto! Ha ha... No, we love playing in Toronto always, and the band was disbanded for a long time, so we weren't playing. And then about a year ago i spoke to Skip and i said "I'm going nuts - I really want to play" and he said "well me too!", and I said "well why don't we do it!?", and he said "Great!" So we got the band together and we've been waiting for almost a year until we'd find the perfect Toronto gig because we played the Calgary Stampede, and last month we played London, Ontario, and we sort of 'oot and aboot'. But a concert at Nathan Phillips Square - we thought this was really the perfect venue, and it's free.

Q: When was it that the compilation CD came out, was that 2 years ago?

PH: That's right. And that was also probably an incentive because when the Best Of Lighthouse CD came out, and radio played it and lots of people went to buy it, and we were glad, and we felt "well maybe people would like to see us as well as us like to play for them".

Q: So how is it getting back together? Playing these shows, has it sort of made you realize how much you miss it?

PH: Well absolutely for me! What do you think Skip?

SP: Actually we did about 15 concerts last year and it was really good and the agreement that Paul and I came up with was that if we were gonna put the band together for The Stampede then I wanted to keep the band together even if we only played a few concerts here and there but got together and rehearsed and did some things during the year - that was the idea. And now, since January - Doug Moore (our new bass player) and myself have pretty well written an entirely new album worth of material. So that to us - the exciting part is not only going out and playing, because we have been having tremendous success with the audiences, the critics have been really good that have reviewed the concerts, and now we've got what I feel is incredibly strong new material, and we want to get in the studio and get going, and that's the whole point!

PH: Absolutely! One of the key reasons we held off on a Toronto date was not just as an oldies band, although that's not the worst thing in the world, but we wanted to come into Toronto with new material and a kind of a new sound as well as the old song. So people remember or have been listening to Lighthouse and perhaps bought the CD will be happy because the sound of the old hits is there, and on the other hand everyone will notice that the new material is absolutely fresh, while it's within the general sphere of the Lighthouse sound it really is a step forward and representative of where we are in 1993, as opposed too just a rehashing of older stuff. And now we have Dan singing lead, and Dan's voice has a much greater range at the high end, and the fact that we've added 2 new singers in addition to what we had - in other words Don Paulton who is our violist and also plays keyboards is a wonderful singer, and also Doug Moore our bass player is a fantastic singer and we never used a bass player who was a singer so that the vocal sound is much more full, and we've really exploited that with the new material.

Q: And they'll also get a chance to see Dan Clancy behind the microphone. Dan how do you feel about this whole thing? How did you come to be a member of Lighthouse?

SP: That's a good story Danny - make sure you tell 'em where it all started!

DC: Ha ha. That far back!? As far as listening to the band, I mean we all listened to it when we grew up, but I was just playing music at this church of all places, and Skip was at this wedding and he saw me there and he said "I'd like to put a band together and have you sing in the band" , and this was just after Lighthouse had sort of come to terms with staying apart from one another , a bit of a sabbatical for them. And I worked with Skip for about 3 years and then that sort of went it's way, and then I'd been working doing things here and there, and it was just recently that Skip and Ralph and Paul approached me about taking on the responsibilities of filling Bob's shoes - which are big shoes!

Q: Bob McBride. Tell me how that whole transition is going, and did you have to get over a certain hurdle of feeling the material was sacred or....?

DC: Yeah at first, but not enough that it would throw me off from taking on the responsibility of doing it. It's a lot of fun, and it's a challenge. There's a lot of respect for Bob from me and from the rest of the band, as would most off the Lighthouse lovers and listeners.

Q: Are you giving the old material a new spin, does it sound a little different?

DC: It sounds a little bit like me, ha ha.

PH: Let me take that, because i don't know if Dan can be objective about this. Certainly we felt that what Dan should do was not try to be an imitation of Bob McBride, but be an authentic Dan Clancy. What he does is do the old material in his own way, but the thing that's been interesting for us is i think that the arrangements and the general way that the material sits - and of course one of the reasons that we chose Dan for the range and sound that he has , is that he fits well with that material. He doesn't sound like Bob, he sounds great as Danny and it fits in a way that's very comfortable for Lighthouse fans. I should say that when we got together a year ago Bob was one of the originals that was singing with us, and we had a great time working with Bob and then he became ill due to a number of internal problems and other things like that, and it was just not possible for him to continue with the riggers of performing, and we had to make a change, and we all wish Bob well.

Q: Skip and Paul - give me a story from the heyday, because you guys were involved in a lot of amazing events and different scenarios when you guys were really big. Give me one great story.

PH: One that comes to mind has to do with the first time we played in Toronto, which was at the then "Rock Pile". And when we played there, it happened that the same day we were performing Duke Ellington was in town at Massey Hall. We had a New York publicist that was kinda working for RCA/Victor which was our label in the US, and was getting us all kind of ink everywhere. And so, unbeknownst to Skip and I , Stew who was the publicist said to us "there may be a surprise for you at the gig, so just don't worry about anything". So what he had done was he'd gone over to Duke Ellington and had said "I'm Stew the publicity guy" and everything like that "and i understand you've flying out to the airport after your gig at Massey Hall. I've arranged for a limo to take you out and do some publicity shots". And Duke Ellington said "Fine". So Stew showed up at Massey Hall and picked up Duke Ellington after the show at Massey Hall, and as he essentially had Duke Ellington captive in the limousine he said "By the way there's a new band I'm representing called "Lighthouse" and you're going to go and introduce them on stage at The Rock Pile - it's their first gig in Toronto." So he basically brought Duke Ellington on to the stage, and Skip and I shook hands with him, and we were totally amazed that Stew showed up with Duke Ellington! And then Duke Ellington came on and said "I'm beginning to see the Light - House" a classic line, photo opportunity in all the papers all over the world. It was my first exposure to New York high-powered promo guys.

Q : What about you Skip, do you have a story for us?

SP : Probably one really interesting one was when we were just beginning with the RCA albums, and for people who don't know a lot of the Lighthouse things really happened because of "One Fine Morning" which was on Evolution Records in the States and GRT in Canada. But we did 4 albums on RCA that Paul and I produced and were quite progressive; they were a lot more jazz influenced, etc etc - they were more or less experimental albums. But one of deals that RCA cooked up as part of the deal was that we would come and play Carnegie Hall. Well it's an interesting thing with New York because you can go and play Carnegie Hall and you're obviously supposed to be somebody if you're there, but what they did was they took over the house and they sold X amount of tickets, I don't know how many people bought tickets, and of course they wanted to make this a big record promotion so they gave a bunch of tickets away. And I think (ha ha) the guy just went down the street and into the Bronx and gave them out to anybody he could find because we came out there and we're doing really different material, we've never had a hit down there, and nobody knows who the hell we are, and we're up on stage doing very orchestral things and heavy jazz things. And the people are just looking at us like (ha ha) "who the hell are these guys!?" (ha ha) And they literally booed us, it was so awful! All we wanted to do was get off the stage and go back to Toronto. And it was such a different situation to go down there about a year and a half later after One Fine Morning broke, and One Fine Morning was enormous in New York, and the band at that point was huge in the States, and we went back to Carnegie Hall and the people just went berserk when the band walked out on stage. We could hit like 2 beats or 1 bar of an intro and people were standing up and screaming and yelling. They knew the material and they knew the band. It was just an incredible lesson in "what a hit will do for you" in the fact that you have that recognition and you start building your support base, your people want to come and see you - they like what t hey hear. It was a tremendous difference, it was a real head-spin!

Q : What's gonna be happening from here guys? You're playing a couple of dates as you mentioned, played some different places, and Paul you mentioned a new album and a new sound. What's gonna be going on for Lighthouse in the future?

PH : Well, we're heading into the recording studio almost as we speak. Monday at Nathan Phillips Square we will be premiering the first 5 tunes from what will become come our new album, and we've been working on them. Doug and Skip were probably writing for 3 or 4 months at least very heavily, and we rehearsed them for another 3 months, and this summer we'll be recording those and another 5 or 10 songs. And then we'll probably start in September or October a more concerted effort of promoting the new album.

Q : So, it should be out in the fall?

PH : Yes, the new album should be out in the fall.

Q : Very interesting! Skip - thanks for joining us on the phone, and have a great show on Monday.

SP : Yeah, listen - we're really looking forward to this (Nathan Phillips Square). That used to be our home. We as Lighthouse held the record for people at 97 thousand until Terry Fox came through there. So we're really looking forward to this. Paul coined it "this is the perfect place for us to come and play in Toronto."

Q : The price is right! You guys go on stage Monday evening, an 8 O'clock show, The Boomers are also involved - so it should be a great evening, and a fantastic event .

PH : And for those that have never seen Lighthouse live come prepared to hear some really extended solos and some things that you might not hear other bands do.

Q : Or expect to hear a couple of the hits.

PH : That's right.

Q : Dan Clancy - thanks for coming up! Good luck with your future with Lighthouse

DC : Yeah, it should be a lot of fun!

Q : And Paul Hoffert - thank-you.

(Good-byes - DJ plays One Fine Morning) .