Gentle Giant are firmly on the Mount Rushmore of prog rock bands. While the band hasn’t been active for decades, Gentle Giant have just released a reimagined version of their classic live record Playing The Fool. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Derek Shulman recently took some time to talk about the new version of this iconic record as well as a look at the history of this influential band.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Derek Shulman interview –
On what makes this release the definitive version of the record – Well, there’s several things actually because the original album we only had room for just about most of the show, but not all of the show. So there several songs were left off on the vinyl itself, obviously I don’t think there were CDs at that time. It was mixed in a fairly quick fashion, to be honest with you. What makes this different, of course, is that we had someone called Dan Bornemark, who is a fan and an archivist who has all the tapes that had all the tapes in his possession because he’s been our archivist for many, many years and he suggested to us the band that instead of just remixing it, why don’t we mix the whole thing like a concert, like you are there at a show including the songs that we actually had to leave off as well as Ray’s amazing violin solo, which was always a highlight of the show. It’s something that was both entertaining and incredibly musical. So, we said, “Sure, why not?”
He also decided with our vetoing that a couple of songs which were on the original album may have been better on another show. We recorded four shows in Europe in Munich, I think Dusseldorf, Paris, and Brussels. We took one, or one or two of these shows which were songs from a different version of the of the album. He took the same song from another real of tape, which is perhaps on the Paris show and not the Munich show perhaps. Anyway, he remixed it and he remixed it on a stereo level, just like you would be at a concert and the 5.1 and Atmos. Certainly, if you have that, the experience of being there, it really is like being at a Gentle Giant concert.
On his memories of that European run – As you said we were kind of at a height, I think, in a lot of ways, both popularity wise and, and playing wise. I think that it was a fantastic tour. We were always very popular in Europe, even from the earliest days. I think that period of time, 76, 77, we were playing really big venues and playing as a group as tight as we could be. So, my memories are fantastic about those shows. However, the recording of the show sometimes was a little awkward because even in this recording, you’ll hear now being said, I have to stop the show a little bit because we have to change tapes in the in, in the mobile, and you’ll hear you laughing. So, memory of that tour was great because we were really on fire, I think as a band and as popular as we could be. But again, as I said there, there are things on the album which you could hear, that you wouldn’t hear before.
On if there was pressure from the record company for a live record – No, I believe, no. I think it was the band’s idea that we could give the audience basically something they wanted because we had a lot of fans who would come up to us and say,” We love your records, but honestly live, you are even better”. So, it is strange. But to say that because we were different live, I mean completely, and we were, I think we were better live than on record. So, having just recorded Interview that instead of going out there and promoting that, let’s put a, a live record out to give it some air and then we will go on tour to promote Interview. So, it was our idea, and I think it worked out very well, I hope anyway, at least.
On being an R&B band before Gentle Giant – Interesting. Well, myself and my brothers came from a very musical background. My father was a professional musician. He was a jazz musician, but he also loved classical music. So, the house is always full of music in my family. We always would play various instruments because they were always around the house. But yeah, as a band my first group, Simon Dupree and The Big Sound. It was not traditional, but we were a band that most groups in England at that time started off as being, which it was influenced by American Blues and R&B. Most bands that came into being we’d listen to Radio Luxembourg, and we’d listen to American Forces Music because on the British radio you hear these crooners and the stuff that was awful as far as the kids were concerned. We’d listen to that.
Then, if you had a guitar, which I had one, I mean, my sister gave me my first guitar when I was 12 years old. You would try and emulate what you heard on the radio, and you could play E, A and B and, and start, try to sing the same things that Jimmy Reed did or Howlin’ Wolf did, or even more in the Motown, Tamla, sound. Then the Beatles happened. That changed everything. That changed the musical, cultural and historical world as far as England were concerned. And certainly, I believe over here too. We saw a band that came out of nowhere playing this great music and had amazing hit songs. Myself and my brothers and my school friends started a new band called Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, and we had a very big hit in 1967. It was a kind of psychedelic sounding song with mellotrons and all these other things. We were kind of a pop band, but it became a kind of a millstone around our necks, ultimately, because when we played to an audience in Europe, we did never come over to the US, people wanted to hear the pop hits and it stymied our musical abilities because we are getting better in various forms, both musically and ideas wise. Ultimately, we broke up that band because it was, even though we were making a very good living it was very frustrating playing to an audience that expected the hits rather than what we wanted to do, which was progress musically.
On if they felt pressure from the record company to conform to the more guitar-driven sound of the 70s – No, we were very lucky actually because we had a manager at the tail end of the first group, and when we discussed what we wanted to do, to break up the band and start something brand new, he believed in our musicality, a guy called Jerry Braun. He believed that we would start something new, which would be good.
Another factor, which I probably didn’t mention just earlier was we had a keyboard player who was in the band for a decent period of time who wanted to join the band, but also was instrumental in some respects as to listening to kind of new music out of the west coast actually. His name was Reg Dwight. Me and my brother Ray became very friendly with him. We were on the road with him. He was in our band, and he heard bands like Spirit and Love coming from the West Coast, and we hadn’t. So, he introduced us to music, which is coming out of the West coast.
Anyway, the bottom line was that we told him actually that we were gonna start something in new and he said, “I’d like to talk to you about being part of that”. We went to walk near to his house, and he played, Bernie (Taupin) was there as well and played songs like “Skyline Pigeon” and stuff. We went down back to where we were living in Portsmouth. We thought, myself and Ray said, it’s not quite the stuff we wanted. Thankfully for him, we turned him down for the job and next year he was massive, and we were struggling to get gigs. But he was instrumental in opening our eyes to different sounds.
We were lucky if we had a manager that said, “Okay, go ahead and do what you have to do”. Basically, it was an open page, and we found a fantastic keyboard in Kerry Minnear, who just left the Royal Academy of Music with a degree in composition and production. We found Gary Green, who was just an incredible blues player. We went through a couple of drummers but eventually found John Weathers. But we found musicians who were complimenting what we wanted to do. So, we never had the pressure of management or record companies to do something that we didn’t want to do.
On if they thought of ending Gentle Giant when Phil left – Phil was part of the Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, and Phil was part of the birth of Gentle Giant and up to Octopus. Octopus was I think one of the high points of that period. When he left, well, he was my brother and Ray’s brother, so it kind of left a whole fraternity if you like, even though sometimes me and Phil went at it like brothers do. So we thought, “Oh, this is, this is gonna be rough”. We spent two or three years with this whole new idea. But we decided, we put our heads down and said, “okay”. There was thought about, should we continue? But it was only a thought. And then we said, no, no, no. We come this far and we have so many other things that we want to do. So, we continued as a five piece, and I think it paired us down to focusing on what we did best. I think that evolved into a golden period for the band.
On if the change in sound later in their career was natural or an attempt to break the American market – I think it was a little bit of both. I think that my brother Ray was probably more influenced by what was going on in the punk world actually and influenced myself and Kerry in looking away at what we did best and, and try to sort of do something which is a little more commercial. Which in retrospect, was not a good idea because we weren’t a commercial band. We tried and some of the songs on Giant for a Day, they’re nice, they’re good, but it wasn’t what the fans liked. Again, in retrospect, you can’t say, we should’ve, could’ve because I think we did what we did, and if it was a mistake, then okay, you decide, “Okay, well that’s not what we should have done. Let’s move on to something we can do”.
So, I think it was a harder period of time for us in that respect, and I think we were to a certain degree, catering to what was happening in the marketplace. Bands of our ilk, who were able to turn their sound into songs that were on the radio, which were hits songs as opposed to hit albums, if you like. We weren’t able to do that.
On if he thought the band quit too soon when the prog boom of the 80s hit – No, I don’t think so. When you’ve had the run and we finished our career with Civilian, which we recorded in California. That was supposed to be a kind of a new turn that we would, pare down some of the complexities if you like, but still, while keeping what Gentle Giant was about and hoped that that may be the way that the band would become, I mean, we were still popular, but not as big as the bands you had mentioned.
But, quite honestly, it backfired on us because we had a consultant working with us and the radio stations in America, which were the most important marketing factors for a band if you wanna be a radio band, thought it was nepotistic, so effectively we didn’t have the support at radio, so we tried, I think it was a really good album, actually, Civilian, but it didn’t do what we hoped it would do, and therefore we thought, “Pkay, look, we’ve done one thing, we’ve done another. Let’s not try to continue and go back to where we were because that’s already been written”. So, we said, “Let’s just call it a day while we’re on top and just leave the legacy as it is and move on from that part of our lives into another part of our lives”.
On why Gentle Giant never reunited – We didn’t want to be a tribute band of Gentle Giant, that would be, that would be an anathema to the band. We were always trying new things and new adventures and ventures as a band and personally. It just would claw in our throats if we became a self-tribute band or a parody of ourselves. Honestly, I think some of the bands, perhaps play music and are still out there and really are not playing anything that they’ve done over the last 20, 30 years. That’s something I still wanted that was a history, that a period of history that should remain untouched and just left where it was because you can’t relive it and you can’t rewrite it.
So it was better to leave it as what it was and not make it a parody of something else. We had lots of offers in, in the, in the 2000s actually to reunite and do this and do that. But honestly, it was something that was never on our radar, quite honestly. We wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t be able to fit into our clothes anyway, so that’s part of it. I’m joking, but it’s not what we were about. We were about those 10 years of fantastic creativity. if we went out there and try to redo it again, that’s not something, it would be not pleasant for us and not, and I think the memory of what we did before should remain intact.
