Breakfast Break

‘Tea and Fruitcake Club’s’ Sixth Gala Meeting with guest speakers, Helen Turner, Iain Black, Trev Turley and Andy Jones of the Bare Bones Boogie Band.

 

The name alone is enticement enough for us in the office to want to listen in but not only do they have a great name, they are award-winning musicians as well. Helen Turner was voted the best female artiste in the 2007 Digital Blues Awards, in the same year Trev Turley was voted favourite bass player and Iain Black won the favourite guitar player in the 2008 Awards. 

Bare Bones Boogie Band have been getting recognised amongst the blues press and audience of the UK and abroad. Finally ‘Tea and Fruitcake Club’ got the chance to see them perform on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Elme Hall Hotel in Wisbech. Much to the Author’s and band members surprise the drummer is a part-time Tea connoisseur and delicatessen! 

How do you like your tea?

Helen: Earl Grey with a pinch of milk, which is so ‘uncool’ but there you go.

Iain: I take mine black.

Trev: Just strong.

Andy: I like my tea, really, really stewed. As stewed as you can get it and I really liked Red Bush tea when it came out.

Any favourite type of cake with that?

Helen: Lemon Drizzle.

Iain: Mini Battenberg.

Trev: Any cake! [Laughter] Any cake will do.

Andy: Waitrose Almond Slices with Red Bush tea!…Helen: Oh my God! You learn so much!

Music writer; Henry Yates from Classic Rock Magazine stated; ‘On their MySpace, BBBB liken their sound to ‘the best night out you’re ever likely to have.’ It’s a stretch, but you get the jist.’ (Round Up: Blues, Page 85, Issue 145 of Classic Rock Magazine, June 2010). What would you say in return to comments like this?

Helen: Fair comment. His son wrote it when he was pissed basically and…erm…you know his son is very loyal to the band and how could we argue with a young boy and shatter his dreams. So we just left it on our MySpace. But of course it is with a generous pinch of salt that we say those things.

Iain: And it’s nice to you know. You put it out there as a bit of a challenge so…come along and you know.

Helen: Also we haven’t got out much in our life’s. We are only comparing it to a couple of nights in with ‘Crossroads‘. So, actually it probably is the best night we’ve had in our lives [Laughter].

You are all very talented and award-winning musicians. Some of you have been in bands like; Red Road and 3AM, what makes Bare Bones Boogie Band so different to those previous bands? 

Iain: Because we’ve learnt a lot through being in other bands and when we got this band together we knew what we kind of wanted to do. We had an idea of…we were choosing the name and we wanted a name to express what it really was, stripped down, bit of blues but not just too much slow blues but also a bit of spark about it and we just had a clearer vision of what it was. We built up a lot of contacts and stuff through the other bands and this was the band we wanted to go for it with.

Helen: I think maybe it’s one of those things that every band you’ve been in and we’ve all been in loads of bands, the next one has got to be the best one, you know, it’s an evolutionary process, ’cause otherwise you’re going back the way, you know, we’re not hankering back to the bands that we were in when we were twenty-five years ago…erm…you just always think the band you are in now is the best one.

Trev: I think this is the band we have all wanted to be…[Unison of agreement]…for a long time.

You released an album in January of this year, how has it been received by the audience?

Trev: It’s been pretty good. We’ve got some reviews in Blues Matters! Magazine and we had one in Classic Rock in the blues section and that’s been really amazing to be honest because we have had reactions from the States as well because it is a worldwide magazine. Its been good, it has been well received.

Andy: The tracks seem to have turned up all over the place in America, Australia…etc. We’re not quite sure how they kind of got there, but they did show up all over the place and generated a lot of interest so we were really pleased with it.

Iain: It’s really nice that a lot of the reviewers are saying it is really enjoyable so people are enjoying it and that’s the main thing. You listen to music because you enjoy it, you don’t listen to music to go ‘oh that was good or that was bad’, you listen to music to enjoy it and people are using that word when they talk about our CD’s so that’s really good.

You cover the song made popular by Etta James, if you don’t mind me saying Helen you look similar to Steve Nicks and Iain your guitar playing has been referred to being ‘shades of Peter Green’ (Review of the new Bare Bones Boogie Band CD in Issue 53 of Blues Matters! magazine), is Fleetwood Mac an influence or is it just a coincidence?

Iain: It’s a bit of both, I think we are kind of…

Helen: I think if you scratch any bands of our age in our kind of genre, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac have got to be an influence, I mean young bands say it as well, so…early Fleetwood Mac definitely an influence.

Iain: We like that classic British Blues, Fleetwood Mac, Free and stuff like that as well.

You are playing the Great British Rhythm and Blues Festival in Lancashire, what else does 2010 hold for you guys?

Iain: Well we’ve got about half a dozen festivals over the summer we are playing…erm…

Trev: The Lichfield Jazz and Blues Festival, Rhythms of the World Festival in Hitchin’, a couple of weekends away we’ve got the Wallingford Blues Festival, so that will be again meeting up with the Paul Jones Blues Band…

Iain: We are starting to write some more material now so we’re getting ready to, almost starting to plan 2011 so we will be scheduling some time for recording and getting some new tracks down maybe to be released next year.

Final question, what is the second album going to be like?

Helen: Amazing! [Laughter]

Trev: It will be like the best night you’ve ever had!

Andy Jones: Twice! [Laughter].

If you would like to know more about Bare Bones Boogie Band then click here to see their MySpace. If you would like to buy their self titled album you can email; contactbarebones@aol.com, or you can order from; Blues CD Store.

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