Forgive me an obvious pun, but NWOBHM stalwarts More are back for, er More. Two crunching albums back in the early 1980s – Warhead and Blood and Thunder – , lots of media attention, lots of big name support slots, opening the 1981 Monsters of Rock Festival and More were set for the stars…….or were they?
Now the band is back together and recording a new album. Great! I caught up with guitarist Dave John Ross who fills us in on what’s going on. My thanks to his for his time. Here’s the interview.
Q1: More looked set for the big time with two excellent albums, high profile support slots, festival appearances etc. Any particular reason it didn’t quite work out like that?
DJR: This era of the band was long before my time, but from what I understand, there were a lot of tensions in the band with various members quitting, money/management issues, resentment over Blood & Thunder’s album cover, etc, etc. Ultimately, Warners pulled the plug by not extending their record contract and dropping the band. There are a few references to the situation amidst the sleeve notes of the remastered reissues released by Candy Rock Records, mostly exhaustion, disharmony within the band and a severe lack of money and industry support. The usual stuff.
Q2: The press pack information gives a good potted history of More over the decades since the NWOBHM days overcoming some adversity and misfortune over various reformations. What were the circumstances behind the major reunion in 2012?
DJR: In 2010, Baz Nicholls (bass) was approached by a festival promoter in Germany with regards getting MORE over to perform. However, Kenny Cox, the original guitarist, had suffered multiple strokes during a previous attempt to revamp the band in the late 90s and was unable to play guitar. Baz was in the company of Chris (Tsangarides – producer/guitar) during the conversation and since it was initially going to be a one-off gig and Kenny was unable to play, Chris offered to step in on guitar. Andy John Burton (original drummer) soon jumped on board, as did MORE’s last vocalist, Mike Freeland. Baz and I go way back and he had originally asked me to join the fold back in 2000 in place of Kenny, but I had to pass on the opportunity due to other projects I had going on. However, in the years to follow and with some empathy towards Kenny’s situation, I suggested to Baz that, as and when he was ready to get MORE back together again, I’d be on board. Alas, when the call came, I had not long moved to the States and was unable to take part at that time. Paul Stickels from Baz’s other band, Dangerous Breed, joined on guitar and the band went out under the moniker ‘EXMORE’ in 2012. The band was well received by fans, the calls from promoters just kept on coming and it built from there. Paul Stickels resigned from the band in 2014 due to family commitments and having by then moved back to England, I got the call and third time lucky, signed up for the gig. It’s been a blast.
Q3: What inspires More to keep going after so many years?
DJR: We are all Road Dogs. We love to play live and the fans demand it. Simple as that. We are currently in the middle of writing and recording a new album and this was born out of so many fans asking for new material at gigs.
Q4: How did legendary producer Chris Tsangarides become involved?
DJR: Baz and Chris had been friends for a number of years, in fact, Baz helped build Chris’ current studio in England. As mentioned in my answer to Question#2, the two of them were backstage at a festival in Germany, I think it was ‘Headbangers Open Air’. Baz was approached about MORE going over to perform. The lack of a guitar player was touched upon, and as it was set to be a one-off gig, Chris stepped in on guitar. He’s been a key member ever since.
Q5: Excellent news that a new album is on the way. Is a release date set, what can we expect from the album?
DJR: Our recording schedule is fairly sporadic due to Chris’ producing commitments with other bands, so we’re grabbing odd days here and there when we can, but we’re hoping to have the album finished by summer 2016. It will then just be down label, distribution, etc, but we hope to have it pressed and out before the end of the year. You can expect a healthy dose of classic NWOBHM, but there is also a strong Melodic Hard Rock flavour to a lot of the material going down. We’re really happy with it so far and can’t wait to get it out there. There is a taster of one track titled ‘Spirits of War’ currently posted on the facebook page (facebook.com/more2012uk) from our performance at Hard Rock Hell 2015. It’s going to be quite a diverse album, that’s for sure.
Q6: Any dates planned to promote the new album?
DJR: We’ll be booking up shows in support of the album over the coming months. Keep an eye on more2012.com for those dates
Q7: What can we look forward to from More in the future?
DJR: Aside of the new album and our annual festival slots, we’re planning on putting a NWOBHM tour together with one or two other bands of the same era. That’s a little way off, but we’ve been wanting to do that for a while. We’ll see how the album goes and who knows, there may be a follow up to that too.
My thanks again to DJR for his time.
Now check out Warhead and Blood and Thunder for yourself.
MORE links:
http://www.more2012.com
http://www.facebook.com/More2012uk