Leo Lyons of Ten Years After: The ClassicRockHistory.com Interview

Picture courtesy of Chipster PR.

By 1969, Ten Years After, a British group that includes Alvin Lee on vocals and guitar, Ric Lee on drums, Chick Churchill on organ and keyboards, and Leo Lyons on bass, was on a roll. They’d crossed the Atlantic, carried out at Woodstock, and introduced their model of jam-band-meets-psych-blues to the lots.

Positive, Ten Years After’s fashion of music wasn’t unusual for the time, per se, however few did it in addition to they did. “We took all of these influences, and put them into what we did,” Lyons tells ClassicRockHistory.com. “And in the event you hearken to our albums of their entirety, God forbid, you’ll be able to hear the album change in fashion all through.”

“Some have been straight blues,” Lyons says. “However there are others that have been jazzy, and a few that have been straight-ahead rock. We have been connected on all of it, together with the peace, love, and hippie scenes. All of that influenced us.

On the blues facet of issues, Lyons is selling a reissue of 1969’s Ssssh, the group’s traditional album that dropped simply after their iconic efficiency on the Woodstock Competition. “I like that file,” Lyons admits. “After we obtained into the studio, all people jammed collectively, and that’s the way it got here collectively.

“That’s the best way the band was,” he explains. “We have been actually a jam band earlier than there have been jam bands. And we have been that lengthy earlier than individuals began calling them ‘jam bands.’”

The character of Ten Years After largely centered round Lyons’ chemistry with Alvin Lee, whom he’d identified because the two have been teenagers. “I’d labored with him since he was 15 and I used to be 16, so we have been just about like brothers,” Lyons says of his relationship with Lee.

Including, “And like brothers do, we frequently fought. [laughs] However he was a very good magpie. I may feed him concepts, , I appreciated that. However then once more, Alvin wished to do all of it himself, and that’s positive. We had an vitality collectively that labored.”

At 82, Lyon has the vitality of a participant half his age, although he realizes that the majority of his profession is behind him. Nonetheless, there are plans for additional Ten Years After reissues, and perhaps he’ll do a little bit of taking part in, too.

As for a way he appears to be like again on all of it, Lyons sighs, saying, “We have been dwelling the dream. It was one thing I’d at all times wished to do, and we managed to do it. It took years… however we obtained there.”

The place was Ten Years After at by the point the Ssssh file took place?

Two excursions of America, and that was the third file, the place we have been always touring. It got here out shortly after Woodstock, although we’d recorded it in June 1969, earlier than we went on our tour of the States in July. So, issues have been rolling!

How impactful was Woodstock on Ten Years After?

When it occurred, it was simply one other competition. We have been six weeks into an American tour, we’d finished the Newport Jazz Competition, the Atlanta Pop Competition, and the Texas Blues Competition. And others I can’t even keep in mind, so so far as we knew, and we weren’t watching tv or listening to the radio, it was simply one other competition till we really obtained there and realized how many individuals have been there. [laughs]

So, we did the competition, left, completed the tour, and went dwelling. It wasn’t till we got here again on the subsequent tour, which was fairly quickly afterwards, that individuals began asking us about it, what it was like, how we felt about it being in Life Journal, and all of these issues. After which, in fact, 12 months later, when the film got here out, that’s when the influence began to occur.

Up till that point, we have been taking part in all the main venues, headlining our personal exhibits to hundreds of individuals, however there have been clearly extra individuals once we have been taking part in a competition or one thing. So, we’d been doing a gradual climb, after which when the Woodstock film got here out, it simply took one big leap.

Circling again to the Ssssh file, what was the inventive course of like?

Nicely, we have been mainly a jam band. [laughs] We’d come off tour, and the supervisor stated, “We’ve booked some studio time. Have you ever obtained any materials?” And Alvin at all times most well-liked… nicely, what can I say? He most well-liked to be the songwriter for no matter motive. [laughs] And so, he’d be making an attempt to write down the songs coming into the studio as a result of, , the poor man didn’t have time.

He was so busy. He’d simply come off a 17-week tour, and 10 days off, and also you’re off on one other one. It was robust occasions, so loads of the time we’d go in with some lyrics and a tough thought of what to do. And I wrote, however it was very tough… I used to be in a position to get a number of riffs into the inventive course of. [laughs]

What songs took place first?

You already know, I don’t assume it was even that… I feel it was, “Oh my God, we’ve obtained to go in and make a file, we’d higher get some songs.” [laughs] It wasn’t like we had these songs mendacity round for months and months. It was like, “Okay, now I’ve gotta write.” However I imply, I watched a documentary on [Bruce] Springsteen, the place he had 40 songs when he went in to do that specific file.

His guys have been going, “That’s nice. I actually like that one. No, no, I don’t need that…” However we didn’t have that. We have been making an attempt to get the batch of songs collectively, like “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,” for instance. I’d heard a model of that, and I began messing round with the riff, the place I twisted the riff round and made it into a distinct riff.

I began taking part in that once we have been on tour within the dressing room, and we have been jamming on it, in order that was one tune that got here collectively. And “I Woke Up This Morning” is a blues tune… that’s how we labored. Alvin did little dwelling demos; I did dwelling demos; he would play them, after which we’d work out an association for the tune. Then we’d jam it till we felt it was good, then put it down. Two weeks within the studio was usually probably the most time we spent.

What was the important thing to your bass tone again then?

It was the same old factor: two 100-watt Marshall amps and 4×12 cabs. And I’d preserve altering out the resistors to get a little bit bit extra treble, backside finish, and center. However my affect was actually from upright bass gamers; I wished my bass to sound like Invoice Black, Elvis’s bass participant. So, it was a rockabilly fashion of bass taking part in, after which I began listening to Duke Ellington and Depend Basie, and have become an enormous fan of Ray Brown and jazz bass taking part in.

As Alvin was the principal songwriter, did he have enter into your bass licks?

Um, no, probably not. I fed him the bass licks! All people did what they wished, , that’s the way it labored. We performed what we wished to play, or what match across the music. And in these days, the bass was barely completely different than what it’s now, the place it’s subservient to the drums. However in the event you hearken to previous rock and jazz information, again then, the drummer accompanied the bass, so the bass was not behind the drums within the combine. So, you may say that I had a fairly free hand.

Have been you proud of Ssssh the primary time you listened to it again?

It’s the primary album that we did in an eight-track studio, as the primary three, one in all which was dwell, we did in impartial studios that we have been in for Decca. They have been very classical-based studios, and the routine was very completely different. However for Ssssh, we have been paying for it ourselves, so we began later and recorded all night time. The expertise was very completely different.

The file has more room and extra room, which was a dramatic change for it. And so, on the time, I believed, “That is the very best one which we’ve finished…” That’s what I believed, and through the years, I have to say, although I don’t hearken to something I’ve labored on, this file has at all times caught in my thoughts. I’ve at all times thought, “This is among the finest that we made,” and we’ve made numerous information, however I at all times thought that one was good.

How do you look again on the influence of Ten Years After on the psych-meets-blues-rock scene?

All people is completely different, however I didn’t really feel intimidated by anyone. However I didn’t actually take into consideration that… what you do at a younger age at that stage is you file, go on stage, and play your coronary heart out. You hope that you just get a response from the viewers, however so far as making information, heck,—– I don’t know.

Do I feel we have been pretty much as good as The Beatles? No! They wrote higher songs. They spent extra time within the studio. However that’s completely different as a result of, as I say, we have been a boogie rock ‘n’ roll band, , we have been a psychedelic-jam band. [laughs] It’s tough… you don’t take into consideration issues like that, ? You don’t learn opinions, you simply go on the market. You’re shifting day by day.

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