Alan: Are you happy with the way you now CD "Night Heat" has turned out?

John: I think there are certain things that in retrospect we could have done better, we spent a lot of time in the beginning getting used to studio work, Brian, our guitarist, hasn't worked in the studio for a while. Neil is in there everyday recording somebody else but when it comes down to recording your own stuff it's a little bit different. You tend to take more time with it, Neil's a perfectionist, he spends a lot of time trying to perfect certain things which in the end, not even your dog will hear certain thing on there and they're renowned for their hearing. But I'm quite happy with the way it's worked out, instrumentally it's very good. There are things when I look back now that I think, I wish we'd done this or that differently, but there again I'm a great believer in: that's how it was on the day and if there's a bum note on the guitar or I'm singing slightly flat, it doesn't matter, it's the overall effect that counts and I'm quite happy with the way it's turned out.

Alan: There's still quite a lot of cover versions on there including the "Lucifer's Friend" covers which I'll come back to in a minute, how do you see the band developing? Are you wanting to move towards being a band that more original numbers or do you still see yourself as a covers band?

John: No, the idea behind doing the covers is because we were always asked to do certain songs and-they get requested every time we play. I didn't want to do a complete album of just covers because that would have gone totally against the grain, but still, there are certain numbers that we do in the set that should be kept and they haven't been recorded before, especially by us, and our arrangements are slightly different so we did want to do them. All the songs from the CD are in our live set but as to whether we will eventually play all our own stuff, who can say. I don't think the way we're playing at the moment that we can go around to the venues we're doing and just play totally our own stuff. We have to intersperse it with covers because that's what people expect it. It's not the wrong thing to do because I believe that there are so many good songs, found recorded by other people that there's no reason on earth why we can't cover them in our own style, Even some of the big dance hits of the present day are just taken from previous songs, they're just sampled and that's it so in a way they're doing covers, all be it their own way interspersing it with rap or what ever you want to call it. So if we do covers we'll do it our way, we might change a few things round but that's the way it is. People expect it of Gunhill and I don't see that as a big problem. As for doing your own stuff, I don't know? If the songs are good then I don't see any reason why not and if you play the same places a lot, which we do regularly, then people get to hear these songs and after a period of time they no longer associate the songs as originals or covers, they see them as songs in their own right.

Alan: I actually think that 3 of the best songs on the album are the 3 originals "Don't stop believing", "Wall of silence" and "Far from home". How do you think these 3 stand up against the rest of the album?

John: I think they stand up well. "Don't stop believing" has been around for a while. "Wall of silence" was written by a guy who was abused by his step farther as a child, the idea behind the song is that at the time when he was having his problems there was nothing like "Child line" and the problems of child abuse was brought to the attention of the public, it wasn't so apparent as it is today, and writing the lyrics of the song was a way for him to release the thoughts that he'd had at that particular time, all be it latter in life. The other one is a song that Neil's had on tape for quite a while and I quite liked it, it's a bit different to everything else we'd been playing around with and in certain respects it's more blues orientated as opposed to middle of the road rock. It's quite Gary Moore-ish in places and I quite like that.

Alan: He's got quite a strong voice hasn't he?

John: Yes he has, he's got big lungs.

Alan: Who's idea was it to do the "Lucifer's Friend" tracks?

John: I suppose mine in a way, I wasn't too happy with the way "Any day now" turned out on "Sumo Grip", I just felt the rhythm wasn't a straight forward one, it was kind of hacked a bit and it didn't have any feeling to it. I always thought we could have made a lot more of it but there was so much we didn't get around to and for all the reasons under the sun I don't think "Lucifer's" will ever re do it and I wanted to put it right. I think it's worked out better and a lot of people who have the "Sumo Grip" album said they prefer our version which is good. I've always liked "Don't look back" and I just felt we could have made it a little more rocky and change it round slightly, so consequently Neil has a bass solo in there - which we spent about 4 hours trying to put down - and I think they've both turned out better than I originally thought they would, they're more rockier and they go down we)) in the live set which is good.

Alan: How did your German tour go?

John: It was good. We were on the road for 19 or 20 days and we went all over the old East German area, we did 2 or 3 in the Koln area, we did a couple of festivals down South and did a quick hop over the border in to Switzerland for a gig, and it rained the whole time we were on the road, there was not one day when it didn't rain. The open air gigs that we did towards the end of the tour, we were second on the bill at one of them just North of Munich to a band called "J.B.O.", a German band who are a very powerful band, they do short versions of other peoples songs but in German with their own lyrics, they're quite good if you understand them but it would never work anywhere else apart from Germany. It rained the whole time until about 10 minutes before we went on, then it stopped which was good. The last gig of the tour was in the old town of Eichstadtt, we played in the town square and it was the same thing again, raining all day and we thought people wouldn't be around for it but by the time we went on at 9.30pm it had stopped and the place was packed. There must have been around 4000 people there. It was a starry night and a really good gig.

Alan: I believe you did a few Heep numbers on the tour.

John: Yes, we did "Cheat n lie" because we did that last time, "Free me" we obviously did, but we did "Lady in black" and it went a storm everywhere we played it, everybody knows that song.

Alan: Where do you hope Gunhill will go now with this new CD? What do you hope it will achieve for you?

John: There's a few people interested, apparently there's some interest from Japan, there's some interest in Germany so I'm hoping to get it on the market with a licensing deal. We've sold quite a few on the road since it's been out, I just feet that there are certain songs on there that it would be nice to give them the light of day via a record company. There is a bit of interest there which is good so I'm going to try and develop that over the next few months. We're supposed to be going to Switzerland again in October for a week, when we come back we'll go through to the end of the year then we'll be looking to go back to Germany again.

Alan: Did you get any interest from the music press in Germany as opposed to coverage in local newspapers?

John: It's hard to say, I know that there we're people from larger newspapers at some of the gigs, especially round the Koln area, but as far as the music press is concerned I don't think so. But I don't see that as negative, at the end of the day it's the people who come and see the band and if they like what they see or hear and you come back again they will remember you. There was a lot of people who came to the Magdeburg gig this time who were there last year, they liked it and brought their friends so word of mouth plays it's part.

Alan: Is there any chance that Gunhill will be playing out side the South East of England where all you gigs have been concentrated so far?

John: Well, I need some contacts so if there is anybody out there who has genuine contacts who can put Gunhill on at venues outside London, then by all means let the fanclub know and they'll pass it on to me. But by all means yes, I would like to get a bit further North.

(c) 1997