First Contact – Ross
I had placed an ad in the Belfast Telegraph for a guitarist/singer. This was for our band, Crisis, who were in one having lost the mercurial and talented late Paul Rowan [sadly missed].
Eamonn replied to the ad and phoned me up. I dutifully wrote down his name and number. I had written all the contact details for everyone on one piece of paper which i was then going to work my way through.
It was the usual fun and games: guys who wanted to be in a metal band, C&W afficianados, yodellers etc. Anyway that was all fine however halfway through that process Mac, my Uncle and Aunts dog, who came up to the house on a Saturday night decided to rootle around on the contents of the telephone table [thats how long ago it was…] and as a consequence totalled the complete list of names.
Whilst most we had gone through and discarded Eamonn was yet to be interviewed/auditioned. This presented a logistical problem as I now didnt have Eamonns number and was relying on him to contact me. Which he did about a week later, somewhat piqued. I told him what had happened which he clearly and unsurprisingly didnt believe but we agreed to meet anyway and see what happened.
Things transpired pretty well as Eamonn has recalled in his piece. All that I can add to that is that whilst we came from different musical backgrounds things just worked from the first note played.
I was seriously impressed with his guitar playing and his ability to work with whatever I was doing. We played around with what became Cracking Up and within minutes had a viable song, and more importantly, a viable way of working together.
Over the 40 + years we have reinvented that method to suit our individual circumstances; sometimes face to face or increasingly remotely as he lives in Orkney and I spend time throughout Europe these days.
We made it work then and it still does now…
First Contact – Eamonn
We warily faced each other across the room.
Ross was younger by about 5 years, and in this situation it made a big difference.
I had the experience of being in similar situations before and hoped that knowledge would help me deal with whatever would happen.
I was from Nationalist Ardoyne, and Ross from Loyalist East Belfast.
We had ended up in this room because of an advertisement in the Belfast Telegraph.
Neither of us knew the capabilities of the other, and in this situation, in the divided maelstrom of conflict that was Belfast in 1980, anything could happen.
Ross went for his weapon first, triggering the Aria Pro 2……….
I had been gigging for over 6 years on the cover band circuit, racking up hundreds of gigs in that time, and I had become almost terminally bored with the clubs I spent those nights in, playing the increasingly insipid music of the day until I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Ross had come through church bands and ended up in Crisis, a little bit punk, a little bit glam, a big bit power pop. The band lost their front man/guitarist and was looking for a replacement, which I certainly wasn’t in any remote sense of the word.
For a start, we had hugely different styles and tastes, which our age difference at that time almost certainly accentuated.
Ross was an Elvis Costello fan, and I was a Steely Dan fan, which Ross pretty much despised.
The wide gap had a few bridges, such as Bowie, Talking Heads and Orchestral Manoeuvres, but it would take us a while to discover that.
I had huge admiration for some of the emerging post Punk bands, such as XTC and Magazine, and was much keener to head off in that direction, but I don’t really think either of us were thinking in terms of making original music. Most auditions involve the band and a few pre-agreed songs. This wasn’t most auditions, however, being just Ross and me and no real agenda or setlist.
I was immediately struck by Ross’s far more modern approach to bass- upfront and zingy, full of power and energy. From what I remember he worked away with a few riffs, whilst I tried to fill in around that, trying different things, and amazingly, the two instruments seemed to be able to co-exist and to start to create something.
And we did. From then on, even after I joined the band that became Saigon, we were the song-writing unit, and we’d spend many afternoons and evenings at each other’s houses kicking around ideas and writing our songs.
And in a way, we still do exactly the same, over 40 years later.
