The Divine Nine: Q / A with Cowboys International
Cowboys International's Original Sin may have passed you by in 1979, but now you have a chance to make amends, thanks to its deluxe re-releasing (as Revisited). Frontman and primary songwriter Ken Lockie talks about what made the timing right. To read the review of the album, jump over to http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/1198...
ADAM: Thanks for doing our interview, Ken. How's life?
KEN: It's a wonderful thing.
ADAM: What made the timing right to revisit The Original Sin?
KEN: For a very long time I was not interested in music at all. More recently, I'd gotten in touch with a few friends from the past and decided to get involved in music again. So I started out, independently, moving at glacial pace. Almost everything about my circumstances seemed to be right for 'revisited'; I'm planning to release a new album later this year or early next on Pnuma, so I didn't want to wait any longer.
ADAM: Looking back after all this time, is there any regret - that maybe the band ended before its time or didn't get its proper due?
KEN: No regrets, the past is history. In hindsight, I wish we'd have persevered a bit longer. Stuck together and kept on going. However, we were young and in a volatile business without much support or guidance. In some ways coming to NYC with PIL [Public Image, Ltd.] was taking the easy way out when I was facing some hard decisions in London.
ADAM: One of the most impressive aspects of Revisited, to me, is the band's elastic command of styles of the time - all done in a way that still sounds relevant here in 2003. Bands often reach this sort of versatility because they'll have a guitarist, say, who's into Phil Spector while the drummer is into Metallica. How much of the Cowboys International sound was due to this sort of pot luck collaboration?
KEN: Half the songs on Original Sin didn't exist when we entered the studio. We somehow formed a creative atmosphere of learning and adventure and went after the best sounds we could capture. We came to the studio from touring and played our set of 12 or more songs. In doing so I realized that many of these tracks were weak and began writing new material using piano, guitar and a prophet 5 loaned from PIL. The voicings used to initiate these tracks were so varied that when filled out in production, had the effect of mixing conventional/unconventional song arrangements and styles. Combined with the stronger live material, 'pointy shoes' 'hands' 'wish' etc, the new material 'thrash' 'here comes a Saturday' 'original sin' the album took shape. Also, the production pairing of Dennis MacKay and engineer Laurence Diana was a good fit for the band. The pacing and variety of tracks was something we thought worked to our advantage.
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