Interview (from Record Collector Nr. 174, Feb. 1994) Five years ago, back in RC 116 to be precise, we devoted a feature to a one-man industry who wrote, played, produced and distributed his records entirely single-handed. Nick Saloman, a former record dealer and long time amateur guitar hero, assumed the name of Bevis Frond for a succession of albums that won rave reviews from cult magazines like 'Bucketfull Of Brains". Within a year of the article, the Frond was high in our annual readers' poll, one of Saloman's self-financed albums was selling for more than £60, and his cult was expanding daily. Remarkably, despite fanatical support from the 'underground' press, none of the major labels made the slightest move towards investigating the Bevis Frond phenomenon. Obviously Saloman's brand of psych/Hendrix-inspired guitar mayhem and expressive songwriting failed to match the executives' view of what was right for British rock in 1989. Now it's 1994, and Nick Saloman is still a one-man-industry -except on the road, where the Bevis Frond has become a tight four-man unit, set for a major European tour over the next couple of months, plus one-off British dates. A liaison with indie label Reckless has come and gone, but the Frond ceativity has survived, aired most recently on the "It Just Is" double-LP and the glorious effervescence of the pseudonymous Fred Bison Five's "Beatroots" LP. To find out what's happened to the Bevis Frond over the last five years, we cornered the irrepressible Nick Saloman, and quizzed him about his Reckless deal, his prolific musical output, and how he reacted to that unexpected cult success. Has some of your original cult appeal died over the years? I'm sure the lustre has vanished as far as some people are concerned. The Bevis Frond started out very big in a very small sort of way. Then it broadened out and lost some of the cult impact. The response wasn't quite as enthusiastic after that, but it's never actually been unenthusiastic, probably because the records have been reviewed by people who were enthusiastic enough to ask for copies in the first place. I think there is still a quite a cult to it, because you still can't get my records anywhere! I've only just done my first radio session, but I've never played on telly, or had any mainstream releases at all. The only company apart from my own Woronzow who've put the stuff out have been Reckless, who were probably less upfront about it then I was! It's still underground, though in some parts of Europe I'm more successful, particular in Germany. But here, you wouldn't know who I was unless you've dug around and investigated a bit. Were you waiting for the people who were originally impressed to drop you and move on to somebody else? I'm always ready to be dropped. I'm always surprised when each new LP sells. I always think, "Well, they must have sussed me now, they know I'm an old git, it's finished". Then I release another LP and it gets good reviews and sales and I think, "Oh blimey, I've got away with it again!". Was there a point when your ego was starting to take control, where you started to believe that you really were a star-in-waiting? No. I tried for years to get my stuff heard, through the usual channels of doing demo tapes and so on, and was told roundly by everyone and their dog that I was no good, that it was a waste of time. When it started to change, and people began going "Gosh, this is quite good, actually", I always thought, how long have I got? I had 20 years of people rejecting everything I did. I always thought it was good, but I never expected anyone else to realise. Then when a few people did, I never got carried away with it. I was a supreme egomaniac to start with! I had to be, to keep going for all those years. After all the fanzine press you've had, have the major labels ever shown any interest in signing you? It's always been interest of a sort that never pans into anything. I've had phone calls from CBS in America, and Warners there, but nothing from the U.K. at all. You get a call from Hiram J. Mindcruncher in New York, who says, "Hey man, I love your record, we're gonna do great things with it. I gotta speak to my bass and I'll phone you back in a week." And you never hear anything again. That's happened quite a few times. A few friends have said I should contact Hiram and remind him, but I think that if he was interested, he'd contact me. Having said that, to be totally honest, I'm not that concerned. I've never been looking for a major label. I never lose sight of the fact that I'm principally doing this to enjoy myself. What happened to the deal with Reckless? They were putting my stuff out in the States, and I was doing it on my own label in Europe. That was working well for both of us. And they also did the reissues of the early albums. I recorded "London Stone" on that basis; then they decided they weren't going to release it, without really telling me. I sat there waiting for them, but never heard a word. I wanted to get the album out in Europe, but they'd been insistent that it came out the same time in the States. I hassled a bit , didn't get any response, and then phoned Charles, the boss, who said that he didn't think it was up to my usual standard! Therefore he needed to play it a few other people to decide whether he should issue it. The upshot was that I took it, rightly or wrongly, that he was saying he didn't want to put it out. Whether I was hasty or not, I decided to go it alone. Afterwards, I heard that Charles had honestly meant that he wasn't sure, that he wasn't just telling me he didn't want to release it. But I've got no hang-up with Reckless. I was pissed off at the time, but I'm not now. The first album you did after we ran the last article was "Any Gas Faster". I did that for Reckless. They thought it would bring me out of the cult status into the mainstream, and that they were going to make a lot of money out of it. Having said that, of course, they wouldn't pay for the sleeve to be done the way I wanted it! I think they were a bit disappointed with the sales, because they'd hoped it would be monstrously big. The album certainly wasn't as 'psychedelic' as the ones I'd done before - there were no two-hour guitar solos on it. It was more song orientated, and I never sat down and thought, "Oh, I should write a 15-minute track now". Some people did feel it wasn't psychedelic enough: they'd barely got their joints lit by the time each track was finished! Then Reckless put out "The Auntie Winnie Album", which was a load of stuff I'd accumulated from other projects. It actually came out much better than I thought it would. I was afraid it would sound like a hotchpotch of discarded tracks, but in album format it actually sounded quite good. "New River Head" was your next album, which proved to be the most successful record you've done. That was a double album, so I has more scope for variety -there is a 15-minute track on there, but there was still room for plenty of songs. I was very proud of that LP; I really felt it captured everything I was about. If I'd done that at the time of "Any Gas Faster", it might have helped my 'career', but that's the way it goes. Around that time, I'd started doing gigs, which was quite interesting. Reckless put out the "Earsong" EP, which had two tracks from "Any Gas Faster" on one side and four live tracks from Copenhagen on the other. It was manic, plenty of feedback, wired - and people liked it. But I keep trying to get away from all that, from being labeled as, you know, the great free festival survivor who goes around town in his greatcoat and flairs, 'cause I really don't like that kind of stuff very much. There is a part of me that's a sensitive singer-songwriter, which I daresay confounds the old psychos... So anyway, "New River Head" ended up 108 minutes long. Reckless, being their usual thrifty selves, decided they didn't want a double-CD, so they did a single CD with six tracks missing. What happened then was they want to put out the missing tracks on a CD, which I wasn't too happy about, because I don't like CD's that only lasted 30 minutes. So they did this thing called "A Gathering Of Fronds", which included the leftovers alongside other things that had only been available on compilations and giveaway singles. It's a bit insubstantial, really. That was one of Reckless' ideas that I didn't agree with. Having sworn blind you'd never go out on the road, you did eventually start playing gigs as The Bevis Frond, didn't you? And I discovered it was fun! The original live band was me, Rod Goodway on guitar/ vocals, Adrian Shaw on bass, and Martin Crowley on drums. Then around '91/'92 the line-up changed. Twink was going to come in on drums, with me, Adrian and Bari Watts on guitar. Then about a week before we went to Europe, we decided it wouldn't work, so we brought in Rick Gunter from Outskirts Of Infinity on drums. That's been the line-up since then. We get on very well, which is of prime importance. There's lots of guitar wailing and fretboard wanking. But I do have an acoustic segment of the show as well. And I've just done an acoustic tour of Europe. I couldn't make that pay in Britain without a record company or an agency backing me up. In Germany, they pay good wages. Part of the deal is, they put you in hotels and feed you. Why haven't you used the band on the new album? Firstly, the thing I enjoy most is writing songs, and recording. Even though I'm not the world's greatest drummer, I love playing all the instruments. Secondly, if I had to split the money four ways, I couldn't make a living out of it. And the whole point of doing this is so I don't have to go out to work! If you're playing all the instruments, it must cut down on the possibility of improvising your music, of surprising yourself. No, there is a way of jamming by yourself. You decide what key you're in, then start with a bass track and a drum track. They're the canvas you do your painting on. Then you drop the bass out of the mix, and play the guitar to the drum track, so you don't know what the bass is doing. You just know you're in rhythm and it's in the right key. Then you drop what you've done out and put the keyboards on; and drop that out, and add another guitar. When you finish, that's the first time you hear what it all sounds like. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's awful - which is very much like jamming. But admittedly you can't respond to your own improvised licks that way. If you want to hear jamming, the Magic Muscle LP on Woronzow, "Gulp", was just that, recorded 20 years to the day after Magic Muscle's first gig. We recorded for three hours, mixed it, and edited it down. As usual with jamming, a lot of it was unlistenable, interminable riffing, boring for anyone else to listen to. How did you come to record an LP with Twink? I met Twink at Adrian Shaw's house and I was a bit in awe, because I'd been a big Pretty Things fan: I loved "S.F. Sorrow" and the Columbia singles, and I liked his solo LP, "Think Pink" So we did this LP together and it was great fun. It was called "Magic Eye", it came out on Woronzow, sold relatively well, and then there was a minor falling-out over the money. That's one of the reasons I'm wary of doing Woronzow projects with other people: they're always disappointed by how little money they make. What's the story behind the mysterious Fred Bison Five LP on Woronzow? When Reckless were so unenthusiastic about "London Stone", I started worrying about it myself, for the first time ever. I listen to it over and over, thinking, "What's wrong with it?" I came to the conclusion that it didn't have enough jokes on it. It was a bit too miserable. So I thought, "I know what, I'll have fun". I'd always wanted to do a beat group EP, and I decided to do one as a freebie for the next LP, so that everyone would know I was still quite wacky. But over one weekend of recording, it turned into an album. I played it to some friends, and they said I shouldn't give it away, I should sell it! Then last summer, I went out on the European festival circuit, and decided to call it the 'Summer Holiday' tour. I did an EP to go with it, playing four tracks from the Cliff Richard film - "Summer Holiday", "Round & Round", "Dancing Shoes" and "Big News". It took half a day to record, and the same again to mix. And then I finished the latest LP, "It Just Is" - a double album, single CD, which lasts 77 minutes. The only conscious effort I made at the start was to use some different instruments, like harpsichord, Hammond organ and harmonium. But the longest track is only seven minutes, so some people are going to be disappointed! How do you justify the self-indulgence of making and issuing a record entirely by yourself? I started out doing it purely for fun, never thinking anyone else would be interested, and I've tried to keep that spirit alive. But the people who buy the records are incredibly loyal, and I've always tried to keep faith with that, by answering all the letters I receive and so on. I've always had a definition of 'art', or whatever you want to call it: that the people who are doing it should have the ability, even if they're not necessarily showing it off, that other people haven't got. I always think it's important that the people who perpetrate 'art' do have a certain amount of 'talent'. It doesn't have to be conventional, merely something that not everybody can do. Otherwise it's worthless. Back to the Articles Page.