The Heads | Interview | 20th Anniversary Reissue Of ‘Under Sided’
Bristol’s heavy psych group The Heads recently released a deluxe, remastered, 20 year anniversary edition of their third album, the under-rated gem in their canon, ‘Under Sided’.
They’ve decided to release a 4LP/plus box set of that double album, with a double album of demos, their third Peel Session, and other such unreleased gems. The remastered album is being reissued as a 4LP + 2CD boxset. The extra 2LP features their Peel session from 2000, as well as a couple of compilation tracks (‘For Mad Men Only’ / ‘Born To Go’), and some unreleased demo versions, as well as 2 exclusive to this set CDS that feature nearly 150 minutes of Live recordings (mastered, but RAW!) from their gigs on the Thekla in Bristol and rehearsal room tapes in 2001 and 2002.
It’s really nice to have you. We are excited about the deluxe, remastered 20 year anniversary edition of your third album, ‘Under Sided’. How involved were you with the remastering process and how do you like the sound of it? What will be the main difference between the original version and the remastered one sound-wise?
Simon Price: The remastering was done by Shawn Joseph, the same guy who did the original and has done all our stuff. I guess technology has moved on a bit so there’s extra tweaking to do. Sounds fatter/fuller with plenty of bite to me. The guitars crackle, drums snap, bass rumbles; all as it should be. The best bits for me are the unreleased ones as that benefits most from a scrub and polish. I trawled through loads of old tapes/discs and found/chose the more interesting pieces, passed these on and Shawn did his thing. I helped choose edits, track orders et cetera as I have a bit more time than the others.
Hugo Morgan: I really haven’t had a proper chance to listen to it, very busy rehearsing and getting everything sorted for the upcoming gigs, not only for the Heads but for another band I’m in Karen.
Shawn Joseph has done our mastering since ‘Relaxing With…,’ does an amazing job, so trust him implicitly. Think in the years since the original release technology has come on leaps and bounds to make a big difference in sound quality.
Compared to your previous two releases, ‘Under Sided’ is even heavier and way noisier. Was this something you planned or did it just spontaneously happen while recording it?
Simon Price: We recorded it in a small studio, a bit like our debut LP, with lots of mics and fat 2 inch tape as opposed to ‘Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere’ which was more of a DIY effort. We had bigger amps by then, a bit more control/experience/confidence so I guess that fed into wanting a full on album, sonically speaking. We felt that it could have been heavier/noisier. The guy engineering us winced at our sound and tried to tame it a bit, probably wise, guess you always want more, all the way to 11. The sound is just us trying to wring everything out, we tried not to hold back, why would you? Saturate that tape.
Hugo Morgan: We were well rehearsed and Paul was using some detuning to get a heavier guitar sound. Recorded at the Whitehouse by Martin Nichols who had previously done hardcore bands such as Ripcord and Heresy. We thought a change from the lo-fi approach of ‘Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere’ would be a good move.
The extra 2LP features your Peel session from 2000. Tell us about that session.
Simon Price: It was a lot of fun/terrifying as ever at the BBC. Pressure to make the most of the opportunity but at least we were not new to it now. Top professional staff recorded us live at Maida Vale studios on a Sunday so it was quite chilled. Can’t remember too much except doing the vocal intro for ‘Neu! ’75’ with Si Healey who had come along, we were quite stoned by then needless to say. Anyway we played well, pretty tight, and nailed the Neu track. It was always a great buzz to record a Peel session, then hearing your tracks on the radio, plus it gave us some of our best recordings too. We only met Peel once, at a party thing, he was cool.
Hugo Morgan: Being over 20 years ago I can’t remember too much. Although it was in a smaller room than the first two Peel sessions we had done.
I would also love to discuss compilation tracks ‘For Mad Men Only’ and ‘Born To Go’. How did you first hear about May Blitz?
Simon Price: A mate I lived with in the early 1990’s, Nick Benson, was well into his obscure long hair 70’s rock. You couldn’t get everything, anywhere back then obviously. He played me the May Blitz track, it made quite an impression on all of us, bit like ‘The Kettle’ by Colosseum or Stray’s ‘All In Your Mind’, propulsive heavy rock, something Hawkwind did so well too. When I shared with Wayne and Hugo there would be a lot of that going on the stereo.
Hugo Morgan: ‘Mad Men Only’ was for ‘Sucking the 70’s’ compilation. Though it’d be good to do a not so well known British act, people who heard it might go and track down the original version.
Got to check out lots of music when working in a record shop for 16 years. May Blitz we’re one of those bands. ‘Born To Go’ came out on Rocket Records 10” with Lillydamwhite doing a great Pink Fairies cover on the flip side, inspired by the Greasy Trucker LP.
“Communal love for loud, psychedelic, noise and grooves”
Okay, let me take this opportunity to talk about some of the most important records that shaped what The Heads become. Tell us what are those records and if we time travel way back, what kind of records, fanzines et cetera would we find in your teenage room?
Simon Price: We were all into different stuff but all had a communal love for loud, psychedelic, noise and grooves. Bands like Can, Hawkwind, the Stooges, the 13th Floor Elevators as well as more current ones, back in those days, such as Monster Magnet, Mudhoney, Spacemen, Loop, Sonic Youth. As for teenage shit, I read the NME religiously back in the 80’s, I liked the Beatles, Sex Pistols, then got into Bowie, “New Romantics”, anthemic guitar gear, Echo & the Bunnymen / early U2 and always the Stones, then noise/grunge/stoner gear, all the time though hearing heavy sike-rock and wishing I could play the guitar, not a lot has changed.
Hugo Morgan: In my teens I was a bit of a Grebo so Bomb Party, Gaye Bykers, Early PWEI [Pop Will Eat Itself], Sex Pistols, the Damned that kind of stuff. Main fanzine was Bristol based Skate Muties from the 5th Dimension. Listened to Peel all the time, so a little later got into early grunge, Mudhoney, Pussy Galore, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Pixies also Galaxie 500, King Missile and Shimmy Disc Records. Also the UK indie scene, bands that had great singles before their first album, Inspiral Carpets, Cud, New Fads, Happy Mondays, Stone Roses.
The deluxe version also includes your gigs on the Thekla in Bristol and rehearsal room tapes in 2001 and 2002. Tell us more about it.
Simon Price: The Thekla suited us, a floating metal tub that you could be really loud in, nowhere to escape the sound. It’s changed now, neutered. Fat Paul would put gigs on there, we would play as it was good for light shows too as it had a balcony to project from. I guess the usual crew would turn up local vibes. I used to try to record every single rehearsal on tape or disc, lots of warm up jams were one offs so it was that or nothing, hence the recordings from the CDs on the box set. It’s just us playing for ourselves, nobody else there, a chance to unwind and get lost in seas of noise, really, my reason for being in the band.
Hugo Morgan: We just got into the habit of recording everything in case we did a “definitive” version of one of our looser tracks. I’m sure one of the gigs was a Kenneth Anger tribute night, the other was with Om and Julian Cope/Brain Donor. Thekla was a great venue, both put in by Fat Paul. It’s gone a bit corporate now. FP runs the Exchange in Bristol now.
Did working on the reissue bring a lot of pleasant memories?
Simon Price: It made me think that you only get one life, no encore and it goes pretty fast sometimes.
Hugo Morgan: I don’t really get involved with the reissues, apart from writing my piece in the booklet that was it. Brought back a few memories doing that whether pleasant or not. It was good to record and mix an album in a week or so.
The band was originally formed in 1990 by Hugo Morgan, Simon Price and Dave Spencer from the remnants of Quinton and The Spasmodics. Can you discuss what was the scene back then and what do you recall from playing with Quinton and The Spasmodics?
Simon Price: Ha, I helped to form The Spasmodics, Dave was a mate who played lead guitar. I really enjoyed it until I got lobbed out for going on holiday and some managerial bollocks, can’t believe they even had a manager, no bitterness then. They were kind of sixties garage trying to surf the Indie wave, best thing really was being forced to start again with Dave as he came along too. There were a few indie bands around Bristol then, some even got signed to majors (Santa Cruz, Strangelove), guess that wasn’t to be our path. Got introduced to Hugo, (he would pop into Replay where I was working) then eventually to Wayne and we were good to go, except Dave didn’t enjoy gigs. Couple of guitarists later Fat Paul suggested Paul from another local band, Starge Parade. He fitted and we were off, nowhere fast.
Hugo Morgan: Quinton was very indie, good fun, didn’t really get anywhere. I’m sure Steve Yabsley has got boxes of the album in his garage. Now working with Tom Adams the drummer in Karen along with Davy Woodward of Brilliant Corners and Experimental Pop Band fame. Quinton mainly played local gigs, never got to London. Our only album was self financed on the Moonflowers Pop God label. It was done in a few days at P.I.J. With John Parrish producing it for £50. Think Bristol has a good DIY scene. Whatever genre of music, people get on doing the music they live. A lot of the people I met back in 1989/1990 when I was in Quinton are still very good friends.
Spasmodics released ‘Hookers For Jesus’, please share some words about it.
Simon Price: It wound me up at the time, just cos they had a release. Our paths didn’t really cross after that though Simon Flynn’s ok.
What led to the formation of The Heads?
Simon Price: Boredom? It’s fun, playing really loud guitar and as mentioned above, I was at a loose end. Dave and I would mess about, more tea and smoking than playing but eventually got with Hugo and then Wayne. We used to play in the garage at the bottom of the garden, more teas, cans and spliffs. No work ethic but we enjoyed it, playing till we dropped.
Hugo Morgan: Simon had left the Spasmodics, he worked in Replay Records, where I shopped and ended up working too for 16 years, asked me to start a band with him and Dave who had left the band as well. Nice to do something heavier than Quinton who was about to split up anyway.
“We didn’t fit in with what was going on in Bristol or the UK but that never bothered us”
You were active for quite some time before your debut was released. It must have been difficult to get the records out with the kind of music you were playing back then?
Simon Price: We managed to release the ‘Quad’ 7″ thanks to the boss at Replay, Pete Wright, who fronted the cash (about 500) to press it, we recorded it with Fat Paul at PIJ for 50 quid I think? We had spent a couple of years by then rehearsing in garages, dank cellars and finally PIJ in King’s Square, Bristol. Luckily the single sold enough to cover costs, so we did another and then Simon Keeler stepped in to help out. (Met him at a Bored! gig in Bristol, he’s stuck with us). We were not part of any scene back in 1994, too heavy for the prevailing indie crew and too nerdy for metallers. Stoner rock was there but very US west coast centric but luckily Frank Kozik/Man’s Ruin were into us too.
Hugo Morgan: Replay Records put the money up for the first two singles and Cargo distributed them. Getting radio play from John Peel certainly helped. We didn’t fit in with what was going on in Bristol or the UK but that never bothered us.
“The sound is just 4 blokes who felt like getting their frustrations/feelings out through loud music”
I still remember when I heard your debut album, ‘Relaxing With…’. It’s such an intense record with penetrating sound. What are some of the strongest memories from working on it?
Simon Price: We went to a residential studio in Wales run by Dave Anderson (ex Hawkwind). It was pretty rudimentary but suited us. Corin engineered/put up with us. We got trashed a fair bit but were quite pro in the recording process/room. The sound is just 4 blokes who felt like getting their frustrations/feelings out through loud music, along with lots of wah and fuzz naturally, ably recorded by Corin who had good ears.
Hugo Morgan: Going to Foel studios to record it was a great experience, in the middle of nowhere in a beautiful part of the country. To be able to concentrate on music for a week with no work or any other distractions was good.
What about ‘Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere’? What do you recall from it?
Simon Price: That LP was more a collection of recordings we had at the time, we were about done in and thought why not just put what we’ve got left out as an LP? It was a very lazy but necessary approach, cheap too which was important. That’s maybe why it is such a mindfuck of an album, skidding on the edge of a cliff vibes.
Hugo Morgan: ‘Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere’ was done cheaply in our rehearsal room, more of Cargo saying “we gave £1500 for equipment to record an album, where is it?” than proper planning and us collating tracks and jams that we had done in comparison to ‘Relaxing With…’ and ‘Undersided’.
Before you released your second album, you put out two fantastic EPs, ‘The Heads’ and ‘Gnu EP’.
Hugo Morgan: We did them to keep up momentum, what little we did have so it didn’t look like we had disappeared.
Would you like to share a sentence or two about ‘At Last’, ’33’, ‘Dead in the Water’, ‘Under the Stress of a Headlong Dive’? What are some memories when thinking about the tracks on those albums?
Simon Price: ‘At Last’ was us live at that time, it was a bit of a cheat album but we wanted a live album to reflect our sound, shades of the MC5’s debut but fell somewhat wide of that.
Paul put ’33’ together, I did ‘Dead in the Water’. I had a vast amount of jams on tape that I thought should be somehow collated, hence the album. Some were just 30 seconds of nonsense, others 10 minutes of nonsense, some were really good offcuts that would otherwise never have seen the light of day. It is a favorite of mine.
‘Under the Stress of a Headlong Dive’ was another DIY project but trying to record ourselves with mics all in the same room was hard, Wayne had to then somehow mix it. Our last effort at a “studio” album.
Hugo Morgan: ‘At Last’ was meant to be a bootleg of the gig you just saw at the Louisiana which we pre-recorded but ended up repressed and reissued. ‘Dead in the Water’, more outtakes. ‘Under the Stress of a Headlong Dive’ was a proper rehearsal and recorded by Gareth Turner down our room, released in Geoff Barrows’ Invada label and Jello Biafras’ Alternative Tentacles label in the States.
I really enjoy the Cardinal Fuzz release of ‘Reverberations’…
Simon Price: Yeah, if you like the vibes then yes. Dave Cambridge has been a big champion of ours for a long time. It’s good to get stuff out that is pretty good though raw, again the releases capture the essence which is crucial. Us being indulgent. Doing sleeves is also always fun.
Hugo Morgan: Dave Cambridge of Cardinal Fuzz used to travel down from Leeds and sit in on rehearsals. He’d take them and we’d also send him tapes of previous jams, these he eventually trawled through and ended up putting out his favourites.
Is there a plan for something new?
Simon Price: If only, busy lives et cetera.
Hugo Morgan: Who knows.
Would you like to talk about the effects and pedals?
Simon Price: Fuzz and wah essentials, phasers and delays for extra flavours, played through a 1980’s Fender for me and a big old Marshall stack for Paul. I play a Mustang with a big muff, they were cheap in the early 90’s and good enough for Steve Turner/Mudhoney so…..
Hugo Morgan: Got too many of them! Working out all I really need is a decent fuzz pedal, SansAmp di and a compressor for bass but it is nice to have more toys to play with.
You often release material in limited quantities usually two or three editions with altered artwork, how did you originally get this idea?
Simon Price: It was cost driven at first, a necessity. Press 500 seven inches as that was the lowest/cheapest we could get pressed with hand folded sleeves etc. We also had a mate, Sam Giles, who could do limited hand made CDs so we’d order 100 and then if they all went or we ran out of a pressing then repress but add something different to differentiate and make it more interesting, unfortunately some people/collectors end up having to spend more, sorry. I love doing artwork too so any extra little touches are good.
Hugo Morgan: Back when we had a permanent rehearsal room it was to help pay the rent. We’d do different editions when we had gigs coming up.
There’s something special in DIY ethics when it comes to music making. Is that still important for you these days?
Simon Price: Yes, we’ve always liked to have nobody telling us what/how to do it, sometimes this leads to errors but at least we are in control, no one to blame but ourselves. We’ve luckily got our own label, RoosterRock, which we release on, ably helped by Si Keeler as ever on the logistics end.
Hugo Morgan: DIY is still very important. That way you’re in control of everything. Our music isn’t for mass consumption so we don’t need big labels or would want big labels to push our music.
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
Simon Price: I play as Kandodo when I’ve got time. Hugo and Wayne have also helped/played on some LPs and we even managed a few live gigs. It’s still active but I’m having problems finishing tracks when there is no deadline except the one in my head, been working on an LP since 2018, sure it’ll happen soon.
Hugo Morgan: Playing bass in Loop and Karen. Was doing Goram but that sort of stopped, still doing a little bit with Ben Meek, the guitarist.
I really enjoy the latest Kandodo release…
Simon Price: Thanks, I’m just glad that anyone likes them as it means another might happen.
Hugo Morgan: Was ok wasn’t it.
What are some future plans?
Simon Price: To carry on playing, got a 12 string acoustic a while back so am at last learning how to play.
Hugo Morgan: You can never tell what’s round the corner or take anything for granted, look at the pandemic and Brexit, the latter ruining our chances of leaving this country.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
Simon Price: My all time favorite albums are Bowie and the Stones with splashes of Lee Perry, various ones depending on my mood. Can’t recommend new, I love older sounds but would recommend ‘Lazy Bones’ by WITCH or ‘Danger! 45,000 Volts’ by the Ngozi Family, I lived in Zambia in the 1970’s so have a soft spot for these. Wicked fuzz too.
Hugo Morgan: Saw Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, a Welsh harpist and Kora player recently, their album ‘Echo’ is great. I DJ monthly playing 7” singles, and have been enjoying the music Colemine Records are putting out, especially the Monophonics. It’s mainly reissue singles I buy and play out.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Simon Price: Just want to say a big thanks to anyone who’s given us the time over the years. To me, life needs music.
Hugo Morgan: Thank you Klemen for this interview, never thought all those years ago when we put out Quad 30 years later we’d still be going. In a big part it’s due to you and the many others who got our music, bought the records, wrote about us and took the time and effort to track us down and interview us (not that we always replied, sorry about that), and booked us to play. So thank you everyone who’s read this.
Klemen Breznikar
The Heads Facebook
The Heads Announce 20th Anniversary Reissue Of Their ‘Under Sided’ Album | Sharing ‘Dissonaut’ and ‘Neu 75’
Announcing The Heads’ ‘For Mad Men Only’ limited 7″
The Heads – ‘Reverberations Volume 2’ (2020)
