BBC Radio 2 in the Park - Rick Witter interview
The Lancashire Post spoke to Rick Witter, lead singer of the ban Shed Seven, ahead of their performance on the main stage at BBC Radio 2 in the Park in Preston
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00:00Hi, my name's Jack Marshall, I'm a digital reporter with Lancashire Post and the Blackpool
00:04Gazette newspapers. Recently I was at BBC Radio 2 in the park to cover the event and
00:10to catch up with a few of the musical artists who were taken to the stage to keep spirits
00:14high and entertain all the attendees who'd turned up and despite the weather had a really
00:19good time. One of the people who I managed to grab a quick moment with and a really brief
00:22chat with was Rick Whitter of the band Shed 7, so here's what he had to say.
00:28Yeah, pretend we're in the pub. Yeah, absolutely. I'll kick it off then, just excited to be
00:35at the festival, I mean it's a great setting, great, you know, apart from the weather, exciting.
00:39Yeah, amazing, yeah, we've been looking forward to this since we were invited to come and
00:43do it, you know, these things are always an incredible thing, you know, loads of people
00:49there, lots of different styles of music, so everyone can just come together for the
00:53day. I mean, as you've just said about the weather, it's not great, but people have to
00:57overcome these things, don't they? So, you know, we're kind of bringing, we've brought
01:02two things with us, a bit of rock and a bit of roll, so fingers crossed we can make both
01:08of those things happen in a short while. Definitely, definitely. How do you approach a festival
01:12gig compared to like an individual gig where you're just like there, your fans are coming
01:16to see you, do you treat this differently, as like a chance to showcase yourself to more
01:20different, wider audience? Yeah, well that's exactly what these things are really, I mean
01:23there'll be loads of people here who perhaps don't know who we are, so if we can win a
01:26few people round on the day, it's always a thrill if you're playing in front of a big
01:30crowd and at the back of the crowd you're just seeing people wandering past, and if
01:34they kind of stop to see what's happening and stay, then you know you're on to a winner.
01:39I mean, for us, we're literally playing for 30 minutes, so that's a big problem for us
01:44because we've got too many songs, and what do we not play? We've got a lot of songs that
01:49our hardcore fans need to hear when we play live, and we have to start wondering which
01:54ones of those we're going to have to get rid of for the day. So our own gigs are obviously
01:58different in that respect, because we can add more. I was going to ask you, obviously
02:02when you've got your own gig and you've got longer time on stage, you know just you guys,
02:06you can almost take the crowd on a bit of a journey, you can bring them up and bring
02:10them down. When you've got a shorter set, you just have to keep it going.
02:13For me, I'm one of these people in bands who just, if it's a festival scenario, then you've
02:20got to give them the hits, you've got to give them what they know, because that's what they're
02:23here for. They just want to hear songs that they know and sing along and have a great
02:26time. So as I say, six or seven songs we've got, so they'll all be ones people will know.
02:31What kind of vibe are you looking to create? Obviously you mentioned you're looking to
02:33bring the rock and roll, but if you had to pin down a vibe you're looking to bring today,
02:37what kind of thing are you looking for?
02:39We are more and more rock and roll the older we get, so it is going to be a little bit
02:43like that. It'll be loud, it'll be boisterous. I shall try my hardest to swing those hips
02:47without falling over.
02:49Absolutely. And you guys are obviously a northern band as well, northern crowds, they always
02:53vibe with you as well?
02:54Yeah, well we're very lucky, wherever we play we seem to get a really great crowd. And this
02:59is no disrespect to any part of the country, but we could play in London on a Saturday
03:03night and it's an amazing atmosphere, and we could be in Blackburn on a Monday, drizzly
03:08and within that room it's a brilliant atmosphere. We're very lucky, our fans are absolutely
03:14amazing.
03:15Just while you are here, Beauty Ready 2 in the park, is there anyone in particular that
03:19you are actually excited to watch as well?
03:22Yes, I love Paul Heaton, he's amazing. We actually supported the Beautiful South way
03:27back in the 90s and that was a great tour, so it'll be nice to hook up with Paul. And
03:34Manix, obviously we've grown up with the Manix as well through the 90s, so yeah, it's a good
03:38day for that.
03:39Just coming off that, you are celebrating your 30th anniversary, two things here, you
03:45came out with an album, Maritime Relief, has that number one sunk in now?
03:50Well to be fair we've been so busy it hasn't really yet, I mean it's an amazing thing.
03:55I got really poorly the week it went to number one, because we were going round loads of
03:59record stores doing signings and I was shaking about 3,000 people's hands, and it's still
04:04a little bit Covid-y, so I got really poorly after that. I think when we finish at Christmas
04:09and have a few months off next year, that's when it'll probably hit home, but we also
04:13have another new album coming out at the end of this month called Liquid Gold, and we're
04:18hoping that that does quite well in the charts too, so all of our attention is on that right
04:22now.
04:23Because you've reworked a lot of the songs, there's obviously discussions as to doing
04:30it just as a re-release of the original album, so is that changing?
04:34So we thought consciously, this is our 30th year, ex-record labels have already released
04:40Greatest Hits two or three times, so we were thinking, we were worried that another record
04:47label might re-release our Greatest Hits, put it in a different cover to make it sellable,
04:52and it's the same songs from the past. So we thought, how can we kind of get around
04:56that? So we thought we'd lovingly go and revisit some of our big songs, record them as if we'd
05:01just written them today, so to speak. We've surprised a lot of people, but it's like Shed
05:057 have gone widescreen, and we've gone technical. So I think we were conscious when we announced
05:12that we were going to do this that some of our fans who know and love our old songs so
05:16well would be a bit worried that we're changing them for no reason, but we put a lot of time
05:21and thought into the structure of the songs, and there might be slight subtle changes,
05:25but essentially it's still the same song. But I think just adding an orchestra makes
05:29a massive difference, it just takes songs to a whole new level.
05:32Then going into the tour at the end of the year, is there any possibility that those
05:36orchestra songs will come to life, or is it going to go straight to Greatest Hits?
05:39Well, we'll probably use a few backing tracks and cheat slightly, so we can't really afford
05:45to be taking an orchestra out on tour with us, because we'd make no money. But we'll
05:49probably use some of the sounds, so we'll get the same kind of feel.