"...the musical wall, it stays there like, and we are the wall, the WONDER-WALL!"
After such a statement, and said with the sheer intent and with that look in the eye it's hard not to believe him.
The room falls silent and we all nod and smile in agreement and there's a feeling of something special in the air, the chill from the open window forgotten about.
But let's back track to a few hours previous.
I was sitting in the back of the car, giving directions here and there, heading towards where I always assumed this mythical rehearsal room was located. We've all seen the pictures. The marching band bass drum in the corner.
I check the clock on the car's dashboard. I'm late. Hopefully, fashionably late.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I answer like lightning.
"Alright mate, are you on yer way, la?"
"about 10 minutes away, la..."
"sound, we're here anyway..."
Phone call over. It's really happening. We pull up near the rehearsal room. I ring again.
The voice on the end of the phone is that of Gary Murphy formerly of The Bandits, universally known as Gary Bandit. And I'm headed toward The La's rehearsal room.
I get out of the car and I'm given directions to wait by the phone box at the top of the road.
All cryptic and mythical, as if now I have to dial a secret number and the floor will part. All keeping in character.
I look down the street and spy them. 'Them' being Gary and the Chief La himself, Lee Mavers.
It wasn't the first time I'd met him, nor would it be the last. The first was in Amsterdam airport, but that's another story for another day.
I head to the car and jump in. Introductions are made, though they are unneccesary. They could have called me Mr Bojangles for all I cared.
Lee and Gary chat away about guitars, recording and a recent London gig they had played as we make turn after turn as we navigate around suburban Liverpool.
A part of me wishes I was a fly on the wall listening, not wanting to butt in out of turn as we head towards Gary's house, you don't want to miss a word.
Lee discussed the London gig at The Old Blue Last and the recording of it which had turned up online that the tour manager had passed it over to Lee.
He can only look to the sky through the car's windshield with his hands in the air to explain how big the sound was.
"it's close to what we're after, what we're about..."
I hadn't anticipated Lee being there, and I was most happy just to interview Gary. I had hoped Lee would maybe be there, but simply thought he'd just be playing guitar in the background and we'd exchange a word or two.
Luckily, he had a lot more than a few words to say.
We pull up at Gary's house. He points to a house across the road and a few doors down.
"d'yer know Pete Wylie? well see that nice over house there? well he lives in the shithole next door!"
We laugh hysterically as we wait for Lee who goes to his car parked outside Gary's and comes out with a video camera and an assortment of wires.
Gary says this used to be Liverpool's music "Stella Street" as The Dead 60's, Pete Wylie and Wayne from The Crescent had all lived on the road at some point.
We go into Gary's house and it takes the two of them to get the door open, it's like Laurel and Hardy trying to open it. We step in to the living room/kitchen and I spot the now battered Danelectro guitar Lee had been using on the past tours since 2005.
Along with that was two more acoustics propped up against the fire place and Gary's Hofner bass propped up against the window, I ask him about him using a different bass at the homecoming gig, Gary says that's Lee's bass he uses in the praccy room. I assume the one used by John Power in the 2005 gigs was also Lee's bass, though Lee says there something wrong with the E string.
I also spy a massive Vox amp on a shelf which had a Bandits bass drum skin sitting on top of it. In the other corner a wall of vinyl and a record player. This is proper.
Gary asked if I'd heard the radio session they did in France, they played "I Can't Sleep" "My Generation" and I assume probably "There She Goes".
But, it's the first I've heard of it.
"We came out to the Pink Panther song, some French bird going "it's the ooh la la's!""
We sit on the couch as Lee sets up the video camera to show me the London gig that they had recorded. We search for the wire to watch on the TV, but no luck so we gather round the small screen on the camera.
Lee surprises me with his techno knowledge, considering people said he doesn't own a CD player he knows his way round a camera. We settle on the couch, Lee in the middle of me and Gary.
Opening shot is the camera on the stage as "Son of a Gun" and audience cheers ring out and Lee's battered blue suede samba's come into shot. Gary chips in.
"Get on them! Lee's samba's wrote "There She Goes y'know lad!"
Even Lee had to crack a smile at that and hushes us down, this must be the 4 millionth time he's heard this song but he's still in love with it.
A few songs in and in between songs an audience member cries out "Lee you're a fucking legend!"
Gary chips in "you fuckin' handed that fella a fiver before the gig to shout that didn't yer?!"
We laugh a little as Lee's drum solo comes in. And then "Clean Prophet" starts and as it ends, Lee gets his revenge as he sings on the recording right before the big bang end "to me it's all a dream" dun! dun! dun! dun! and gives Gary a swift hand slap to the stomach. Which is equally as funny as it was surprising.
Both hilarious people to be around. A real good laugh, you'd love to know them even if they weren't who they were.
We watch through half way and Gary says he's starving and is off the Tesco and asks if we're sound waiting here. There was a moment of thinking and realisation.
"shit, he's leaving me here with Lee..."
Lee says its sound and tells Gary to quiet down as he's trying to watch the video.
I don't want to seem like I'm not interested or non-talkative, so I'd comment every now and then but Lee's lost in the music, occasionally breaking away and looking at me with a massive grin as if to say "we've got it!"
He explains the sound is now right, and that he was right all along, back before they were even signed (1986).
He likened the sound to that off a champagne glass being played, which was interesting to say the least.
Finally, Lee opens up to me a little once the music is off, he wasn't being non-talkative, he was just so immersed in the music, as if he'd miss something.
He gives me the run down all about the tuning and pitching. It seems some invisible wall of keeping it a secret had been knocked down and he was about to let me into his circle.
Lee's tuning techniques; brilliant, totally brilliant. At first it might be all too much, and then it begins to make sense. He engages you on another level; never breaking eye contact. The man's passion is truly next to none.
But as Lee said, it's all puzzle pieces that have been put together.
He explains, hand gestures and all, that when the Nazi's came into power they had changed everything to concert pitch. The Nazi Eagle, the American eagle. Red, white and blue, Viking colours. Vi-king. Now it's King of England, red white and blue. Passed down through the years. Fascinating stuff.
He also explained how music has effect on water patterns, which pops up again two days later funny enough with another ex-La Edgar Jones.
He explained the concert tuning is all in Hertz, and scribbles down what the tuning should really be:
E = 81hz
A = 108hz
D = 144hz
G = 192hz (in the sequence should be 189 but needs to be upped 3hz to fall into tune.)
B = 243hz
E = 324hz
All of a sudden it feels as if I'm the first one other than Gary and some other inner circle folk had heard about this.
"It's all there la, you've just got to look"
Lee scurries over to an acoustic guitar that was propped up against the fire place, makes his way over to me and breaks into album opener 'Son Of A Gun'.
The acoustics of the room make the song seem massive. This is how the the songs should be heard, unplugged, all acoustic. I grab the Hofner bass that was resting on the window ledge.
Seriously, this is how they should be heard, raw, unplugged.
After finishing, he's on a roll and heads into a loose version of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child.
Sadly, a pulled tendon in his finger on his fretting hand puts an end to his guitar playing for tonight as Gary cooks away.
Lee moves onto his other love, football, and proceeds to play keepy up's around Gary's flat, he's not all bad either, bar one miss kick that smacks against the cupboard and he receives at light hearted telling off for it.
After eating and giving me a quick lesson on the history of tuning and the world (seriously, the man could be a teacher and you'd learn enough to blow your mind, he certainly gave me a lot to think about)
"we aren't human's having spiritual experiences; we are spirits experiencing a human life..."
It struck me hard, this was easily as the most profound and memorable quote from Lee for the evening as he gets through his dinner.
It struck me hard, this was easily as the most profound and memorable quote from Lee for the evening as he gets through his dinner.
Pleasantries and all aside, Mavers makes his way around the table and kneels on the floor opposite me as he rolls himself a rizla made cigarette.
I hadn't anticipated him being willing in answering questions. Don't get me wrong, he's a top bloke, but why would he talk to me?
I had my questions ready, and they seemed pretty good, but they were for Gary.
How do you interview your all time hero unprepared while also being completely nervous?
well, this is how it went...
Do you think Liverpool as a city influences it's musicians in anyway?
Lee: I'm sure it will like, wherever you are, wherever you're from, I'm sure London had an influence on David Bowie.
Gary: It does, course it does. Even The Wirral has a sound these days. The Coral. Not quite Scouse. The La's couldn't come from London could they?!
Has the music scene changed in anyway since?
Lee: when we were around it was all disco shite. There was no one like us.
Gary: In the Bandwagon days there was that and Edgar's night and Le Bateau and The Lomax, but it went through Cream and all that before like, twenty years after The La's.
Lee: Cream though, the style that came about because of it, it's like musical graffitti it may as well be, people forget what was there before, people go over it and add to it, but the musical wall stays there, and we are the wall, the WONDERWALL!
Do you have a proudest moment as a musician?
Lee: Yeah, that London gig! [@ The Old Blue Last, 2011] I think the Liverpool gig was the worst one of the tour. I think Liverpool missed out.
Lee cites anything raw and with energy is his listening music and that he only took on The Kinks this year. He notes early Who, Stones, Ramones, (the late Captain) Beefheart as influences alongside the Fibonacci tuning techniques, prior to the Nazi's way of Concert Pitch.
I ask about the elusive 2nd record, which is as elusive as the man behind it. The La's debut is over 20 years old.
The question bombs. The room goes a little eeire for only a few seconds.
Lee: what about it?
I ask if it's around. In the sense of "is it being worked on at the moment?"
Lee: it's been around for decades.
There's a moment...
Gary: the thing is, it will happen.
Lee's not offended by the question and tells me he doesn't want to get the 2nd record wrong. And then proceeds to open up with a foundtain of words.
Lee: A band like us has to go by the back door. The people that run the business, do not want a band like us around, good vibrations, were we are the total opposite of their agenda and we're gonna fuck it up. The last thing they want is us, we're like a secret weapon, that's gonna blow it all open. I didn't believe it when we first got signed up, after a while it became clear to me, so in my head I stopped playing, if you like. I just started seeing the contract out and being uninterested as I could, looking as disinterested as I could, hoping people would go "fuck these off, these are crap" and make it quicker, but it never happened like, people are just tone deaf, they haven't got a fucking clue, because they're all brain-washed by what I'm on about. The La's were always different, even when we were signed and they tried to change us, so I just left it all.
I question them about their favourite venues in Liverpool. Since their heyday, too many venues have come and gone since their heyday.
Lee: I don't know what's in Liverpool any more...
Gary: I used to love the Zanzibar; when you could smoke in there. It was always the best gig in there when there was 400 people rammed in there, it was like how you'd imagine an old school gig to be.
Lee: the best gigs were before we were signed, places like The Flying Picket, the residency at the Pen & Wig, The Everyman.
I ask Lee about the iconic La's marching band bass drum used in the music video for 'There She Goes' and featured on a number of the band's single artwork. The drum whch his younger brother and former drummer, Neil, sold to a fan online.
Lee: that was Chris Sharrock's. I was dis-interested by then [1988] that guitar in the museum isn't even mine [The guitar belongs to former guitarist Paul Hemmings].
The talk of the museum leads into a story. Gary sits and pipes up.
"They've got the 'Liberty Ship' lyrics as well haven't they? that's where it was written there, by the docks."
Lee: 'Liberty Ship' was written by where y'know by the Albert Dock right by the end where the brick sticks out and there's a mast on it as well, well, I was peaking on White Lighting and in a Sea farer's jacket, the double breasted one's, and purely *there*. And then the bus went past with "All Mankind" on which I needed! and I was like "Thank You!" That was before Albert Dock was "all that" it was still undergoing.
Another question, that I hadn't seen an answer for before was, how did they first get into the guitar...
Lee: when I was 18 months old, the Beatles were just coming out and me mum bought a little plazzy guitar and I used to cry for it in the pram going "yeah, yeah, yeah!" and it was in the paper, a picture of me at 18 months with a Beatles haircut and the caption "even the kids are at it these days!" and she used to carry it around in her purse. That's when I got into the guitar. Then we'd see the Beatles films in the school holidays, then when I was like 11, it was "I wanna guitar for christmas! I wanna guitar!" I got it, played it, couldn't play it left handed, then it done me head like a mathamatical problem. Then when I was 14-15 and when you're grounded for sagging school off, and your old fella get's onto it, and keeps you in the house and all your mates walk past your window pointing going "haha!" and then the guitar came out the corner and it was all on one string like and I was looking at pictures of Johnny Ramone doing a bar chord, in the Melody Maker and the [New Music] express or whatever it was, I saw this on the back of a bus and I copied it, and started noticing patterns, then you'd pick up a D chord and a G chord, and play them all like, I was a bass player before that.
Gary: I had a guitar, then I went round to his [Lee's], met him playing footy and that so I asked him to teach me to play, and I'll fix your car...I never fixed the car! [laughs]
Lee: he's still learning!
Gary: I played the drums first though. I played drums in the school band with Russ Zuton [Russell Pritchard, Zutons bassist]on guitar. But the guitar sits in the corner like, you just can't figure it out, then you learn a chord or see the picture, other than that like. Lee: unless it's like intuition, then you won't get anywhere with anything, it's your natural intuition to put things together like, you've already got the sense, and then it comes out, that sense you've always had, it's math in the music.
Do you still write songs easily?
Lee: I can't remember the last time I wrote a song, 2001 was it? there's no fear out of not writing tunes, there's having too many and that and I don't want to get too fat, let's get some out, let's have a shit first! I've only got the one arse y'know!
I wonder to myself if either had been touted for any other bands.
Lee: No.
Gary: I have...
He has this look in his face as if *nobody* on earth knows about this. I joke with him...
"Cast"?
We laugh.
Gary: No, ha, I got asked to do The Libertines when Pete first went to jail. But he wasn't too happy about it so I ended up not doing it out of friendship like.
With that I'm out of questions, sadly. And I don't want to push it.
I tell them I'm done. They thank me and we return to random talk. The night grows late and Lee has prior engagements.
Lee grins and nods as he leaves, I put a hand out to shake his hand. He shakes his head and sticks out his fist and we touch fists and he winks. I can't help but laugh thinking back to it. He sticks one foot on the wall and both hands on the door handle and almost takes the door off the hinges to get out and nearly flies across the hallway.
"Take care, kid"
"And you..."
And with that, he grins once more, winks, nods and disappears into the night.
_________________________________________________________________
Interview conducted by Chris Parkes with Lee Mavers & Gary Murphy, firm handshake and thanks to both.
Words By:
Christopher Parkes.
Twitter:
@Istanbandit
@rocknrollparksy
@TheLasOfficial
