HURRICANE #1: Rocking The World Once More

Interview by Ken Morton

Prepare to be swept away as Hurricane #1 unveils their highly anticipated album Backstage Waiting to Go On - now available via Golden Robot Records. With origins beginning back in 1997 featuring Andy Bell of the iconic shoegaze band Ride, Hurricane #1 would disband at the dawn of the new millennium after two critically acclaimed albums. Vocalist Alex Lowe would find himself pursuing a successful solo career as well fronting other bands such as Garage Flowers and Gun Cemetary Club. In 2014, Alex Lowe would reform Hurricane #1 with a new lineup, presenting their next whirlwind chapter of indie rock and roll! Highwire Daze recently caught up with Alex Lowe to discuss the grand return of Hurricane #1, their amazing Backstage Waiting To Go On endeavor, and the one time this Oxford, UK band played on the infamous Sunset Strip. Read on...

Let’s talk about the new album Backstage Waiting To Go On. Is there any overall story behind that title? Yeah, there’s an old saying, you go on tour and stuff and you’re always waiting about so long backstage before you do go on, like, for an hour show you’re backstage for hours and hours, preparing and sitting about and waiting for that bell to ring so you can get on stage. That’s basically where the title came from, so it’s just backstage waiting to go on. We’re always backstage all the time and you’re always counting the hours until you got on that stage just for like a onehour show. So that’s where the title really came from.

Select two songs from the album, and what was the inspiration?

I wanted to get back to just good old rock and roll, just like from the 60s and 70s type era. I’m really into guitar music, I just love the basics of guitar music like two guitars, bass, drums, and even one guitar, bass, drums. I just wanted to make an album that was raw and there wasn’t too much production behind it. There wasn’t too much thought behind it. Because the album actually took only four days to write, and it only took about five days to record. We did it live, basically. I just wanted to get back to that old-day style of guitars putting them down quickly and leaving a few mistakes in there. There are a couple of little things in there we could have changed, but we just say, “You know what, it sounds great. It’s raw, it’s cool, and it’s rock, and it’s a really good rock and roll album.” That was the inspiration behind the whole thing. We were listening to a lot of The Kinks, The Moody Blues, The Beatles, The Stones, and the usual culprits. But yeah, we just wanted to make one of these really good rock and roll albums, no fuss, and nothing hard about the album. Nothing too complicated. So, we just went in there and I wrote the album in my kitchen with my acoustic guitar in about four days and then we just went in the week after and we just put the songs down and that’s really what the inspiration was.

How did you wind up on Golden Robot Records?

It was a couple of years ago now, but I think I got an email through something someone said to them that we were about to do a new album or something. It was Mark the CEO of the company, he actually emailed me and he says, “Look, I want to discuss doing a contract with you, I heard that you were doing an album. Could you fill me in on the details? Blah, blah, blah.”

So, I got on the phone with him. We spoke for about a good couple of hours, and that’s how it really happened. He heard it through the grapevine that Hurricane #1, we’re doing a new album. We didn’t actually know when we were going to do it, but this spurred us on a little bit because we’re the label behind us and we thought, “Okay, well, let’s do this.” So that’s how it really happened.

Andy Bell from Ride was one of the previous members and founders of Hurricane #1. Do you still keep in touch with Andy Bell and what was it like working with him?

Yeah, I still keep in touch. We still text and we email and stuff like that. We’re always friends. We’ve always been friends. Andy was good to work with actually. He knew what he wanted. He liked what he knew and he knew what he liked. He’s one of these kind of guys. He was phenomenal, you could hear him on Ride stuff, but when he really got to his forefront in Hurricane, you couldn’t believe how good a guitar player the guy really was. He was absolutely out of this world, basically. Yeah, it was fun working with Andy. Sometimes a strange kind of character, a little bit eccentric for me because I’m pretty gregarious and open and forward and I love a good laugh, but Andy was a little bit more reserved but you could see that he was a little bit of a genius behind him, I think. But with his guitar style and the way he played and stuff like that. But no, Andy’s the phenomenal guy. He’s one of these good guys. We’ll probably work together again one day. We’ll definitely work together again. Well, I spoke about it a couple of times. Yeah, he was easy to work with. The great thing about it was he let me do my own thing in the band. I mean, he wrote the songs for the first two albums. I think I got a couple of them on the second. But he just says, “Listen, just sing the way you think you should sing it and if it comes out great, then that’s all that matters.” So, he was good that way. He wasn’t a control freak or anything like that. He just let me get on with it and I did it, and that was it.

Looking back on those first two, Hurricane #1 albums from the 90s, what do you think of them now in retrospect, and do you still play any of those songs? Yeah, we play them. Yeah, we play all the singles. We do all the hits that we had like Step Into My World, Chain Reaction, Just Another Illusion, and Only The Strongest Will Survive. So we do a lot of them, so that kind of stuff, looking back now on them I think they still stand up today because the first album was just a down the middle of the road Rock and Roll album as well. I think that was my favorite of the two albums. It was just a fantastic album. Yeah, and that’s why I think it stands up today because I think guitar music never really goes away, it’s always there. You always hand back to the old days of the 60s and the 70s. We are always listening to guitar music and stuff like that, so I think it stands up. For the second album, I wasn’t too keen on the remix thing going on. As I said, I’m more of a guitar guy. The remix thing kind of caught me off guard a little bit because I didn’t realize that they were going to put so many remixes on the album because they didn’t even really put the original song, Only The Strongest on there, they put the remix of that. So, I was a bit disappointed in that and I think my drummer was as well because he didn’t play on the remix, so he was a bit disappointed that his drums weren’t on there as well.

But looking back now, I think the first album I think stands up to today because as I said, it’s a down middle of the road, Rock and Roll album, guitar, bass, drums and that’s what we love. Yeah, I think it’s still a great album. I still play it now and again, but yeah, it was just a great time. The 90s was a fantastic phenomenal time to be making the music. It was like our 60s, if you look at it, Britpop was our 60s. I think that’s what we love so much because we had so many great bands. The UK scene was absolute, it was the best scene since the 60s. In the 60s were The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, and all that. Then we had Oasis, Primal Scream, Hurricane #1, and Teenage Fanclub. So, many great bands out there. Yeah, it was cool.

You did a few shows here in the States, and one of them was at The Roxy on the Sunset Strip. What was that experience playing on the Sunset Strip and what were your overall impressions of Hollywood and West Hollywood?

Oh, it was just phenomenal. Just absolutely fantastic. It was just a big buzz, it was just so cool and it was just because you’ve got to remember, I’m from a little town in Scotland and nothing ever happens in that town. Six months before we flew to Japan, I was picking raspberries for a living. I had no money. I had never seen any of the world. I couldn’t afford to go anywhere and then when I got that phone call from Creation that Andy Bell was putting a band together and they wants me to be the singer, then everything in my life totally changed. It still has changed from today. When you’re from a small town and you’re doing nothing, and then suddenly you’re just forced into the limelight and playing Japan to 10,000 people, and then you go to Hollywood after that, it’s like, “Wow.” It’s just your whole world just opens up. I met so many cool people there. I met Debbie Harry, and I met so many other people, just like bands, Weezer was there. Then I met Lemmy from Motörhead. I ended up staying with him. So, me and Lemmy became good friends. You got to realize six months before this, I was nobody. I was nothing. I was a struggling musician trying to make a living. When we touched down in LA my eyes were just like rabbits in the headlights. It was just absolutely phenomenal and it was just one of these experiences. The thing is, we’re going back there this year. We’re coming back to LA in November! https://www.facebook.com/hurricaneno12021

Do you have any messages for Hurricane #1 fans here in the States who are reading this now? Yeah, come and see us. As soon as we get there, please, come and see us. You’re going to love the new stuff. New stuff live is really good. You’ll enjoy it. Come and say hello backstage, let’s get together and I’ll ask the fans some questions, what they like and they can ask me questions and it’s just going to be a pleasure and a privilege to get back to LA because it’s basically, I think it’s one of my favorite places in the world to play in Los Angeles, it’s just phenomenal. Hopefully, we’ve got fans still out there. I’m sure there are a few that still are kicking it around and thinking, “Wow, whatever happened to Hurricane?” Well, here we are, new album and yeah, we’re coming over and we’re going to play a few shows.