SHY - COMMUNICATE!

SHY are back with a vengeance! Someone told me, I should not write like this is a melodic rock website, so SHY are - in case you don't know - an excellent AOR Band from England who started way back in 1983 and put out two albums and then in 1987 released the masterpiece "Excess All Areas" which is considered to be an all time classic album within the Melodic Rock community. It has been the album I have been listening to the most - besides Def Leppard's "Pyromania" - and I know all songs perfect. So in 2000 when the rumours of SHY reuniting with the old line-up were starting to spread after years of confusion about the name SHY and some weird releases I was very interested. And their new record "Unfinished Business" is the rightful successor of the masterpiece from 15 years ago. Luckily I was happy to catch the first show of that new line-up at Z-Rock Festival and arranged an interview with Tony Mills right there before the show.



Congratulations for the Comeback on record and Live! Were you a bit nervous after such a long time and was this your first show with SHY since 1991?

Yes, I was a bit nervous, primarily because obviously yes it was my first show with SHY since 1990 actually and I was a bit apprehensive as it were. I haven't really seen much of the band apart from recording this last album. For a first show at the other side of Germany and about 500 people it was pretty good results and the band were very happy with the audience's response. I think it's gonna be a fairly slow process getting back into it. We're playing live again this week in England at the Z-Rock show up in Wigan. Every week is a bit of a learning curve again, because obviously 1990 was a long time ago! And it's learning all over again, but I am optimistic. We all get on very well. In Ludwigshafen at the show we produced a live album and I have no doubt thay the may even take some tracks from the show this week as well. So there will be a live album out in spring 2003 which can leave us to play for the rest of the year before we consider to be going back into the studio at the end of next year.

Did you have a chance to check out the other bands at the festival?

In Ludwigshafen I saw most of the bands to be honest, I sort of popped in and out all day. CONTAGIOUS are playing at the show North of England. Yeah I thought SILENT RAGE was ok, I have never seen them before. I came back with all the CDs but I haven't listened to them yet, ha,ha. But I got on with the guys of SILENT RAGE really well. That was nice to meet new musicians from the other side of the world.

It was a great idea to re-arrange "Talk To Me" and "Telephone" into acoustic versions, how did you come to this idea and can you say something to this? Especially "Talk To Me" was changed and you were singing it quite different but excellent.

Actually there is a full acoustic live show - not just some songs that we put on the end at that show, we go actually out and play a completely full unplugged show. We play that quite a bit in the UK. We all sort of got involved in that, I've done some acoustic recordings with Steve Harris before for the interim release "Breakaway". I think that it will play quite an important part in all the shows we'll do now. You can make it sound quite different there, you may be surprised if you can addept to it. Yeah, Steve wrote the the acoustic arrangement for "Talk To Me" and I hadn't heard it at all and it just works straight away but yeah like you say, it works pretty well.



Your set included 5 Songs from the new one, 6 songs from "Excess All Areas" and only one song, "Reflections", from your first album. Great selection, but how did you chose them?

I just got to reach up and get one off the shelf here. Er … some songs have always played well, other songs have never been live-songs at all like "Under Fire" - that never worked live ever. I think we did it once, "Just Love Me" as well - that's always been a studio track. As for "Brave The Storm" thats a very different cup of tea really. To be honest we knew that "Excess ..." was quite a strong album in Germany, and you really have to pick the material from the two albums that are probably more important than anything else. And we have played a lot of material from "Brave ..." live, we were gonna do "Caught In The Act", but we hadn't got arranged it yet, but we will in the future. A lot of people say 'Why haven't you played "The Hunter"?' and I don't know! Ha, ha - yeah we could play tracks of all the other records, but for a one hour show ... you know. When we come back to Germany in spring there will be no doubt more like "Keep The Fire Burning" has always been a great song live.

I mean "Let The Hammer Fall" does have some good songs like "It's over" or "All your love tonight", some other tracks are weak in my opinion - its just the whole package looks not professional on those releases with 10+ year old fotos, no credits et all etc. Can you explain that because originally you were on Ebony, did the band sell the rights to Neat Records or what?

Well, actually all these songs were recorded when we were signed to RCA. That were songs that weren't really considered for album releases! And we never really played any of them live. That were all pretty much demos for album projects, they all got shelved and never used. To be honest with you that never been rehearsed either.

The funny thing is all these three releases (also "Regeneration" and "Live in Europe") were released in the same year - 1999! Were they released with permission from you guys?

Well, you know I wasn't in the band at that time. Yeah, the band signed a contract with Neat Records to release previously unreleased material that RCA wasn't interested in, it was an opportunity to get a product out. I don't know whether the band was short for money or whatever they were doing at the time. I was obviously doing something completely different with SIAM. I knew about it, but I wasn't really involved in it.

As far as I understand the guys went to Neat in 1993 to release "Welcome To The Madhouse" (The record with another singer, good album but not as good as it would be with Tony singing - cool album cover by the way: a foto of Downing Street No. 10 with "Welcome To The Madhouse" sprayed over it - gl). Your opinion about that record?

Yes, 1993, right, well, I give you my opinion about it, he, he. I sang all the demos on that album just before I left the band, apart from "Paracide" which was the only track written afterwards. I think the week after I left the band 'cos I wasn't that keen on the material. They wanted to carry on and do that, I didn't really wanna know at all. That was probably one of the main reasons that I left, so I lost touch for a while.

What I find interesting in your booklet Steve Harris took two pages to explain the long delay of "Unfinished Business", very honest. So did you plan to release your Solo Record when you knew there would't be a SHY release in 2001?

No. It was not originally planned like that at all although the record company did offer me a solo contract pretty much the same time as I was getting back together with SHY. There was so many delays with the SHY album that it was a perfect opportunity to bridge the gap to telease that product, not as a promotional thing for SHY, just profile thing really. Just to keep my name and the bands name up and about, it was a spur of the moment thing really.

So Tony - OLD question - for your third record you had some co-writers, your record company flew you to Los Angeles to meet some people like Michael Bolton, Don Dokken, Duane Hitchings, Michael Jay etc. Great songs came out of this but how does that work, I can not imagine this - does someone say, "OK: Sit down, now we write a song together!" - Can you explain?

The record company put us into a hotel and gave us a phone book, and said "Here are the phone numbers of the local record companies, and the acts that were on all those labels. Get in touch with the A&R people and go rent and meet these people, see if you get on. See if you can start a couple of relationships and can work together." We spent about three months over there, hooking up with different people. And they were very willing to work with other people, it's a lot easier than in the UK! They're very accessible. As soon as you get in touch ... literally I was going to John Parker's house, who used to write for CHICAGO. His wife would open the door with the kids screaming in the background. He got a studio at the top of the house and he said "Yeah man, come up - do some writing and lets see what happens". They're all very much like that, very similar, no attitude. Probably because we got a large record deal at the time, they were into co-writing with us. So just as much recognition that we had with them, they got - so it was a two way thing. We got critizised for it, but we only saw our own writing style for quite a long time, so the record company wanted us to see what it was like on the other side of the world in the rock industry, not be so insular. Very constructive thing to do.

(The question about the terrible sound from the 1989 Album "Misspent Youth" I did not want to ask him again as I talked about that with him in person - and the producer of that record - Roy Thomas Baker - must have been a really arrogant and selfish guy, as he just went home and left the band alone in the studio - when someone in the band dared to critisize his decisions after he fired some sound engineers. So basically you can blame this guy, at least I do, for the bad sound and a career downhill for the band!)
Ok, now a question you surely would not expect: Andy Faulkner, bassist from your other band SIAM (and producer of "Unfinished Business" by the way) said in an interview in 1996: Tony and I, we want to record a Dance album! The Interviewer said: What??? He explained: "Danceable in the original form based around a Dance Bass with a referring Drum-Rhythm." So whatever happened to that old idea?

I am not sure I understand, can you ask the question again. (I repeat it - the old interview from 1996 printed in Heavy oder was!? 5-96) No, no, no - he must have been on drugs then, he takes a lot of drugs I tell you, ha ha ha. He smokes a great big spliff all the time, a dance album?!? I'm not into that sort of music at all, so I don't know what he was on about there, he is always a bit crazy.

But SIAM are still going? In your interview with www.getreadytorock.com not long ago you mentioned the band is still in existence so what's going on there?

To be honest with you I'm in the throws of the decision of what to do with the band because as a writing medium the band are still together, but they're not actually contracted to record an album with anybody at all at the moment. So whether or not I carry on with SIAM or not I don't know. It wasn't a commercial success as such - it was more of an underground band. I enjoyed doing it very much. I mean Ian, the guitarist is joining SHY now, he was the guitarist I was working with in SIAM and of course Andy, the bass player.

To finish this chapter: "Language Of Menace" was recorded in 1991 - but only released in 1994!? In the meantime you guys split! And them you regrouped, did "Prayer" in 1996 and then split again!?

Well, I wrote the "Language Of Menace" at home in my studio and to be honest with you, it was a personal project that I was just enjoying doing. And I didn't had any intention at all of signing it to a record company and getting it released. It's just the way it happened, Now and Then Records came along and insisted on releasing it and signing it as a band. Yeah, three years later, that's right! And oddly enough we went out and supported CROWN OF THORNS around the UK, which went really well. We signed direct with Zero Corporation in Japan for the 2nd album "Prayer" and it filtered its way back to Europe thru different licenses.

(I think at this time I have to offer the readers the fantastic webpage www.tonymills.net where you can find lots of great stories and basically all things that happenend in Tony's musical life, I have very rarely seen a more honest and open-minded self descriptional page, he really tells it all and for me it looks he speaks the truth, and he is not ashamed to admit some things other people would not tell!)
I haven't seen an artist who writes about himself in such a detailed way on his homepage, congratulation to that also, excellent page!

When I was in school I remember the teacher saying "I know what you're gonna do when you grow up, you gonna be a reporter, because you write exactly as you see things! Exactly what you think, and you put it straight down on paper." And I've always done that. And when somebody says "How about a website", I thought 'Well - it's gonna take me a long time to write that.' Actually it took me about 2 or 3 days, all I have done is write it down exactly as I remember it, and just get it all out. Of course I can't remember everything. It's just the truth - and that's a lot easier than to make up a story!

(I want everyone of the readers go there and read the part how MANOWAR kicked them off the tour because the audience in Italy liked them too much!!! - gl)
Whose brilliant idea was it to print the lyrics on the booklet in such a way they can not be read?!

Ha, ha, ha, ha, that's a guy called Paul Talbot, he arranged the artwork on the album and he's also a guitarist, he has been in several English bands. Before Ian joined SHY and we were playing acoustic shows in the UK, Paul actually stood in as a spare guitarist for us. Some of his art ideas are a bit strange but we give him a free reign and let him do what he wanted to do. I think its one of those things, the deeper you look at it the more you can see.

Yeah, but you have to listen to the song at the same time!

Ha, yeah - that's the general idea!

I wanted to do some questions about the lyrics, but I had some problems.

Ha, ha, ha, oh no you don't wanna get into questions about lyrics! Ha, ha!

Why not ? - "Communicate" isn't that about we should better communicate with each other in general?

Er ... no. Here again, I am talking truthfully again: It's a story when I was in Cincinnati, we were in a hotel bar. And the barman, his girlfriend was working in a hotel 5 or 6 miles down the road. He was trying to get hold of her on the telephone. A tornado hit the other hotel and ripped the roof of it! And he couldn't never get a hold of his girlfriend, that's what the song is about.

I said so many positive things about the new record and performance. Now something you maybe wonder about: After the gig I saw you smoke, does that not hurt your voice, especially because you sing in high areas?

Not really, it never really affected me. I smoked all my professional career and it never made any difference to me. Yeah I know a lot of people say "Ah you smoke, does it not hurt your voice?" No, in fact it calmes me down, when you got warmed up before the show, I like a good smoke.

So if you know anybody you love, who has ever heard the 2 words "Rock" and "Melody" - buy him/her a copy of "Unfinished Business" for X-Mas and support SHY!

Fotos: DJ Bonne (http://www.rock-avenue.de)

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