Ever since Son of a Cat split in 1992 I had felt a burning desire to re-do some of the old songs which still meant a lot to me. They were my babies and from time to time I would get out the old tapes and imagine what they would sound like if things had been done better.
The love of my life (who will never accept or admit that she is the love of my life and will laugh out loud when she reads this) got a computer and this seemed to offer the key to unlock those idle dreams. I invested in the lowest level software imaginable. I wasn't even able to record my own audio parts. But on the plus side: no waiting for someone to learn a part, no waiting for someone to turn-up, no dealing with someone's rubbish personality,
no players and chancers to waste my time! Here now was the opportunity to do everything myself the way I wanted it to be done.
It was like being Prince in 1985!
I enrolled on a course in Sampling and Sequencing and found I loved it.
After a hard 8 hours in the office I somehow had the energy to sit behind another desk at Sheffield University and fiddle about with the velocity and rhythm of midi drum patterns for another 3 hours.
This was much to the annoyance of serious and proper (but polite) Indonesian students who used the same room to study geometry or whatever it was.
I'm sure if they ever saw this site, it would warm their heart to realise they were,
in however small a way, part of the Red Threat story.
The sessions which directly led to Red Threat coming into existence began in Simon's ever dusty attic bedroom in 2001.
A time when it was becoming more and more obvious we were living in a coporate hell.
A time when adverts began to blare out of your TV set like a fog-horn, on either side of the 'main' presentation.
I had almost finished the sequencing and sampling course and I needed Simon's technology to finish off a project.
He had bought a computer with some music software a few months before and was umming and arring (as usual) about putting it into use.
I gave him the push he usually needs.
These sessions became an escape from the norm.
Still they were frustrating times. Why won't this lead stop crackling?
I'm sure I can hear a pop on that track.
Do we have to defrag it again? I've forgotten the part.
I can play this a lot more fluidly. I can't stop coughing.
Can you remember the pod settings? When was the last time you saved the song?
But compare this to those dark days in over-priced practise rooms,
with only a piece of card between you and another band doing a cover of 'Is this Love?' next door.
Compare this to hundreds of nights of wasting your time and not getting anywhere.
Since then we have moved on further, investing in new technology (which still persists in p**sing me off).
Simon is obsessed with his nobs and flashing buttons.
I feel like William Shatner in Airplane II with all these flashing lights,
what good do they do? Just switch them all off! Praise be for Simon, he is quite happy to spend two hours getting rid of an indistinguishable crackle whilst I'm stood at the microphone waiting to sing a part.
He also makes me sing through one of his old socks (see the gallery), which isn't very nice.
At the moment he is breaking me by insisting on re-recording everything in 24 bit rather than 16 bit.
Maybe a bat or Mutt Lange could hear the difference, I can't.
And so we come full circle as we draw near the end of the story.
We are back in a pub in Stocksbridge and it is 2001.
Myself and Simon had just started working on stuff and this had become the subject of abuse and ridicule during a typical pub conversation with my oh so witty friends:
-'So what are you called then?'
-'Nothing.'
-Is it just you two?'
-'Yeh.'
-'So there's two of you, and you're both ginger t*ssers..'
Keats and Yates were on my side but they won because Wilde was on theirs:
-'.why don't you call yourselves the Ginger Brothers!'
Darren chuckled, Brian giggled, Richard guffawed, Ian tried to turn attention back to him, Steve grinned inanely and Jamie stroked his chin.
'Bog blast all of you' thought Mr Willis and began to rack his brains to think of a name which would turn the tables on his oppressors.
Why Red Threat you ask? Firstly, I like the play on words and cold war connotations as I've always been a bit of a Russiaphile (if that's a word), I like Dosteovsky and the Russian version of Tatu, what more can I say? I'm also sometimes called 'Red Rob' when I start mouthing off against the world and its worship of money though friends tell me I'm a conspiracy theorist.
Secondly and remaining in that conspiracy theorist vein, I believe gingerism is everywhere in our society: Remember the power suppliers advert ('There are some things in life you can't choose.')? Explain the inexplicable coldness I get from some people; their disbelief when I show I am more clever, more skilfull or more daring than someone else. Explain Scholsey being put on the left wing for England (I don't blame you for turning your back on them mate). Even the Guardian wrote a line along the lines of 'ring tones are the red-haired unwanted step-child of music'. As Cookie himself expressed on the 2am bus home after a night out in Rebels, 'Ginger hair is 1 pence a pint.' He was only expressing what is in the subconscious of every non-ginger everywhere.
But remember, this is Northern Europe and we are the chosen ones. The ginger gene goes back to the Neandethals. We were here first, don't forget that. Red Threat is a strike for the fight back of the gingers!
Enough of this! Let us finish the song:
I had a dance
It started a Romance
Here we are
At the Disco Bar
And so the last lines of Disco Bar take us to the end of this story, right up to 2004.
Simon has just finished studying some sort of internet programming course as he is so paranoid about being left behind (not sure by who exactly) which indirectly led to the website you're now reading.
You'll often find him down the Leadmill, stroking his chin while checking out the latest indie rock chancers before awarding his ultimate accolade of thanking the soundman if he thought they sounded ok.
He'll spend many an evening making splendidly vast meals (which I am treated to after a hard Sunday afternoon and evening in the studio),
falling asleep on his sofa with a bottle of wine and fine-tuning the sound on his stereo.
I spend a lot of time in the gym, on a bike in the peak district or in the cinema. I have also extended my dietary extremism to wheat-free.
Maybe one day the six-pack will show.
Going back from now to those early days, Simon Warby has been my mate for about 17 years.
We have fought, we have bullied, we have shown both cruelty and kindness.
We have tried and failed to understand what makes the other tick.
I have camped in Simon's back garden and shared Rice Krispies for breakfast on his lawn.
We have had a fight on a coach in Italy.
I persuaded Hampshire not to kick him in when Simon, in a panic, poured beer all over him.
I got him to play football again after at least a 10 year absence (though that led to him doing his knee in and it still isn't right - sorry about that).
We can recite in unison every classic line from Spinal Tap.
No-one makes me laugh more and I embrace his back-handed compliments.
This is very much my own story and I hope Simon will tell his side of things elsewhere.
Musically, I think Simon has the potential to do so much more then the bits he's contributed to what are basically my songs.
What power in those feelings! If only he could find his own way of expressing them!
And so to paraphrase that great Norwegian football commentator:
Harry Knowles! Bruno Brookes! Michael Flatley! Kevin Pressman! Samwise Gamgee! Simon Warby, are you listening Simon Warby? You boy could make one hell of a songwriter!
