IT’S TAKEN A LONG TIME FOR BRITISH LION TO GET TO THIS POINT. WHAT’S IT LIKE TO FINALLY BE OUT TOURING WHEN IT ONCE MUST HAVE SEEMED LIKE IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN…
RICHARD: “It’s fantastic. In a way, I appreciate it more now I’m older. The original British Lion was 25 years ago, Steve was our manager and the only other original member was Grahame. You know, we were very young and I was kind of naïve, I didn’t know anything about the music business or really what I wanted. I guess in that way, that’s why the band didn’t go where we wanted it to go. It was timing as well; our timing was wrong. That’s 25 years ago, I’ve had to survive as a musician and that wasn’t easy – there were some really tough years in that time. But I stayed friends with Steve, and it wasn’t long after the original British Lion imploded that he said, ‘Look, I want to work with you and write with you.’ I knew he was a man of his word. He toured the world with Iron Maiden, but each year we’d get together and I’d show him some of my songs, he’d come in and write and every time he’d say, ‘We will do it…’ and that gave me hope, really. It wasn’t easy with all the years in between writing songs. The back catalogue of songs we’ve got is incredible.”
DURING THOSE HARD YEARS DID YOU EVER THINK OF PACKING IT IN?
RICHARD: “Yes, many times. I mean I was married, I’ve got family and kids. I had about five or six brilliant years where I joined a function band in London and I used to do some amazing parties, got paid great money. I could support my family or whatever. But the band leader lost his wife and then the band just stopped. All of a sudden, as a musician, you’ve got nothing. No income coming in. It was tough. I remember coming back to Suffolk and my wife’s father was in the offshore business and he offered me a job to go and work on the oil rigs. And you can’t play music anymore; you either do a proper job or… I just couldn’t do it, you know? Music was all I knew, it was my passion.”
IT SOUNDS LIKE LIFE MADE YOU MAKE A CHOICE…
RICHARD: “Yeah. There were good years and bad years. I had good years where I survived, I remember for six months I had a bedsit in London when I was busking. I used to busk on the streets and make enough money. I remember busking for a week, and I found my own patch, and within a few days I had people coming up to me saying, ‘Why are you on the street? Come and play in our bar!’ and within a week I was playing in bars and then in hotels. It’s been a rollercoaster. I’m lucky as hell. We’re all lucky to do this.”
SO THE FEELING THAT IT’S FINALLY COME GOOD?
RICHARD: “It’s quite emotional, really. It’s been a tough struggle. Nobody knows the true story. Right from 25 years ago, I believed in the songs then, and some of those very early songs are on that debut album.”
IS IT HARD TO SING THOSE SONGS ONSTAGE, GIVEN HOW PERSONAL THEY ARE?
RICHARD: “To be honest, it’s kind of what’s helped me through life and given me the confidence in life. You can’t always express yourself when you’re in a conversation, meeting people in a working scenario or socialising; you can’t tell your story. When I get to sing songs, that’s something that gets me over the nerves. I try and get into the song and the words, and the words mean so much. I try not to read too much, but I’ve read comments on Facebook and whatever, and occasionally you hear a comment about a lyric or a line and you think, ‘Wow, they’ve really connected to that line, they get it.’ By the time we do the second album, there’s some great songs there. The words are real and honest. It’s the only way I can write, I can’t write fantasy, I don’t read fantasy. I only read real life things, they’re the only things that really inspire me.”
AS WELL AS WRITING NEW SONGS, YOU ALSO MENTIONED PLANS TO RELEASE A BRITISH LION LIVE ALBUM?
STEVE: “Well, we’ve been talking about a live album for a while. We recorded the last couple of tours, and obviously we’ll record stuff from this tour and get as much stuff as we can to get a good cross-section of stuff and then we’ll definitely put a live album out, because I think it’s important.”