BBC
Radio
Merseyside
Billy Butler interviews Robert Reynolds
and Paul Deakin
Broadcast Monday 22 July 2013
[In which Robert makes
references to the
Liverpool pronunciation.]
There we are, the Mavericks and Back In Your
Arms Again. It's my great pleasure
to welcome
Paul Deakin and Robert Reynolds of the
Mavericks as my guests today.
Welcome, boys.
PD:
You're
welcome.
RR:
You're
welcome.
Welcome
to
the studio, guys, welcome to Liverpool.
You're our kind of a
band.
PD:
Thank
you,
you're our kind of a...
RR:
Thank
you so much.
You're
great
musicians, great sense of humour.
RR:
Ah
lovely. Well, I do love your humour.
I come in and
I'm already in stitches, so I recommend that if
you're having a
little bit of the blues or the doldrums, come on
by.
PD:
You
almost ended up in stitches in Nottingham.
RR:
Yes
there was that, a little scuffle on the streets
with those
blokes. Hey, Nottingham kids, they're raised
rough.
He's
using
our language straight away - 'blokes'
RR:
[Assumes
Liverpool accent] Blokes, you know... So yeah, we
appreciate
you having us.
It's
a pleasure, we love your kind of music.
If you ever need a
record to jump start your
programme, throw one of the
Mavericks in. And if
there's ever a fight, throw one of the
Mavericks in.
PD:
Yes,
exactly.
RR:
There
is that. [laughter]
Now
you
guys are from Miami.
PD:
Yes,
that's where we started.
I
never... I suppose I should have associated,
with you being so close to
Cuba, with that kind of music that you do.
RR:
It
was definitely an influence on the group via, of
course, Raul. His parents were the
classic Cuban immigrants
of that... 1959-60, they came over
here fleeing Castro, of
course. They came to America, but they came
with a great
passion for American music, and Raul was
raised on truly the
perfect record collection - Hank Senior to Frank
Sinatra, Elvis
Presley... the best records ever.
Listen
to
everything, don't relegate anything.
Give an ear to
everything.
RR:
That's
right.
The
Interesting
thing about Raul is the way he writes with so
many
different people.
RR:
Yes he
does, indeed..
PD:
Absolutely
RR:
Well,
there are one of two things going on there -
either he sees an
incredible opportunity for creativity, or
it's a shortcut and it
cuts his day in half and he can get off to
whatever else he wants to do.
Write
an
even quicker one with three of them.
RR:
Yes,
that's it. That's it.
The
great
thing about the Mavericks albums,
there's always variety there. From
one number to the next, you go 'I like this
one', or 'That's different'. This has got
the Mavericks sound, like Back in Your Arms
Again... it's got the Blue Moon-type shuffle
ballads as well. You've got an amazing song
on there... I've just played All That Heaven
Will Allow, which is a Springsteen cover you
did... and I always like hearing the Mavericks'
cover versions. There again, you put your
own... I remember, was it three or four years
ago, it came up on our players, 'New Mavericks
record' and there was Here Comes My Baby.
RR:
The
old Tremeloes hit.
Like
a Merseybeat-era hit. But it
sounded like it could have been written for
the Mavericks.
RR:
Its
a funny thing, we have never veered too far away
from some of the
British Invasion stuff that we love, and if
you're a musical guy,
like I can tell you are, if you don't get it on
the surface and you dig
just a few layers deeper, you'll hear Beatle
harmonies, you'll hear
Beatle melodies or British Invasion-type melodies
or.production - so
even if it is a twanged-up Americana song,
we'll find a way to
sneak in a little bit of the old British Invasion.
I
thought Lies was an early Merseybeat...
RR:
Yeah,
very much. It sounds kind of knickerbockers
or something,
doesn't it?
But
yours is different, it had that Merseybeat
thud, thud, thud on the
drums.
RR:
Or
on the floor. Yeah, I love that.
thud, thud, thud.
And
then
by the same token you go and then do
something... Raul will do
Blue Moon and you thought 'Why is he doing
that?', and then when you
hear it, you think... of course he should...
PD:
Exactly...
With that voice, for him to be able to stretch out
and to
sing, with the ability he has, it would be a shame
not to do songs like
that.
I
noticed on your Facebook page, one of your
suggestions...
RR:
Facebooook?
Is that how you pronounce it? Boook.
Faceboook. [mocking
the Liverpool accent]
B-u-w-k...
book...
RR:
Buwk
you too.
You
ask
for suggestions what cover versions you'd
like to hear the
band do, which I thought was really interesting.
One of the ones
I saw and I'd thought I'd love to hear Raul do -
Angel Flying Too Close
to the Ground.
RR:
We
have done that in soundchecks.
Have
you? I'd love to hear you do that.
RR:
We
have never done it live before an audience, but we
have done that just
messing around on stage when we get our sound
check done... A lovely
song.
Do
it.
Willie's never done that in the studio, you
know.
He's only got that live version out. He's
never done that in the
studio, it's a great song.
RR:
Yes
I know. It's a fabulous song, you may be
right. Maybe we should give that a
proper recording at
some point. I'll give you a proper credit
for that in the
booook...
The
thing
that sticks out is, and you'll probably never
hear it on the
radio, is Call Me When You Get to Heaven,
because its eight minutes
long.
PD:
Yeah.
RR:
Right,
it's rivalling Hey Jude for air time. You
saw how that got
the Beatles, broke
'em right up.
Eight
minutes.
And it's interesting how Raul talks about
why he
wrote it... if you don't contact someone on
earth for some reason or
other, you say 'Call me when you get to
heaven'.
And its a lovely feeling. And
its the first time I've
heard a gospel group with you, because those
girls basically are
gospel, aren't they?
PD:
The
McCrary Sisters. Yes, they're
wonderful. They're
over here right now, too.
RR:
They're
on tour, they've done a couple of
these festival dates
you mentioned. They were boooked to do a few of
these shows, they have
a
booooking agent, in case you didn't know.
[Assuming Liverpool accent.]
I
went on the radio with Billy Butler and he
re-booooked me.
[laughter]
So
you've
been doing a couple of indoor festivals, you're
back on the
theatres. You've done the Philharmonic
before, haven't you?
PD:
I
don't know that... Have we done...?
RR:
We
did the Empire before.
PD:
We
did the Empire, yeah. So this is our first
time at the
Philharmonic, and boy, are we excited.
How
is
the album doing in the States?
PD:
It's
doing well. You know, in this day and age
the numbers are
different, just because of...
It's
hard
to find out, for a start. You've got
downloads... this, that
and the other.
PD:
Exactly.
In
the
old days it used to be 'How many has it
sold.?' That was
the only...
RR:
It
was a flat 'Did it sell, did it not
sell?' Nowadays you get
all these downloads and so on and so forth..
We were on a TV
show recently, our music was, and it put
record sales up 500 per
cent. So I think that week we sold 10
copies, it was amazing.
One
of
the suggestions on Facebook is for you to
cover the Daft Punks
song... I can see that.
RR:
They're
top of the charts right now, that sounds daft,
what an
idea. Thats a daft idea.
It's
great to have you, lads.
RR:
Thank
you so much.
It's
great
to meet two guys who really love what they're
doing, you're very
friendly, and you love your music...
RR:
We
do. La Musica. Let me ask you, before
we say goodbye, if we
want to come back and do this again, who do I talk
to about getting a booooking?
[Thumps table.] I won't
get enough of that
today.
[Record
played
in the studio: That's Not My Name]
Broadcast July 22, 2013
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