When I first heard that Penetration were working on a new album, I was very enthused by the prospect. The band have consistently played great live shows since their reformation in 2002, and the two singles released on Damaged Goods in 2008 and 2010 had clearly shown that the bands’ song-writing talents had maintained their energy and integrity. But when I finally heard the album, aptly entitled ‘Resolution’, I must admit I was surprised by just how good it sounded. Like a natural progression from their earlier albums, it effortlessly captures the spirit of the original band while placing its’ feet very firmly in the present day. Self-produced and self-released, it’s a very bold statement but one that utterly stands-up to scrutiny. The band are as powerful and intricate as they ever were, while Pauline Murrays’ voice seems to have hardly aged a day, fronting the songs with a charm and character which was always a hallmark of the band. And I’m not the only one who thinks this way. The verdict has been unanimously positive from both old and new fans. In short, Penetration have done it themselves, and done it properly.
With a short series of gigs lined-up to launch the album, I was fortunate enough to arrange an interview with Pauline before their recent gig at The Garage. Leaving the rest of the band to change strings and polish their hi-hats, we find ourselves a nice, quiet little coffee shop, and promptly start to discuss the new album. Everybody seems to be very impressed with the new album, so I assume you must be really pleased with the way it’s turned out ?
‘It’s had a very positive response, which we’re really pleased with. It was always going to be a tall order after so much time, but I feel that we’ve achieved something. The fans like it… It’s still Penetration, but at the same time, it’s moved on. It probably sounds a little bit gentler than we were back in the day, but we’re in 2015 now.’
I think that’s what makes this album so impressive. It’s very much a continuation of what Penetration were, but it’s also a natural progression from the first two albums... It’s certainly not just trying to replicate what you were doing before, which would be disingenuous because so many different things have happened since you were that person…
With a short series of gigs lined-up to launch the album, I was fortunate enough to arrange an interview with Pauline before their recent gig at The Garage. Leaving the rest of the band to change strings and polish their hi-hats, we find ourselves a nice, quiet little coffee shop, and promptly start to discuss the new album. Everybody seems to be very impressed with the new album, so I assume you must be really pleased with the way it’s turned out ?
‘It’s had a very positive response, which we’re really pleased with. It was always going to be a tall order after so much time, but I feel that we’ve achieved something. The fans like it… It’s still Penetration, but at the same time, it’s moved on. It probably sounds a little bit gentler than we were back in the day, but we’re in 2015 now.’
I think that’s what makes this album so impressive. It’s very much a continuation of what Penetration were, but it’s also a natural progression from the first two albums... It’s certainly not just trying to replicate what you were doing before, which would be disingenuous because so many different things have happened since you were that person…
‘Well, I’m still the same person, obviously, but things have changed. Everybody does, that’s your whole life experience and it all comes in to play. Penetration has been back together for around ten years, now, but we’ve all got other things that we do and we don’t do this full-time because we don’t really want to do it like that. We have been out playing live shows quite a lot, but always just the old set until we decided to put out a couple of new singles on Damaged Goods. That was really so we could have something new in the set and see how the new songs went down. But I have to admit, I didn’t really want to do a new album. I knew there was going to be a lot of work involved in it and I wasn’t sure if I could meet that challenge. I just didn’t want to do it, but it was Rob who really wanted to make an album. He had the vision for it. He knew who he wanted to be involved and how he wanted it to sound. So he was the one who pushed it through and he was quite focused about that. He set-up the Pledge campaign and once that was online and people started to pledge, then we were on course to do a new album. There was no way out of it ! Once the fans have put their support behind us, we had to do it. We took the songs ‘Guilty’, ‘The Feeling’ and ‘Sea Song’ from the recent singles because they’re good songs and we didn’t want them to disappear after the singles had all gone. But they were also a little bit of a safety net, as we didn’t have the rest of the album written at that point. So we took them with us as a starting point and I think we’ve improved them with the new versions, as you should do. We just took it from there and I just had to have faith in myself and the band. When it came to actually writing the new songs and recording them, I had to think, well, I’m not the same 18 or 20 year old that wrote those old songs, so what is the mindset now ? You have to be pretty honest with yourself and I wanted to try to reflect life as it is in 2015. We’re living in very different times to the late Seventies, those times have gone so let’s be real about it. Writing and being creative in 2015 is quite a difficult task because, back in the late Seventies, there was a lot of activity, a lot of creativity happening, and bands were bouncing off each other. But these days, there’s nothing going on like that. To a great extent, you’re wading through stagnant waters and, when I looked around, that’s how it felt. It’s just different times. Some of the songs, like ‘Guilty’ and ‘The Feeling’ were just written by me, but I found that a lot of my more solo stuff didn’t fit with the band. We did try another couple of songs that I play acoustically, but they just didn’t suit the band. So for the most part, we went back to the old format of having the guitarists send-in ideas, so that I could step-back and concentrate on writing the lyrics.’
A lot of people assume that bands can step right back in to where they were, previously, but when you’ve been playing music elsewhere in between times, it’s not so easy to get back in to the right frame of mind to be able to continue what you were originally doing…
‘Well, I did the Invisible Girls album and later on we did the records with The Storm. Both of those things were very different to Penetration but going back to the band, now, I wanted it to still be recognisable as Penetration whilst not just a rehash. And I think we’ve done well with that brief to it. We’ve managed to work within a framework, if you like, but at the same time we’ve put a different slant to it.’
One of the things I recently did, was to play the first two Penetration albums, followed by the new one, and it did just sound like a natural progression from each one to the next…
‘Yeah ! Other people have said that, as if there hadn’t been a 35 year gap in between. It makes you wonder what time is all about when something like that happens… whether time is really a solid thing or whether it just depends on our perception of it. I don’t know, but I think we made sure that the new album did link to the past. Some of it was very consciously linked. There are little nods in there, although most of them are very subtle.’
I think it’s particularly nice that John Maher is playing drums on the album, both for the fact that he’s such a great drummer and in the way it linked back to when Penetration used to play with the Buzzcocks…
‘Yeah, that goes back… Rob asked John and he was really happy to do it. We’d played with Buzzcocks quite a lot in our early days and supported them on tour. Plus, Rob had played with John on the Patrick Fitzgerald album, ‘Grubby Stories’ abd he was also involved with the Invisible Girls. So Rob asked him if he’d like to play drums on our new album and he was up for it. Even though he lives miles away, on the Isle of Harris. He showed good faith in what we were trying to do, even though it wasn’t all written at the time. We were really doing stuff as we went along, so he never got to hear all of it until we sent him the finished album. I think he was actually quite flabbergasted with it, when he finally heard the whole thing, as up to that point all he had heard was bits and pieces when he went in to record his drum tracks.’
‘Well, I did the Invisible Girls album and later on we did the records with The Storm. Both of those things were very different to Penetration but going back to the band, now, I wanted it to still be recognisable as Penetration whilst not just a rehash. And I think we’ve done well with that brief to it. We’ve managed to work within a framework, if you like, but at the same time we’ve put a different slant to it.’
One of the things I recently did, was to play the first two Penetration albums, followed by the new one, and it did just sound like a natural progression from each one to the next…
‘Yeah ! Other people have said that, as if there hadn’t been a 35 year gap in between. It makes you wonder what time is all about when something like that happens… whether time is really a solid thing or whether it just depends on our perception of it. I don’t know, but I think we made sure that the new album did link to the past. Some of it was very consciously linked. There are little nods in there, although most of them are very subtle.’
I think it’s particularly nice that John Maher is playing drums on the album, both for the fact that he’s such a great drummer and in the way it linked back to when Penetration used to play with the Buzzcocks…
‘Yeah, that goes back… Rob asked John and he was really happy to do it. We’d played with Buzzcocks quite a lot in our early days and supported them on tour. Plus, Rob had played with John on the Patrick Fitzgerald album, ‘Grubby Stories’ abd he was also involved with the Invisible Girls. So Rob asked him if he’d like to play drums on our new album and he was up for it. Even though he lives miles away, on the Isle of Harris. He showed good faith in what we were trying to do, even though it wasn’t all written at the time. We were really doing stuff as we went along, so he never got to hear all of it until we sent him the finished album. I think he was actually quite flabbergasted with it, when he finally heard the whole thing, as up to that point all he had heard was bits and pieces when he went in to record his drum tracks.’
How was the song-writing split between the band-members ? You said that you took a step-back, to some extent, with the music…
‘Well, I actually wrote the intro, because I wanted it to start with an introduction, even though I don’t actually sing on it, apart from that one note right at the end…. After 36 years, I didn’t want us to come straight in like that. I wanted to let people, kind of, accustom themselves to sound and idea of Penetration in 2015. I wrote some of the songs by myself, like ‘Just Drifting’, while our guitarist, Steve Wallace, came up with a lot of the ideas. Paul Harvey, the other guitarist, also wrote one of the songs. Rob didn’t actually write any of the songs this time, even though when we made the Invisible Girls album, it was all written by me and Rob, together. But this time, he was busy producing it and keeping an eye on the recording, keeping it all moving along. I’d write all the lyrics and work on the tunes, to provide a framework for everything else. It’s funny, because some songs, like ‘Aguila’, almost didn’t make it. We got to the very last studio session with John and had less than an hour left. Steve had been playing this little riff all weekend and everyone had everyone was sick of hearing it, so we tried to ignore it. But right at the end of the session, John said, we’ve still got a little bit of time, why don’t we try to put that down ? We tried to play it together but couldn’t get all the way through it, so we set-up a click-track and Steve played it the way he heard it in his head. John took notes and then went in and put the drum-track down right away. But at that point, that was all anyone knew of it. I took it away, wrote the words and wrote the tune, and the format is pretty much exactly as it went down. It just came together very organically, as if it was meant to happen. We had a lot of faith in what we were doing, and it made a difference to what we achieved.’
Did you write the lyrics as you were going along with the recording of the album ?
‘No. I actually decided to get away for a while to work on most of them, so I came down to London and stayed at my son’s flat for a week, while he was away, and just got stuck in to writing the lyrics. I needed to do it without any distractions, I suppose. But I always try to write based on what the music says to me. Something like ‘Just Drifting’, that was just a backing track and I didn’t have any lyrics, but the words ‘just drifting’ sort of popped in to my head while I was listening to it and I was able to write the lyrics around that idea. ‘Calm Before The Storm’ worked in the same kind way. I came up with that phrase and I started to write in to it from there. I think that’s how I’ve always worked in Penetration. The music creates a framework and I write in to it. That’s how we used to do it, originally, and we wanted to keep those ways of working. Rob was also doing the production in the same way, you know, with one guitar coming from one way and the other guitar coming from the other. Fred Purser, our original lead guitarist, was also working on the mix and Rob was able to tell him exactly how we wanted the drums to sound. So, as I was saying, there are a lot of things that are deliberate references to our old records, but I think they’re pretty subtle, so you wouldn’t really notice.’
Will you give us some clues ?
‘Oooo, I’ll tell you one… in the middle of ‘The Feeling’, there’s a key change and I just sing one note, like, ‘ahhhhhhh’, and that’s the same thing we did in the middle of ‘Come Into The Open’. There are loads of little references like that and that’s why it still engages with the past, even though we’re doing something totally new. Most people aren’t even going to notice these things, but I think on a subconscious level, they do make a difference.’
‘Well, I actually wrote the intro, because I wanted it to start with an introduction, even though I don’t actually sing on it, apart from that one note right at the end…. After 36 years, I didn’t want us to come straight in like that. I wanted to let people, kind of, accustom themselves to sound and idea of Penetration in 2015. I wrote some of the songs by myself, like ‘Just Drifting’, while our guitarist, Steve Wallace, came up with a lot of the ideas. Paul Harvey, the other guitarist, also wrote one of the songs. Rob didn’t actually write any of the songs this time, even though when we made the Invisible Girls album, it was all written by me and Rob, together. But this time, he was busy producing it and keeping an eye on the recording, keeping it all moving along. I’d write all the lyrics and work on the tunes, to provide a framework for everything else. It’s funny, because some songs, like ‘Aguila’, almost didn’t make it. We got to the very last studio session with John and had less than an hour left. Steve had been playing this little riff all weekend and everyone had everyone was sick of hearing it, so we tried to ignore it. But right at the end of the session, John said, we’ve still got a little bit of time, why don’t we try to put that down ? We tried to play it together but couldn’t get all the way through it, so we set-up a click-track and Steve played it the way he heard it in his head. John took notes and then went in and put the drum-track down right away. But at that point, that was all anyone knew of it. I took it away, wrote the words and wrote the tune, and the format is pretty much exactly as it went down. It just came together very organically, as if it was meant to happen. We had a lot of faith in what we were doing, and it made a difference to what we achieved.’
Did you write the lyrics as you were going along with the recording of the album ?
‘No. I actually decided to get away for a while to work on most of them, so I came down to London and stayed at my son’s flat for a week, while he was away, and just got stuck in to writing the lyrics. I needed to do it without any distractions, I suppose. But I always try to write based on what the music says to me. Something like ‘Just Drifting’, that was just a backing track and I didn’t have any lyrics, but the words ‘just drifting’ sort of popped in to my head while I was listening to it and I was able to write the lyrics around that idea. ‘Calm Before The Storm’ worked in the same kind way. I came up with that phrase and I started to write in to it from there. I think that’s how I’ve always worked in Penetration. The music creates a framework and I write in to it. That’s how we used to do it, originally, and we wanted to keep those ways of working. Rob was also doing the production in the same way, you know, with one guitar coming from one way and the other guitar coming from the other. Fred Purser, our original lead guitarist, was also working on the mix and Rob was able to tell him exactly how we wanted the drums to sound. So, as I was saying, there are a lot of things that are deliberate references to our old records, but I think they’re pretty subtle, so you wouldn’t really notice.’
Will you give us some clues ?
‘Oooo, I’ll tell you one… in the middle of ‘The Feeling’, there’s a key change and I just sing one note, like, ‘ahhhhhhh’, and that’s the same thing we did in the middle of ‘Come Into The Open’. There are loads of little references like that and that’s why it still engages with the past, even though we’re doing something totally new. Most people aren’t even going to notice these things, but I think on a subconscious level, they do make a difference.’
One of the things that people most often comment on is the fact that your voice still sounds so fresh. Most singers’ voices tend to change over the years, so how have you managed to keep yours so vibrant ?
‘I don’t know ! I honestly don’t know. There are quite a few moments of the new record where I sound so young and it’s pretty consistent, so it’s obviously what I sound like. I mean, when we first reformed and started rehearsing again, I couldn’t get all the way through some of the songs. I’d get three-quarters through them and run out of steam. But since then we’ve been playing often enough to keep my voice going. I’ve also been helping to run a choir for a few years, organising their harmonies and singing with other people, so I think that’s probably helped a little bit. I’ve always been doing some singing, every year, even before Penetration reformed, so it’s not as if I’ve ever left it for a long time. We do have some fairly long breaks now, but it seems that I’m always able to pick it up. I really don’t know why it is. I’m very lucky, but I don’t worry about it. The worse thing would be to try and analyse it…. Sometimes I end up with a bit of a croaky throat, but I’ll just say to myself, don’t worry, it’ll be alright ! That’s the only way I can do it, otherwise I’d started to worry about it and maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it at all. The only thing I have tried to do with the new songs is to write them within the range that I have now. With some of the old songs, it does get a bit screechy, so now I try to keep it within a comfortable range. That’s probably one of the reasons why the vocals sound so good, because I haven’t tried to stretch them too thin. I am lucky to still be able to do this, so I just try to keep it natural and not worry about it. Just let it do what it does !’
The one track that stands apart from the rest of the album is ‘Outromistra’, right at the end. It’s quite a striking way to end the album, with a narrative lyric rather than a song. Why did you decide to finish the album that way ?
‘Originally, we wanted the album to end with another instrumental. One day we were in the studio, just messing about and I came up with that line while I was just plodding along on the bass. Rob took it away and fixed it up a bit and we thought it might be an idea for the last track, but we didn’t really know what we were going to do with it. I tried some vocals, rather than lyrics, but it wasn’t really working until that short story, ‘The Machine Stops’ by EM Forster, came in to my head. And again, that goes right back to the start, as we referred to that story when we wrote the song ‘Duty Free Technology’, which we only ever recorded during our first demos. I first read the story when I was about 16 years old and I absolutely loved it. The thing is, although it was written back in 1909, he was describing things that we would now recognise as mobile phones or skype. That’s the amazing thing about it. I just loved that story when I first read it and it’s always stuck with me.’
It’s almost set aside from the rest of the album, because of the way it’s put together and also because the narrative ends so abruptly…
‘Exactly, and I think that’s why it’s such a nice way to end the album. It’s different and we didn’t want to just end the album with a normal song. Some people have said that ‘Calm Before The Storm; should have been the last track, especially as the lyrics end with the word ‘goodnight’ being repeated. But when we were putting it all together, that track came to us and I think it was just meant to be like that. We didn’t plan it that way, but that’s what happened. It all just fell into where it was supposed to be.’
‘I don’t know ! I honestly don’t know. There are quite a few moments of the new record where I sound so young and it’s pretty consistent, so it’s obviously what I sound like. I mean, when we first reformed and started rehearsing again, I couldn’t get all the way through some of the songs. I’d get three-quarters through them and run out of steam. But since then we’ve been playing often enough to keep my voice going. I’ve also been helping to run a choir for a few years, organising their harmonies and singing with other people, so I think that’s probably helped a little bit. I’ve always been doing some singing, every year, even before Penetration reformed, so it’s not as if I’ve ever left it for a long time. We do have some fairly long breaks now, but it seems that I’m always able to pick it up. I really don’t know why it is. I’m very lucky, but I don’t worry about it. The worse thing would be to try and analyse it…. Sometimes I end up with a bit of a croaky throat, but I’ll just say to myself, don’t worry, it’ll be alright ! That’s the only way I can do it, otherwise I’d started to worry about it and maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it at all. The only thing I have tried to do with the new songs is to write them within the range that I have now. With some of the old songs, it does get a bit screechy, so now I try to keep it within a comfortable range. That’s probably one of the reasons why the vocals sound so good, because I haven’t tried to stretch them too thin. I am lucky to still be able to do this, so I just try to keep it natural and not worry about it. Just let it do what it does !’
The one track that stands apart from the rest of the album is ‘Outromistra’, right at the end. It’s quite a striking way to end the album, with a narrative lyric rather than a song. Why did you decide to finish the album that way ?
‘Originally, we wanted the album to end with another instrumental. One day we were in the studio, just messing about and I came up with that line while I was just plodding along on the bass. Rob took it away and fixed it up a bit and we thought it might be an idea for the last track, but we didn’t really know what we were going to do with it. I tried some vocals, rather than lyrics, but it wasn’t really working until that short story, ‘The Machine Stops’ by EM Forster, came in to my head. And again, that goes right back to the start, as we referred to that story when we wrote the song ‘Duty Free Technology’, which we only ever recorded during our first demos. I first read the story when I was about 16 years old and I absolutely loved it. The thing is, although it was written back in 1909, he was describing things that we would now recognise as mobile phones or skype. That’s the amazing thing about it. I just loved that story when I first read it and it’s always stuck with me.’
It’s almost set aside from the rest of the album, because of the way it’s put together and also because the narrative ends so abruptly…
‘Exactly, and I think that’s why it’s such a nice way to end the album. It’s different and we didn’t want to just end the album with a normal song. Some people have said that ‘Calm Before The Storm; should have been the last track, especially as the lyrics end with the word ‘goodnight’ being repeated. But when we were putting it all together, that track came to us and I think it was just meant to be like that. We didn’t plan it that way, but that’s what happened. It all just fell into where it was supposed to be.’
Aside from lyrics, do you do much other writing by yourself ?
‘Well, I started to write a kind of life story last year, but I haven’t really gone back to it since then. I thought I should try to write things down, even if it was just for my children, or in case I get Alzheimers and can’t remember anything ! So I thought it was about time, just for myself, to write things down. I got so far with it, but I haven’t returned to it for a while. I’ve often wished that I’d written one line down every day, but I never did it and I still don’t do it. It’s as if you haven’t got time to record what you do in your life because you’re too busy living it. But if I just wrote down one line, like… 24th October 2015, playing at The Garage and did an interview. Or the next day, just travelling home. You know, just one line a day that would prompt things, because your memory can really plays tricks, even after a short while. But I only really write creatively when I’m working with the band. I don’t write short stories or anything…’
That surprises me, because some of your lyrics are very concise. I really the line ‘I have never worn a strangers’ shoes’ from the song ‘Makes No Sense’. It’s such a simple phrase but really makes the point…
‘Yeah, that is a good one ! That actually came from another song, called ‘Mystery Blues’, which was one of my solo ones. I brought it to the band but the others didn’t really like it, which was fair enough. But that line was in it and I decided that I’d bring it across for something else. I really like what it’s saying… none of us have ever worn a strangers’ shoes. We all walk in our own shoes and have our own view of the world as we go along. So, I must admit that did come from something else that I’d written, but I don’t really write anything, lyrically or otherwise, unless I’m actually working on songs.’
The Invisible Girls album was recently reissued, on CD for the first time, and it seemed to get a really good reception second time around, particularly from people who had never heard it before.
‘It was a great album, and it’s been missing for a long time. But I think it just got lost in the middle of everything else. It had no hype and although people who heard it seemed to like the album, it just never got heard by a wider audience. Maybe it would have done better if it had got more exposure, who knows ?’
‘Well, I started to write a kind of life story last year, but I haven’t really gone back to it since then. I thought I should try to write things down, even if it was just for my children, or in case I get Alzheimers and can’t remember anything ! So I thought it was about time, just for myself, to write things down. I got so far with it, but I haven’t returned to it for a while. I’ve often wished that I’d written one line down every day, but I never did it and I still don’t do it. It’s as if you haven’t got time to record what you do in your life because you’re too busy living it. But if I just wrote down one line, like… 24th October 2015, playing at The Garage and did an interview. Or the next day, just travelling home. You know, just one line a day that would prompt things, because your memory can really plays tricks, even after a short while. But I only really write creatively when I’m working with the band. I don’t write short stories or anything…’
That surprises me, because some of your lyrics are very concise. I really the line ‘I have never worn a strangers’ shoes’ from the song ‘Makes No Sense’. It’s such a simple phrase but really makes the point…
‘Yeah, that is a good one ! That actually came from another song, called ‘Mystery Blues’, which was one of my solo ones. I brought it to the band but the others didn’t really like it, which was fair enough. But that line was in it and I decided that I’d bring it across for something else. I really like what it’s saying… none of us have ever worn a strangers’ shoes. We all walk in our own shoes and have our own view of the world as we go along. So, I must admit that did come from something else that I’d written, but I don’t really write anything, lyrically or otherwise, unless I’m actually working on songs.’
The Invisible Girls album was recently reissued, on CD for the first time, and it seemed to get a really good reception second time around, particularly from people who had never heard it before.
‘It was a great album, and it’s been missing for a long time. But I think it just got lost in the middle of everything else. It had no hype and although people who heard it seemed to like the album, it just never got heard by a wider audience. Maybe it would have done better if it had got more exposure, who knows ?’
One of the funny things is the way that some people will now try to differentiate between the Penetration records and the Invisible Girls album as being ‘punk’ and ‘post-punk’. Do you find it strange that retrospectives now refer to the ‘post-punk’ era, as a supposedly different movement to ‘punk’ itself ? At the time, when I heard the Invisible Girls, I just considered it to be a step forward from what you’d already done rather than a different genre altogether …
‘Well, journalists do like to put their labels on to different things, and draw the lines between one thing and another. One person will call something ‘post-punk’ while someone else calls it ‘new romantic’ or ‘mod’… In a lot of cases, they just draw a line at the end of 1979. It was a bit of a funny time. The Pistols had been spearheading it all, but then they split-up and it began to lose it’s momentum. Bands had been out there with a lot of energy, but were starting to get sick of it, so a lot of them started to burn-out. Maybe it wasn’t meant to last… but then the next generation began to come in and that’s when you start to think of things being post-punk. But if anything, I think of things like the original Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto. They were doing things like ‘Time’s Up’, but then Howard left to form Magazine. To me, I see that as the flowering of punk. I look at it as people who started-off and were, maybe, unable to play, but who were quite creative people. As they did more, they got better at it and really started to push the envelope. The early days of punk were almost like the seeds, but it wasn’t until bands like Magazine or the Only Ones and people like that came along that you really started to see the flowering of punk, in a creative way. It’s the same thing with out new album… we made it without caring what anyone else was going to think about it, and that’s more ‘punk’ than most of the punk records that still come out. But when people listen to the way it sounds, they may think it doesn’t sound like a punk record.’
You were involved with quite a lot of different music in between the original Penetration and the reformation of the band. Do you think those things have contributed to the way the new album sounds ?
‘I think so, definitely. There are a few songs that I’ve written and they’re quite different to Steve’s song. My style of songs is quite different to the others, so I do think there’s a bit of influence in there from those other things. In some ways, I find this album to sound like the third Penetration album as if we were moving on towards the Invisible Girls. It’s almost a missing link, if you like. Things like ‘Just Drifting’ are much more like my solo things, I think. They’re much more melodic and more gentle. They not based around a framework of guitars, so they’ve got a different vibe to them altogether and as I’ve written several of the songs on there, I think you get that coming through a little bit. There’s the same sense of energy, but it’s the softer side of things, really, and I’m not having to work in to the guitars.’
‘Well, journalists do like to put their labels on to different things, and draw the lines between one thing and another. One person will call something ‘post-punk’ while someone else calls it ‘new romantic’ or ‘mod’… In a lot of cases, they just draw a line at the end of 1979. It was a bit of a funny time. The Pistols had been spearheading it all, but then they split-up and it began to lose it’s momentum. Bands had been out there with a lot of energy, but were starting to get sick of it, so a lot of them started to burn-out. Maybe it wasn’t meant to last… but then the next generation began to come in and that’s when you start to think of things being post-punk. But if anything, I think of things like the original Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto. They were doing things like ‘Time’s Up’, but then Howard left to form Magazine. To me, I see that as the flowering of punk. I look at it as people who started-off and were, maybe, unable to play, but who were quite creative people. As they did more, they got better at it and really started to push the envelope. The early days of punk were almost like the seeds, but it wasn’t until bands like Magazine or the Only Ones and people like that came along that you really started to see the flowering of punk, in a creative way. It’s the same thing with out new album… we made it without caring what anyone else was going to think about it, and that’s more ‘punk’ than most of the punk records that still come out. But when people listen to the way it sounds, they may think it doesn’t sound like a punk record.’
You were involved with quite a lot of different music in between the original Penetration and the reformation of the band. Do you think those things have contributed to the way the new album sounds ?
‘I think so, definitely. There are a few songs that I’ve written and they’re quite different to Steve’s song. My style of songs is quite different to the others, so I do think there’s a bit of influence in there from those other things. In some ways, I find this album to sound like the third Penetration album as if we were moving on towards the Invisible Girls. It’s almost a missing link, if you like. Things like ‘Just Drifting’ are much more like my solo things, I think. They’re much more melodic and more gentle. They not based around a framework of guitars, so they’ve got a different vibe to them altogether and as I’ve written several of the songs on there, I think you get that coming through a little bit. There’s the same sense of energy, but it’s the softer side of things, really, and I’m not having to work in to the guitars.’
You’ve also been running Polestar Studios for quite some time…
‘Well, I’ve been running the studios for nearly 25 years, but it’s just the way I make a living. I just do the admin or make cups of tea for people ! I’m not involved with production or anything – I wouldn’t even know how to switch the machines on if I went into a recording studio ! That’s Rob’s side of thing. I’m not really interested in studios or technology. But our place is mainly rehearsal studios. That’s how it started out, just somewhere for bands to come in and play.’
Having been in close proximity to all these bands over these years, do you think you ever pick up any influences from them ?
‘No. I mean, a lot of the bands who come-in are just covers bands, you know ? I’ve always preferred to work with my own ideas and I find that a lot more interesting. I’m not someone who takes things from different places, I’ve never done that. I prefer to come up with my own inspiration. The only thing I would say is that, I have been surrounded by music for most of my life. So, to chose to run the studios did mean that I would still be surrounded by music, even though it wouldn’t be on the frontline, so to speak. I’ve always had music around myself and I prefer it that way. I couldn’t have just gone away and worked in an office. I couldn’t cut myself off from it in that kind of way. And that’s part of why Penetration has worked-out for us again. I mean, just down to the fact that if we didn’t have the studio’s, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make this new album. We did the Pledge campaign for the album, but you don’t get that money until the project is complete. You still have to pay for everything upfront and finance it until it’s completed. I won’t say we were lucky to have the studio, because we worked very hard to set it up and keep it running for all these years. It has been hard to keep the business afloat at times, but the fact that we’d done that work and had the studio really helped when we decided to make the album. If we had been in the position of paying studio fees for everything we recorded, it would have been a completely different situation. That’s the reason why some people end-up not being able to complete their Pledge campaigns, because it can be really costly and you won’t get any money back until it’s done. In our case, we pressed the button to start the Pledge campaign in the last week of January, earlier this year, and we finished the album on the 22nd of June, right when we said we would. We’d said that we would complete it by the Summer and it would be out by August or September… The only delays came when the distributors started to show an interest and we had to take that on board, which held up the release for a little while, but that was out of our hands to some extent. But it was good to work to a timescale. The very final day, we were in the studio working on the final mix and Fred was due to go on holiday the next day, so we knew we couldn’t mess about. I think that actually gives it a little bit more of an edge.’
‘Well, I’ve been running the studios for nearly 25 years, but it’s just the way I make a living. I just do the admin or make cups of tea for people ! I’m not involved with production or anything – I wouldn’t even know how to switch the machines on if I went into a recording studio ! That’s Rob’s side of thing. I’m not really interested in studios or technology. But our place is mainly rehearsal studios. That’s how it started out, just somewhere for bands to come in and play.’
Having been in close proximity to all these bands over these years, do you think you ever pick up any influences from them ?
‘No. I mean, a lot of the bands who come-in are just covers bands, you know ? I’ve always preferred to work with my own ideas and I find that a lot more interesting. I’m not someone who takes things from different places, I’ve never done that. I prefer to come up with my own inspiration. The only thing I would say is that, I have been surrounded by music for most of my life. So, to chose to run the studios did mean that I would still be surrounded by music, even though it wouldn’t be on the frontline, so to speak. I’ve always had music around myself and I prefer it that way. I couldn’t have just gone away and worked in an office. I couldn’t cut myself off from it in that kind of way. And that’s part of why Penetration has worked-out for us again. I mean, just down to the fact that if we didn’t have the studio’s, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make this new album. We did the Pledge campaign for the album, but you don’t get that money until the project is complete. You still have to pay for everything upfront and finance it until it’s completed. I won’t say we were lucky to have the studio, because we worked very hard to set it up and keep it running for all these years. It has been hard to keep the business afloat at times, but the fact that we’d done that work and had the studio really helped when we decided to make the album. If we had been in the position of paying studio fees for everything we recorded, it would have been a completely different situation. That’s the reason why some people end-up not being able to complete their Pledge campaigns, because it can be really costly and you won’t get any money back until it’s done. In our case, we pressed the button to start the Pledge campaign in the last week of January, earlier this year, and we finished the album on the 22nd of June, right when we said we would. We’d said that we would complete it by the Summer and it would be out by August or September… The only delays came when the distributors started to show an interest and we had to take that on board, which held up the release for a little while, but that was out of our hands to some extent. But it was good to work to a timescale. The very final day, we were in the studio working on the final mix and Fred was due to go on holiday the next day, so we knew we couldn’t mess about. I think that actually gives it a little bit more of an edge.’
Is the current line-up pretty steady, now ? I know there have been several changes since you first reformed ?
‘Well, the guitarists who are with us now were both with us when we first reformed. Paul left for a time and we got someone else in, but he’s been back with us for a while, now. We first reformed with our original drummer, Gary, but we’ve had several others since then and the last one decided to leave just before we decided to make the album. That was when Rob asked John if he would do it. But I’m not sure how that’s all going to work out, because he lives so far away from us, which makes it really difficult to rehearse. After these gigs, we haven’t actually got anything else planned and I think we intend to give ourselves a break from everything so we can decide what we want to do next. I mean, we have to actually want to do it and not end up playing just because we can. We play when we want to and then take a break for a bit. We’re not doing it as a business and we don’t have a manager or anyone telling us what we have to do, which really suits us.’
When you decided to release the new album yourselves and use the Pledge campaign, why did you decide to do it that way instead of going to another label ?
‘I think there was no other option. We didn’t want to involve any other label, so we decided to use the Pledge campaign. Funnily enough, Polestar actually started-off as a record label. It became the rehearsal studio, but started out as our own label when we were releasing things like ‘Holocaust’ in the late Eighties. So this time, we just decided to do it all in-house and release it on Polestar. Rob was the one who really pushed it through, but I think we just didn’t want to involve other people, so that we’d know exactly where we were with it. There’s no pressure from anyone else, so we can keep it under our own control.’
Almost at the same time as the new Penetration album, there’s a new collection of all the old material being issued as a CD set by Universal. I assume it’s a coincidence, as several other collections from different bands are also being released at the same time, but did you have any involvement with this new collection at all ?
‘Very little. We actually only found out about it not very long ago, when they told us they were going to get this guy to do the sleeve notes. He sent me a load of questions, which I thought should have given him a bit of an idea about us. But when I got to see the finished sleeve notes, he’d basically just used what I’d written and made it out to be all about me. It didn’t put the records in to any kind of perspective, so I told them, this is no good. We managed to get someone we know, who does some writing for The Quietus, to do the sleeve notes again and he made a great job of it. But that was the only involvement we’ve had. We had no involvement with what material they were using or what it looked like, and because we still owe money to Virgin, we won’t even make a penny from it. So I’m not interested in promoting it and I couldn’t care less. Virgin say that we still owe them loads of money so they still own all of our back catalogue and I don’t think we’ll ever get it back. I mean, I’ve had ex-band members giving me shit, as they seem to think I get paid for these things, so to be quite honest, I’m quite happy to just leave it where it is. If they want to look for money from it, then they can go ahead, but they won’t find any. I like the fact that the music is out there for people to hear if they want to, but it doesn’t make me feel good that Universal have released a box set of all the material that we’ll never get back.’
‘Well, the guitarists who are with us now were both with us when we first reformed. Paul left for a time and we got someone else in, but he’s been back with us for a while, now. We first reformed with our original drummer, Gary, but we’ve had several others since then and the last one decided to leave just before we decided to make the album. That was when Rob asked John if he would do it. But I’m not sure how that’s all going to work out, because he lives so far away from us, which makes it really difficult to rehearse. After these gigs, we haven’t actually got anything else planned and I think we intend to give ourselves a break from everything so we can decide what we want to do next. I mean, we have to actually want to do it and not end up playing just because we can. We play when we want to and then take a break for a bit. We’re not doing it as a business and we don’t have a manager or anyone telling us what we have to do, which really suits us.’
When you decided to release the new album yourselves and use the Pledge campaign, why did you decide to do it that way instead of going to another label ?
‘I think there was no other option. We didn’t want to involve any other label, so we decided to use the Pledge campaign. Funnily enough, Polestar actually started-off as a record label. It became the rehearsal studio, but started out as our own label when we were releasing things like ‘Holocaust’ in the late Eighties. So this time, we just decided to do it all in-house and release it on Polestar. Rob was the one who really pushed it through, but I think we just didn’t want to involve other people, so that we’d know exactly where we were with it. There’s no pressure from anyone else, so we can keep it under our own control.’
Almost at the same time as the new Penetration album, there’s a new collection of all the old material being issued as a CD set by Universal. I assume it’s a coincidence, as several other collections from different bands are also being released at the same time, but did you have any involvement with this new collection at all ?
‘Very little. We actually only found out about it not very long ago, when they told us they were going to get this guy to do the sleeve notes. He sent me a load of questions, which I thought should have given him a bit of an idea about us. But when I got to see the finished sleeve notes, he’d basically just used what I’d written and made it out to be all about me. It didn’t put the records in to any kind of perspective, so I told them, this is no good. We managed to get someone we know, who does some writing for The Quietus, to do the sleeve notes again and he made a great job of it. But that was the only involvement we’ve had. We had no involvement with what material they were using or what it looked like, and because we still owe money to Virgin, we won’t even make a penny from it. So I’m not interested in promoting it and I couldn’t care less. Virgin say that we still owe them loads of money so they still own all of our back catalogue and I don’t think we’ll ever get it back. I mean, I’ve had ex-band members giving me shit, as they seem to think I get paid for these things, so to be quite honest, I’m quite happy to just leave it where it is. If they want to look for money from it, then they can go ahead, but they won’t find any. I like the fact that the music is out there for people to hear if they want to, but it doesn’t make me feel good that Universal have released a box set of all the material that we’ll never get back.’
That’s a sad situation. So many bands have ended up with no control over their own their own work, simply because the record label took a gamble on them becoming successful which didn’t pay-off on the scale that they expected. Regardless of the quality of the actual music, it just comes down to pounds and pennies to these people…
‘It’s funny, because everything we’ve ever done has failed to succeed on a commercial level, even though I think we’ve made some really good records. I’m really pleased with this new album and I think it’s really good but it’s still not going to succeed because we haven’t got enough money to promote it in the way that it would need to be done. The music business is all about money and we’ve never had enough behind us to get to that level. I mean, supposedly we still owe Virgin £30,000.00 just from those first two albums, so we’ve never made any money from them. We made some good records and people still like them 36 years later, so you have to wonder why they didn’t get any further ? And unfortunately, it was down to the lack of money behind them. We worked very hard and were very well-liked by a lot of people, but there was never the advertising behind us to really bring us to the attention of enough people to, say, get us on Top of the Pops. To a great extent, we were doing well but we were kind of stuck out there on our own and we were never able to break through to a wider audience. I mean, perhaps it had something to do with having a name like ‘Penetration’… back at the time, radio stations may not have been too keen on playing a band with a name like that. I really don’t know. But if there’s still a considerable amount of interest in our old records now, then you have to wonder why they weren’t more successful back then. It was disappointing at the time, because I think we always delivered good records, but now I just have to accept, that’s the way it is. There’s no point in worrying about it this far down the line. The thing is, every so often they’ll do a retrospective on the BBC about the big hits from that time, and you’ll see some band or singer who had one really big hit, and that was it. You’ll look at it and think, how was that ever a hit ? It all boils down to how much money was thrown at it or how much payola was put in the right pocket. No-one would want to buy something like that now, but people are still buying our old records, so we must have been doing something right. The music business is still like that and probably even more so now. It’s just horrible and cynical. They’re not looking for anything new or interesting, they just want something they can package easily. But we’re certainly not part of that whole industry anymore, so it’s alright by us.’
Back at the time when Penetration were recording on Virgin records, you were one of the few bands who didn’t move down to London once they’d been signed. Do you think, in hindsight, that helped to maintain the bands’ own character and identity ?
‘I think so. In some respects, we should have done that, but we never wanted to. We ended up doing a lot of travelling but in the end, musically, I think it helped us to stay set apart from the other bands around that time. I think that was very much because of where we were from and it’s always been like that. It’s our take on things, from a different angle. Maybe that would’ve changed it we had moved down to London… although, I wrote the lyrics for this album when I was staying down in London for a week so it didn’t really matter where I was. I just needed the time to myself to be able to work on them. I think I probably could have coped with it because I’ve never been one of those people who has to go out networking every night. I mean, we used to get told who our Agent was, or people like that, and to us they were just someone else to be held in contempt ! We never even wanted to know who they were… we weren’t rude to people, but we were never shaking enough hands or playing the game to be part of all that. I mean, perhaps if we had done all of that and worked our way up to the top of the greasy pole, I could’ve been Sting now, living in Tuscany… But I don’t think I’d ever want to be Sting, so that’s alright ! Everything is for a reason, isn’t it ?’
‘It’s funny, because everything we’ve ever done has failed to succeed on a commercial level, even though I think we’ve made some really good records. I’m really pleased with this new album and I think it’s really good but it’s still not going to succeed because we haven’t got enough money to promote it in the way that it would need to be done. The music business is all about money and we’ve never had enough behind us to get to that level. I mean, supposedly we still owe Virgin £30,000.00 just from those first two albums, so we’ve never made any money from them. We made some good records and people still like them 36 years later, so you have to wonder why they didn’t get any further ? And unfortunately, it was down to the lack of money behind them. We worked very hard and were very well-liked by a lot of people, but there was never the advertising behind us to really bring us to the attention of enough people to, say, get us on Top of the Pops. To a great extent, we were doing well but we were kind of stuck out there on our own and we were never able to break through to a wider audience. I mean, perhaps it had something to do with having a name like ‘Penetration’… back at the time, radio stations may not have been too keen on playing a band with a name like that. I really don’t know. But if there’s still a considerable amount of interest in our old records now, then you have to wonder why they weren’t more successful back then. It was disappointing at the time, because I think we always delivered good records, but now I just have to accept, that’s the way it is. There’s no point in worrying about it this far down the line. The thing is, every so often they’ll do a retrospective on the BBC about the big hits from that time, and you’ll see some band or singer who had one really big hit, and that was it. You’ll look at it and think, how was that ever a hit ? It all boils down to how much money was thrown at it or how much payola was put in the right pocket. No-one would want to buy something like that now, but people are still buying our old records, so we must have been doing something right. The music business is still like that and probably even more so now. It’s just horrible and cynical. They’re not looking for anything new or interesting, they just want something they can package easily. But we’re certainly not part of that whole industry anymore, so it’s alright by us.’
Back at the time when Penetration were recording on Virgin records, you were one of the few bands who didn’t move down to London once they’d been signed. Do you think, in hindsight, that helped to maintain the bands’ own character and identity ?
‘I think so. In some respects, we should have done that, but we never wanted to. We ended up doing a lot of travelling but in the end, musically, I think it helped us to stay set apart from the other bands around that time. I think that was very much because of where we were from and it’s always been like that. It’s our take on things, from a different angle. Maybe that would’ve changed it we had moved down to London… although, I wrote the lyrics for this album when I was staying down in London for a week so it didn’t really matter where I was. I just needed the time to myself to be able to work on them. I think I probably could have coped with it because I’ve never been one of those people who has to go out networking every night. I mean, we used to get told who our Agent was, or people like that, and to us they were just someone else to be held in contempt ! We never even wanted to know who they were… we weren’t rude to people, but we were never shaking enough hands or playing the game to be part of all that. I mean, perhaps if we had done all of that and worked our way up to the top of the greasy pole, I could’ve been Sting now, living in Tuscany… But I don’t think I’d ever want to be Sting, so that’s alright ! Everything is for a reason, isn’t it ?’
This seemed to be an appropriate place to end the interview, so we return to The Garage where a bizarre unveiling is about to take place. For some reason that I never really ascertained, Charlie Harper has painted a picture of a parrot for Pauline and she is presented with it fore the first time. It’s a moving ceremony indeed…
With the gig due to start, it’s time for me to get something to eat and drink, so I head down to Upper Street, meet various friends and indulge in some sustenance. All very appetizing, but with it being a Saturday, things are running early and soon enough, I’m back across the road to see the gig.
There are few bands that would have the nerve to play a set based primarily around their new album, especially when it’s only just been released and many in the audience have yet to hear it. But that’s exactly what Penetration do, displaying total faith and confidence in their new record. In fact, the first five songs are taken from the album, but no-one is complaining. They’re sounding better than ever and with new material as strong as this, how is anyone going to be disappointed ? They then play a trio of older songs, ‘Lovers of Outrage’, ‘Movement’ and ‘Nostalgia’ (the latter giving Pauline an appropriate moment to introduce John Maher on drums) but rather than illustrating any differences between the old and new, it just goes to show that the new songs are just as impressive as the more older, more familiar tracks. Another selection of new songs follows before the set finishes with several older favourites, ending with a glorious finale of ‘Shout Above The Noise’. The calls for an encore are rapturous before they return with a real surprise – a cover of the Buzzcocks’ classic ‘I Don’t Mind’. Pauline’s voice suits it perfectly, giving it a different slant, while the rest of the band, particularly John Maher, instil it with authenticity and urgency it deserves. Finally, and appropriately, they end with another new song, ‘Calm Before The Storm’, and again, the applause is very enthusiastic, eventually enticing the band back onstage even though the curfew is looming and they’ve run out of material ! But not wanting to disappoint, they play ‘Beat Goes On’ a second time and every finally lets the show come to an end.
Afterwards, there’s a big crowd around the merch-stall, mostly there to buy copies of the new album. Several people told me afterwards that this had possibly been the best time they had ever seen the band and, considering the amount of new material they had played, that’s quite an achievement. And I’d have to say, I probably agree with it. There was a really special atmosphere to this gig, both from the band, clearly very happy with their new efforts, and from the audience, genuinely impressed by just how good it sounded. They may have taken their time before recording a new album, but Penetration have done it just right. ‘Resolution’ continues their legacy and challenges it to go even further. They should be feeling very proud of themselves !
www.loversofoutrage.co.uk
With the gig due to start, it’s time for me to get something to eat and drink, so I head down to Upper Street, meet various friends and indulge in some sustenance. All very appetizing, but with it being a Saturday, things are running early and soon enough, I’m back across the road to see the gig.
There are few bands that would have the nerve to play a set based primarily around their new album, especially when it’s only just been released and many in the audience have yet to hear it. But that’s exactly what Penetration do, displaying total faith and confidence in their new record. In fact, the first five songs are taken from the album, but no-one is complaining. They’re sounding better than ever and with new material as strong as this, how is anyone going to be disappointed ? They then play a trio of older songs, ‘Lovers of Outrage’, ‘Movement’ and ‘Nostalgia’ (the latter giving Pauline an appropriate moment to introduce John Maher on drums) but rather than illustrating any differences between the old and new, it just goes to show that the new songs are just as impressive as the more older, more familiar tracks. Another selection of new songs follows before the set finishes with several older favourites, ending with a glorious finale of ‘Shout Above The Noise’. The calls for an encore are rapturous before they return with a real surprise – a cover of the Buzzcocks’ classic ‘I Don’t Mind’. Pauline’s voice suits it perfectly, giving it a different slant, while the rest of the band, particularly John Maher, instil it with authenticity and urgency it deserves. Finally, and appropriately, they end with another new song, ‘Calm Before The Storm’, and again, the applause is very enthusiastic, eventually enticing the band back onstage even though the curfew is looming and they’ve run out of material ! But not wanting to disappoint, they play ‘Beat Goes On’ a second time and every finally lets the show come to an end.
Afterwards, there’s a big crowd around the merch-stall, mostly there to buy copies of the new album. Several people told me afterwards that this had possibly been the best time they had ever seen the band and, considering the amount of new material they had played, that’s quite an achievement. And I’d have to say, I probably agree with it. There was a really special atmosphere to this gig, both from the band, clearly very happy with their new efforts, and from the audience, genuinely impressed by just how good it sounded. They may have taken their time before recording a new album, but Penetration have done it just right. ‘Resolution’ continues their legacy and challenges it to go even further. They should be feeling very proud of themselves !
www.loversofoutrage.co.uk