Rick Witter interview: We should all keep chasing rainbows or else what's the point?

Their ability to maintain quality tunes while bringing a modern day twist continues to amaze me, and I very easily got my 21-year-old daughter and 60-year-old partner to appreciate this and got them along as fans too.

Having seen the Sheds live too many times to remember, to be given the chance of a Zoom call to discuss the latest masterpiece was a chance I couldn’t forgo.

And with a list of questions as long as my arm, it was with some gusto (and a little bit of over-keeness) I spoke to lead singer Rick Witter on Monday just days before the release of Liquid Gold, out on September 27, an orchestral album featuring a handful of the band’s favourite numbers.

So here’s how the interview went:

What made you decide to get into the orchestra vibe?

I’ve always loved orchestras and I love guitar bands that use orchestras because it sends them off in totally new directions.

We were approaching our 30th anniversary and we were very concious of labels re-releasing greatest hits albums using original compositions with original artworks.

We’ve already had two or three greatest hits albums out and we were concious that we didn’t want to rip our fans off by making them buy what they’ve already owned several times over, but just with different artwork. It is a rip off.

We thought ‘what can we do to counter that’, so we decided to go back into the studio and hand pick some choice tracks from our back catalogue and re-record them; change the arrangement slightly but not too far from the originals because we don’t want to put people off who love our original songs – it’s not about that – and then stick a big orchestra over it.

We were trying to think, if these songs had never existed and we had just written them for this album now, this is what they would sounded like?

It’s like Going for Gold. We sat listening to what we could do and listening to the old arrangement and we were almost like ‘why did we do it like that?’

The new version seemed to make more sense. It might take people a bit more time to get their heads round but I am kind of confident that people will get it.

Revisiting Chasing Rainbows is a very dangerous thing to do as it means so much to so many, people saying it was used at a funeral or for a first dance, it has so much meaning that to flippantly go into the studio and just re-hash it isn’t the way to go.

It’s still Chasing Rainbows but has elements of newness that brings it up to something more relevant.

This is the scenario we found ourselves in for quite some time, we were kind of going down that rabbit hole of being a nostalgia act, which we were comfortable doing but then you start writing new songs that are more relevant, which is where we find ourselves today.

Having listened to all your music I have to say although it’s distincively Shed Seven, and I don’t just mean the musical arrangements in it, it’s also distinctly your voice, but there are definitely some changes to it.

I’m glad you’ve noticed that, it’s exactly what I’ve been saying, it’s grown up music for grown up people. Which is your favourite track on Liquid Gold?

Ocean Pie, which was our first single on our debut album. Listening back to that for the first time was a big thrill for me because I love that song.

We’ve tinkered with the arrangement, just by putting a little pause in, a breathing space, it takes the song to a whole different place. So I think from after the second chorus to the end of that piece, as far as I am concerned it is just a magificent piece and I can’t wait to get out and play that. I’m 51 now but I try to put everything I can into it because I care about it.

Will there be any gigs with an orchestra?

Never say never. In the short term we’re doing this huge greatest hits 30 anniversary tour and we’re including some Liquid Gold .

It’s been such a busy year this year, we’ve never stopped, I’m clinging on to what feels like a rollercoaster so we can get to November and do this tour.

You’ve done a few collaborations, is there anyone dead or alive you’d like to work with?

There are so many. I would love Elvis to join me on stage!

I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve but I haven’t asked the relevant people yet, and we still have these songs to write.

We’ll go a bit quiet in January and February and start doing some writing and see what happens.

Which songs will never make it on to your set list again?

It may not be we don’t like particular songs but they might not fit in, we have a lot of great B sides but they don’t fit, as at our gigs we like to take people on a journey and sometimes things just aren’t right, that’s not through a lack of love for them though.

We keep writing new songs and we can only play so many, so what do we get rid of? We’d get lynched if we didn’t play Chasing Rainbows, we’d get lynched if we didn’t play On Standby or Disco Down, so what do we do?

A question from a friend, who we shall refer to as Goole Shedhead, he wants to know if you’ll play Wired for Sound on the tour?

I think it was Universal at the time were trying to get bands to do Cliff Richard songs fo an anniversary. We were approached and we chose Wired for Sound but then the whole project fell apart so we put it on a B side as bit of a laugh and a joke.

Weirdly enough there are peole asking time and time again about us playing that song but there’s not enough of them! Telll your mate we tried that once as we were getting pestered about eight years ago so we did put it on the set list and everyone just stood there scratching their heads. If your mate had been there he would have been one person out of 2,000 that loved it but 1,999 would have been scratching their heads.

Are you still chasing rainbows?

Aren’t we all, there’s always something new to achieve and aspire to, the minute you sit on your laurels and think about your lot, it’s getting over that, there’s always something to aim for. It took us 30 years in our recording career to get to number 1, but it’s not stopping us want another one.

To get your copy of Liquid Gold check out https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liquid-Amazon-Exclusive-Artwork-Signed/dp/B0D4RBWWQD