Only the Strong Survive

Interview with Steve Overland of FM

It was with great excitement that the Fireworks crew heard about the reformation of FM, the band that recorded arguably the greatest UK AOR debut ever with 'Indiscreet'. That excitement was exceeded when we were granted an exclusive interview with Steve Overland. Kieran Dargan gets the lowdown....

I know that on many occasions in the past there have been offers for FM to do a reunion, an album,a tour etc. etc. but for some reason you always said no, the timings not right or that you wanted to do something different, so why now, what factors made you decide to get together and record a new album?

I ve been working on the Shadowman album with Steve Morris and Khalil is one of these guys always looking to do something new and worthwhile. I mean, Pete Jupp and I have worked on various things together over the years and we write a lot of material, but we ve always had this backlog of kind of songs that never really made it onto an FM album - not because they weren t good enough... I mean we d write twenty songs for each album and for one reason or another, be it they didn t suit the scheme of things or whatever at the time. This material is mainly from the first three albums, the debut, 'Tough It Out' and 'Aphrodisiac' . We have some really great songs that never made it, and we re lazy... we just kept putting this stuff to one side. Khalil heard some of these songs and suggested that we record an album of these songs and he just kept on and on about it. We re also going to put out a live album from some masters that we found under Pete s bed of a gig from the Astoria

So that actually does happen then, you know the finding it under the bed thing?

Oh yeah. I mean, honestly Kieran you wouldn t believe how much stuff FM recorded that we never put out. It was basically an overflow.We d have so much material and then the record company would come along and say 'Right' you have to go to America to write with Desmond Child' or whoever it may be, so a lot of what we d written got shoved aside because they didn t fit in with the rest of the material. These songs are by no means second best type of material, they are very good songs. It will be a great album. Now we ve heard them back to back and we have been through probably twenty five and picked twelve for the album I think now is a good time to release them. It s not brand new material but for example we have played some of these songs live previously such as Dangerous which only ever came out as a live B-side. It was a real fan favourite and we always got asked when we were going to put it on a record, so we re going to record it, work on it and bring it into this decade. Basically, make it a bit more current. I m quite excited at the prospect of doing it - we have so much to do and we keep putting it off. I mean all the FM members are very busy, getting the band back together is a daunting prospect. Steve Morris is going to produce it. He s a great guy to work with, very talented and that s the thing about Steve...he s going to do a lot of the ground work on this.

I am led to believe that this album will be a totally new recording, not just a re hash of the old demos

Yes, I don t see the point in doing that. If we are going to release another FM record fans don t want demos. I mean lets face it, we are talking about maybe late eighties, early nineties... it has to be brought up to date.

That s a favourite argument among fans especially when they hear a favourite band is recording a new album after ten years away. Will it actually sound like FM as they used to sound or will it be something new that they won t recognise or relate to?

They are demos, so basically the sound on them is not up to speed, so we need to record them with proper guitar and we can improve it by 90%. It s amazing the technology out there now that will allow us to do that. So far Merv, Pete and I will put it together, we were always a band that if we wrote something that we thought was crap we d just screw it up and put it in the bin. Unfortunately some of the stuff the Japanese got hold of was below par, but that was because they tagged demos on there. They always want the extra tracks. I mean if you didn t give them permission you will always find your album still contained two extra tracks. This whole album has been carefully looked at... some of the songs are really old but they are really strong songs . I would have never thought about recording it but Khalil and Steve heard it and said 'You know, these songs are on a par with any album FM ever put out.' Pete, Merv and I will be the nucleus and as far as the others go ..we ll see.

I believe the guitarist is to be confirmed in the next day or two?

I can t really say, we re still talking about a few people so we ll see what happens (and qualified with a hearty laugh as a result of years of experience gained by talking to the international press)

Any hints?

No, I really can t say at the minute. We re just waiting for some things to be worked out, but we hope to be able to say in the very near future

STOP PRESS: The following day after this interview was completed ex Dare, Asia and Ten guitarist Vinny Burns was confirmed by Escape Music as the new guitarist in FM.

Has it been a daunting task for you to drag the old FM monster back into the limelight again?

Well yes in a way. It s been talked about so many times in the past. We ve been offered support tours and all sorts of things but really, it s never been the right time. We were together for eleven years and that s a hell of a career. We did a lot of touring but at the end it was a mutual agreement to part. We felt we d done all we could do at the time. I don t think it s really been that daunting because we sort of drifted in to it, it wasn t like suddenly okay, here we are&.what do we do next? We have an idea of what we want to do, we have some great material and we want to get it out there. Who knows where it will lead to from here, it s all brand new to us now.

Another aspect of the reunion is you have mentioned is FM will be yourself, Merv and Pete. I guess a lot of people will ask why Chris isn t involved this time around, or Didge?

Didge&oh my god&.well if you can find him tell him give me a shout. I really have no idea what he s up to. Funny though, I just spoke to Chris at Christmas. I went back to Norfolk and my wife and I spent a few days with Chris and his wife. He s a guitar teacher now and sort of has a monopoly on it around Norfolk. He has a music room built at the back of his house and the only time he leaves home is to go to the pub. To get him to play on it I would have to go and pick him up, bring him to the studio and look after him. When he left FM he was tired. He was tired of the touring. We had spent ages on the road and he just had enough. A lot of songs on this album will be Chris co-writes, they will have that old FM stamp on them, basically songs from the 'Tough It Out' period. I would say seventy percent of the songs are co-writes with my brother, but you d never know. It s been talked about and everybody would love him to do it.

I think the fans would.

Oh definitely, so would Khalil. He thinks he s a great songwriter and a great player. With a bit of coaxing I may get him to do a few solos on it but I d have to pick him up, bring him down here and put him up in a quality hotel for a few days you know&.

A lot of people would expect Andy Barnett to be involved. He has been very vocal previously in stating that he d love to do FM again, plus he occasionally plays live with XFM, so the awkward one&why no Andy?

We don t know about that yet either. It s early days yet. I mean it s very difficult to get this whole thing organised. It s not like ..okay, I know what we ll do, we ll do an FM album. We ve been split for eight years now and that s a long time. Andy lives in Malta now, and he s quite hard to track down. Don t count these people out yet, they may well yet figure on the album. Merv is the hardest person to get to do anything. He has a very comfortable lifestyle. We ve all managed to survive in the business and made good money doing it, more than we ever made with FM .The album is being recorded up north so he d have to uproot. Once you ve been off the road for a while it gets harder to return to it. They all live in London and do what they do, and are comfortable doing it. You have to persuade them it s a good idea. We ve talked about it now and went through the songs and Merv s keen to do it. I mean he wouldn t put his name to it if it wasn t anything but our best. I think this material is much better than the later FM material, because it was written in the same time frame as some of the best albums we made .There are a couple of tracks from the 'Aphrodisiac' era also. It s a good representation of the early part of FM songwriting wise... there are some very strong songs, soulful rock music if you like.

Now that you have put the beast back together and you are all in FM mode, do you think you ll go back to being the road dogs that you once were? I mean there s a whole bunch of fans all over the world who are waiting to see you.

It s not beyond the realms of possibility. If the album is well received then obviously you d have to consider that. If you want to accelerate the sales of the album you have to be out there doing it live. Rock fans want to see what they are buying, they want to see the band and see that they are a genuine functioning unit. I won t rule it out, you can t do that. Since I left FM, music has taken me down so many different roads that I ve learnt to say never say never. I didn t think that this time last year I d be making another rock album this year! I had done the SO project and enjoyed doing it and then I did some work on the Boston tribute album, then the Shadowman project with Steve Morris and suddenly it s an FM album. I think now it s time to go back to doing what people think I do best!

You ve just coined a phrase there. You have done various other projects and now you are back doing FM. One of my favourite questions to ask is, when you decide you are doing another FM album after a gap of eight years, do you have to put your mindset back to 1988 or 89 to write FM style material or does the melody and big chorus come naturally to you?

It comes naturally. If you look at the SO album, it still has the big chorus but it didn t have the same production as an FM album, it s the same voice but structured differently. For me, I can t sit down and write a song that I think people won t remember. It has to have that chorus. Rock songs are structured differently than Crowded House songs and you have to have that mindset. You don t sit down and write a song and go 'Okay, this one will be for FM.' You can t do that. A song is a song, it just depends on how you approach it and structure it to suit what you want to do with it, be it FM or SO or whatever.

So the Leopard never changes his spots then?

Ha ha, yes I guess so. Pete and I write a lot of stuff. He has a studio in London and we re currently writing some Rn'B material for like a real American Rn'B artist. That s basically to have songs placed and earn publishing which is a good money maker as you know. The thing I find most exciting is the songwriting, when you get to finally hear it and sit down and it matches the picture in your head that s the best part, aside from gigging obviously. I m back into recording now and I want to keep busy, I m enjoying it.

You ve had a major burst of creativity recently, - SO, the Boston tribute, the Shadowman project. How funny will it seem to you going back into the studio to sing those FM songs that were written years ago?

I m quite excited really. The vocals on the demos, I d forgotten how I sang some of that stuff. I m looking forward to the vocal parts, trying to put a little more of the way I sang on the latter stages of my career in there. More soul. If you listen to the first FM album, it was basically pop songs... 'American Girls'. The new songs are from that era, there s one song called Crying in the Dark that was from the 'Indiscreet' era, very much like 'American Girls'... that type of vibe. It will have a little more maturity hopefully, all we re going to do is put better sounds on them, maybe change a few arrangements here and there but if you are an FM fan you won t be disappointed because the strength of the songs from that era of the band were great.

You mentioned earlier about seeing if the album was well received. Obviously things have changed a great deal in the business since FM broke up. Previously where say you sold 150,000 of an album, that may have been considered as well received where as today a lot of AOR albums released by the smaller labels will sell no where in the region of those kind of numbers. How will you judge if it s well received.

I think it will be a feedback thing. You have to be realistic. You have just said everything I would have said. The climate has changed but obviously everybody who loved that kind of music isn t dead! They may have branched out a little in their taste but they still like that kind of music. I only know it s worth doing because of web sites, magazines such as yours - which incidentally is a great read - and the fans. The general interest in us from all over the world still amazes us. I have no preconceived notions as to how it s going to do and really I m not bothered... this is for us and the fans.

And most importantly you have no pressure from a record company

Absolutely. Believe you me, have you heard the stories about FM and Epic..haha! Oh God...when I think of it. We were under constant pressure from them to be their Bon Jovi. They worked us into the ground and it all just went tits up. Now we can take our time and do things at our own pace. What s great about working with a label such as Escape is Khalil s enthusiasm is second to none and he lets us get on with it.

Enthusiasm is great, isn t it?

Oh yes, I mean you have to be enthusiastic about what you do, if you re not the fans will know, they re not stupid. I mean there s nothing worse than standing on stage just going through the motions. You write the songs and you have to put your soul into them, because they are coming from you anyway. I mean that s why we stopped FM, I didn t feel that after 'Dead Man's Shoes'... I mean it was disjointed anyway, it was recorded here there and everywhere, it was getting to the stage where I felt the next album would be hard work because things weren t flowing anymore and I decided that was it.

How hard was it for you guys to break up after a ten year career? I mean how hard was it to sit in a room and say to guys that you lived with on the road for ten years, 'Okay guys, this is it. We re done'?

It was very hard. I think to be honest we were on the road at the time when we decided to call it a day. People knew, we all knew it was the right time. It s hard because they are your family. You spend more time with those people than with your own family. It s the camaraderie that you miss, to think that you won t see these people in a rehearsal room in two weeks and you won t be recording a new album, that s the hardest part. Then again, you have to be realistic that there are these people called fans and you can t con them. If it gets to the point where you feel you are going through the motions and I felt at that time if we did another album that that is what it would be, going through the motions. We are all still good friends and we all still talk, so from the point of view of getting back together it s not as if we re all strangers so it should be a nice creative atmosphere and most importantly it should be fun.

So back to the touchy subject of live shows. Assuming the album comes out well and is well received how difficult will it be to get you out playing live, perhaps even just a small tour of England to get things started?

Well, FM live was always a complex thing. We used a lot of samplers and it will take time to get all that together, but we are remembered as a great live band and we certainly wouldn t do it unless it was as good as it was when we stopped, but if we feel we have to get out and play in support of the album we will do it!

So FM are back, now that you are gearing up for the album and maybe even some live shows is there anything you would like to say to the long standing fans out there?

I would like to thank them for being very patient, it s great. They never, ever lose their enthusiasm. Everybody I speak to out and around always have only nice things to say about us and it s great. I hope they all enjoy the new album and thanks again.