READY TO FLY

Whilst most of their contemporaries within the NWOBHM were cranking out the power chords with precious little thought as to what came afterwards, North Derbyshire pomp quintet Saracen were pooling their talents into an altogether more cerebral direction. To this day, their 1982 released debut Heroes, Saints And Fools is widely regarded as a classic, a gem shining like a beacon in an otherwise sea of dross. Although the band have been inactive for the best part of two decades now, Fireworks magazine has been instrumental in coaxing them out of retirement. And as their recently released comeback album Red Sky proves, they ve lost none of that edge which made them such an exciting proposition first time around. Dave Cockett caught up with guitarist Rob Bendelow &

To many, Saracen effectively died when founding guitarist Rob Bendelow quit, and although the band soldiered on for one more album - 84 s much poppier Change of Heart - it wasn t long before everyone else called it a day too. "The band actually hung up its boots in 1985," he confirms, "but it wasn t a bust up, it was just time to finish. And we ve still remained the best of friends - the keyboard player (Richard Lowe) is my best mate, and we ve all continued to see one another on a regular basis ever since. But we just didn t want to do it anymore, and it wasn t until 1992 that I discovered technology had moved on and that computers were providing much more support to musicians and composers. So I got interested again and bought some gear, just for fun, no big deal. Then I wrote some stuff and recorded them with Jason (Gardner) our old bassist., and got some people to sing & Steve (Bettney) of course, and Jason s wife &all for fun. Then we had a party round at mine one night, and for fun I programmed Smoke On The Water , All Right Now , and Black Sabbath - I played the guitar, and we got different people up to sing & and we had a great time. So we thought let s do music like this ."

"Then what we did was," Rob continues, "we got some backing tracks together - everything from Stairway To Heaven to Hey Jude - and we did some house parties, and it just kind of snowballed from there. We got invitations to go and play at various parties doing rock from the 70 s and stuff & well, the places were going absolutely ape. So we did some charity gigs, a couple of guitars and a variety of singers, not even people who could really sing, just some great local people & and we got Steve from Saracen singing Stairway To Heaven , a real good blend, and we had some fantastic nights. That s really what got us back together again and playing, and at one of these rehearsals we were doing Wishing Well by Free, and Steve stopped us half way through and said I can t believe we re not doing some Saracen stuff guys! . So that was the trigger to get us back together and thinking about Saracen again."



However, the real trigger to reactivate the band came via our very own Bruce Mee, long time Saracen fan, and partner in Now & Then Records. "I d gotten to the point where I thought I ve got music in me ," explains Rob, " and if I don t do something I m gonna burst! . And much as I love playing Smoke on the Water and Paranoid , I really wanted to make my own music again. So I put in a full blown recording studio at home and put together a project (Templar). I did one or two old Saracen bits like Dolphin Ride off the first album, some new stuff I d written; it was quite a variety. There was a bluesy instrumental inspired by my love of Gary Moore, quite a spread of stuff really & and I did an album ( Come to the Light ). It took about 18 months to put together, and obviously, I can t sing a note so I got some help from various people & Steve did vocals, Richard did vocals, I got a guy in to play saxophone, all sorts of stuff. But I didn t want to con anybody, it wasn t Saracen, so I picked the name Templar because I m very interested in the history of the Knights Templar & and it went really well."


"I got an internet site together," Rob adds, "and all of a sudden, all of these people who were old Saracen fans came out of the woodwork. And suddenly, thanks to all these web sites and stuff giving it good reviews, a bit of a buzz started to build around it & and one of those magazines was Fireworks. And in fact a Saracen fan called Mick Stones, he was the catalyst for all this. He sought me out because of the Templar thing - we ve been friends ever since - and he suggested that I ought to contact Fireworks. So I contacted Bruce, and it turns out that he and his colleague Mark were big Saracen fans - never saw the band play but had the music, and often wondered where we disappeared to. So Bruce did a lovely review of the Templar album, but what he was really interested in was Saracen. And I said Well, we re not together, we re just mates & we haven t even got a drummer anymore . Now normally, I m an intensely positive person, but on this occasion I was throwing the negatives back at Bruce. But eventually he answered all my concerns, so I said I m sorry Bruce, I haven t got any more reasons to say no, ha, ha! . And that s what led to us sitting down with Now & Then and striking a deal."

If we rewind a little, it turns out that the band actually recorded a second album with Rob, an album which should have catapulted them to into the big time. "We were with Polygram at the time," recalls Rob, "and they said that if things went well, they were gonna offers us a full blown contract. When Heroes, Saints And Fools first came out, the press kept saying that we were gonna be the next band to break, but the record company turned their back on rock so needless to say we were history. Then CBS got involved, and at that time they were looking for a replacement for Judas Priest, their only British band at the time - so we had this whole album called Chain Reaction demo d and ready to go. We were doing most of the songs in the set at the time, but some of them never saw the light of day until now on this new album. The title track Red Sky would ve been on that album, Chain Reaction will be on the next one & Flame Of Youth , Jekyll and Hyde (later recorded for Change of Heart ), both of those would ve been on there. And I suspect that Follow the Piper which is regarded by many of the fans as our anthem, that would ve probably made it too. That s probably our oldest song ever, I think it dates back to like 1975 or something. And there's two or three more songs which are being revamped for the next album in this series."

Given that there was so much previously unreleased material kicking around, at first it seems strange that Saracen would choose to re-record a couple of tracks each from the first two albums. "Well, the thing is," Rob ponders, "a lot of people feel that Heroes, Saints and Fools is a classic, but to be honest with you, we find that hard to reconcile. They re very positive about it, and that s great, but listening back now, it s really a product of it s time. Albeit that it was recorded in a good studio and with good planning, but we did the whole thing in a week, so it s not as good as it could ve been. If we were a blues band or something that liked that kind of live sound, it would ve been okay, but we re not. Our music demands, and we demand, high quality production. And when we drew up the deal with Now & Then, I basically put together a list of everything that could be in the frame which I gave to Mark and Bruce & and they were so enthusiastic, it was almost like they were members of the band. They really thought that we should do a couple of numbers from Heroes, Saints and Fools , redone in a modern environment to the best of our ability - hence the title track and Horsemen of the Apocalypse being on there. And in redoing those two songs, we rediscovered them, especially Heroes, & . With regards to Change of Heart , whilst they were my songs, I wasn t on the album, so I had no problems whatsoever redoing them in that, shall we say, typical Saracen way with me as part of the quintet."

Certainly, the revamped We Have Arrived is a million light years away from the watered down version which originally graced the second album.

Listening to Rob enthuse about Red Sky , it s clear that he and the band are more than pleased with the finished results. "Oh absolutely," he admits. "That really came home to me when I did the Templar album. If I d just met you and you didn t know our music, I feel that I d have to spend half an hour explaining to you why Heroes, Saints and Fools doesn t sound quite as good as we d want it to - it s ridiculous really, but that s how you feel when you re a musician. But if I lend you my Templar album, I don t feel I ve got to make any excuses, that was as good as I could make it at the time. And the same with this album, we don t feel like we ve got to make excuses to anybody because we ve tried to make it a quality release with tasty songs, and a production that s actually relevant to our style of music. So it s perhaps a bit brighter than some things you ll hear, but it s absolutely us & I know in theory you should never say you re 100% satisfied, but actually we are, ha, ha!"

Having taken the best part of 18 months to put together, the next step is to promote Red Sky , possibly with some live gigs. Indeed, their absence from this year s Gods line up is somewhat conspicuous. "We mooted the Gods," recalls Rob, "indeed we were the first band to be invited to play, and the first band who wanted to play. But the problem is getting everyone together to rehearse sufficiently to put on a worthwhile show. I found a great drummer (Jamie Little) for the album because our original drummer John Thorne doesn t drum anymore - well, he does, but he plays a single drum in an African New World Music set up, so it s not really appropriate to Saracen. But Jamie is brilliant, he s played with people like Robbie Williams - not necessarily rock stars, but he can obviously play. Trouble is, he s not our drummer exclusively. Since getting involved with Saracen, he s gotten involved with Now & Then and Bob Catley, and that s great for him, but he s involved in tours and stuff. So as a band we would ve been ready, but we just haven t got all the pieces of the jigsaw together for the Gods. And so we re gonna be rehearsing over the next few months, and if another band off the label goes on tour - Ten or Bob Catley for instance - then we can put our hands up and say that we re ready to support them. So yeah, we are gearing up to play, but we re not gonna do eight nights a week anymore, that s just not feasible - nor do I think it s demanded these days."

As we speak, news has just landed that Now & Then are gearing up to reissue Heroes, Saints and Fools on CD for the first time. "It s gonna be the original album," confirms Rob, "not screwed with, but digitally remastered. And that s come about basically because we ve had so many requests from people to hear the album on CD. I wish I had a pound for everyone who d asked me that question, you wouldn t believe the number of people who ve come out of the woodwork on that one, ha, ha! So I m delighted that we re gonna do it. It ll be the original album of seven tracks, mastered to sound good, but not remixed - I mean, we don t actually have those old tapes now. So we ll be mastering the best that we can on CD, and there ll be a couple of bonus tracks on there too. There ll be the original version of We Have Arrived which was out as a single with me playing, and there ll also be a ballad called Face In The Crowd , which would be lost to the world other than this. They re both from pretty much the same era, so it s not like we re-recorded them yesterday."

"And we re gonna do a nice job on the booklet," Rob adds. "I ve been up in the loft digging out all the old pictures and stuff, right back to the pre Saracen days. Imagine old Richard Lowe looking like Jesus Christ with hair all down his back, stuff like that, ha, ha! There's also another side to this, a German rip-off company called TRC Records did a bootleg about ten years ago, plus quite a few tracks off of Change Of Heart . A fan played me a copy and it s an absolute disgrace - not just because it s illegal, but the reproduction is pathetic! The songs don t start properly or anything, and I thought all the fans who bought this in good faith must be thinking Why have thy made such a fucking awful job, when it s easier to do it properly? & so we re gonna do it properly."

With a deal for three albums (excluding the reissue of Heroes, Saints and Fools ) on the table, there s obviously life beyond Red Sky , the next album (already in planning) will be a Rob Bendelow solo effort called Vox In Excelso . "That s gonna be a concept album," offers Rob, "it has a theme all the way through, which tells the story of The Knights Templar, or at least part of their history. Actually, one of the tracks we demo d for the Chain Reaction album was a ten minute epic called Mary Magdalene - the crowds loved it, but they never actually got chance to buy it because we never recorded it, save for a rough demo. But as fate would have it, one of the central characters in Templar belief is Mary Magdalene, so a licked into shape version of that track will be on this album."

A fascinating subject shrouded in mystery, the Vox In Excelso album delves way beyond the recorded history of the Templars into other, somewhat more controversial areas. "This particular album covers a period of history that ends with the creation of the Priory Of Zion," Rob explains, "but the real period of history that we re talking about starts with the crucifixion of Christ. Even though the Templars didn t officially come into existence until more than a thousand years later, that s something which is crucial to Templar belief. Then it leaps forward in history to the point where the first seven Templars went to the Holy Land to in theory begin protecting the pilgrim routes, although in actual fact they went to Jerusalem to discover the secrets buried beneath Solomon s Temple."

"It deals with the official history," Rob continues, "which says that they were supreme military men on the battlefield, and that they became a massive financial power which actually founded the European banking system we see today. And how the King of France and the Pope of the day colluded to bring about their downfall because they became too powerful - that s the official history which no one disputes. But equally, this story deals with the controversial side which says that they believe Christ didn t die on the cross, was never intended to die, but allowed to escape to a place in southern France called Rennes-le-Château. The story goes that he escaped there with his wife Mary Magdalene - not quite how she s portrayed in the Bible - and their children, or children to be. So that puts a whole different perspective on it - it actually blows the whole Christianity thing out of the water, which makes it ever so slightly controversial, ha, ha! And the album deals with that blatantly - it s not me trying to preach or anything, I m just using it to inspire me as a writer."

Like Gary Hughes ambitious Once And Future King project, the intention is for the central characters in the story to be played by different singers, hence the need to separate it from Saracen. "Some of the songs are what we call narratives," offers Rob, "and Steve will sing those. He ll also do all of the demo s, but the intention is to try and bring other singers into the project. We ve approached one or two people about playing the different characters, but at the moment I don t really want to say too much about that & not whilst the tape s running anyway, ha, ha!"

After that, there s the prospect of a full blown follow up to Red Sky , and whilst plans at the moment include re-recording both Ready to Fly , and Crusader from Heroes & , most of the material will be brand new.