Tony Mill's Interview for AOROCK

SHY - Reflections The Anthology - Excess All Areas - Misspent Youth - Brave The Storm - Unfinished Business - Sunset & Vine

Tony Mills - The Camden Underworld - London

Interview with Tony Mills- SHY vocalist:(Tony's answers are in green)

Hi Tony , last time we talked was on the Misspent Youth Tour, and SHY was about to play The Astoria in London before touring the States. So it's good to see you back in London at The Camden Underworld..........

1)...Is this the 1st time SHY have played London since then to your knowledge?

They could have played London after I left the band in 1990, I'm not sure.

2) When you 1st formed SHY what did you hope to achieve and How does SHY shape up today as a band compared to the early period (Once Bitten/Brave the Storm) of the band?

Well, first of all I didn't form SHY, I was the last to join in 1983. At the time I had been playing with much heavier bands and had enjoyed working on stage and in the studio. This all came to an abrupt end when I was fired from ORION for refusing to drive a car to a gig down south with no insurance or MOT. It was fortuitous that SHY were offered a deal the next day. all I wanted was to continue to sing and record and carry on enjoying that. I think the thoughts of rock stardom were in the back pocket tucked away at the time. Nowadays the band are a much tighter outfit although in some ways we have returned to a similarity of the early eighties in that we do all vocals live now like we used to, without any samples etc.

3) SHY's 1st Major label album release was Brave The Storm. It seems very well produced. Was it over produced & was it the record the band intended to release?

This was our first experience of professional studios and expensive producers. The first time someone had come in and pulled the songs apart in pre-production sessions before going anywhere near a studio. It was all very new. And he was quite a well to do dude really, and us from various areas in Birmingham. I had a major disagreement with Tony Platt about vocals that were out of tune on Caught In The Act and he wouldn't let me re-record them because he liked the attitude. I was adamant to the point of complaining to the management at the time who in turn had to involve the record company to force the issue. That put a dampener on it for me, but I was very pleased with the album as a whole. It became very operatic when the producers buddies were called in to do backing vocals; Pete Goalby from Uriah Heep and John Sinclair from the Ozzy Osbourne band. There was a slight drop in level after the guitar solo on Caught In The Act as well, and as it turned out, Tony never attended the mastering session for the album, so something went wrong there. This was discussed in the press many years ago, and I was misquoted as saying Tony never went to the mix of the album and was consequently threatened with a libel case. But I personally and I'm sure the band as a whole, learnt a lot from Tony Platt and his production techniques; it was the first time I had seen anyone edit sounds on a Fairlight computer.

Together with the £3000 drinks bill at the hotel, it was all a very meaningful experience.

4) Hold Onto Your Love had a video shoot. Where was that done and what can you remember about it?

This was filmed on two sites. The first was on a carousel that had borrowed from a Paul McCartney shoot and had been lifted into the middle of Pinewood Forest. The filming was completed at Ewarts Film Studios in London. On the whole for it's time, the video hasn't really aged and the song still has it's appeal. My acting has been the subject of much humour over the years, but filming the video was bloody hard work; try miming the same song over and over again for nine hours. My jaw had seized up!! I remember the model that was used for the shoot being particularly unsociable, we never did find out what she charged us. I think the video cost £60k in the end and that was 20 years ago. Dread to think what it may cost now !

5) For me the title track Brave The Storm & the Reflections are stand out tracks. Is that how you see it now?

I always thought that Brave The Storm was the strongest track, which is why I chose it as the album title.

But Caught in The Act and Keep The Fires Burning also hit the spot for me.

6) Apart from Reflections you don't play any Once Bitten or Brave The Storm material now...explain the bands thinking behind this?

The main reason is that with the onslaught of Excess All Areas and the strength of the marketing behind that product, it took over the majority of our fanbase and that was the album we were expected to play wherever we went. And of course tracks from subsequent albums. However, we have dabbled with the older material and in the last two weeks, discussions have gone on about Deep Water and Chained By Desire.

7) When Brave The Storm was released the record company included a free Shy shirt and the charts regulatory body lowered Shy's chart position. Is this true?

Very true. Is was an unmitigated disaster; first album charting on a major label, in at no. 75 in the national charts and before you knew it it was lifted and put out to no. 120. The same happened with the single. RCA couldn't have fucked it up any further if they had tried. They got verbal permission and not written from Gallup Pole and because they could not remember who they had spoken to and had no proof of the conversation, we were penalised and the damage was done. Tough eh ? All I can say is, that the manager went bloody spare and wiped the floor with the administration office at RCA.

8) Do you remember the free publicity Shy got from a newspaper article at the time? Tell us about that if you can. (About people on the street I think/fan wearing Shy shirt)

This escapes me completely, you never really stop doing press when you're signed to a major label, so it was endless, but no I dont recall that specific occasion.

Moving onto the Excess All Areas period now:

9) Excess All Areas is generally seen as SHY's classic album. That's the way the fans see it. How do you see it now and how did you feel about the album at the time when it had been completed?

It was a real achievement. After months of writing in Los Angeles and recording the demos in studios over there and in Birmingham, it was eventually recorded in Holland and mixed in London at various studios. For the time it was an epic piece of work for us and we were very proud of it. It still stands up eighteen years later and says a lot about the quality of the recording and the production by Neil Kernon.

10) Excess All Areas is SHY's hit album. How well did the band feel it was going to do Chart-wise. Did any of the singles chart abroad. Where did the album sell best?

I dont think the band ever felt it would chart nationally because we were very aware that we weren't really a pop group and the business isn't that well geared for rock stuff here and never has been. It became a well known album in the States but again wasn't a chart album.

The sales were strongest in Europe and Japan and consequently we spent a long time touring it through Germany and Scandinavia. It charted in Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. I dont think it charted in Germany but stayed at the top of many rock charts in many countries including the UK but only reached the 80's in the national chart here.

11) Neil Kernon produced Excess All Areas. How was the bands relationship with him and what did he bring to this Shy album?

This is a very clever and talented man, who was very knowledgable in sound engineering and production. The band got on famously with Neil as he had a lot to teach us and also partied hard as well. I have fond memories of working with him even down to picking his chewing gum out of my hair before i dragged him bodily out of the studio and gave him a good kicking.

12) Any chance of working with Neil Kernon again? Would you given the chance?

SHY worked with Neil again on Welcome To The Madhouse, but he never completed the project. I personally would have no problem with working alongside Neil again, but some of the other members may feel differently.

13) SHY seemed to go down very well on The Excess All Areas Tour. You supported Gary Moore - Any highlights and any mishaps on this tour?

Many and varied. Michael Schenker watched the Hannover show from side stage and said he thought the band were awesome. A great compliment from a rock star, it doesn't get much better than that ! Engulfed by fans in Scandinavia, we charted and were stormed by people in Finland, hell I got hair torn off my head ! Unfortunately, the Spaniards at the time were just as fanatical but to the extent of detrement. I was stabbed on stage in Barcelona and mugged outside the gig in Bilbao by a guy with a broken bottle. As if this wasn't enough, because we had to leave early to reach the next gig, the coach was bottled by the crowd as we left. Machine guns in the face at 5am on the Belgian border looking for drugs, a roadie that disappeared off the back of the ferry in the fjords from Stckholm to Helsinki, a food allergy that hospitalised me in Helsinki 2 hours before the show, the list goes on and on. At the end of the tour in Madrid, Steve Harris was hit by a brick on stage in front of 30,000 people in an open air bull ring, which saw the end of the show after 3 songs. I got very drunk after this and woke up on a beach in Biarritz with no belongings. I had been misbehaving apparantly, and the driver dumped me without any boots, only to pick me up 8 hours later.

But over and above the rock n roll elements of this tour, the concerts were faultless and the crowds were huge, consequently we sold a lot of product in Europe.

14) When SHY returned to the UK they were dropped by RCA . Did this come as a surprise and do you think you would have got another album if Excess All Areas had gone top 40?

SHY were in a list of bands on the RCA rosta that were being developed. Because of financial difficulties, RCA's accountants decided to clear the rosta of all acts with a debit on their account. We were one of many. Yes it was a great surprise, especially after we had done Reading Festival with Alice Cooper the week before. Even if we had gone top 40, it would have made no difference, because RCA at the time were speculating with the band and we left owing the label more than we could have recouped by such a chart position.

15) SHY at this time played the Marquee in London a lot. Did you enjoy these gigs?. Any particular incident/moments you remember?

These were awesome times. Never being able to put a foot wrong. Band were really on form. Gigs were always sold out. The temperature on stage was horrendous and we used to lie on the concrete out the back of the gig to cool down. Using vocal samples to help us out in those days, it was funny when a guy threw a biscuit from the audience and it hit the keys player in the face and landed on the sample trigger on the keyboard and triggered Break Down The Walls in the middle of Devil Woman......

After Excess All Areas came Misspent Youth..I have another interview for this in the AOROCK pipeline, but just a few quick questions before talking about Unfinished Business./ Sunset & Vine...

16) When you recorded Misspent Youth you decided to release a harder edged album. Forgetting Production Values for the moment (& Misspent Youth seemed to do that) Why did the band not produce another Excess type album and did you try to get Neil Kernon again as producer. What happened?

I think the onset of Grunge took over what was happening with the band and we had been listening to harder edged bands for many months on tour. We were advised to write material along the lines of Bon Jovi, to capture what was going on in the market place and were forced into a song called Broken Heart. This wasn't what we really wanted to do at the time, but we understood the commercial sense of it. We should have followed our hearts more, but we were under a lot of pressure by both the management and the record company to come up with the goods. Everything pointed to only possible success by a heavier sound, and we got sucked into an endless vacuum of failure on the project. Kernon wasn't available, we used Roy Thomas Baker who both Roy and I respected, but he didn't understand the banter; to say the least, and it all fell out of bed on the first day's pre-production at Alley Cat Studios in L.A. Ergo, here comes the disaster.......

17) You left SHY after the Misspent Youth album. Why did you leave and did you ever think you would rejoin?

I left because I was not informed of writing sessions of new material, that I didn't like anyway, even though I recorded the demos for 'Welcome To The Madhouse' I disliked the material and it made my mind up to leave the project after much unrest between Alan Kelly and myself. No, I didn't think I would ever rejoin, but the circumstances were customised to include my return to the band , so we just got back together and carried on.a onto more recent times with Unfinished Business & Sunset & Vine...

18) What's the writing/production process and how do they compare to Brave The Storm/Excess All Areas albums? What are the main differences?

Well, in the eighties, none of us had recording facilities at home. Now we all have. I run a 48 track MAC based Logic Audio system at home, so I can work endlessly on vocals and Steve can write at home on his system. Beforehand, Steve would bring a cassette of something he recorded at home to the rehearsal room and we would all cower over the tape player with a pen and paper thinking about what fitted the music !

Primarily, Steve works for months on music at home and I get finished musical pieces to match up lyrical ideas too. That's pretty much how SHY works.

19) Sunset & Vine for me eclipses Unfinished Business as SHY's best album since Excess All Areas. Which album did you enjoy recording the most & why?

Probably, Excess All Areas. It was the first time we'd recorded abroad with a pro producer and with a big budget. We learnt a lot about being abroad and working with foreign engineers etc. The most amazing thing for me about the Excess album, was the fact that Holland has a small music industry, and we were having real trouble getting a great guitar sound. So we advertised on Dutch national radio for everyone in the country who had a great Marshall amp, to bring it to Amsterdam to the studio. Hundreds of people turned up with amps , and for days we tried them all out. None of them were acceptable to the producer. We even flew back to the UK and fetched Marshall amps from London, still no joy. In the end , Def Leppard were recording Hysteria about ten miles away, and we met up with Mutt Lange, the producer who told us he was using a JHS rock box ( a little Sony Walkman type practice unit for guitar players) and we tried it out. It was awesome. And that's how we recorded the guitars for Excess.

20) The Journey comparison has been made with Sunset & Vine. Is that fair and do you think this is a good thing for Shy?

I think their are comparisons between us and Journey and that has gone on for years. And for many other bands as well. like TNT and God knows who else. If people are talking about the band, that can only be a good thing. No press is bad press. Any press is good press.

21) Talking of Journey I hear it is just possible that SHY may gain the support slot to Journey on some European dates. Is there any truth in this and when will you know as I'm sure Shy fans are eager to know?

People are working on this on our behalf, but I think it should be made clear, that nothing has been confirmed.

22) SHY will continue to tour in 2006. Will this be to promote SHY's recent release Reflections The Anthology . Can you tell fans what you can confirm for 2006 on the tour front.

We are currently involved with the Firefest crew for more shows in April, booked to headline the Z Rock Festival on April 2, looking to play the Rock n Blues festival ay Ripley in Derbyshire and teaming up with Change management in Berlin and their counterparts AZ Records for European releases, touring etc through the eastern block and Asia next year.

23) I've heard that SHY have already had record deal offers for the next SHY album. Is it true Frontiers is one of them . Can you tell SHY fans any more about this yet and any clues to the next album in terms of style/musical direction?

Interest so far comes from Frontiers, Z Records, ZYX in Germany. TO be honest, I'm in the middle of several projects for myself and other acts, and I haven't heard any material for the new album, although I know Ian and Steve have begun writing tracks.

24) Well thanks for doing this interview with Aorock.com/co.uk Do you have a message for SHY/aor fans out there - thanks again Tony..hope you enjoyed the interview.....

What can we say ? 22 years down the line, and people follow us with such passion and commitment. We couldn't really ask for any more. There are areas where SHY fans are numerous and areas where there are hardly any at all. Europe and Japan seem to sport the majority, and we need to play more live for the Europeans. but we also want to play as much as we can for as many UK fans as we can and we'll be talking to as many promoters and agents that we can to achieve that. Merry Christmas !

All the best

Tony Mills

Interview with Tony Mills written by Richard Ingham for Aorock 2005

SHY: Reflections The Anthology-Sunset & Vine-Unfinished Business- Misspent Youth-Excess All Areas-Brave The Storm-Once Bitten Twice Shy