American singer-songwriter and keyboardist Mark Mangold is a guest on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 26th March. Mark will be best known as a member of three bands – American Tears, Touch and Drive, She Said. On 26th March Touch release their first album of new music in almost forty years when “Tomorrow Never Comes” is released by Escape Music. The band released their first album in 1980, but their second album, recorded in 1982, wasn’t released until 1998. The band opened the first ever Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donington in 1980.
I spoke to Mark via Skype at his home in Sweden on 9th March and we chatted for about 25 minutes about the new Touch album as well as American Tears and Drive, She Said. You’ll find that interview and four tracks from the new Touch album on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 26th March which is now available on our MixCloud page - https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/interview-with-mark-mangold-on-the-friday-ni-rocks-show-26th-march-2021/
The interview can be read below.
Playlist for the Show
SCREAMING EAGLES – Screaming Eagles
SUNBOMB – Life
SOCIAL DISORDER – Windy Road
TRUCKER DIABLO – Insects
TYKETTO – Standing Alone
WHITE LION – Broken Heart
FM – Someday (You’ll Come Running) (Live)
TOUCH – Tomorrow Never Comes
Interview with MARK MANGOLD Part 1 (7 min)
TOUCH – Swan Song
Interview with MARK MANGOLD Part 2 (11 min)
TOUCH – Trippin’ Over Shadows
Interview with MARK MANGOLD Part 3 (8 min)
TOUCH – Let It Come
AMERICAN TEARS – Sledgehammered
DRIVE, SHE SAID – Stronger
GREAT WHITE – Once Bitten Twice Shy
GEORGIA SATELLITES – Keep Your Hands to Yourself
ARION – I Love to be Your Enemy
BURNING WITCHES – Flight of the Valkyries
DELUSIONAL SILENCE – 1000 Yard Stare
IRON MAIDEN – Hallowed Be Thy Name
NI ROCKS – Hi Mark, thanks for taking some time to talk to me. Your band Touch release a new album called “Tomorrow Never Comes” on March 26th. We’ll talk about the album shortly, but we just played the title track. What can you tell us about that track?
MARK - Well, it's kind of something that we're living unfortunately and sad to say, the song is not obsolete yet. I was hoping by now it would be irrelevant, but tomorrow never seems to come; and we just did what we do with Touch on that idea, which is a larger than life over the top, pretentious 50 tracks of harmonies and guitars and synths. So we kind of did what we did on that thing.
NI ROCKS – The new album, as mentioned, is released on 26th March via Escape Music in Europe and DEKO Entertainment in the USA. This is the first album recorded by Touch in almost forty years. How difficult was it getting all four original members of the band committed to the new album?
MARK - It wasn't difficult. We started off thinking about doing one song just for old time sake and for the fans, because we do get people asking what's going on. So we started off with four songs and then Craig (Brooks) wrote a couple and Doug (Howard) wrote a couple. And before we knew it, we had 12 songs. And we just launched into it. It took us about, I guess we were in New York for a couple weeks, March 2020 and then the virus hit and everybody went back to their respective homes. Chicago, Connecticut, New Jersey and I quickly got to Sweden. So it's been a long distance kind of a process and it's not as much fun that way. It's more difficult, but we got it together. People would send me tracks and I mixed it up and we got what we got. A lot of face timing and sessions over FaceTime and stuff like that.
NI ROCKS – There are twelve tracks on the album. Were all four of you involved in the writing the tracks and do any have a longer history or were all fairly recent?
MARK - They're all new, but Craig wrote “Fire and Ice” and “Scream at the Sky” and “Run for Your Life”, and Dougie wrote “Tripping over Shadows” and I either wrote or co-wrote the rest. They're all very personal songs and they do probably all bear some semblance to what we're all living through right now. But yeah, they've all been written for record.
NI ROCKS – Where was the album recorded and who did you work with in terms of production, mixing, mastering etc?
MARK - This this guy named Mark Mangold and he works in the studio right behind you. (Laughs) The thing about now is you're not going into a major studio, so we kind of had to learn to do it ourselves. I mean, I've been doing it, but Craig learned how to use this programme called Logic, which is a music production programme and he would send me his vocals and guitar parts and Doug learned how to use Logic as well. So these files ended up with me and I put it all together and mixed it.
NI ROCKS – Did Covid have any impact on timescales in regard to the recording or release of the album?
MARK - On the time I mean the time that it took to do it. Yeah. You know in the old days you go into the studio and you do it all over a month, every day you work 8 to 10 hours a day and then you chill out and you come back. So yeah, it really makes it a much longer time. Plus everybody's got their own things in their lives that they're doing. so it's not able to be a full time thing.
NI ROCKS – Touring of course has been impossible for the past year and it’s still not clear when live shows might resume, but are there plans for any Touch gigs when the opportunity arises?
MARK - Nothing right now. We're doing videos. We're just releasing, actually today I think the label released the video of “Tomorrow Never Comes” and we're working on two more as well. But the thing about these videos as everybody probably knows is. They are pandemic videos, so everybody does their performance wherever they are and sends in the performance and we have a great editor, I think he's kind of a genius, gets energy out of these things and he puts it together. And I think for a pandemic video it's really pretty good.
NI ROCKS – Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen the trailers for it your Facebook page, so I'll be keeping an eye out for it. The second Touch album was recorded in 1982 but not released until 1998 as part of a boxset and the first album had previously been re-released on CD as well. Were there any other Touch recordings from that period that haven’t yet been released?
MARK - Frontiers came out with what they called the complete works, so we did put a couple of demos on that. After the second record, which we had some problems with production wise, we did the song called “Take it Back” with Roger Glover from Deep Purple, and Roger produced that. And that's also on this record that Frontiers put out. But we're going to be putting that out again within the within the next couple of months. We're focusing on the new record right now, but we're going back and are going to get all that stuff out there again.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play another track from the new album now. This time can you pick one and tell us something about it?
MARK - Why don't you play Swan Song” which a lot of people are responding to very nicely. It's kind of an epic and it really speaks to what we're going through, especially what I'm going through, because I'm across the ocean from my home. So, there's a bit of that in the song as well.
NI ROCKS – Prior to the formation of Touch back in 1978 you were in the band American Tears and released three albums with them. Over the past few years you’ve released three new American Tears albums – “Hard Core”, “White Flags” and “Free Angel Express”. What can you tell us about the decision to reform that band and release some new albums?
MARK - Well, American Tears was always very free flowing. Prog maybe, but we weren't limited by pop formulas. There was no safety net and I really missed that. I think it was 2017 I launched into “Hard Core”, which was pretty much done by myself really. I hadn't done a synth solo in a long time, an organ or Hammond - all these keyboards that I love. Now with computers, there's so many keyboard sounds you can get. It's not like 1971, where you had a monophonic minimoog or a monophonic odyssey. In those days, we used to wait for the inventions; we used to wait for things to be invented and now there's just so much at your disposal. So I got into that. I would also have to say that the political feeling in the late 60s and 70s, with Watergate and the Vietnam War and all the other stuff seemed to feel like the last couple of years under Trump. And it was just a way to get the feeling out there. And I don't know, revisit that whole era. There's a couple of protest songs in there, but really what American Tears is about is just creating moments and not being limited again by formula and if you want to change tempo, you change tempo. If you want to launch into a synth solo, you do it until you feel like it gets boring, and then you do something else. So it's more instinctual music rather than being locked into these three and a half minute restrictions that we’re taught to honour. Plus, I’m so sick of generic, melodic rock. With this freedom you're not locked into a genre. And I think it challenges your creativity more. I really love to hear other people be unleashed like that - no matter what you play. So, it's kind of refreshing and fun and challenging. And the goal is not to suck - that is the only goal. Chorus can be what it is or it doesn't have to be a chorus. It just has to be interesting and it can't suck.
NI ROCKS – On those first two new albums I think you played all the instruments yourself, but on “Free Angel Express” you worked with drummer Alex Landenburg and a few guest musicians. Why did you decide to change the format on that album?
MARK - Yeah. Well, we started to get a budget. Hello. You know, I mean. Would would you know? I was just amazed that anybody would be interested in the first one because it was just so experimental and I had no idea and it was done in isolation and I liked it. But I had no idea that anybody else would resonate with it. And fortunately. I was encouraged to do another and then I did another it was like. The three of them were like 1 long album and just it really never stopped and when you have your studio which is basically these days the computer and it's it's so close to where you sleep and take a shower that's I'll leave it at that. You know you can just walk in and. Start recording whatever you want and I have some very good equipment and a beautiful world class microphone here, so you can just you can hit it whenever you want to so.
NI ROCKS – Craig Brooks and Glen Kithcart from Touch were both part of the original American Tears lineup. Did you ever approach them about getting involved in the new American Tears albums?
MARK - No. You know it's funny because in those days we did three American Tears records and then became Touch. And now for some synchronistic reason, we've done 3 American Tears records, and now we're Touch. So I'm trying to follow this weird script; and now we have to break up, unfortunately, if we're gonna go on! I'm kidding. I'm joking. But it has somehow followed the script of what happened before. I'm happy with the way it evolved though, because Touch music is different than American Tears music, you know it's there are more songs and it's lush as opposed to American Tears is a little weirder I would say.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play a track from the “Free Angel Express” album later in the Show. Which track would you pick and why?
MARK - Well, I would say the “Free Angel Express” suite, which is basically three songs in one and I think it gives an idea of where the thing is at. But if you want to play an AC/DC song played on Hammond organ that nobody knows is AC/DC except me; I'm whispering, “Thunderstruck”; then play “Sledgehammered”. because what's cool about it is, I mean I love guitar riffs and Zeppelin and all that stuff and when you play a guitar riff on a Hammond and then you double with the synthesiser and put some other ear candy on it, it kind of becomes more original and unrecognisable. We've all heard so much guitar already and to me it's refreshing to hear it with another kind of sound. I'm really into that.
NI ROCKS – Getting back to Touch again. Back in 2014 you played the Firefest Festival performing Touch tracks with what was referred to as the Swedish Touch. How did you link up with the guys who performed with you at Firefest? (Tommy Denander, Ken Sandin, Pontus Engborg and Goran Edman)
MARK - That was done by the promoter, Kieran Dargan, who's a good friend, and he just really wanted to do the Touch thing. It was Touch Tribute / SwedishTouch; whatever you want to call it. And he just found me these guys who have become great friends since then; who came to England, knew the stuff cold. We did one rehearsal and we went on stage and it was tight. I don't know about the actual performance or the coordination of how we looked, but musically it was really well done and tight and I think people really enjoyed listening to some Touch songs. It sort of encouraged me to really want to put the band together again. Which again, took a couple of years, but it was really, I'll use word gratifying, again. How people just were responding and singing along; it was very cool.
NI ROCKS – You moved onto my next question there, about that inspiring you. It took almost six years between Firefest and the decision to reform; but that was the plan to get back together?
MARK - Slowly but surely, you know, it kind of was in the back of your mind. You know, you put a little piece of bait out – ‘hey, what do you think’? And finally we got to ‘let's do a song’. I actually sent five or six songs to the guys and they liked four of them. Oh really? It's not going to be one song, it's going to be four and then it became six and then it became seven, and then it became OK we're fucking doing a record! And it just kind of snowballed. And everybody got a chance to use Touch as a place to be creative. They had certain things they wanted to get out there and this was a good way to do it because we're very dedicated to each other's vision and each other's dreams. There was some discussion about what is Touch. Because I guess you have to kind of be true to the fans in some way, but you also have to be true to yourselves. And you know, you don't want to be a bullshit cartoon character playing, trying to regurgitate your old stuff. We wanted to bring it to another level. Maybe a higher level and modernise it for sure. I think the production's probably more modern now and so it was really threading the needle between trying to stay within some vision of what we thought Touch was and what maybe the fans were kind of expecting. We did songs like, “Scream at the Sky” which is like a Pink Floyd song almost. It doesn't sound like that necessarily after we got done with it. And “Fire and Ice”, could almost be AC/DC if it didn't have 50 tracks of harmonies on the chorus and another lead singer. I don't know what Touch is, but we kind of redefined it in a way.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play another track from “Tomorrow Never Comes” now. Again, do you want to pick a track and tell us something about it?
MARK - Oh, I would say we’ve got to play one of the other guys’ songs. “Let it Come” is the new “Don't you Know What Love Is” so if you want to play something that people might relate to it would be “Let it Come”. If you want to play a beautiful ballad, I would play “Trippin’ over Shadows”, which was written by Doug Howard, and it's getting a beautiful response too. So you choose, I don't know.
NI ROCKS - OK. I’ll play one of them, or maybe both of them.