Published: Sunday, 26 November 2023 21:46 | Written by NI Rocks |
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FM frontman Steve Overland is widely recognised as one of the best vocalists around and he seems to work constantly. I interviewed Steve back in February 2014 and have been wanting to have another chat for quite some time to talk about the numerous projects that he is involved in. At a quick count I reckon there has been 17 albums released since 2014; where Steve is the lead vocalist or one of the lead vocalists – plus numerous other guest appearances! We finally managed to get a chat over the phone on 20th November – to talk about the latest Overland album “S.I.X.”, other recent releases from FM, Lonerider and Kings of Mercia, his plans for the future and much more.
MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST – Heart and Soul (ft Robin McAuley & Kirk Hammett)
SAXON - Hell, Fire and Damnation
CROSSBONE SCULLY - I’m Unbreakable
EXTREME - The Mask
MAGNUM - Blue Tango
GOTUS - Take Me to the Mountain
CRAZY LIXX - Fire It Up (’23)
FIREWIND - Come Undone
MAMA’S BOYS - Power and Passion
NO HOT ASHES - Come Alive
NI ROCKS – Hi Steve, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Our last interview was back in Feb 2014, almost ten years ago. We’ve tried a couple of times since.
STEVE – Really! Wow man! (Laughs)
NI ROCKS – I have spoken to Merv and Jim since then, but you’re a hard man to get hold of.
STEVE – Yeah, I probably am actually; but it’s nice to get talking to you again after so long.
NI ROCKS - I wanted to start with your latest release. The new Overland album “S.I.X.” was released through Escape Music on 28th October. All of your Overland albums have been released through Khalil at Escape Music, as well as some of the other albums you’ve released. You must have a great relationship with Escape and Khalil?
STEVE – Oh, he’s great; he’s fantastic. I first worked with Khalil probably about 25 years ago. I went in just to do a session; he was doing a tribute Foreigner album and he wanted singers who could do Lou Gramm kind of stuff. I went in and I met him and I met Steve Morris who I’ve also worked with a lot since. We just got on great. The great thing about him is that, with me, he kind of lets me do what I want; which is quite rare in this industry. He just asks me what I want to do, and he puts me with other writers. He’s great; he loves his music. He’s a real fan and that’s really important these days because a lot of the business is now run by lawyers instead of music people. It’s nice to have someone that is really passionate about what he does, and he really is. Me and him between us have made a lot of records, so I love working for him and long may it continue.
NI ROCKS – The new album sees you collaborating quite extensively with Robert Säll. The two of you had worked together before on the two albums by Groundbreaker in 2018 and 2021. Had you specifically wanted to work with Robert on an Overland album or what was the arrangement?
STEVE – The reason being, to be honest, was that I wanted to make a kind of..….;every Overland album Nigel, because of all the other things I do, I like to make each different from the previous one. I’ve done bluesier albums like “Contagious” (2016), I’ve done, the first Overland solo album was quite, I’d guess you say, quite progy, quite dramatic, the “Break Away” album (2008); I did it with Anders Rydholm, a Swedish guy who is very much into his progy bands. So, I really enjoy the fact that, with the Overland albums, I get the freedom to make the kind of album that I want to make; which is great. Funnily enough, I’d seen Toto, not so long ago live, and I love that band. I thought, I want to make this album like a Toto record; I want it to be a very musical, melodic rock record and the obvious person that you can make those records with is Robert, because he is such a musical person. He gets what you say, we have a great relationship, we’re great friends and he’s probably one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in this business. He sent me a couple of tracks over and they were exactly what I wanted the album to be, so we just carried on and we wrote an album that I’m really proud of; I think it’s a great record; and he is too. He is the obvious man if you want to make a really musical, Toto style album; unless you can get David Paich or Steve Lukather, he’s your man really (laughs). He came up with all the great stuff and we wrote it together. Really pleased with how it came out.
NI ROCKS - How would you compare it to those Groundbreaker albums? Obviously it had a different focus.
STEVE – Different, because the brief for Groundbreaker was that Serafino, the head of Frontiers, just said to me, look Steve don’t veer off the brief; I want you to make an out and out 80’s AOR record, for the first Groundbreaker record. He said I don’t want any blues coming into it, I don’t want anything; I want “Indiscreet”, I want 80’s AOR and that’s what it has to be. So, that’s what it is. Groundbreaker is totally a hankering back to the 80’s; that kind of big polyphonic keyboard sounds and things like that. I think the approach on the Overland album is totally different to what we do when we do Groundbreaker.
NI ROCKS – So, other than yourself and Robert, who else has been involved in the new album?
STEVE – We’ve got an old friend of mine called Bob Richards on drums; he played with Asia and plays with all sorts of people.
NI ROCKS – He’s in Keith Atack’s new band.
STEVE – Yes, he is. He just plays with a lot of people. He did a little bit of playing for AC/DC when they were looking for a drummer. He’s just a real good solid…he’s like Cozy Powell…very solid. Because the songs are quite technical, he is a great choice because he keeps things simple; if you know what I mean! He just holds it all together. We’ve got this bass player called Chris Cliff, who plays with Jim a lot. I’ve played with him many times in the past on various albums and stuff. Chris is just one of the best bass players, really in the country; he’s kind of like really technical and he can do anything. He’s a great all-rounder – he’s a great guitar player and great everything really. It gets on your nerves! (Laughs). He’s a great guy, and as I said, he was a good choice to do this particular record, because it is quite a technical record to play.
NI ROCKS – Once again, there is some great artwork for the album and a nice yellow flame vinyl version, which I’d pre-ordered. Do you get involved with that side of things, or do you leave that all to the Khalil and the label?
STEVE – No, we do everything together me and Khalil. The thing with me Nigel is that I come from decades ago; I’ve been doing this for a long time, and for me, making an album is still the same as it always was. I know it has all changed and I know people often don’t buy albums, they just download the audio from wherever they want to download it from. But, to me, it is still the same process. I still want the sleeve to be great, I want all the presentation to be there that was there when I was making albums 35 years ago. I think it’s important and I think rock fans love that. It makes them want to go out and buy the stuff and if you do it to a really high standard, which I have to say Khalil is second to none on his quality of his stuff; he really does go for it. Khalil said to me, what do you think about flame red vinyl, or what do you think about this. He is great with that side of things. We always make every decision, even on the songs for the album; I write them and then we talk about what we want to do. We’ve been friends for a long time and we never really have a disagreement – we come to the same conclusion. So, yeah I have a say in everything which is fantastic.
NI ROCKS - The Escape website is great and I pre-order quite a lot of your stuff and others through it. And it’s not overly expensive compared to some vinyl. It’s always a great package – with signatures and whatever else.
STEVE – Absolutely. Because he is old school as well, he has this thing about ripping off the fans. He doesn’t like it. He has a massive vinyl collection, and his record collection is massive; second to none. He’s a proper rock music fan – or just music fan really. So, it’s great to work with him because he is so enthusiastic about everything. It’s not just all figures and numbers and what can we make. He is in it for the music, which is great.
NI ROCKS – When we spoke back in 2014 you’d just released your third Overland album “Epic”. So roughly an album every three years since. Do you write specifically when you know you’re about to record an album or are you writing songs constantly and thinking that’s an Overland song or that’s an FM song. How does that work?
STEVE – What I do is I talk to Khalil, because I’ve got Kings of Mercia, I’ve got loads of different things with different labels that I do with different people. When Khalil wants me to do an album; I’ve just finished another Lonerider album, Simon Kirke is doing the drums in America at the moment. He will tell me when he wants me to make whatever record and then I basically talk to him about who I’m going to make this record with. We decide and we contact them, as we did with Robert or Tommy Denander or Simon Kirke and Steve. We just make a plan and I then start; although I’m probably writing for another two albums at the same time, I start writing songs. I’m in the middle of the new FM album now and we’re trying to get that done. I like the fact that I can just veer off and do different records. It takes you away from the other album, and you come back to it and you’re not repeating yourself. You get away from things; so if I go away and work on Kings of Mercia which is like detuned heavy rock, three piece stuff, it’s so totally different from an FM album. It takes me away from that genre for a while, so when I come back I’m excited about it again. Much to my wife’s and family’s dismay I’m a workaholic, I just like doing as much stuff as I possibly can. I’m doing some stuff for a gaming company tomorrow, singing on video. I just like doing everything. I love it. Keeps it interesting.
NI ROCKS – Talking about being busy. Is there any chance of doing some Overland tour dates or are you just too busy?
STEVE – No, absolutely not. Me and Khalil have talked about this a lot and I’ve already put Firefest in for next year, which I will do with the band that is playing on this record. Robert is going to fly in from Sweden and I just want to get it up and running. I was asked to do it and I said yes. Now that’s a good benchmark for getting Overland up and running. I can run it alongside FM. When FM are not going to be touring I can go out and do some festivals in Europe with the Overland thing, because it is high time that I did. For Khalil as much as anybody else, because as we know you have to make rock music a living, breathing thing. There are so many things that are just put together that come out as projects aren’t there. I don’t want Overland to be that. It’s just finding the bloody time to do it. I will do and I’ve said next year – put it in, because it’ll make me get the band together and it’ll mean we can make a little money going out and touring as well, which would be great for everybody.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play a track from the “S.I.X” album now. Would you like to pick a track and tell us something about it?
STEVE – There’s a lot of them that I love. “Together Alone” is a good rock track so let’s play that.
NI ROCKS – FM recently announced their first headline show in Belfast for many years – next May - thankfully. That is part of the Old Habits Die Hard – 40th Anniversary Tour. What can you tell us about that tour and what are your thoughts on getting FM back to Belfast?
STEVE – I love Belfast. I came there with Jim recently and did a little gig outside – just an acoustic gig. We don’t come to Ireland enough Nigel. We don’t. All it is, is routing and trying to fit when we can get dates in with when we are touring and it’s easy to get over and do it. More often or not you’ll find that you can get a date in Belfast, but you can’t get one in Dublin the following night. If you’re going to come to Ireland, because it’s not cheap to be honest, to bring a band to Ireland, as you probably know. So, we need to do more that one show ideally. That has been the problem. One of the first tours we ever did as FM was with Mama’s Boys in Irleand. We’ve come back with Foreigner and Journey and done some great gigs in Ireland; really great gigs. And we have a big affinity with Ireland because of our manager and agent Steve Strange. For us it was always a big thing going there and when Steve was around it was much easier because he had the clout and could get us pretty much what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. Obviously, poor old Steve passed away so we’re now trying to get things back together so that we can come there on every tour. Hence, we’re coming on the 40th anniversary because that has got to be the start of us coming every time we tour. We love it and the people are fantastic. We have great fans out there and we haven’t been for a while. When me and Jim came and did the acoustic thing it was amazing. It was a little gig and the love for it was great. Everybody was saying the same thing – when are you going to come back out. So it was inevitable that we’d come back next year and hopefully that is the start of things to come.
NI ROCKS – That was a great night in the Diamond Rock Club in Ahoghill. It was a great evening. I was there and it was a great show. Hopefully some more acoustic gigs in the future too. Since our last interview there has been five FM studio albums in the last ten years, as the band goes from strength to strength. The last FM album was “Thirteen” which was released in 2022. You mentioned earlier on that you were working on the next album. What is the rough timescale for that?
STEVE – We had a few setbacks this year. Jem was ill, our keyboard player. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. So that put us back a few months. Then with my brother passing away and that put me back for a little while. So, we were a bit behind with it. It’s a great record Nigel; we’re really pleased with what’s happening. Pete is in Scotland doing some drums at the moment. We’re all working in different places and moving it along. The mixes that we’ve done – we’ve got five mixes done; it’s all happening. Jim has been doing some dates on his own; we’re out at the end of this week, doing the Winterstorm festival in Scotland, then we doing Holmfirth with Dare; who are old friends. We do a lot with them. It’s a good bill. Then we’ve a headline show on Sunday. There are a few dates left this year – five dates I think. Then we’re working around all the other stuff to get as much FM time in as we can. We’re hoping to have it done by early December, which means it will come out next March or April; something like that I would say.
NI ROCKS – Through Frontiers again?
STEVE – Yeah, through Frontiers. We did a new deal with them. They are a great label too. They look after FM. Serafino and the label are big fans, so it makes life easy and they do the same thing really. They let us get on with what we’re doing. We just take the album when we’ve done it and they’re normally very happy with it. We deliver the artwork to them. They’re a great label for us; they’re really cooperative and helpful.
NI ROCKS – You mentioned Steve Strange earlier, and I know you’re your previous time in Northern Ireland, before the Diamond Rock Club recently, was the No Hot Ashes album launch in 2018 when you came over yourself to do an acoustic introduction for the band (which included Steve Strange as drummer). Everyone seems to have a great Steve Strange story to tell. What’s your favourite one?
STEVE – Blimey, how long have you got (laughs). I’m not going to give you a story, because some of them you couldn’t possible write down (laughs), but that man was one of the biggest hearts and biggest character that I ever knew. He was just a unique man in every way. We were very lucky. The first gig that he ever promoted was FM, acoustic in the Limelight – the first gig he ever did. His love for FM as we grew and grew and he grew with us and became what he became – one of the biggest people in the business – we did it together really. When we got back together after the break-up he came to our first show with Fast Eddie, God rest his soul as well. He came to the gig and at the end of it he came up and said what are you going to do, because if you’re going to do this properly again, I want it to do it with you. Bearing in mind, that at that time he had Eminem, Robbie Williams, Snow Patrol, Coldplay (laughs), you know! We were just restarting again and to be honest to have started without him we would never have got to where we are. Never! He is a massive loss for the band – he always will be – because we were a bit left out, a bit adrift I guess when he died because he was such a mentor. He was just such a..…in his apartment in Belfast when came out there – his penthouse apartment, as I said there’s not really much that you can write down; most of the stories I could tell you wouldn’t want to repeat (laughs). He was just a larger than life character – unrivalled – there will never be another Steve Strange. That’s all I cam say. He was a one-off.
NI ROCKS – As I mentioned earlier the last FM album was “Thirteen” which was released in 2022. I thought we’d play a track from it now. Can you pick a track from that album?
STEVE – I love that ballad that Jem wrote – “Long Road Home” – it’s such a great blues ballad. When we had lockdown Jem became a song writer – he’s got a great studio in his house and he wrote loads of songs for the “Thirteen” album. He’d never written a song for any other FM album. He came up with such great songs and that song when he played it to me – it tells the story of what we do and what we’ve done all our lives. It’s a great song with a great lyric, so “Long Road Home” is a great tune to play.
NI ROCKS – You’ve been involved in quite a few projects since we last spoke – Groundbreaker, we’ve talked about; Lonerider you mentioned that you were working on another one, which I’ll ask about in a second; and also Kings of Mercia. Lonerider have released two albums through Escape Music – in 2019 and 2022 – and again I’ve both on coloured vinyl. In that band you’ve worked with two of your Shadowman bandmates Chris Childs (from Thunder) and Steve Morris (from Heartland) as well as and Simon Kirke from Free and Bad Company. Where did the inspiration for that collaboration come from?
STEVE – That was my baby really. For years and years…..I guess now because of all the technology in the studios, FM’s albums are quite technical, there are a lot of sequences and stuff just to make it basically relevant in this day and age. But I had it in my mind that I wanted to go into a studio with four people and play songs live like we used to and make a retro 70’s rock record. That was my dream. I put it to Khalil and said, not loads of overdubs, just go into a studio, put the backing tracks down all together and I’ll sing a guide vocal so that you get that really live band vibe – you know what I mean! That you often miss now; because a lot of albums are done remotely because people record in their own studios. Like Simon is recording drums in America now. And that was the way it was.
For the first Lonerider album, I put it to Khalil and said I wanted to record an album like the first Bad Company album, like “Highway” by Free. I want to make one of those kind of records. And he said ok, who do you want to make it with? I went to Steve who is just such a prolific guy and I know what a massive Free fan Steve is – and of Paul Kossoff; and said I want to write this record. The obvious choice for bass player; I’ve know Chris for many, many years and he is just Andy Fraser, he is such a brilliant player; so we asked Chris. In the meantime, I was on tour with FM and Khalil said to me, if we get Chris Childs and we get Steve, do you think we could get Simon Kirke to play drums? To give it that real feel! And I’m like, wow I haven’t spoken to Simon in a long time, but I tell you what; I was playing in Cardiff with FM; I’ll send his manager an e-mail. So, I was sitting in my dressing room waiting to go on and I found Bad Company’s management’s e-mail address, sent an e-mail to his manager saying my name was Steve Overland and that I’d worked with Simon many years ago and that we’d toured together in a band called Wildlife, that we were really good friends, that he knew my brother too, because this was obviously pre Chris passing away, that we were really close friends and that I’m making this album and he would be the man for the job – if he was interested in doing it. I sent the e-mail and within half an hour Simon personally had sent an e-mail back. He said Steve, how are you, great to hear from you, hope you and Chris are well, I hope everything is good, have been following your career with FM, still got a fantastic voice etc. Basically, he said what is this that you want me to do? And I said Si you are the man for this job, if you’ll do it, and it would be a real honour to work with you again. I sent him four demos of songs that we had done and he came straight back and said I’m in! We agreed with Khalil an extortionate fee (laughs). Since then he has really got into doing the records and he’s a big part of it. This third album is a great album Nigel; it really is. The drums are now done I think so the next stage will be me and Steve going into a studio to do some proper guitars on it. Chris has done his bass, but wants to now listen to what Simon has played to his guide bass. So, we’re in the process. That album is three quarters of the way through.
What a band that would be to tour! With Chris Childs and Simon Kirke and Steve! So, that’s another thing in the pipeline. I just love doing all the different things. You’ve got that and then Kings of Mercia which is absolutely so totally different again. I love all the things to be really different and I work with some young writers, people who have got production deals and I just like to do everything really!
NI ROCKS – So a third album next year – mid-year possibly for Lonerider?
STEVE – Absolutely! Obviously, with the FM album coming out we have to plan all these records so that don’t conflict. I would imagine that it would be finished by Christmas and then it’s a case of getting the right mix engineer. As you’ll know everything shuts down around 15th December and doesn’t open until January, so I reckon we’ll start mixing it in mid January and it’ll be ready for release by early or mid February. But then we’ve got to plan it around all the other releases obviously.
NI ROCKS – I look forward to that. We’ll play a track from the latest Lonerider album “Sundown”. Do you want to pick a track from it?
STEVE – From the last album or the first one?
NI ROCKS – Either / or. Doesn’t matter.
STEVE – You know what, why don’t we play the track “Lonerider” because that’s very early Free sounding and sums up what the band is about.
NI ROCKS – We were just talking about Lonerider and Simon Kirke, I wanted to talk briefly about Wildlife if that’s ok. The first album “Burning” in 1980 featured now FM drummer Pete Jupp, but the second album in 1983 featured Simon Kirke. That first album was re-released on CD by Rock Candy in 2021. But the second album, the self-titled one; I think there was a CD re-release in 2009 but it is almost impossible to get. Do you know are there any plans to re-release that second album at some point?
STEVE – I’m sure that they did that before they did first one?
NI ROCKS – There was one in 2009 but I can’t find it anywhere.
STEVE - I’m pretty sure, but I lose track of what Derek (Oliver – Rock Candy founder) is doing because he contacts me and says would it be ok if I do this and re-mastered this! No, it wasn’t them! It was an American label!
NI ROCKS – Yeah, that’s the one that I can see (from 2009)
STEVE – Yeah, I can’t remember what the label was called, but it was an American label that re-issued that album.
NI ROCKS – If you can find it on Discogs it is like £70 for a copy of the CD.
STEVE – Oh blimey! Really! In that case I’ll have a word with Derek. The problem that we’ve got is that we’d have to see what their deal was to get the re-release from Atlantic Records. But that is definitely worth re-releasing. It was kind of a cult album that. It got a really good response and did a bit of business in America. That was a great honour for me, being in that band when I was so young because I got to work with all my heroes – Mick Ralphs, everybody. I met Paul and I met all of Bad Co. It was a great honour for me – I was only about 20 years old when I did the Wildlife thing; so it was a great honour to record a album with Simon and have Mick produce it and to meet all the Bad Co people and be managed by Peter Grant who managed Led Zeppelin and Bad Company. It was a real good time and being on Swan Song (record label) I met some of my real heroes at that time.
NI ROCKS – It’d be nice to have on CD. When I’m putting Shows together you can’t include those tracks if they’re not available on digital format. The first album, fine because I have it on CD from Rock Candy; but that second album, impossible to get!
STEVE – When I see Derek next time I’ll have a word and see if he fancies doing it. Lots of people are after that album aren’t they! Lots of people would like it as part of a collection so it’s well worth looking into. As I say, it’ll just depend on what the label in America did to obtain the record. If they had to pay a buy-out. I don’t know. I’ll look into it Nigel! Leave it with me. (Laughs)
NI ROCKS – Coming back to more recent times. You’ve mentioned a couple of times, Kings of Mercia. The debut self-titled album came out last year. It’s a very different collaboration for you - with Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos. How were you approached about doing that project?
STEVE – That’s a weird one. It was lockdown and one of my oldest friends is a guy called Dave Ling who writes for Classic Rock magazine; he’s a famous British rock journalist – he worked for Kerrang, Sounds and everybody really! He phoned me up one day and said he’d had an e-mail from a guy from America called Jim Matheos who plays in a band called Fates Warning who are like a real prog, heavy band. He wants to wants to make a record which basically gels a singer like Paul Rodgers, a melodic singer, with really heavy de-tuned guitars and merge the two styles. He said he looking for a singer – he has three singers on his list that he wants to use and you’re one of them. He said he’d get in touch with me to see if I was interested. I said that I didn’t know much about Fates Warning; obviously I’d heard of them because they are quite a big band in America. I said yeah, by all means, put me in touch with Jim. So I spoke to Jim on e-mail and I said that the only way that we were going to find out if this is going to work is for you to send me a backing track and I’ll write all the melodies and the hooks and we’ll do one song together. That way, if it doesn’t work we haven’t spent a lot of time and we haven’t lost anything. So he sent me a backing track and it was absolutely brilliant – it was “Humankind” – the track that became “Humankind” anyway. It was like a finished master; the production on it was amazing; it sounded massive. So I wrote “Humankind” to it and I thought this is great – I like the way it sounded. I sent it back to Jim and he just came back to say ‘this is amazing Steve, I’m going to take it to Fates Warning’s record company to see what they think’. So he played them “Humankind” and they gave us a three album deal (laughs) – just on the strength of one song.
We’re now on the second album. Simon Phillips has just done the drums in America. So that’s another one that has got to be mixed (Laughs)
NI ROCKS – Lining them up!
STEVE – Yeah, there’s a backlog! The great thing is that its nice to have all the albums finished because then you can plan to keep things moving through the year. They won’t all be finished at the same time; so it means that we can plan the year. That album is a great record too. It really came out well.
NI ROCKS – Yes, it is. I really liked it and bought it on vinyl – as I tend to buy most things these days again. An unusual label for you to be on - Metal Blade Records!
STEVE – Yeah. What a great band that is too. You’ve Simon Phillips on drums, who is second to none; he’s amazing. It’s a great band and it’s a different kind of thing for me. I have to approach it differently when I sing it. There are no ‘I love you’ lyrics. Jim won’t have them in the songs (laughs). I have to think darker and it’s a great thing. It puts me to the test and I love doing them; I really do.
NI ROCKS – I noticed on the (Kings of Mercia) Facebook page that bass and guitars had been done and you mentioned that the drums have been done. Have you done your vocals for it yet?
STEVE – Yeah, all the vocals are done. Everything is done. It’s now being mixed so hopefully pretty soon we’ll have the finished thing. I really like hearing those albums. They come together when they’re mixed – they really do. We’re going to use the same guy and we’re now working on the artwork for that, because Jim is really into his artwork. That’s being done at the moment. So, lots going on mate.
NI ROCKS – Any chance of seeing that band live? What do you reckon?
STEVE – I’d love to. It’s one of those things with that band where we really are all over the world. We were talking about trying to get some festivals in America. But once again, Jim does lots of different things. It’s just that thing where we’re all over the place; if you know what I mean. But, we’ve tried to. We’re going to shoot some promo videos for the new album and I’m hopeful that Jim will come over to the UK, because we found out that we’ve a really great friend who is a film maker / director called Russell Cherrington – he’s done some work with Fate’s Warning – it's a small world mate really, isn’t it! So I’m now planning to do videos with Russell for the new Overland album and he’s in the frame for doing the videos for the next Kings of Mercia album. So, hopefully, Jim will come over to the UK so that we can actually be in the same room and do it – which would be lovely. That’s the plan. We’re trying to get together and then we can talk about how feasible it is for everyone to do some dates, because that would be great.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play something from the album shortly. Which track would you like to pick from that album?
STEVE – Let’s play “Humankind” because it was the first song that we wrote and was the track that got it all started. That was the track that started the Kings of Mercia.
NI ROCKS – That’s all the questions that I have. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to me.
STEVE – It’s a pleasure. Let’s not leave it for ten years next time!
NI ROCKS – No, we’ll not! We’ll finish with one more track from the new Overland album “S.I.X.” Would you like to pick a track and tell us why?
STEVE – We played “Together Alone”. One of the tracks that everybody loves is a much lighter track, but it was the first track that I wrote with Robert for the album; is a song called “Disconnected”. Let’s play that because that was the track that got the album started.
NI ROCKS – Ok, we’ll do that. Again, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Much appreciated.
STEVE – Great. Nice to talk to you and we’ll see you when we come to Belfast in May.
