I couldn’t be happier for Danny Vaughn at the minute, his first solo album in eleven years ‘Myths Legends & Lies’ has just been released and it is something rather special indeed. A few days ago when he sent it through to me, as a long-time fan of his music I was unsure what I’d make of it. He’d told me it would be different, that he had no expectations that I’d get it, it was after all an album made up of ‘orphans,’ diverse, unfettered and willfully different. Well it is all of that and it’s also one of the most revealing and intimate albums I have heard in years. It’s an album that tells you so much about the man and the artist, what matters to him, what makes him tick, what is important and in being all of those things it’s a complete triumph of art over expectation. I think in my review I called it his ‘masterpiece’ I’d just like to add ‘so far’ to that statement. Of course we also talk about Tyketto, a band still making great music thirty years on, and Pledge Music of course.
Two things happened though the day after we spoke: Danny announced that he’d ‘parted ways with’ The Ultimate Eagles who he’d last played with in April, after co-founding them nine years ago. Hours later Dr. John, surely the finest musician to come out of New Orleans died, and we talk about him here in this interview. And that sometimes is just how life happens, coincidence and circumstance get in the way, doors open and chapters close and it all adds little side notes and layers to the journey. ‘Myths Legends and Lies ‘is about all those stories, Danny’s story so far and all of the people and places and tales that have touched him, and as a result become part of that great journey.
Mark: Hi Danny how are you?
Danny: I’m alright Mark how you doing?
Mark: Not too bad mate, I thought that we were never going to get to talk about this wonderful new album! (laughs)
Danny: Well wonderful is a good start (laughs)
Mark: I must admit before we start that I’ve only had two run throughs at this point, so the review will come after a good few more listens. But at this point I guess I have to say it’s all I was hoping for and quite a bit more.
Danny: I’m so glad, it’s left a lot of people scratching their heads
Mark: Really? I can kind of appreciate that I suppose if you’re expecting a Tyketto or a Vaughn album, but all along you’ve been telling us this was going to be something different. I read in the press that you described this as “the album you’ve always been wanting to make”
Danny: Yeah, for sure.
Mark: And it’s been a long time now, eleven years since the last solo release, but I know you’ve been talking about it even longer?
Danny: Yeah truthfully it has been a while now, we were talking about it the other day, I think it’s really been about 14 years and it’s kinda one of those things where, you know, the subject would come up and I’d think “Yeah, I’ve got all these extra songs that I’d really like to do something with” and you start venturing down that road and the logistics of what it takes to make an album start to intrude especially if you’re doing it off your own back. And you get somewhere down the road and think “Oh, it’s too much work, I can’t do it” and that usually was what would happen to me. So between that and the fact that I knew I’d be making an album that there was just a good risk that people just weren’t gonna get, as far as it being way off the beaten path of what people know me for.
Mark: I think the thing that most struck me about ‘Myths Legends and Lies’ was that it was the songs I least expected to like that I ended up loving.
Danny: How does that work?!
Mark: I’m still trying to work that out (laughs), I suppose I mean that on paper there are some songs that just hit you instantly and are in line with what you might expect, big melodies, wonderful harmonies, but it’s the songs that come out of left field that really take you to another level, but we’ll get to that!
Danny: I hope so (laughs)
Mark: Songs like ‘The Missouri Kid’ I guess are the ones as a fan you might expect. It’s a great song which I bet you have a great story about – the first song you wrote for yourself I understand?
Danny: Yeah, that one is… well first of all it’s a true story, and that was why I guess I sketched it out when I was eighteen. My first band used to rehearse in this area in Downtown Manhattan, and back in the day when we didn’t have PC language, Tony was a ‘wino,’ and Tony would be out on the corner as we’d head for a place that was called the Music Building. It was a sixteen story building and all the apartments had been torn out and turned into individual rooms that you could rent and put gear in and rehearse, it was all for bands. They had security there, they had a little café, things like that. And he just hung out on the corner, and if you go to a place often enough you get to know the people around, and he was kinda the regular guy on the corner. So, you now, there’d be times where we’d say “Hi”, he’d say “Hi” back, we’d get him a sandwich from the sandwich shop and every now and then, a hot summer day in Manhattan, we’d sit out on the corner with him and he would say: “You don’t know me, you think you know who I am, but you don’t know me: I’m the Missouri Kid, and you don’t know nothing.” And he’d say that and we’d be like “Alright, whatever” (laughs) and then one day in the course of hanging out he just whipped out a deck of cards and did stuff that I’d never seen anybody do before. Here was this guy with shaky hands, and all of a sudden he’s like this magician. And he’d say ‘Watch this, it’s the Missouri shuffle” and he’d do all this crazy stuff, and we’d be like “Whoa! Where did all of this come from!?” So yeah it’s a true story including the last time I ever saw him, he got beat up, I don’t know if it was by the people on the street or the cops, and that was it, he said “The City’s too rough, I’m getting outta here” and that was the last we ever saw of him.
Mark: It’s a wonderful story and I think that’s one of the huge strengths of the album, the storytelling is absolutely wonderful, and I guess with a title like ‘Myths Legends and Lies’ you’d hope that. What is it that makes you hang onto a story like that, what makes it important to you? Is there an emotional attachment to songs like that that you’ve carried for so long?
Danny: There’s something about certain songs that I know there’s something to them, I don’t always know what it is, but I’ve always been a pretty good litmus test for myself. So with that one and so many of the others that were written whether it’s twenty years ago or ten years ago, or a couple of songs that were written the same year the album was made, I’m sitting there thinking “OK this is off the beaten track, this is different, but I like it and there’s just something about it that keeps coming back to me.” Whatever it may be, the Missouri Kid for instance for me it’s that switch from minor key verses to a major key chorus. That’s a ‘lift’ that I learned early, I don’t know what I was listening to at the time, but it was when every chord is a new chord to you, and when you hear something musically and you think “Oh, Wow that’s a great idea” because it’s new to you, and then it becomes part of your arsenal of skills.
Mark: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was ‘The Shadow of King John’ the song that starts the album, it has a Celtic heart and beat, and whilst you do come back to that feel at times through the album it’s the only song here that really sounds that way. I love the song but tell me about why it had to come first?
Danny: Oh to me it’s just an ‘Everybody in the Pool’ song, it’s a very lively fun song, it’s basically an Irish fight song and I’ve had several people compare it to The Dropkick Murphy’s and I like that.
Mark: Or Dave King’s band Flogging Molly for me, who do that type of song that requires the whole kitchen sink thrown in so well.
Danny: Yes that’s another one I’ve heard.
Mark: To me it was just like you were opening the doors of a pub. Everyone was in there the party was already started and the stories were about to begin. That’s the vibe I got?
Danny: I love that idea, that’s a great interpretation. The song is about the first place that I lived when I moved from America to Europe which was Limerick Ireland. I lived there for about four or five years and when I was there it was at the tail end of their huge economic boom which they called the Celtic Tiger. If you’re from Limerick then you’ll know everything I’m singing about, if you’re not then you won’t understand a thing! (laughs). All the references are local references, whether it’s the Treaty Stone, or Willie’s Moustache which refers to this really popular local Councillor in Limerick called Willie O’Dea who actually helped me out when I was getting my residency. But everyone knows him because he’s got this wonderful 1970’s porno moustache.
Mark and Danny: (laughs)
Danny: And all of that is kinda insider stuff, and just to backtrack for a second, after I left Limerick I hadn’t been back for maybe ten years and when I went back not too long ago it had fallen on much harder times. The Tiger was gone, and all the big businesses that had promised to stick around after they got their land grants for free and everything like that they all fucked off to Eastern Europe and left Limerick faltering. That’s what I saw, I saw boarded up shop windows, I saw lots more people on the street, it was really sad. And all of this takes place in the shadow of King John’s castle, which is kinda the major feature of the City, it’s one of the sights of the last great Irish Rebellion of history, that Lord Sarsfield led against the English. So everything that goes on in Town happens in the Shadow of King John’s Castle which is where the title came from. And I started singing that chorus while walking around Limerick, the chorus just came to me, all of it. So the whole idea I think is very much Irish in nature: “Yeah we’re down and out, Fuck you!”
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: (laughs) It’s kinda how the Irish are, “Yeah we’re having a rough time, too bad!” They tough it out, and that’s kinda where the song all came together.
Mark: And the variety keeps on coming and I really hope that’s something listeners love as much as I did. There’s everything from the really Jazz-based tunes, to Folk and Dirty Blues. Going back to my earlier comment, they were the ones that really caught my ear, songs like ‘The Good Life’ and ‘Deep Water’ which if you described them to me normally wouldn’t be the sort of songs I’d think I’d enjoy. Have they been around a while?
Danny: ‘Deep Water’ has been around a long time, but ‘The Good Life’ is pretty new, probably only a year old and that just stemmed from my getting interested in Gypsy Jazz. You know, I really like that strum pattern, but it’s everything ‘The Good Life’ is just weird, it shifts into Gospel, and I don’t know why but once I laid it all out I thought “No, that makes sense to me” (laughs) and as long as it makes sense to me, I’m gonna go with it and the hope people come long for the ride!
Mark: Blues, Swing, Jazz, Gospel, guitar, violin, it’s all there.
Danny: It’s really funny that you say that too because I talked to Dave Ling from Classic Rock the other day and I’ve known Dave for decades. And I sent him the album and said like I did to you “Think what you want I don’t mind” and he knew it would be different as I’d told him and like you a couple of things he picked out as favourites really shocked me. The first one he mentioned was ‘Something I Picked Up Along the Way’ and he said it’s just got that…
Mark: Dr John?
Danny: Yeah, you got it too! Doctor John, that New Orleans feel, and as soon as he said that I thought “Dave I love you” because that was exactly what I wanted.
Mark: That Jazzy, smoky New Orleans haze is really in there.
Danny: Now here’s what I think is maybe the probably the most important earmark of the whole album, that I’m starting to talk about now with people like you Mark. It’s that luckily through just sheer stubbornness and the wonderful dedication of my fans I was able to make an album where I have no excuses. There’s no “I wish I could have done this” in there. I had access to the time, enough funds and the talent to say “Gosh this song would really sound good with a cello” and instead of turning to my keyboard player and saying “Can you just synth something up for me” I could pick up the phone and call a cellist. And that made the difference. Having Andrew Griffith right up the road and saying “Holy shit this needs horns” and Andrew was there, and I’d already worked with him. The guy can play anything! That’s all one guy! (laughs) How a big white Welshman can capture black New Orleans Jazz I don’t know, but he did and it made the song that much better!
Mark: And it sound like the right studio played a big part too – how did you choose ‘Sonic One’?
Danny: Again that was another piece of just lovely serendipity. I had other plans for the album and where I was gonna make it and when those plans fell through someone said “You know you really ought to consider Tim Hamill who I had met before and worked with before and they said “For the music you’re talking about he’s going to be right up your alley.” Now it’s impossible not to get along with Tim Hamill, he’s possibly the nicest human being in the world. He just never, ever changes, every morning is a big smile and “Cup of tea?” (laughs). He just loves what he does and when he gets involved in a project like this he just loves it even more because it just offers him so much variety and fun and he’s a guitar player and multi-instrumentalist as well so the ideas are just flying around the room all the time, and that’s my favourite thing in the world when that’s happening.
Mark: That’s wonderful, it must just make so much of a difference. A funny thing just happened I was just listening to the album in the car and I had the window open and ‘Black Crow’ was the track that was on, that really dark, Folky, Bluesy number you have on there and the guy at the lights in the next car wound down his window and asked who it was!
Danny: Awesome.
Mark: That’s passed the road test!
Danny: (laughs)
Mark: ‘Time Out of Mind’ is another great song that has that has that Eagles meets Allmans kind of vibe?
Danny: I was thinking more ‘Black Crowsey’ on that one?
Mark: I’d pay that, great band and in my defence I’ve only listened to the album a couple of times so far, maybe ‘Southern Harmony’ era?
Danny: I’ll pay that.
Mark: But to me the epic ‘Seven Bells’ is another real standout, a very important part of the album for me.
Danny: Thank you, there were some wonderful surprises, and that one and ‘The Missouri Kid’ were the two big surprises for me. The reason for that is that they are both quite long and also as we mentioned ‘The Missouri Kid’ being my first song I ever wrote, it was there for that reason. I liked it but I didn’t know how anyone else would react. But the reaction of the musicians who had all been reasonably familiar with the demos, but only just a little bit, I mean you get somebody like Chris Childs is like “I’ve sketched out all the basic note progressions and everything, but I didn’t want to get so locked in to your demo that I basically just played what was there” and that’s just what I wanted. I wanted each player to bring their own ideas to these songs. So I got very lucky in that Nigel Hopkins was actually available to come in, we thought I was going to have to have him do his parts from the studio when he could, but in the end he was there for the four or five days it took to do the basic tracks. So we had everybody there in the same room which again is a real dream of mine about how to record. So with everybody there we’d run through the songs three or four times and we’d all get the arrangement, and we’d go for some takes. Then we’d get a take and think “Oh that was great” and Nigel would go “Ummm” and as soon as Nigel goes “Ummm” You’re like “Fuck no!” because, one, you know you’re gonna have to do it again and two, you know he never has a bad idea! (laughs) So we’d go “OK Nigel what have you thought of?” and he’d just add a little idea and bring his incredible musicality to the song. He’s very sought after, he’s Chris De Burgh’s musical director, but amongst other things when they did that massive tribute to Jon Lord at the Royal Albert Hall, Nigel was the keyboard player and MD on that. So there were people like Deep Purple’s keyboard player that were taking a backseat to Nigel Hopkins. That’s how good he is. And for him to come away from ‘Seven Bells’ – I told him- “Nigel I want you to orchestrate this.” I did a little on my demo but I don’t have those kind of skills, and he looked at me and said “this is probably my most favourite piece of music I have ever worked on” and the room just went quiet (laughs), “Oh my God.”
Mark: I’m with Nigel on that one. It must be incredible to hear something like that?
Danny: Absolutely, the validation of the players you’re working with, because you respect them so much is invaluable.
Mark: I can pick them!
Danny: It seems you can (laughs).
Mark: You’ve also had a chance to play some of these songs already. I know the Solo Tour doesn’t really kick off until later in the year in July and August but you did just play a show at Yardbirds?
Danny: Yes I did that and I also played some house concerts that aren’t on my Tour schedule but were booked through the ‘Pledge campaign’ so I’ve played twice now where I’ve got to air out the new songs, and it’s going really well.
Mark: How on earth do you choose what to play? I normally ask that of artists with a heap of albums behind them, but this album is so darned good there’s not a track I wouldn’t want to hear live?
Danny: I kind of swap it around, but to be honest there’s a couple of tracks that I kinda haven’t got my head around and how I want to play them acoustically. I haven’t done ’The Good Life’ acoustically yet, because I’m not happy so far with the way I’m doing it, it needs something and I’m still working on that. So I think as I get braver with it, and it’s hard with something new, but I have a general feeling that something like ‘King John’ that’s gonna go over fine because it’s got the rhythm to it already, and it has a similarity to other things that I’ve done. But I played ‘Seven Bells’ acoustically the other night and I just thought “Well this is gonna be a test”
Mark: Wow!
Danny: Because Mark as you know, there’s no crescendo, no build-up, no strings, no nothing, just me and the acoustic guitar over and over and over again for seven minutes! (laughs) and it went down a storm. And people came back afterwards and said “I can’t wait to hear that on the album.”
Mark: They’re gonna love it as much as Nigel and I!
Danny: Yeah, I mean it can only go up from there for me. So the good news is that so far my tried and true fan base are all coming along for the ride. So that’s a great start, but I know there’s gonna be some bad reviews of this from the Rock community. I don’t know things like “It’s a snooze-fest” or something like that I don’t know.
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: But so far there haven’t been so it’s a good start.
Mark: Sure I can see some places that are stuck in their ways not understanding, but to me when you hear an album like this, sure we all like our meat and potatoes, but there’s so much more out there to eat and love.
Mark: If we can backtrack a little, Pledge Music fell on its sword recently after what looks like some rather less than honest activity, taking I might add with it $500 of my Pledges that I’m guessing you and others musician will never see. I know that you were one of the first people to bring that to everyone’s attention.
Danny: Yeah, I’m one of the people that stuck the knife in (laughs) let’s be honest about it! I can’t think of the amount of people that have not been touched by this. So many people be it artists, be it fans, everybody has been harmed by this. And what’s coming out now, and remember I was on the phone with some of these guys, and I won’t name names, but I was getting these reassurances “Oh we had to do what’s been handed to us by the New York office” and “We didn’t want to go this way” and “It’s really a shame that they’re doing this to us” and so the UK office was sort of pushing it off. Well it’s all come out now that they knew about it all along, they were planning it, they were offloading money in preparation for bankruptcy six months ago. So OK here we go, basically this is ‘scum of the Earth material’ this was blatant thievery. And will someone go to jail for it? I doubt it. It’s awful.
Mark: It’s such a huge shame, such a wonderful concept that fans get to give their money to artists to produce music, and artists then have what they need to put out the best possible work for the people that have supported them over the years. And all of a sudden it’s turned into what seems like a story of greed and bad investments.
Danny: Yeah both of those things are correct, very bad investments. They got a new CEO on board who was like a Mr. Wolf of Wall Street hot shot and he suddenly decided that they needed to bring a bunch of people on board that needed to make six figure salaries. The UK office was relocated to Covent Garden, very expensive buildings. Apparently the war cry was “We’re the next Spotify” and it didn’t work out that way. They did some real ‘bait and switch’ with their payment providers and then tried to blame them, but no, because they’re the ones that switched them. But no, because everything was fine with PayPal for years and then they changed to a payment provider that didn’t provide proper accounting so they were getting a lump sum every two weeks from their payment provider as opposed to every day which they used to get from PayPal, and PayPal was always itemized so if they got $100 for Danny Vaughn they knew they got $100 for Danny Vaughn which meant they knew they got $15 of that. Suddenly they’re just getting a lump sum with no accounting on it. Just like “Here’s your money”, “OK but from which artist and for what” but no, no “Here’s your money”. I spoke to a corporate accountant who said there’s only one reason in their opinion you would do that, and that’s so there would be a grey area, so that they could say “Well we weren’t quite sure which money was ours and which money wasn’t so we just took off with it” and that’s what they did. It’s just that blatant.
Mark: It is, and I’ve spoken to scores of fans who have been left in the position where they paid their money the artists didn’t get it and in some cases they didn’t even get what they paid for. Everyone loses out. But the wonderful thing with guys like you who lost out is that at their own cost they have put their hands in their own pockets and said even though in some cases I’ve not received a penny I’m still going to honour that Pledge. And to me Danny that is a rare thing indeed and it says volumes about the man you are. But there are also so many artists out there who just didn’t do that, not only that there are some who just said “tough, take it up with Pledge.”
Danny: Yeah and that’s a real shame and I’ve been hearing about that, and some of them have their own money and are signed to labels, and I certainly won’t name names because I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard some pretty big names just went “Well that project sunk, sorry folks.” And I think, wait a minute, you guys could pay for this project.
Mark: Danny, it was mainly the guys with money and labels who were doing that, they were the ones who were saying “No, you’re on your own” and some of them are now even reselling some of the ‘exclusive’ items they had on Pledge through their labels or other channels. I can appreciate why smaller artists, or self-funded artist need to do that and that’s OK with me, but not those that had their recording costs already squared away and were using Pledge, sure to deliver something extra special, I’ll give them that, but were using Pledge for another revenue stream. It’s not that I don’t appreciate how hard it is out there to make a living but really?
Danny: And that just amazes me because we’re at a time where you need the memories of your fans to be good memories because there’s not a lot of people buying physical product anymore. And we would still wish that they would, I mean I would never stop getting CD’s because that is just my favourite medium of music but people are doing it less and less, and there are people like myself who will. And those are the people you’ve got to keep onside.
Mark: I complete agree, it’s a symbiotic relationship, years and years ago I guess I got to the stage where I no longer needed to buy any CD’s because people sent them to me but I still understand how it works, and if I want to support the artist I’d much rather go to their website and pay it direct to them rather than via a label or whoever it may be because you get the feeling that there’s going to be so much more benefit to you and the artist in doing so. But that’s a whole other story I guess and if I could do anything it would be start a system like Pledge where I could facilitate that. Music dies if artists can’t survive and there’s enough of us fans out there who would love to cut out the middleman and hear the music we love as a result.
Mark: I’d love to play a few songs from the album on the Podcast we have if you’re OK with it, and we’ll record some intros, but as far as songs go I guess there’s nothing really that encapsulates it all. I’d love of course to play ‘The Missouri Kid’, I’d love to play ‘Black Crow,’ which is something completely different but the song to me that has the most intriguing lyric and the one that I immediately thought where does the story go from here is ‘Point the Way’ tell us about that one?
Danny: It’s about a lot of things to be honest but I’ll give you the condensed version.
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: And this is also true. There was a Russian Prince in, I’m gonna say the 1920’s or 30’s and he was one of these guys that got into existentialism. And he kept his inheritance but he wasn’t part of staying around Russia and being part of the Royal family. He wanted to go and discover what his purpose was in life, he wanted to discover the meaning of life whatever that might be and he had the means and the money to go all over the world so he would turn up at Egyptian archaeological sites, he would seek out lost brotherhoods of knowledge in Nepal and things like that. This was his thing. And the story was written down by someone who traveled with him for a while whose name was George Gurdjieff who was a great philosopher, and they’re sitting in a coffee house, I don’t think it was in Kazakhstan, but it was around there somewhere and they’d both been searching for years and years for whatever this great knowledge might be and this monk comes into this crowded coffee house and just plops himself down at the table in front of them. And they’re startled and they say “OK what’s this about?” and he orders up and he just joins in their conversation and he turns to the Prince and says “Hey Gogo” and the Prince stops as no one has ever called himself that except his mother, it was their nickname between them, and he says to the Prince you’re ever going to find the meaning of life, you’re doing it all wrong. And then he says to the Prince you have one chance to get the knowledge that you specifically want, and that’s if you get up from this table right now, you tell no one you leave everything and you follow me. And I just thought… imagine that fucking choice!
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: (laughs) Imagine that Mark, what you most want or are most interested in in life and a stranger walks up to you and says “I can give this to you” but… everything else has to go, you know, how bad do you want it? So needless to say the Prince went and that’s where the song started. It’s about these questions that we all have, “Who am I?”, “What am I doing here?”, “Is there a point?”, “Is there a God?” whatever and so I created this character who has the potential to answer that question but they can only answer one and that’s it. (laughs)
Mark: It’s a wonderful premise isn’t it and a story that sound like it would be a wonderful TV show or movie, or even the last question I ask everyone when I first interview them! Fantastic stories and that’s what runs through the album to me, you paint the scenes so well, there’s images everywhere, there’s points of interest, there’s wonderful snatches of lyrics, and it’s all in there.
Danny: Thank you, that’s really what I’m trying to do. That makes me smile.
Mark: Let’s talk about Tyketto now shall we? Plenty of course going on there as well. Where shall we start? The ‘Strength in Numbers Live’ launch is pretty much just around the corner in October. But if we backtrack a little bit, it was another Tyketto video that was just being put to bed that really freed you up to make this record? ‘We’ve Got Tomorrow, we’ve got tonight?’
Danny: Yeah in a sense they are linked. It wasn’t that it helped the writing process, it was that in doing that gave me much more confidence to do what ‘Myths Legends & Lies’ needed to do, which was to take a giant leap to the left. Working with those people, with the singers, with the horn players and the string players and suddenly finding that in my lap, I thought well string-players just don’t turn up and play, they need parts, I’ve gotta write parts you know (laughs). And so I felt much more confident coming away from that and feeling that I really do have good ideas. I don’t care who you are you always doubt yourself. I just watched a film on Miles Davis and madman that he was, and I can’t always synch into his music, there’s always this tremendous questioning about ‘Who I am’, and ‘Who I’m gonna be next.’ ‘Here’s this idea that I think is good, am I the only person who thinks that?’ all that sort of stuff and I think we all do that.
Mark: I think we all do that all the way through our lives and it must be incredibly hard as a musician putting out an album like this when you lay it all on the line.
Mark: The Tyketto Tour went well too, packing the houses across the UK?
Danny: Yeah, I think it was the best turn out we’ve had since the ‘Strength in Numbers’ days, we were all pleasantly shocked because we’ve always thought of ‘Strength in numbers’ as the red-headed step-child of our collection.
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: Maybe simply because it’s not ‘Don’t Come Easy’ and that’s the one everybody always wants to talk about. But we found out that in many ways ‘Strength in Numbers’ was much more the UK’s and Europe’s album for us because first of all we toured the hell out of that back in those days because America had dried up for us so we just went over to Europe and stayed there for months. And it’s actually the album that a lot of people latched onto us from in Europe and the UK and that always made me happy as it’s also an example of a band saying “OK I know we’ve done this, but now we want to expand a little bit and show off some other sides to us’ You know there’s no bluesy tracks on ‘Don’t Come Easy’ but there are on ‘Strength in Numbers.’
Mark: Both great albums and I love them both equally, and I loved seeing you guys back in the day playing them.
Mark: So we know what’s next for you but what’s next for Tyketto? When are you guys getting together again?
Danny: Well we’re gonna do some European shows next year because we didn’t do the ‘Strength in Numbers’ Tour in Europe and so we’re kind of taking advantage of the fact that we’ve been offered a couple of Festivals in 2020 so we’re gonna do the ‘Strength in Numbers’ show over there. There’s eventually gotta be talk of a new studio album but right now it’s kinda way back-burner. We’re doing the Monsters of Rock Cruise again, and we did that show in Atlanta too that we were really happy to do, so there’s a little bit of an awakening of knowledge that we still exist you know in America (laughs). But all that helps, and as far as long-term I don’t really know. To be honest the next thing I’ve gotta do, whilst I’m working on doing my summer shows is I’m also starting to write songs with Dan Reed for a ‘Snake Oil and Harmony’ album so that will be for next year as well.
Mark: That would be great and something that if you have a gap in your calendar we’d love to have down here.
Danny: We’d jump at the chance and don’t strike Tyketto off that list too as we’ love to come and see you.
Mark: Before we go I have to say that I was very impressed by your hiking across that beautiful Country of Spain recently, I felt the miles.
Danny: Yeah I’m still suffering from that, but it was an amazing journey.
Mark: Is that something you’ve always wanted to do because when I heard about it I though yes that is something I would love?
Danny: I started sort of obsessing about it about four or five years ago. There’s a film called ‘The Way’ with Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez and it’s about the ‘Camino de Santiago’ and I’d never heard of it, I didn’t know it even existed even though I was living here in Spain. And it’s a good film but it’s also this really marvelous travelogue for Spain. Spain is just such a beautifully rich country when it comes to just a variety of settings and surroundings. Spain has the only desert in Europe, the mountain areas of Galicia are reminiscent of Scotland and Wales, where I live its beach but mountains and so it’s just crazy. The Romans loved Spain, they took the whole thing over (laughs) and so I watched that film and I thought what a thing to just narrow down your focus and just narrow down your daily life to just get up, eat, walk and see what happens (laughs). And that really appealed to me and I was also very fortunate in finding someone who was also really interested in dong it. I don’t think I would have been able to do it on my own, I was too intimidated. Now I know I could. And we only did sixteen days of it, if you do the full ‘Camino Frances’ it takes five weeks roughly to do the whole thing because you start actually in France at the foothills of the Pyrenees and you come down and all the way across Spain to Santiago de Compostela which is almost at the edge, there’s actually a destination that is a little bit further called (Cabo) Finisterre which is ‘The End of the Earth’ and that’s last stop before America basically.
Mark: Such a great experience to have trod where so many others have over the centuries, you must have gotten so much out of it?
Danny: An amazing experience. First of all it’s about learning about yourself, you develop an absolutely intimate relationship with your feet, very quickly.
Mark: (laughs)
Danny: And it’s about learning how you deal with others too because you spend hours with no one in sight and then all of a sudden you’re amongst so many people. A lot of the places you stay, they’re called the ‘albergues,’ which are like hostels and they’re all run for the Pilgrims, and there can be sixty people or more in a hostel, 12, 15 to a room, everybody in bunk beds, which is not my favourite arrangement to be honest! (laughs) but none the less, you would sit at the communal dinner table that night and it would be like “Who have we got here?” and we’d have this couple in their 50’s from South Korea, over here would be a gentleman from San Francisco who is a professor of medicine, over there there’s a young Irish girl fresh out of University, this guy over here is a Swedish Golf Pro, and just “Boom, boom, boom” you go around just talking about yourself and have the most amazing evenings of just good food, wine, and getting to know different people. And you would run into them here and there along the trail, you might see some of them again. Some people you walk with for a while and then they go off at their own pace, it’s just remarkable.
Mark: It is and it’s almost like a look back on another time isn’t it, I always remember reading Canterbury Tales by Chaucer at school and it was always about the people that you met along the way those are the real stories. How everyone is different but on the same path, and I guess the World could learn a lot from something like that.
Danny: Absolutely, the Chaucer comparison is a great one and better than mine because I kept thinking Lord of the Rings! (laughs).
Mark: (laughs) I suppose it’s a bit like Bree and the Prancing Pony, that first meeting with Strider! I love Lord of the Rings!
Danny: (laughs) It is like another time though, that Pilgrimage has been going on for a thousand years, so you’re also walking in the footsteps of history. There’s a place along the way were I found I had to just take a breath, it’s called Cruz de Hierro, it’s the second highest peak on the entire Camino, and so it’s a pretty hard walk up by the time you get there, and it’s this cross on the top of this like 30 foot mass, that’s stuck into this mound. And this mound is composed of small rocks, and what you’re supposed to do is bring a small rock with you from wherever you call home and you’re to leave it at the base of the cross and this represents your troubles, your worries, that kind of thing. And it all sounds kinda cute until you do it and then you think there could be pebbles here that some guy brought four hundred year ago (laughs) there’s his troubles right there. And I thought “Wow” it does give you pause.
Mark: It does an hopefully everyone will get to do something like that one day, or at least just stop and think. It’s a big old world and we’re all here together. And on that auspicious note, thank you so much for your time Danny, as always it’s been great to chat and nice to end with something like that.
Danny: Oh my pleasure, are you doing the Cruise next year?
Mark: I hope to be, I’d love to as it’s a great line-up.
Danny: I’m so happy that they’ve brought back Kings X this year, I’d love to see them, and I’d love to see Pat Travers
Mark: Pat is one of the few still on my bucket list, my best friends brother had his albums when I was a kid and I’ve loved him ever since.
Danny: I saw him on the ‘Crash and Burn’ Tour in New York City when I was a kid and seeing that show just made a huge impression on me.
Mark: That would have been great.
Danny: Thanks Mark it’s a pleasure and when you play us in Australia let me know and we’ll shout it from the rooftops! Take care mate.
Mark: Will do Danny, bye bye.
Myths, Legends & Lies is out now!
http://www.dannyvaughn.com/site/