Tim Aves - Continued
BM: Why do you feel that young people are not as attracted to the Blues as other Genres?
Tim: They tend to perceive it as "old people's music" to a certain extent, though I think people like Seasick Steve and the White Stripes (if you call that blues - personally, I can't stand 'em!) have rather given the lie to that lately.
BM: What other styles of music have you drawn inspiration from?
Tim: Rock (like most people of my generation, I started out listening to Purple, Zep et al and classic rock station Planet Rock is still a bit of a guitly secret!); new country, especially early Steve Earle and the incomparable Joe Ely; down'n'dirty rock'n'roll bands like The Georgia Satellites; anything with energy and edge, really.
BM: Why do you think the Essex Delta has produced so many great blues musicians compared to other counties?
Tim: I'm not entirely sure it has, actually - maybe we're all just rather better at promoting ourselves as being from a specific area than acts from other parts of the country are!
BM: Recently you have been working with Son Henry, how did that come about?
Tim: There's this great online blues community called The Blindman's Blues Forum (Google it and come and join us!) that's run by a veteran drummer from Aberdeen called Billy Allardyce. It has a huge and very knowledgeable worldwide membership, including a huge number of musicians and since joining it about five years ago, I have made SO many tremendous friends all around the world.
Son Henry - who for those of you who don't know, is an Aberdeen-based Alaskan and a brilliant singer, songwriter, guitarist and above all, an ace lap-steel player - was one of them. Because the forum has a strong Aberdeen/Dundee contingent, there's always a lot of chat on there about the Dundee Blues Bonanza, which is this fantastic three-day shindig every June/July.
Son and I got talking on the forum and he invited me up to play with his band, back in 2007. I cashed in a few Air Miles, hopped on a plane with a couple of guitars and some harps and went for it. I had two hours' rehearsal on the Friday night with these three musician's I'd never met before, then drove down to Dundee, where over the next two days, we played five gigs, before I caught a flight home early on the Monday morning. Without a word of a lie, it was one of the most enjoyable weekends of my entire life!!! Magical.
After that, we decided it would be fun to bring the band down to the south-east for a tour, which we finally did in March 2009. Tragically, Son's drummer, Kevin Oliphant, died a fortnight before the tour started, so we ended up using my old Armadillos pal, Paul Lester, which worked really well and the tour was a huge success. I then flew up to Dundee last June and had another hugely enjoyable weekend with Son and the guys at Dundee.
We had another one planned for last January, which was curtailed by Son's
illness, though -silver linings and all that - the upshot of that cancellation was that we ended up putting together WOLFPACK to honour a couple of outstanding tour dates and found ourselves with a whole new band as a result!
Son is well and truly mended now - back out gigging again, as loud and leery as ever - and I'm really looking forward to working with him soon. The Tim Aves-Son Henry Band will be playing a one-off show at the Boogaloo Blues Weekend at Cricket St Thomas this November. However, we've both moved on a little - me with WOLFPACK and Son with his new T-Bone Walker-style outfit, Son Henry and the Eastside Kings - so I'm not sure how much more joint stuff we'll be able to fit in ...
BM: You seem to have done most everything a blues musician would want to do, so what is left for you to do Tim?
Tim: Well... I'm not so sure about that! Plenty I haven't done really... like actually managing to make a decent, sustained living out of play the blues for starters!
Hopes for the future, though? Well, there are a few...
WOLFPACK is my main focus these days. It's me on vocals, guitar and harmonica, the excellent Rockin' Armadillos rhythm section of Rob Barry on bass and Paul Lester on drums, plus the brilliant Joel Fisk, from Hokie Joint, on guitar - IMO, easily the best young blues guitarist in the UK right now!
Finally, I still get back together two or three times a year with my old band, Automatic Slim. We did 17 years on the road and played 3,000-odd gigs, back in the day, and after all this time, it's always a pleasure to get back together with Ian, Howard and Don and do the old Essex r'n'b thing again. In my heart of hearts, I still harbour a desire to go back in record the definitive 'Slim album!
Thank you Tim for taking the time to do this interview
Barry Middleton
Nottingham Blues Society
Number one priority is getting more WOLFPACK gigs in the book - a surprisingly slow and laborious process with a new band, especially one where the gigs have to be fitted in between members' other commitments. (Hokie are busy boys these days, so Joel isn't always available. I have a couple of other really top-class deps, but the aim is to keep a stable lineup as much as possible.) All offers of gigs gratefully received, by the way!!!
I also want to get the band in the studio fairly soon - it's just too good not to record once we have a few more gigs under our belts.
Beyond that, there is still some unfinished Rockin' Armadillos business, namely Roadtrip, the album the band spent four years recording on and off, but never quite finished before we split up. My boy Owen Barry was the producer and one of the guitar players. He left the band (and the project) about three years ago when he hooked up with the rock band, Purple Melon. They're living and working in LA now and he's left me the job of finishing the album, which is 95% complete and sounds absolutely stunning. It was just such a shame it was never released during the band's lifetime, because I think it would have made a LOT of people take notice of us!
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