Roger Askew
 
"Big Fire" is the new album from Roger Askew, it mixes rootsy arrangements and songwriting that recalls artists such as Van Morrison and Jackson Browne.
Roger Askew grew up in Newcastle in a household filled with music and musicians. His Dad was a fine pianist and clarinet player who also dabbled with double bass. It's not surprising that Rogers main collaborater at the moment is the highly respected classically trained Double Bass player Olly Blanchflower.
Roger has had a long career as a producer, engineer and musician, he has worked with artists such as Christy Moore, the late Joe Strummer, Eleanor Shanley and Brian Kennedy.
His second album is a delicious blend of imaginative and wistful lyrics and accomplished roots musicianship. Roger is planning a long program of gigs to promote his album here and for the first time in the US in the New Year.
We spoke to Roger about his new album and career to date.
1) The new album "Big Fire" is a real triumph are you happy with it ?
I'm very happy with the album, there's always that moment after it's finished when I've heard something too much and think Oh, should have done that better, or that track's not so good, but now that it's mastered and pressed I'm pretty pleased with it.
2) You produced it and financed it yourself, how difficult was it to play on the album while also being objective about the production and business side as well ?
Remaining objective throughout is really hard and I couldn't have done it without help from the other people involved. Olly, of course, the double bass player who had a good overview of what we were doing but also wasn't involved in every minute of the recording and mixing, could give an objective view, and I asked other engineers and musicians at various stages. Sometimes I just put my producers hat on and tried to listen objectively and work out what needed doing.
3) There a many stand out tracks on the album "After the Harvest" "Into the flame" and "Keep you in my heart" to name a few are there any particular favourites for you ?
I'm proud of 'Keep You In My Heart', I'm not usually a quick writer but I just sat down and wrote that one day. It ended up sounding just as it was in my head the day I wrote it, and that's really satisfying. Bridge 57 is another favourite, it's a slightly different style of song for me and I like the way it turned out.
4) You've had a long career as musician, producer and engineer what are the particular highlights for you so far?
Highlights quite often don't seem like that when you're in the middle of them. I'll never forget playing with Bliss in Berlin the week the Wall came down, probably the best gig we ever did, an electric atmosphere and the performance was way more than the sum of those six musicians. Working in Ireland with Christy Moore was both difficult and fantastic, we made some great music and I learned a lot. There are other highlights...gigs in Brazil, being top of the charts in Italy and even lately there have been a couple of gigs with just me and Olly that have been really uplifting.
5) What was the late great Joe Strummer like to work with?
My working with Joe is a great story. I had made a conscious decision to get more work as a recording engineer but wasn't finding it easy. The jobs were few and far between. I'd blagged my way into a small studio in Kilburn and persuaded the owner that if ever his engineer couldn't do it, I could. Not entirely true as I didn't really know how the place worked. One day he called me up and said his engineer was sick and could I do a seven day session starting tomorrow. I said yes on the understanding that if the session started at ten in the morning, he'd open the place up at eight thirty so I could try to get my head round some of the gear, most of which I'd never seen before. I was there at eight thirty. Nine o'clock, still no owner. He didn't answer his phone. Nine thirty Joe Strummer arrived, which was the first I knew that he was the seven day session. We sat on the pavement outside and chatted, he explained what we were doing, I told him about myself...still no doors open. We went to the cafe and tried to ring the owner again, no reply, so we sat and chatted more, other musicians arrived. About elevn fifteen the owner turned up very much the worse for a heavy night, opened the doors with a grunt, gave me the keys and dissappeared. Joe was doing songs for the soundtrack of the film Sid and Nancy, we basically spent seven days making it up as we went along with a variety of musicians coming and going and sending the results to the director (Alex Cox) each night. Joe was great to work with and I've never learned as much in one week as I did then, and worked fairly consistently as an engineer after that.
6) Your planning alot of albums live dates both here and in the US shortly are you looking forward to playing the album live, how has it been received so far.
November will see a series of gigs I'm planning to do some live dates with Olly and some with my sister and hopefully some in the US next year. The album has been pretty well received so far, but it's early days yet.
Roger's sister Joy is also a talented singer songwriter. She is coming over from New York to do six or seven gigs with Roger around the UK. This follows a succesful show recently at The Kings Head in Crouch End where they played together for the first time in twenty years. There are plans a foot to reciprocate the arrangement which will see Roger doing his first solo US dates.
The album is available from Roger’s website www.rogeraskew.com and from record shops.
Roger has kindly agreed to appear at our end of year party at the 12 Bar Club on Weds 16 Novermber 2005
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