Interview with Andy Curran
06/09/2023
Interviewed by Paul Hutchings
Andy Curran has been around the block a few times. Bassist and singer with Coney Hatch, who released three albums in the 1980s with their latest album Fourth arriving in 2013. Curran is also part of Envy of None, the project that also comprises Alex Lifeson, Maiah Wynne, and Alfio Annibalini. Their self-titled debut was released on Kscope in April 2022 and the band have a new EP, “That Was Then” which will be released on 9th June. Paul joined Andy via Zoom at his home studio to find out more.
I’m of an age that I can remember Coney Hatch when they were around back in the 80s. The band were featured in Kerrang and Sounds, so their name was familiar. I asked Andy if being in EON and the inevitable link with Alex had seen any kind of resurgence and interest in Coney Hatch.
“I think to be honest with you, I could feel a bit of a resurgence after we released Coney Hatch Four which probably goes back to 2017 or something like that, when we signed a deal with Frontiers. It was interesting, I think especially in Europe, because we had never played there, and suddenly there was this interest. You know, oh wow, the lads are still around. It kind of bubbled under for a little while there, and we got quite a few gig offers in France and Belgium. Next week we go to play Sweden Rock! People are reaching out to us”. Andy continues, “But I have to admit, when you’re doing a project with someone of the pedigree of Alex Lifeson and he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it’s like a heat seeking missile, you know? How could you not get attention? And because the boys in Rush hadn’t really been active since Neil’s passing, I certainly think that there was a lot of interest with Envy of None, specifically Rush fans going, “What is Alex up to?”. But that spun off. I would get messages from people on Instagram or even just reaching out on my website, going wow, I’d never even heard of Coney Hatch. It opened some people’s eyes”.
Andy then tells me about a recent trip to see Cheap Trick with his brother. “We were walking around the venue, and we grabbed a couple of pints just before we were walking in, and this guy in his late 20s, maybe early 30s comes up. He’s got a Cheap Trick shirt on, and he comes walking up to me and he goes, are you Andy from Envy of None? I was like, OK, this is pretty cool. Usually people go, hey, you’re from Coney Hatch and this young kid was like, I love Envy of None. So, it’s a very interesting dynamic, but we’re certainly having a lot of fun”.
This is brilliant to hear. As I say to Andy, you can expect people to identify him from Coney Hatch, but it must make it feel more of an actual unit rather than just a group of individuals who are playing on a project if someone is referring to you as a certain person from the band.
“You’re absolutely right, Hutch” says Andy. “And you know from the inception of EON we never really called it a band. It was much more of a studio project.” Andy then tells me another story. “I got a call from a gentleman by the name of Adam Kornfeld and Adam was the longtime booking agent for Rush. And I knew him quite well, and he called me up and he said, ‘Andy, I’ve been listening to EON. And I absolutely love it. I should be your agent’. And I said, Adam, thank you so much, but we don’t really have any plans to play live? I think of this kind of like, an Alan Parsons project. And he goes, ‘I’m the agent for Alan Parsons!!’ So, he said. I don’t care if he played one show in 10 years or five shows next year. You should have somebody representing you. I spoke with Alex about it, and I said, you know, it’ll save you and I having to answer the phone if somebody wants to find out about the band. So, he said, yeah, you should call Adam back and say thank you. Yes, you can be our agent. But I just thought it was funny because there is this perception out there that we are a band and we certainly feel like a unit, you know, where the four of us are very, very close and we’re really enjoying working together. We’ve already started on the next record, but it was always a studio project. No, we never even discussed going out and playing live, so I don’t know. Never say never. Life changes in a heartbeat as you know. So, we’ll see what happens down the road.”
Andy is still active live with Coney Hatch. We know Alex isn’t but what about Alfio and Maiah?
“She is,” Andy confirms before continuing. “I think if anything, similarly to what you said earlier about EON sparking interest in Coney Hatch. I could certainly tell you that Maiah got quite a few gig offers and a lot of attention around her, based on her involvement with EON. From what I understand she’s performing her solo material, but she’s got a couple of EON tracks that she plays acoustic. But I think she’s thrilled about that, and to be quite honest with you and I don’t want this to sound like we had any other ulterior motives, but we thought, wouldn’t this be great to bring some attention to this up-and-coming young female vocalist/musician, you know. And so, we always wanted to give her a little shot in the arm and go out there and do your own stuff, and this might help visibility for what she’s doing, so. I’m glad it’s working for her”.
Andy continues “It’s been a rocket ride for her, too, you know. It’s interesting. When we first started working together, I think she kind of had a grasp of what Alex Lifeson’s name means in the music community. And she sort of jokingly said, you know, my mom and dad know Alex well. But I don’t think it was until we really sort of got chugging, some interviews and doing some videos and doing some press that she really gets the magnitude of Alex’s career and what he’s done. And it was, I think, a bit of a ‘pinch me’ moment for her; obviously with Alfio, and me, we’re of the same vintage as you. We grew up watching Rush. So, I was always just like, in what world does this happen? I mean, suddenly recording music with Alex. So, we never ever took it for granted that it was a special lightning strike moment for all of us to be working with Alex.”
My memory banks get a little confused here. Alex has known Andy a long time, but I asked Andy if Coney Hatch had toured with Rush. “Well, actually it wasn’t Coney believe it or not, even though we had the same management company and we would run into the guys in Rush, and we would go to their shows in Toronto and stuff,” Andy tells me. “Coney Hatch never opened for Rush. But I got to be friends with Geddy, playing tennis with him, which was like how I met Steve Harris and struck up a good friendship with him. But it wasn’t until I left Coney Hatch and recorded and released my solo record and went out on the road and we opened for Rush on the ‘Roll the Bones’ tour. So that’s sort of where the whole friendship started with all three of the guys in Rush and then subsequently in the early 2000s, when I took a hiatus from recording and touring and everything and I worked with SRO Management and was part of the management team for Rush and their label Anthem Records. That’s where I really started to dig in and become pretty close friends with all of those guys. I love them. They’re all sweet, sweet guys and just so genuine and thankful for everything that we would do on the working side with them. So, easy to become friends with genuine guys like that.”
I take Andy back to April 2022, here’s an album coming out, and it’s got Alex Lifeson on it. It’s some of the first stuff he’s done, apart from the odd solo and piece since Rush had finished. Envy of None arrives, and I loved it. I was grateful in the sense that it was completely different to Rush and everything else. But I saw some reviews that said, “Well, this isn’t very good because Alex Lifeson isn’t ripping out this tremendous solo and it’s not in 12 different parts and all the rest.” Did Andy have expectations about it? How was the overall response to the record?
“I think when all was said and done, we were maybe a little pleasantly surprised and very proud that most of the feedback we got, and I’ll use maybe like 85% positive reaction that people loved that we were specifically exploring a new avenue that wasn’t classic Hard Rock driven. It was much more experimental. I don’t really think it was proggy, but it was certainly a stretch for both of us left and right for sound-scaping, and having Maiah be the front voice. But you know, we went into this thinking, okay, there’s obviously gonna be some grumpy Rush fans that are going, where’s the guitar solo? And how come there’s not these giant power chords? But we were surprised that a lot of them were just thrilled that Alex was playing again and went, this is so great. And I can hear him. I can hear him all over this material and I’ll tell you if Al was on the interview with us, it’s kind of been there, done it. You know, the few times that we brought it up and said, Alex, what do you think about maybe playing solo on this and he was like, yeah, I’ll think about it and he never put a solo on it. There are some pretty heavy guitar tracks on songs like ‘Enemy’; maybe this is a perfect example of it. But he kind of said, Andy, I’ve been there, done it before, and if people don’t like it then or if they want it to sound like Rush, they should go back and listen to 30 odd records that we’ve done! So, it was rewarding on a musician level to cut some new turf on it. So, I think, you know, long, long, long answer short, we were very happy with the reception and pleased that most people liked it. And you know, well, there’s an EP coming out and. I won’t spoil it, but maybe some of the Rush fans might be happy to know that Alex is flexing his muscles a little bit on the new track. So, we’ll see what they say about that.”
I’ve reviewed the EP, which is brilliant, which you can read here and I say to Andy that the surprise has to be the closing title track. I struggle to articulate what I want to say. The word routine is wrong, but it’s more traditional in terms of the composition than maybe some of the others but there is a guitar solo in there. A lot of the stuff that Alex did was very subtle anyway. The EP contains two remixed songs, ‘Dogs Life’ and ‘Dumb’. Why these two?
“Well and thank you for saying that. I’ll tell you, I can see what you’re saying about how it’s a little bit more traditional and maybe not as layered or lush as some of the other tracks,” Andy is a great storyteller and heads off down another tangent. “Alex had done a charity show with Robbie Krieger from The Doors and really connected with Robbie’s drummer, Ty Dennis. He came back from this gig and said, man, you know, we should put real drums on ‘That Was Then’. And do you mind if I send it to my friend Ty? And so, I think that we played into it feeling a little bit more traditional. We had a traditional rhythm section with real bass and drums and the guitar solo for your information was unprompted. Nobody said Alex, would you do a solo at the end of the song. So now my joke is okay, don’t ask him and maybe he might play guitar solo on it!”
“If I was to be very candid and honest with you, and when I listened. ‘Dog’s Life’ for me, the mix on it, we never quite nailed it, in my humble opinion and I think it was partially my fault. There’s a big, big fat analogue sequencing, almost like a Moog bassline that goes through it and it takes up a lot of space. And I always felt that the drums, Joe Vitale who played with Joe Walsh for many years is an amazing rock drummer, and I always was a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t hear Joe. So, when we got this opportunity to do a remix and we started off specifically that we were working with Sony and 360 to do these, like, surround sound mixes and so I said to Alfio, okay, here’s our chance to get that mix right. We should, you know, crank the drums and let’s let people hear what Joe played, right? So, I must be honest with you, I prefer the new remix of ‘Dog’s Life’ than I do over the studio version. With ‘Dumb’, it’s interesting. We have a very, very strong relationship with the guys and girls at Snapper, the label in the UK. And they said are you interested in doing any remixes? And I have a young daughter who’s really into EDM and my wife likes Bonobo. And you know she likes Rufus Du Sol. And I’m a big Massive Attack fan. I started to think, wouldn’t it be nice to just completely deconstruct ‘Dumb’ and maybe turn it into almost like a rave EDM type of a track where it doesn’t have a traditional sort of intro, verse, chorus. It starts off with some trippy stuff. And so, what I did was I took our original mix, took the stems from it, and I went in and just shook it up in the cup and threw it out and onto the desk and moved things around and sent it over to Alf and said, Alf, can you make some method out of this madness? And he was like, oh my God, I love what you’ve done. You’ve sort of changed the chorus up and you’ve taken this part over here and threw it over there. It really was a fun little exercise in deconstructing it and just trying to make it sound different, you know, because I think as a fan you go, oh my God, they just released an EP and it’s got the same freaking songs on – a big deal, right? But we actually went to great lengths to make those tracks sound very different, and it’s a new interpretation of it. So those two. I don’t know why; you know having that sort of that sample of the German voice saying ‘dummkopf’ on it. It made me feel like. Almost like in a funny way, when there was a Saturday Night Live skit with Sprocket and Dieter, and these two guys that had turtlenecks and they were going to dance raves and, you know, listening to Kraftwerk. We had a bit of fun.”
Of course, Alex was always the joker in Rush, so I imagined he’d have had no issue with this.
“Oh yeah”, says Andy, “He never has any problem with us poking fun at different things that we’re doing. So, if there’s a humour element to anything, he’s the first guy to say, yes, let’s go”.
Whilst some might say that the EP doesn’t have anything different apart from the new song, for many fans, me included, it is a new release because although I’ve got the vinyl and the CD of the first album, I didn’t get the deluxe version, so I get new songs, because ‘Lazy River’ and ‘You’ll Be Sorry’ weren’t on the standard version. It’s a brand-new EP for some. I reassure Andy that, as a fan, I’m really excited about getting that vinyl.
In one of EON’s official press statements, Andy said Chapter 2 has officially started. He also alluded to it earlier in the interview that EON are looking at new music and you’re working on stuff. I ask Andy when we will get it and then add on a question about how they do their work. I’ve assumed that most of it is crafted separately and digitized. Was this the same for the first album, which would have been impacted by the pandemic?
“Yeah, Hutch, that’s a great question because I think part and parcel of trying to record during the pandemic, obviously the challenges of not being able to socially gather and get into a studio and stuff like that. So full transparency, you know, before we started this record, just before the pandemic kind of hit, we did get into the studio as a unit, but only to record a couple of drum tracks. We were doing the drum tracks just outside of Toronto with two different drummers. We did take advantage of my being there and getting some vocal tracks from Maiah, but yeah, I would say that the lion’s share of the record was recorded all virtually with us working in our home studios. I’m talking to you from my home studio right now, and so you know the general rule of thumb was to cook up a bit of a base track and almost treat it like a demo. Everybody said who produced it, we all produced it. We self-produced it and any basslines or keyboard stuff or even little vocal snippets that I had. If I liked it, I would send it on to Alf and Maiah. The only reason I’m not including Alex is Alex said I would like the three of you guys to sort of beat up the songs and I really like the challenge of weaving my guitar parts through what you three have done. There were obviously Alex Lifeson compositions with ‘Spy House’ and ‘Western Sunset’, that were pretty much part and parcel done and then we added our parts to it. So, there was a reverse part of that.”
Andy continues, “But to answer your question. On the new record, we had discussions about bringing Maiah here and trying to do a more traditional recording and getting all four of us in the room together. And then Alex astutely said, well, it works so well on the first record, why are we changing it if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it type thing. I don’t want to speak for Al, but I do think that he, along with all of us, enjoyed the freedom of not having three other people looking, going, okay, watch. What are you going to play? What are you gonna play now? The pressure, the lights being on. So, they send the track over and you take a couple days for it. You’re at home living with it, you know, and you just lay your tracks down and send it along and Alfio is such an exceptional engineer that he was really the glue with the project. He’s a gifted guitar player and keyboard player as well. So, he would add his stuff on it. I think we’re going to continue that way. We’re probably about five tracks deep into the new one where we’re exchanging ideas. Some of them are further developed than the others. I think it was really in working and recording ‘That Was Then’ for the EP that we went ohh, okay, this still feels like a unit. It’s not just a one off and one of the reasons we put that new track on was that people were thinking this is just a one and done project. It’s a little shot in the air to go, no, we’re still recording and we’re enjoying playing together. The last thing I’ll tell you; you mentioned with those two tracks that were on the bonus, the bonus release, the ‘Lethe River’, and ‘You’ll Be Sorry’, when we got to the end of our record and certainly with ‘Lethe River’, Alex said, Man, I wish this song was on the original record. I absolutely love it. I wish we had included that on the record because he felt that that was one of our stronger songs. So, it’s nice for it to see the light of day to more people than who had just bought the bonus version, you know.”
So, with Andy confirming that Chapter 2 has started, that suggests a longer future than maybe first envisaged. Who is driving it?
“It’s interesting that you asked that because if you had asked me that on the first record, I would probably say to you, without trying to sound arrogant, that it was Alfio and I that were sort of driving the engine. And then, when we were talking about ‘Western Sunset’ and ‘Spy House’ with Alex, we were like, you know, let’s even the playing field here. It shouldn’t just be ideas that are coming from out there. Let’s get everybody putting their hand up and throwing stuff on the table, right? So, I would say out of the new ideas, the four or five that are on the table now are being driven by Alfio, Maiah, Alex, and me. Alex has asked for stuff, and I said okay, well, that’s great, but send us some things that you’re working on. I tend to needle him and see if I could push him so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s that he’s working on stuff that he’ll throw on the table, but it is very much a collaborative effort. Maiah surprised Alfio and I on a number of occasions, where we would send her an idea and I would actually have an arrangement in my head and she heard it completely differently. She went in and chopped it up and I went, oh, wow. She’s taken what I thought was the chorus and turned it into a verse or something. And yeah, she would be, and she’s very respectful, the e-mail would arrive, and it would say, I cut the crap out of this and moved it all around. Nobody’s getting territorial about stuff. We’ve all got thick skin.”
Andy tells me about an early idea he had which he was excited about, but which got shot down by the others. “I was like, OK, fair enough. We’ll just toss that one.”
As a final question, and as the release of the EP was only days away, I wondered what emotions Andy felt on release day.
“I’m going to answer that in two parts,” he says. “If I could talk about an upcoming release that I’m working on, but I’ll answer your question about EON, because Alex and I had this conversation very early on. We didn’t even talk about getting it released, not talking about a label or anything, and we got about five songs in, and we were saying, this stuff sounded really good. We should probably release it, right, because we didn’t even have a plan, which was crazy when you think about it. Like, who goes into the studio these days or spends a lot of time recording with zero plan#?! I said, well, we’ve all been drinking the same Kool-Aid. We’re all slapping each other on the back going, oh, this sounds really good. Wouldn’t it be nice to send it out into the world and see if people feel the same way that we do? There’s so much backslapping going on with our four colleagues going wow, this sounds really good. Oh, this is awesome. And then you go, oh, is it really, is it awesome? Let’s throw it out there and see if people think it is right. So that part of it, maybe the nervous Nellie part where you’re like, I hope we’re on the right track here.”
Andy then politely asks about a bit of self-promotion, which it was a pleasure to offer. “I got approached by a friend of mine who said, well, you know the anniversary of your solo is around 30 years. Why don’t you release it? And I thought, well, that’s kind of cool. That would be fun to do that. And I thought but it sounds a little old, it sounds dated. There are big reverbs. Everything on the point and I said I’ll do it if I can remix it. I’m not name-dropping but Steve Harris from Iron Maiden has told me that my solo record is one of his favourite records and he loves it and his band even performs a song called ‘Nickels and Dimes’ when they play live and they changed it to ‘Guineas and Crowns’. And so, I told him that I was remixing it and he goes, ohh mate, I hope you don’t fuck it up! Because he said it sounded great and suddenly, I got very worried. I got very worried and went ohh, what have I done here? I’ve remixed an album that a lot of people apparently like so and it’s called “Whiskey in The Devil 30th” and it’s going to be available, and I think Rock Candy just did a review on it. I got nervous when I found two outtakes and I thought, oh my God, I forgot about these two songs. And then when I remixed them and put them on the record, I thought, well, they were probably not put on the record for a reason. It’s probably crap; like why I am even putting them on here if they if they didn’t make it 30 years ago? Why are they making it now, right? That Rock Candy review said, these two outtakes that Andy put on are easily as good as the songs on the rest of the record. So, I yes, I do get nervous! Yes. I wonder if people will feel the same excitement that we do, but it’s usually, you know, if I read a couple of positive things, I’m like, okay, good. I’m not nervous anymore.”
Andy’s remastered album is going to be coming out in the next month or so, while Envy of None’s “That Was Then” was released on 9th June.
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