Christian Reilly interview @Lemon Tree / Aberdeen

Luckly I did have an opportunity to talk to Christian on the 30th March 2003. Here is the mini interview.

• C: Christian
• P: me ( phobos )
• F: my friend

P: Tell me about the future of the Black Liars.
C: We're currently trying to find our audience. That's what we're trying to do.

C: Are you going to Edinburgh Festival this year ?
P: nnn, Not yet decided. Because Penny said neither the Black Liars nor Rich won't do anything.
F: Maybe Nova lounge.
C: Yeah, Nova lounge. For a week. Possibly the last week of the festival. And I'll be doing the stand up comedy. On my own. For the first time, for the month at Edinburgh at the Gilded Balloon.
P: a month ?
C: Yes, for 26nights.
P: Is that sure ?
C: Yes, that's in the Diary.
P: Then, I must come.
C: Well, no, I mean ( laughing ) Just if you're in town, then pop by, hahahaha. If you're in the neighborhood, then pop by.
P: She's (pointing to my friend) living in Edinburgh.
C: Wow, you've got the place to stay. That is the big expense out of the way. And I, when I do stand up comedy, I do singing as well.
P: Yes ? You have a really great voice.
C: Oh, thank you.
C: Yeah, Well.. since I've been trying to write and perform stand up comedy, I find it's a lot easier to..... when I do anything musical now is very natural, you know its ...'cause telling jokes is really hard, whereas making music seems really really easy compare to that. hahahaha.
P: 'cause you are really good players.
C: Oh, thank you.
C: We've had.. We've been very fortunate, to have been teamed up with Rob Childs and Nick Pynn, on the fiddle, 'cause they two are really excellent musicians. I've personally learnt a lot from them, just playing with them. You know, I already had my style of playing. It wasn't so much in the Country music genre then I needed to know a few more tricks. I've learned a lot.

P: Then what is your taste in music ?
C: Well, I mean everything we recorded on that album. All those artists, I really love, and Damian really loves. So all of those artists are, I like them they're sort of 'new wave country', those people.
Personally, I really like Jazz. Jazz Guitar like Chet Baker(*) and I really like Tom Waits. I'm a really big Tom Waits fan for the song writing and emotion of it.
　　　(*)According to Christian, Chet Baker is a trumpet player. Christian meant to say he was a fan of Baker's singing and also enjoy the accompaniment of the other musicians he worked with.

P: Country Music is not really popular in this country.
C: No, it's huge in America, that's very middle of the road. There is a lot of very middle of the road Country music in America. I mean turn on the FM dial, Have you been to the States ?

P: Yes.
C: When you on the car and you go through every station is a country station. But it's very watered down country. But here, it is not, it is still on the fringes but I think it's becoming quite popular. BBC2 just recently did a four part documentary about the history of country music. Aah, it was really good. And I think there's a lot of new young country music fans coming out, also there's a lot of young people making country music, as well. So.. It's interesting and relevant, again.

P: Because the CD is really good. I hope that album makes the county music more popular.
C: Oh, yeah, yes me too. I mean what we would like, ( somebody talked to Christian ) you've got the Devon Rex. Is that Bill's cat ? ( "yes, Bill actually named it" ) and actually what I mean what we would be happy with is if people like the song, would research it, who wrote the song.. you know what I mean ? I'm sure definitely a lot of percentage of people who end up taking this CD home don't listen to the country music. And they might realise it's not just, you know, dog's dying or getting divorced.

P: Birthday ?
C: Birthday ! The 29th of March 1972. I was 31, yesterday.
P: Where were you born ?
C: The place ? A place in Nottingham, called Ilkeston. It's on the border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. And it's got a reputation of being quite amm, unsavoury,...nasty. He he he he. it's got a bad reputation. But I moved from there when I was five.
P: Then move around ?
C: Suburbs,, lots of different suburbs of Nottingham. And then I moved down to London about three years ago. I lived in Manchester for a while, and Birmingham for a while, I've studied sound engineering and video editing. I learned a few things, a lot of them I've forgotten. But mostly what I learned was that I'd giving up being in a band. I'd giving up that to pursue this other direction. you know video sound engineering. I was really depressed by not having a gig. That's a big lesson that I learned doing that stuff was I learnt that I wanted to do music, you know in whatever capacity, to sing songs.

P: How did you get to know Rich Hall.
C: ammmmmm, well I, 'cause I really like Tom Waits,.I used to love the way that he performs. When he performs, he'd sing a song, tell a story, sing a song, tell a story. And the whole thing is seamlessly done and very.... I wanted to perform like that. So I went to see... I wanted to work in the spoken word side of performing and started going to see stand up comedians.
They've got a really good club in Nottingham. A friend of mine runs it. It is a really good independent, Comedy Club. And I just got hooked I went there week after week saw people like Sean Lock, Stuart Lee, Johnny Vegas, Johnny Vegas was huge there. He's got his stuff, Have you seen Johnny Vegas ?
You know, comedy, drinking and pottery at once. still funny, how can that be ? You know, I was just inspired by these people. And anyway we became friendly with a promoter and he was a fan of our band, Nova Lounge. And he heard... he was, this friend of mine, his name is Darrell Martin, who runs the club. he was Rich's original tour manager when Rich first came to Britain. And when he found out that Rich was looking for people to accompany him in this new venture. Ah, You know, Darrell just said you know, what do you need, I need are a guitarist and a double bass at least and that just happened to be our instruments. And so we just started, we did one gig in Nottingham with Rich. We showed up at five p.m. and the doors were due to open at Seven p.m. And Rich showed up at five to seven so we had 5 minutes rehearsal, And .. that was our first gig. That was our introduction. To the ways of Mr. Hall. And so we did the gig and then after that he said, "I'm going on tour next year, if you want to come and do it ?" and we said "yeah, all right". hahaha. and six months, then six months later, when the tour was due to start, We actually made the effort of calling up the agent and going "if you are still serious, we're still serious ?". start talking to his agent. And we did the first tour and I think the chemistry between the three of us was really good at that point.
( only three at that time ? )There was only three, yeah, me, Damian and Rich. And then, ammm, we took it to Edinburgh that year and we got booked to do a lot of other international festivals, Australia, we went to Montreal, things like that. After another year, of gigging, it became really popular and the show won the Perrier award, in the year 2000. That kind of made ... That also meant I was available to do my own staff a lot less. So we've just toured, toured and toured. Yeah, and here we are. as ticket sales increase and we've got money to spend on extra guys. And Nick and Rob were brought into the show. for the "London not Tennessee", originally it was Rob and the guy called Jake Walker. But he wasn't available after that. And fortunately, you know, all are worked out because Nick is brilliant. He's a brilliant guitar player and plays mandolin, banjo. Yeah, that's that's part of our history.

N: So Otis Lee Crenshaw and the Black Liars keeps going ?
C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sometimes they say , sometimes this has been publicised as the last tour. But I think even if we never tour again we will still do gigs. Still.... I think that even though we get sick of each other ( laugh ) after three months of being in quite close quarters. I know that Rich doesn't have as much fun doing other stuff. ( laugh ) He will take a break for three months. And he'll miss it and come back to it. he always has a lot of fun doing it and.. I think we're probably gonna do sometime in America. We'll have a break after this, and I'm gonna work on this stand up stuff. And I'm gonna to...I think in September, we're going to Edinburgh, sorry to America. to New York. And you know possibly look into doing something more like a run of dates in the West End instead of a tour like people come to us rather than going around. I don't know if that's feasible but it is what we want to investigate.