by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
After fifty-four years on stage and twenty five albums under one’s belt, what’s there left to prove? It might as well be the moment you rest on your laurels, relying heavily on your rich back catalog and ‘legendary’ status and consequently still selling a decent amount of concert tickets here and there. But it’s much different with certain seasoned acts who keep on releasing new music every few years, including the Scottish heavyweights Nazareth whose impressive new album Surviving the Law will see the light of day mid-April. Hardrock Haven had a privilege to catch up with the band’s founding member, bassist and backing singer Pete Agnew. He chatted with Alexandra Mrozowska about writing the new music “in jail” of lockdown and recording it “on parole”, the challenging moments in the group’s history, the fifty years of changes within the music industry and also, whatever happened to our favorite record store down the corner…
Hardrock Haven: Only a handful of bands survived over fifty years on stage, so have you ever expected Nazareth to continue for so long back in the late ‘60s, when you started out?
Pete Agnew: Absolutely not [laughs]. I mean, I think in that time you couldn’t see yourself ten years in the future – never mind fifty years in the future… It’s great to have done it, but we’ve never ever thought this would [happen]. I’ve never thought I’d be making twenty five albums, you know. So it’s great and I’m loving it – and it’s great to be able to do this my whole life, and not just a little part of it. It’s been my entire life really, and I really loved that.
Hardrock Haven: Some of these legendary bands whose tenure might be equal with yours rely mostly on live concerts and their back catalog. Consequently, they don’t release much new music. What is that then that keeps your creative juices flowing?
Pete Agnew: You know, when bands go out to play concerts, everyone wants to hear the old hits. Of course they do, because these were the things – the songs – that made you famous. But I think we’ve always felt that you’ve got to still be able to say to your fans that you’re still being creative. We would get very bored if we only had the old records to look back to all the time and to play. So, it’s nice to be able to let them see that you’re still valid – that the band still is actually meaningful. And it is to make new music and not just rely on old hits. But it’s not only that. I think that we’ve made good albums [recently] – I mean, this album and the last album [Tattooed on My Brain, 2018] are two of the best albums we’ve ever made. It’s not like we’re doing something just to fill the time, you know. These are really, really good albums, so it’s not like we’re just filling in the spaces here. I think it’s very important for a band to be still creative and that’s what makes you want to keep playing. Not just to go out and play… it’s lovely to go into the studio and create a whole new album. It’s great and we love it. We love it for us, and we love it for the fans.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely! So what was the songwriting and recording process like, when it comes to the new Nazareth album, Surviving the Law?
Pete Agnew: Well, what happened here was that we had the lockdown because of the COVID thing, so everyone was at home – and stuck in the house. So, what happened is everybody wrote a lot of songs [laughs]. And that is within the first six months! I think when we were in lockdown for about four months, Jimmy [Murrison], our guitar player, sent us twelve songs… [laughs] So people were writing loads and loads of stuff, and that was great. That was good – and it wasn’t as well, because sometimes it’s nice to be your normal self. I like to be moving around a lot, I like to be travelling – and that’s where I get a lot of the ideas. But this time, I was being in the house all the time, so it was a bit different. But it went to good – we’ve had so many songs amongst those, so that was very difficult to choose what to put on the record [laughs]. You had to leave so many out… So I think we’ve got the right mix of them on the album. But you know, there’s always gonna be one or two [songs] when you thought, “Well, maybe we should have put that one on…” But what did happen is because people had so much time and did nothing else, they wrote songs more that they would normally. It’s funny, because I feel we’ve actually written the songs in jail [laughs] and then we recorded them when we were on parole [laughs]. And it was a different album to me, because with all of this – the quarantine and the lockdown and things like that – in the studio, we had Jimmy and Lee [Agnew, Nazareth’s drummer and Pete’s son] and myself, but Carl [Sentance, Nazareth’s singer] was out in Vienna, Austria, so we were sending him the files and he was recording the vocals there and sending them back to us, and we sorta did the album like that. But it worked out fine. It worked out good.
Hardrock Haven: And what will happen with the songs you decided to leave out in the process? Will we hear them one day?
Pete Agnew: Well, you know… you often think that you will [laughs]. But what happened was Carl, our singer, and Jimmy, our guitar player, they both made solo albums just before we made our new album [Carl Sentance released Electric Eye back in the summer of 2021 and Jimmy Murrison followed his bandmate with Pocket Full Of Rye in November 2021]. So, we’ve chosen the songs we were gonna use and they put some other songs on their albums, songs that we weren’t using, and a lot of the songs got used by the guys themselves doing their solo things. But the other thing is, when you write songs for an album and they don’t go on that album, it’s very unusual for them to go on the next album. Because what happens is, when you go to do the next album, everybody’s got the new ideas and the ones that you’ve had [before], you’ve had them for three years and they start to feel old to you. Even though it’s stupid actually [laughs], because these are still new and good songs. But most of the time, they don’t really make it to the next album. We happened to have done it in the past – we’ve had songs when we were like, “We should have done that one,” but not usually. And not with this one, and the guys really used a lot [of the new material] on their solo projects.
Hardrock Haven: So looking back at the process of making the album again, would you say it’s strange days now indeed, comparing the present with the past? I’m referring to the fact that the album’s opener, with no other title but “Strange Days,” was chosen as the first single…
Pete Agnew: Absolutely! With all that’s going on now… I mean, the song “Strange Days” is our drummer Lee’s – he wrote that one. And well, it fits perfectly to what’s going on right now, actually! And what’s been going on as well. That’s been very strange days for the last two years, and I’m thinking about the whole thing… having [Donald] Trump as a president [of the United States] and all these things… That song covers a lot of things [laughs]. It covers a lot of strange days.
Hardrock Haven: That’s right, absolutely! And overall, is there a coherent message or any kind of loose theme behind the lyrics of the songs on the new album? Or perhaps each of the song stands on its own and it’s better to approach the album track by track?
Pete Agnew: I think when they were writing the songs, all of the guys [were inspired by] what was going on, obviously, and that affected the writing a bit. I think every album that’s gonna be done after the last two years is gonna have some kind of reference to the plague that we’ve been going through [laughs]. I think there’s a lot of that there, and not so much the subject being the plague, but the atmosphere of the album, I think, is what reflects a bit what was going on. And the lyrics as well… in a lot of cases. But there’s a lot of lyrics about different things there. There’s different songs and, for instance, “Let the Whisky Flow” – another one that Lee wrote – is very much a Scottish nationalist song, while Jimmy’s “Waiting for the World to End”… well, that definitely fits with what’s going on right now! There’s a lot of different things involved and a lot of different subjects. [Musically], it’s a bit heavier than Tattooed on My Brain, and a little bit darker. But a lot of good subjects are in these lyrics. I couldn’t have gone through each and every one of them for you, as I’m not familiar with all the lyrics, but each of them is different from one another. And also, when somebody writes a song and it gets performed, sometimes you hear the lyrics through once and go, “Ahh, that’s really good, that’s great,” but we don’t go through the study of this lyric [laughs]. Especially me [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: Right [laughs]. And as you’ve just mentioned – Surviving the Law might be a bit heavier and darker but at the same time, is not a huge departure from Nazareth’s previous album musically. So do you think that at this stage of your career, keeping the legacy is more important than channeling new influences and breaking new grounds music-wise?
Pete Agnew: Every time we’ve done an album, we made sure that doesn’t sound exactly like the one that came out before. We’ve always been very diverse in what we do and that’s what the Nazareth fans liked a bit about us – that we’ve never ever [been] hooked on to one genre and one thing. We’ve always been quite happy to try out different kinds of things and different kinds of production of things… to keep it interesting for them and to keep it interesting for us. So I think that’s always going to be a rock band, and there’s always going to be rock [music] – but there’s different ways and different parts of rock music that come into it. And albums you’ve listened to, your influences, they still come out in your writing. Sometimes you’re channeling the influence you haven’t channeled before for a song – you always try that kind of thing. When people hear an new track and tell me – or write to me instead these days – “That doesn’t sound like Nazareth,” I’m like, “What is Nazareth simply? Does it sound like “Dream On,” or does it sound like “Sunshine,” or does it sound like “Hair of the Dog”? I mean, we play different things. We’ve found huge hits with ballads, but also with rock things… we’ve found all sorts and different kinds of rock [music]. It’s still rock, but different kinds of it. So we still carry on in that vein – with this album as well. There’s things on this that we haven’t played before, and lots of influences that haven’t been [present] before, or so obvious before.
Hardrock Haven: Yeah. I believe it’s Yann Rouiller again who produced the new album. What makes you continue working with Yann as opposed to trying out some other producers?
Pete Agnew: You see, if we weren’t happy with what he’s done, we would go to other producers, but we’ve been elated with what he’s done. Yann’s become, like, a member of the band these days. He’s that kind of guy who knows exactly what we do and how we think. He’s very, very good in the studio, a lovely guy and a very good friend, so ever since we started making records with Yann, we’ve never felt that we needed to get another producer. You know, the Beatles went with George Martin and didn’t think this would change [laughs]. I think after all these years we’ve found a producer that fits the band the best, because he’s been on five albums now and they’re all very, very different from one another. And he’s been there through all those changes. And as I say, he’s very, very good – he’s excellent studio man, a great technician… I can’t say enough of Yann [laughs]. I’m a big fan of his work.
Hardrock Haven: But why a band as experienced as Nazareth decides to continue working with a producer in the first place? I mean, if it wasn’t for Yann’s skills, would you consider self-production at this stage of your career?
Pete Agnew: Nah. Self-production, I think, it doesn’t really work. You need somebody that’s got the vision for the thing and brings it all together. I mean, you get four guys in the studio and to get the four of them to see the same exactly… [laughs] Everyone’s got their own approach and to get every band member to produce [the material], it just would be a mess [laughs]. I mean, you need a producer. Bands that don’t have a producer or just self-produce – there’s not that many that have been that successful actually… it doesn’t work for them. You need to have somebody there that says, “Okay, this is it. This is what it’s going to sound like.” And also, it’s very, very difficult to please everyone all the time, as you know, with anything. So that would make it even more difficult if you were doing it yourself – self-produce – ‘cause you’d be there trying to please everyone, which is impossible. You’ve got to get somebody who’s going to take the reins and say, “This is where we’re going. This is what the track is gonna be.” But I mean, we don’t just sit there and say, “What do we do, Sir…?” [laughs] We actually play and we do it as we see it, and he’s just making sure that works – that our ideas get on tape. So it’s just that I wouldn’t want to self-produce at all. Even with a solo album, it’s good to have somebody else – somebody who’s outside of the actual songwriting [process] who’s putting all of it together and sees the ideas that you don’t see, you know.
Hardrock Haven: Now that it’s eight years since the major line-up change in Nazareth, what was the approach of die-hard fans at the beginning of Linton Osborne and then Carl Sentance’s respective tenures? And has it changed anyhow, especially that Carl’s this kind of singer who doesn’t try to emulate Dan McCafferty?
Pete Agnew: Ahh, the Linton thing… I mean, he wasn’t really in the band for longer than a few shows, and that didn’t work. Now, when Carl joined, he was the real choice brought in to be the man. We have always been nervous about it – I mean, somebody like Dan is very hard man to replace, because he’s such an iconic voice.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely.
Pete Agnew: But the thing is, when Dan left – and he had to leave because of the health – and said we have to keep going, we knew we had to get someone who didn’t sound like him. We didn’t want somebody who’s a Dan McCafferty sound-a-like, because then the fans wouldn’t have really, really liked that. Whoever did it, they’ve got hammered – so badly. And then the press and the reviewers wouldn’t like that. So looking for the singer, I got a lot of people send their tapes – or rather, their files – to me to let me hear them singing. A lot of people wanted to do the job. And the most of them, or at least a lot of them, they come out and do a Dan McCafferty. They were a Dan McCafferty sound-a-like. I mean, some of them were very good, but I said, “No, no. We don’t want that. We want a really good singer – somebody that can do the Nazareth stuff, but somebody who’s got their own thing and brings something new to the band.” So somebody told us about Carl, and we saw him on YouTube with a couple of things… We got him up to Scotland to do an audition – and halfway through the fourth song, we knew this was the guy. He sung the thing great, but he didn’t sing it the way Dan would have sung it. So when we got him, we thought “This is great. This is exactly what we’re looking for. Now let’s see what the fans think…” And obviously, you’ll always get people – you’ll always get a few at least – that go, “Oh, there’s no Nazareth unless there was the original four guys…” [laughs] That’s just stupid. As I keep saying, Manchester United doesn’t have the same team they had thirty years ago [laughs]. So what happens is when Carl came in and we went obviously to play live, it went on amazingly well. When people come along, they firstly don’t know what to expect and don’t know if they’re gonna like it, but the guy was really great onstage and very, very good with the audience – and the audience did absolutely take to him, and they really did like him. And now that we did the Tattooed on My Brain album, that really consolidated his position, because everybody loved that album. But that’s funny, ‘cause even now, when we’re bringing the new [album] out and you see our Facebook [page] for instance, and the last song we’ve released from the new album, you still get people going, “I love Dan, blah, blah, blah… but this guy’s really good. And I thought Dan was good, but this one’s good too, and he’s done a great job.” So, what you were actually asking [about] – Carl has been accepted by, I would say, the ninety-five percent of our fans. And they’re the real fans. So we’re very, very happy and he’s very happy, but it could’ve been much, much more difficult for him. We were very… well, I won’t say surprised, but we were very happy that he was accepted as well as he has been.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely. And obviously, another thing you must be asked about a lot is the fact of your son Lee playing in the band for more than twenty years now. So now that it’s more than two decades, how do you think this father-and-son relationship within the band continues to change the overall dynamics of Nazareth?
Pete Agnew: Exactly, Lee’s been playing in the band for twenty-three years. He’s one of the longest serving members of Nazareth, actually [laughs] But Lee and his brothers, they all are musicians and in fact, right now he’s out there playing with his two brothers in another band… [laughs] So, when they were all younger, I would come back from tour and they all used to hang out in our studio at home… and I would jam with them. Every now and then I would jam with them, so I’d actually play bass with Lee playing drums since he was about eleven years old. Him and I have played for that long and actually, he’s been with Nazareth for twenty-three years, but I’ve played with him for about forty years – on and off, just jamming with him at home. So we know each other very well when it comes to playing each other’s style and yeah, we’re the rhythm section of Nazareth and it’s great. And when we’re touring – okay, we know it’s a father and a son, but that’s not what it’s like when we’re on the stage. When we’re on the stage, we’re there as a drummer and a bass player, and that’s the way it should be. And I love playing with Lee – and he’s not just a great drummer, he’s a really good singer and he’s a great songwriter. The songs he’s written for Nazareth are just fabulous. I mean, on this album [Surviving the Law] he’s got “Strange Days,” he’s got “Mind Bomb,” “Let the Whisky Flow”… a whole bunch of songs on this thing, and they’re all really great songs. And the same on Tattooed on My Brain – he wrote a lot of really great rock songs on there. So we’ve not only found a very good drummer, we’ve found a very, very good songwriter [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: And would you say you and Lee influence each other as musicians or learn something from each other as you play together?
Pete Agnew: Well, you see… The thing is, as far as we talk the musical taste, I probably influenced Lee more than anybody else, because he was listening to the people I was listening to. Since he was a kid – since he was very young – he’s been listening to Little Feat, to people like Warren Zevon and this kind of things. He was listening to the music I was listening to, so he was influenced by my choice of music. Obviously, when he’s got older, he’s got into his own things, like hard rock and stuff, and then funk and jazz/fusion and stuff like that. But when you’re playing, you affect each other. Obviously, any drummer and any bass player affect each other. But I don’t think we influence each other anymore than anybody else does – yet, Lee’s influences growing up were definitely from the music than I liked and he grew up liking the same stuff as me. So that comes in handy when we’re on stage, you know [laughs]. When we actually say, “You know, we can do a bit like…” and this person is somebody he probably heard when he was fifteen [laughs]. So yeah, I think if anybody’s influenced anybody, I influenced Lee more than he influenced me.
Hardrock Haven: And now onto concerts, is there a Nazareth song you can’t imagine a live band setlist without, but it’s neither “Dream On” nor “Love Hurts”?
Pete Agnew: Oh yeah! “This Flight Tonight” in Europe, definitely… “Hair of the Dog” – or “Son of a Bitch,” as we call it… another one you can’t do a Nazareth set without. But it depends on the country we’re playing in. We got different hits in different countries. You know, a lot of bands come out and have that one hit that is worldwide. We’re not quite like that [laughs]. And in Brazil or something, we’ve got a lot of things that went up to the top of the charts there but didn’t anywhere else – and that kind of thing. I remember once we went to the Philippines to play and they said, “Come to this TV station and lip-synch to your Number One hit.” They played a song that we’ve never ever played live, and it was “Where Are You Now.” So that was weird, but they were like, “This was a hit” and this was a hit there, you know? [laughs] Different things have been hits in different countries, so when we do a live set and when we go somewhere… Like, when we go to Brazil, we stuck a bit more of the softer rock things and “Love Leads to Madness” would be a song that we do. Down there, it’s like an anthem. When we play it there, we can’t heard the band ‘cause they sing louder than us [laughs]. And if we played it in England, well – people know it, but it’s not that big. So we’ve got a lot of different songs that mean a lot more in some places… For instance, when we go to Canada, “Turn on Your Receiver” is the one that was huge there, and there’s a song called “Sunshine” that was used on many weddings… a wedding song there really, so that’s huge there as well, but means nothing, or very little, if we play it in Scotland [laughs]. Actually, that’s a lot of fun for us, because we’ve got the chance to play everything [laughs]. And here’s another good example – actually, we should have been touring Russia right now. But obviously, we couldn’t do that, so we had to cancel. But when we go to Russia and play there, there’s a song called “Animals” – “we are animals…”, you know. It means absolutely nothing anywhere else in the world, but in Russia, it was a Number One Nazareth song. And when we do that, it brings the house down. Everybody sings along. And if we went to Russia, we could not even think about not doing “Animals,” but anywhere else in the world we just don’t play it… outside of say, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan – these places. But if we move over the border and come to, say, Germany or Czech Republic, or Poland – it doesn’t mean a thing.
Hardrock Haven: Well, the reason I’m asking is because I remember seeing Nazareth in my homeland Poland back in 2009 and what struck me at the time was that the majority of the audience looked forward to “Love Hurts” and “Dream On” the most. Sometimes artists say their biggest hits are basically both a blessing and a curse as they get pigeonholed eventually, and how is it in Nazareth’s case?
Pete Agnew: They’re not a curse really. “Love Hurts”… thank God for it, because that was a huge hit for us worldwide – probably the biggest that we’ve ever had. “Dream On” in Europe, definitely. Especially in Germany… If you watch a German TV and all these soap operas that are on, you’ll hear “Dream On” at least once during the day, or maybe twice [laughs]. But no, I don’t think it’s really a curse. It’s been a good thing for us… Well, we don’t really plan that, but anywhere you go, you just see there are certain songs that have got to be in the set or people would ask for their money back. And those two definitely [are one of them]… as long as we play [continental] Europe, ‘cause “Dream On” doesn’t really mean that much in Britain and in America, it means nothing at all. So basically we can drop it here and there and we don’t play it all the time, but with “Love Hurts”, we do play it all the time. But so do we do with “Razamanaz,” so we do with “Hair of the Dog,” so every band’s got a really, really big hit that must do in every place. But I don’t feel it’s any hardship. It’s a good thing. I’ve never been sorry about doing them [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: [laughs] And yet about “Love Hurts”, but not only, Nazareth has managed to release a handful of cover versions of other artists’ songs throughout the band’s career. Somehow, you managed to make them your own and put your own stamp all over it so few people actually recognize them as covers sometimes. What would you say is a secret formula behind releasing a good cover version?
Pete Agnew: Well, basically you’ve got to take the song… But even though you do it because you liked the original record, you’ve got to treat that original record as being like a demo, I’d say. And we would say, “This is a song and we have to make it a Nazareth song.” You’ve got to make it yours, so it’s absolutely nothing like the original. When we play, we try out different songs in the studio. We play a song and we say, “Well, it sounds okay, but it sounds pretty much like…” – you know, the original record. There’s no point in doing that. I mean, that’s like when you used to be a ballroom band, you know… you know, playing around when you were just like a human jukebox really and you were just playing all the hits from the Top 40. So you’ve got to make it yours and really, really make it yours and that’s the only way this thing is gonna work. Like we did “This Flight Tonight” by Joni Mitchell, when you hear Joni’s song [version] and Nazareth’s, that sounds like the two completely different songs.
Hardrock Haven: Definitely.
Pete Agnew: Absolutely. And I remember letting Joni Mitchell hear it. The day that we released it in Britain, we met her in the studio in L.A., in Hollywood. She was on A&M Records and we were just visiting them, our record company, which was her company too. She was recording in their studio on the record company’s premises. So it was like, “Joni’s a studio, go and say hello,” so we went to say “hello” and we said, “We’ve covered “This Flight Tonight and we’re putting that out,” so she went, “This Flight Tonight” was a rock song…?” [laughs] and we went, “Oh yeah, yeah.” So we said, “Hang on a minute,” we’ve got the recording and we played it to her. And she was absolutely knocked out. She thought it was unbelievable [laughs]. And that was so funny because when she came to play in Britain, she came to England and she opened the tour in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London… she’s coming to the stage and says, “I’d like to start with a Nazareth song” [laughs] That was very nice of her, right? So yeah, you’ve got to make it yours. You’ve got to make that song so that it’s not at all somebody else’s song. And I mean, that’s so funny – a lot of people, those who don’t know the music business, think that we wrote “Love Hurts.” Ha, I wish I had! [laughs] I’d be a multi-zillionaire by this time, from the mere number of people that have covered that song! But anyway, we got a very big hit with it, so I’m very happy. And the thing is, when we did it, if you listen to all the other versions of “Love Hurts,” they sound pretty much the same. Too similar to the Everly [Brothers]. The one that we did stay. That’s [because of] the vocals. Dan’s vocal is just amazing. It’s probably one of the best rock vocals that’s ever been done, so that’s what made that record definitive and it deserved to be.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Back to band’s impressive longevity, you’ve been able to witness the music industry changing since the late 60s. Would you say the major changes that happened throughout that time were for the better, or for worse?
Pete Agnew: Ah, that’s definitely different ways to look at it. I mean, from the recording point of view, and from the way bands work now and how they earn their living, nobody really earns a living through making records anymore. That’s because everybody just downloads or listens to the records for free. They can get all the music for free, whatever they want. When this album comes out on the 15th of April, that day you can listen to the whole album for free [laughs], while in the old days, you had to buy it. You don’t have to do that anymore. So, what’s changed is the way musicians earn their living. You’ve got to be able to play concerts, ‘cause none of us just makes a nice album and sits in the house. You’ve got to get there and work. The record industry has changed a lot, so much since we started out… Back in those days, a band was given [the chance to record] three albums by the record company, and they would work with them to give them the chance to make it. If you don’t make it after three albums, then they would drop you. But you got a chance and nowadays, there is absolutely no way for the record companies to be behind the bands, nurturing the bands and bringing them up… It’s not like that anymore. It’s like you create your record now and you take it to the record company, and they would put it out. But nobody really is involved with the bands like they used to be back in the ‘60s or ‘70s… well, especially the ‘70s. And the ‘80s as well. There’s a real lack of involvement, so it makes it a different kind of industry. In the past, there was much more of a partnership between the record companies and bands. But also, the record companies were… well, I’d better not say too much of it [laughs].
There’s hardly any record stores anymore – or no record stores anymore [laughs]. If you’ve got a CD now, it’s considered old-fashioned [laughs]. In the ‘70s, everyone used to go to the record store every month – or every week… And whatever money they had, they spent on music. Now they’re gonna buy a new game to play on their computer, or they’re gonna do this or they’re gonna do that… There’s hundreds of other ways of entertaining yourself and music isn’t as big now as it was then. It’s not as meaningful to everybody’s life as it was then. Definitely it’s not the size it was then… you know. You don’t have another Beatles. You don’t have another Led Zeppelin. You don’t have anything in that size. What do we have instead…? Ed Sheeran? [laughs] Excuse me! [laughs] You think the Who, the Stones and Ed Sheeran…? Nah, I don’t think so. So there’s a different vibe, and the business is very much a business now. It’s definitely changed, and we’ve seen all that changes. But the thing is, that with all those changes, we’ve come through them all. And some of them actually might be for the better as well. In those days, if you made an album, you had to get it on radio – you had to get it somewhere for people to hear that. You could go and play all the tours you would like, but you still needed to get some radio play to make your music heard. Now everybody can make an album and that’s easy – they can do it in their house digitally. There’s no problem, and the thing is that they have the Internet – I mean, you can be out there and put your product out there, and there’s a very good chance of being heard and your local fans building up a follow-up for you between Facebook and this and that and the next thing… There’s a lot of social good for the bands in the social media. A young band can make a record tonight and somebody can listen to it in Tokyo, because it goes around the world once they put it up in the Internet. Back in the ‘60s and the ‘70s you couldn’t do that. So that’s an improvement. But the downside is that the record business doesn’t really exist. Try to find me a record store… [laughs]
Hardrock Haven: Right, almost all of these disappeared…
Pete Agnew: Yeah, there’s absolutely nothing out there. When you go out to buy an album, where do you get it…? The Internet only! So, that’s how it goes.
Hardrock Haven: On the other hand, if you were to give a piece of advice to a younger musician – especially that your children chose this profession – perhaps just starting out, what would it be?
Pete Agnew: Well, if you’re going to make a living in this business, the best thing you can do is to is to get a good lawyer [laughs] Make sure it’s someone you can trust [laughs]. I’d really say to anybody who’s gonna be making new music to have faith in yourself. You play the music you like and if you like it, don’t let anybody tell you how to play or how to write it. Don’t listen to people – even the record companies – telling you to do it like this or do it like that. Don’t listen to anybody. Just have faith in yourself and you’ll feel better about yourself as well. But at the same time, having all that faith in yourself, still get a good lawyer [laughs]
Hardrock Haven: [laughs] Well-said, absolutely! And as we talked the shift in the way record companies approach the bands now, obviously Surviving the Law is another Nazareth album released on Frontiers Music SRL, so are you satisfied with the co-operation with Frontiers?
Pete Agnew: Yeah, we’ve done two albums with them and I don’t really have any complaints. What the record companies know is that they depend as much on the Internet as anybody else. Again, it’s a different way of advertising and getting what they usually call a product out to the world. So the good thing about that now is that every record company gets the same chance, you know… Before you could have a tiny, little label – a little private label – and you were up against maybe something like Warner Bros. or something, the big, big label… The Warner Bros. did all the advertising – they could do anything all over the place. And the little label could not afford it. Well, it’s not like that now. Every record company has got the same access to the Internet and it’s enough if they know how to use it – and they do, all the good ones anyway… So Frontiers may not be the biggest label in the world, but they do just the same job as, say, BMG which is probably the biggest label out there. [Frontiers] is a good label and they’ve never disappointed us. They’ve been very good with us and I don’t have any complaints at all.
Hardrock Haven: Good. And we’ve mentioned concerts, so does Nazareth have any plans for the upcoming months when it comes to touring? You’ve mentioned this Russian tour cancelled for obvious reasons, and probably the changing circumstances of the pandemic also don’t make it easier…
Pete Agnew: [sighing heavily] We’ve got a whole bunch of stuff. I’ve got that in front of me here. But it doesn’t get anywhere because of the cancellations. Everybody was nervous about doing shows [recently] and they’re still cancelling things in Europe. Just two days ago I saw they were cancelling [concerts] in Germany until the end of April – not us, somebody else. It’s just because there are still numbers that only so many people can get in and limits because of the COVID… I don’t know why, because they shouldn’t be doing that anymore, but they are. So we don’t really start before the beginning of June, when we have some real dates, and then, once we start, we’re booked solid all the way through the end of the year… if it happens. It was the same last year and the year before. At the end of 2020, we thought we’d be out playing, didn’t we? But then no, it didn’t happen. And then we thought we’d be out playing in 2021 and that didn’t happen too… All those dates were booked throughout the year and we had to cancel them all – then we had all those dates booked all through the beginning of this year, and they were all cancelled at the end of last year. So I think the first show that we’ve got is Malta or something on a festival and then we’ve got a whole bunch of stuff – in June all the way through July it’s the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway… some dates in Canada and back to the whole bunch of dates in Sweden on various festivals, and then we’ve got the European tour again through December. It’s mainly Germany again, and Austria and Switzerland. So we’re pretty heavily booked, but all I can say is what I said last year. As long as it gets to go on, then we’re fine. And since it [the COVID pandemic] started, we only did seven shows only. I did only the two little festival things in England in January, and that’s all we played this year. So I’m getting rusty [laughs]. I’m gonna have to start practicing again [laughs]. And the funniest thing, Alexa, is that I’ve got this bass guitar – the Alembic bass guitar – and it’s one of the heaviest guitars on the planet. I don’t know why I have it, but it’s my favorite bass guitar and I’ve been playing it for thirty years… And now I want to pick it up and it feels like a bag of coal [laughs] because of the weight it has. So I’m just hoping I’m just fit enough to carry this thing around for the ninety minutes of the gig [laughs]. I need to get to the gym [laughs]
Hardrock Haven: Keeping my fingers crossed for the dates not to be cancelled, then!
Pete Agnew: Absolutely! And it’s funny, but you’re talking to me from Poland and I’ve just got something I’m looking at while talking to you – somebody asking about a concert in Poland. So who knows, I may see you over very soon! So please get in touch, so you may come along and say hello and meet us – I mean it!
Hardrock Haven: It’d be an honor! Thank you so much for this interview, and is there anything you’d like to add in the end?
Pete Agnew: Actually, you know… I’m going to tell you this because it’s been a very, very, very good interview! You’ve asked a lot of interesting questions… You know, I’ve been doing three to four interviews every day, and today I had one at four o’clock, one at five o’clock and one at seven o’clock… And actually I get very tired during the interviews, being asked and answering the same questions. But you’ve been very, very good and very, very interested and it’s been so nice talking to you – and a lot of good questions! So I hope that you’ve got enough waffly answers from me to keep you going, and I have to say it’s been a pleasure talking to Hardrock Haven!
Photo credits: Lewis Milne
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Check out new songs off Nazareth’s upcoming album Surviving the Law, out April the 15th, 2022 on Frontiers Music SRL:
Strange Days
Runaway [Official Lyric Video]
