A Couple of Questions with Gary Clark of Danny Wilson
04/16/2007
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ALSO: Danny WIlson was featured in our The Best Albums You've (Probably) Never Heard feature.
For those just learning about Bebop Moptop now, can you give a nutshell summary of your career prior to its release?
Our first album, Meet Danny Wilson, was released in ‘87 and
included the song "Mary's Prayer," which was quite a big
international success for the band. Bebop was our second album,
recorded at the end of the eighties. The band are all from
Dundee in Scotland. Two of us are brothers and we all went
to school together.
Do you recall any anecdotes from the recording of the album?
The song "Second Summer of Love" was originally about a minute
long. We started the album in a small studio in Dundee and later moved
to larger studios in the south of England. In a studio in London, our
visiting U.S. A&R rep was horrified that the song he saw as the
first single was too short for radio. I wrote another verse, played
a harmonica solo, and managed to get it up nearer three minutes. Virgin
U.S never released the song as a single. It was released in the UK…and
reached number 15, if my memory serves me correctly.
Did you expect it to have a better commercial reception than it did?
We put paid to that by splitting up shortly after its release.
The biggest disappointment was probably the U.S again. The radio stations
at the time were very formatted and we stylistically fell through every
single one of the cracks.
Are you pleased to find that it still maintains enough of a following
to make its way into this piece?
Absolutely, and very, very pleased, although my own personal
preference is for the first album. Maybe because it was made under
less pressure.
What are you doing now?
I'm still very much involved in music, but not as an artist.
I mainly collaborate with other artists in a writing and production
capacity. I've been lucky enough to work with some very cool and talented
people. The studio (rather than the tour bus) was always my preferred
mode of transport, anyway. Check out my MySpace
if you need more info.
Check out Danny WIlson's official site for more info.