Dear readers, we are delighted and honoured to bring you in this article an interview with a British band active since 1970, please welcome the legendary Bob Cooke of Jerusalem.
Hi, how are you?
Tickety boo!
You are a band that traces its origins back to the early 1970s, how did your passion for music and the Rock genre start?
Tommy Steel, Cliff and the Shads, the Animals and J Hendix Esq.
It was the sixties so it was infectious; an amazing decade to be a kid in; and oh yeah, how could I forget the Stones and the Beatles…yeah, yeah, yeah!
Doesn’t sound that rocky apart from Hendrix, but the Stones and Beatles knew how to rock alright..
The band was formed in 1970 and is considered a pioneer in the harder sounds of Rock and Proto-Metal, how did this project come about?
Three of us met at college in Salisbury, and Ray was Paul’s old school friend so we practised in the cellar below Ray’s folks post office and grocery store. I was brought in when the original guitar player, Keff Skelture (better rock guitarist name than Bob Cooke) went to uni in Cardiff. They had been a sort of John Mayal tribute act and we continued in this dismal bluesy vein for a little longer until we started moving away from dusting our brooms and getting our Hoochie Coochie Mojos working by actually writing our own songs. My bosom buddy Phil Goddard sang with us for a while; he was a Caravan and Zombie’s Colin Blunstone fan so he was a gentle influence on us. And then we advertised in the Melody Maker for a
more gutsy singer and along came the force of nature that is Lynden. I was convinced he was going somewhere and wanted to go there with him.
In those years the sounds of Rock music and beyond were being forged, what memories do you have of that magical time?
When I was sixteen I went to the Bath Blues Festival with a bunch of friends. I was stunned by the beautiful sounds eminating from the keyboards of Dave Greenslade of John Hiseman’s Colosseum; Hammond organ washing over the crowd. Then Rory Gallagher, Irish rock god, blew us away followed by Blodwyn Pig and Edgar Broughton. But best of all was a new band formed out of the remains of the
Yardbirds apparently, Led Zeppelin!!!
We won’t dwell on Fleetwood Mac failing to get over the loss of Peter Green before discovering themselves again in a butterflyesque metamorphosis a year or two in the future.
“Jerusalem” is a milestone for collectors and Rock lovers, what can you tell us about the record?
We’d had Lynden for six weeks before going into De Lane Lea Studios in Holbourne. We’d morphed in that time merging our songs with Lynden’s. We met at lunchtime in a pub near the studio and over the next four or five days got down to recording our songs.
You were produced by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, what do you remember of that experience and what was it like working with him?
I’d bought my copy of Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Deep Purple In Concert with The London Symphony Orchestra six months before I met Ian so I was in awe of him. I thought they were the most sophisticated rock band about: up there with The Moody Blues. But he burst that bubble when we went to his house and he demonstrated lighting a fart. He was friendly, down to earth, a bit serious when not igniting bodily gasses and a mine of rock anecdotes and great advice.
The debut album ‘Jerusalem’ was released in 1971, what themes did the record deal with?
We were in deed dark and doomy, Goths before that was a thing, exploring macabre subjects of life and death. And then Lynden introduced us to Arthurian legend and poetic lyrics… yeah, pretentious twats, you’ve got it. The single came some months later and we wanted to make a separate project of it, not just taking a track from the album. Kamikaze Moth was just a song about a moth flying into a candle flame, a metaphor for a doomed love affair. It turned out to be a doomed project when offended Japanese people complained about it. It was played on Alan Freeman’s chart show on Radio 1 one Sunday afternoon; he read out all our names and said something bonkers about us being the new Rolling Stones, and then the very next day, grave news from Decca, see what I did there, it was banned and withdrawn. Why we didn’t issue an unreserved apology and eat humble pie I can’t recall; it didn’t occur to me at the time. We didn’t understand that the Second World War was still fresh in some peoples minds. It was the advert in the Melody Maker depicting a stereotype Japanese pilot which really sank us… Bugger!
Intense was the live activity and festivals of the time, is there any concert in particular that marked your experience?
I guess it has to be our trip to Vienna a week or two after recording the album. We’d just got back from a Monday night gig at a pub in Yeovil when we got a message to be at Gatwick on Saturday morning; my first flight and trip abroad. We were bottom of a star studded bill, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath headlining,
after some local Austrian bands had performed, before Fairport Convention who were on the plane going over there. Also aboard the plane were Curved Air, Juicy Lucy and Osibisa. We were basking in the elevated company we found ourselves in. We had to board a train after the gig that whisked us to Frankfurt and then to Heidelberg for the second leg of the festival weekend. Rory Gallagher approached us and begged us to borrow our drum kit which we cheerfully let him have, much to Ray’s chagrin; but Ray man that’s Rory Gee, you remember, Rory Gee who we were watching from the crowd only a year ago? It didn’t end well, I disappeared with a delightful young lady called Decima and we missed a slot to appear. My new name was Mudd. But finally we got on late in the evening only to have Lynden drop down lifeless on stage after about four songs. He was rivived by medics who were fortunately hanging around eager to demonstrate CPR, and he lived to sing again many a day. He’s still at it singing like a bird.
The album will be re-released in a special edition, what are the differences with the version of that time?
The new release is a slightly titivated mix care of Paul Dean with five bonus tracks which Lynden and myself put together for an album released in 2009. I made arrangements for every track on Escalator using a Yamaha sequencer in my garden shed. As I explored the old songs I developed new feels and approaches… I’m particularly pleased with, I hate that word proud, the keyboard part I added to Midnight Steamer; it became spookyer creeping in and out. And the piece de resistance was the additional vocals I asked Lynden to attempt on Kamikaze Moth; they completed the choruses; a shame I thought of them thirty years too late and we didn’t issue those abject apologies I mentioned earlier. So I believe the revisited tracks are a worthy complement to the original album offering a reverent retelling of the story.
The album is very intense and full of ideas, will there be a chance to hear these compositions live?
Ooo I wish… unfortunately life has a way of smacking you in the gob. Cue the X Factor sob story… I’ve had two strokes due to a hole in my heart which has subsequently been plugged curing the stroke problem but leaving me with something called Dystonia in my left arm: painful spasms which have banjaxed function in that limb leaving me an ex guitar player. I can still program keyboard parts making arrangements on my computer, so I have to embrace the positives; principally, I’m still here.
Music has changed over the years, how has your sound evolved over time?
When I was last able to play, it was just me and Lynden making new songs and because our friend and producer Rob Aubrey has such a wealth of contacts in the prog world we were fortunate to have the help of top quality performers on bass, drums and keyboards, so suddenly we were polished instead of our old ropey
approach. Lynden has continued in this way with a splendid new guitar player, Ollie Hannifan, Dave Meros on bass, Nick D’Virgilio on drums and Geoff Downes on Keyboards, with additional help on BVs, harmonica, brass, violin and even accordian sometimes. He’s having the time of his life turning out fantastic fantasy
nonsense under the new name of the Zorbonauts. The ghost of Jerusalem still lingers within.
Music is constantly evolving, how do you see the future of the Rock genre?
Morrissey famously thought that music stopped after him: how modest was that? But everyone else knows that rock will continue because it’s in the heart of us all, giving expression to our pent up rage and anxiety; a kind of socially acceptable release mechanism. So I can’t see it ending any time soon. Bruce and Nirvana, no aitch, showed us how the rock genre gets tweaked as it goes along, and go along it will tiddly pom.
What advice would you give to young artists approaching music with a Rock sound?
Go for it guys
You have changed the lineup over the years, what have the new members brought to the sound of the band?
See above; I’m flagging now. The new guys are pure class and have brought virtuoso performances with them which have created a whole new dimension.
Many of your fans and our readers wonder if you have a new studio album planned in the near future?
Oh thank God, an easy question… No. That’s the only good thing Liz Truss did, taught us the art of the straight answer. So at the risk of repeating myself… No. Lynden on the other hand has a multitude of studio albums, with it seems many more to come, so go to the Deckchair Poets website and look for the Zorbonauts
past, new and future releases.
I would like to thank Bob Cooke for the interview and the opportunity to review the band’s excellent music, wishing them all the best in the continuation of their artistic career.
De nada and shalom.
read our review of the album here: https://progrockjournal.com/review-jerusalem-jerusalem-special-edition-2022/