Ten Questions With Andy Keeling of WelshSteel

CERI: Can you tell us a little about Welsh Steel, what is it's mission? ANDY: Having been in the music business professionally for thirty years, twenty years in the US, I realized hardly anyone knows what or where or who is in wales. Being a Welshman in the US, I wanted to introduce our talents to the world. CERI: Do you have any immediate plans for signings, tours, etc? ANDY: Yes, absolutely. Between June 2nd and 17th, I'll be in the UK, having industry meetings with music professionals and through my connections with AmeriCymru, I realized I could access musical information and contacts that were previously unavailable to me. I have bands singed in the US and bands coming on tour to the UK and Europe this year, and I thought by coming home to Wales for a few days it would be a good opportunity to view some of the recommended talent in the area. There's so much opportunity in the US for touring and promoting that I want to represent my home country, Wales, sign the best few bands in certain genre categories of music with a view to recording contracts and bringing them to the US to tour for next year. CERI: I understand that you're holding an audition in Cardiff in June? Care to tell us where and when that will be? ANDY: Yep. There'll be an audition on the 12th of June at the MusicBox in Penarth Rd ,Cardiff between 10 and 6. CERI: What kind of bands are you looking for? ANDY: I really don't care about genre of music, age or race. All I care about is quality. CERI: How should bands and musicians get an audition? ANDY: Join Americymru and Welsh Steel, put up some audio files, performance videos, anything that will show me what you do and although it's last minute, we can contact you. We'll contact the bands for this particular audition, even though it's last minute, don't think we're going to overlook you, there might still be an opportunity to meet and greet, you can give me material for the next set of auditions and we can keep in contact on the networks. CERI: What's your background in the music industry? ANDY: I started really young, my first show on stage was with Ronny Corbett and Clodagh Rogers at age five. My local church choral group were asked to sing and my mother claims I snatched the microphone from Ronnie Corbett's hand and decided to sing a locally popular hit, Jimmy Osmond's "Long Haired Lover From Liverpool," to the delight and amazement of the audience, the pit orchestra and especially Ronny Corbett! Since then, my career's been downhill! No, seriously, music school, classically-trained trumpet player and singer, followed by twenty years of prostitution in the pop business left me in Brazil, Jamaica, subsequently Miami, Florida playing pop music to the masses and being dropped by various labels due to the general public downloading free music, which took all the money out of record labels, subsequently led to the fall of the establishment, so I retired from music. A few years ago I realized a giant hole in my soul by not being involved in the music industry and decided to represent my fellow country men and musicians by managing promoting and touring on their behalf with my experience as the foundation on which to help them succeed. for twelve years straight playing almost 300 shows a year, managing, booking, preforming, scheduling, negotiating contracts and roadying my band and others, I've done it all. CERI: What do you listen to, who do you like? ANDY: Anything, really, as long as it's good. CERI: What's the music scene in Portland like? ANDY: Portland is small city of a bit over 500,000, of which all are musicians or it seems like that! There are over 150 independent venues that play music every night, so it's music, music, music, of all kinds, all the time. People here like experimentation, they like fusion, they're willing to try anything and they're pretty supportive, it's very creative. After retiring professionally from performing in 1999, I moved to Portland because I found it to be one of the most exciting artistic communities I'd ever visited and now I'm set, immersed in talent and opportunities with local artists who have little further guidance to go beyond their semi-local, national scene. I feel very privileged to be able to represent quality artists in this area and will endeavour to help them in any way possible, via recording or promotion or touring, so they can achieve their creative goals. CERI: Care to tell us a bit about where you're from? ANDY: I was born in Blaina, both pairs of my grandparents lived in Bryn Mawr and I spent a lot of time there as a child. I moved to Pontypool as a youngster to go to school. My father worked in Panteg steel works, then he went to Cardiff College to study PE and Special Education, which then dragged me around the country for ten years whilst he opened the (then) new emerging special school system. During this period, I was stuydying music and arts heavily and was privileged to grow up in areas where music was exploding in the UK in the '80s. My grandmother still lives in Bryn Mawr. Portland is the closest town I've ever seen that reminds me of home: the weather, everything's green and lush, it's a really creative place and it's that bit anti-establishment, "People's Republic of Portland," and all. CERI: Do you miss home? Hiraeth and all that? ANDY: Of course I miss home. (ED: At this point in our interview, Andy broke down crying, crushing a leek and an unopened can of Brains SA to his chest and singing 'Green, Green Grass...':) Heads of the Valley is always in my heart. CERI: Any final message to our readers and the members of Welsh Steel and AmeriCymru? ANDY: Can't wait to meet some of you! Probably won't get to meet you all this this time but never give up, keep the faith and Cymru Am Byth! Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

Mike Heap, THE LEGENDARY CLAMPETTS

MIKE HEAP is bassist and songwriter for The Legendary Clampetts from Springfield, Illinois. Mike talked to Ceri Shaw for Welsh Steel and AmeriCymru

CERI: How long have The Clampetts been playing together? MIKE: The band's been together about 3 years. We originated from a project that Matt (Erley - drums) and I were involved in called 'Banzai Kitty'. The Legendary Clampetts was more or less the moniker that Matt and I chose as an inside joke after our original guitarists left to start another project, and it just sort of stuck. We've actually been recording and performing as The LC's for about 16 months now. CERI: How would you describe your sound? MIKE: Our sound is really a 'mash-up' I suppose. I know there's punk, funk, progressive metal and a lot of old school classic rock sounding type stuff in there. It actually depends on what I'm trying to convey in the song. For example; 'Riot In The Hospital' has a straight up punk / rockabilly feel to it. The melody and progressions were written to capture and express the tongue in cheek outrage of the lyrics. All of our material is meant to 'stand alone' and tell a story or express an idea or opinion, so we don't really pay any attention to, or try to stick to any particular 'genre' or label. CERI: You are the main songsmith for The Legendary Clampetts. What inspires your lyric writing? MIKE: Lyrics, to me, are the most important part of songwritting. So, I take a lot of time with just that aspect of the song writting process. Everything I've ever written starts with expressing a story, an idea or an opinion. The subject matters are diverse, 'Cry Havoc' is an anti-war protest song, while 'Bird Thing' is a song about growing up and leaving home and how scary, exciting and sometimes sad that can be. CERI: Who would you count amongst your musical influences? MIKE: Wow, musical influences. Okay, here we go....I do this in a couple of ways. As a bassist, my all time 2 greatest influences are John Entwistle and John Paul Jones without reservations. As a lyricist and composer, I really admire Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull. As far as bands go, Blue Oyster Cult, Queen, Thin Lizzy and Genesis top a really really long list. CERI: Any tours or live appearances in the near future? MIKE: We're currently in our home studio working on some new material at the moment, so other than the possibility of appearing on the Ernie Ball Stage at The Warped Tour stop in St. Louis, MO , we don't have any shows scheduled until late August in the midwest. CERI: Where can people go to hear/buy your music? MIKE: You can hear us at several different sites - We're on ReverbNation and of course Myspace. On both Myspace and ReverNation, you can stream all the songs there and the ReverbNation site has some special free downloads available to anyone that becomes a member of our fan base. I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that we'll be launching a new website this coming fall where among other things friends and fans will be able to 'rent' and 'recommend' (R&R) our material ( songs and videos). Long story, short answer - we believe the old methods of 'selling' music is dead, and we're approaching this is a new manner that befits the digital age.....stay tuned for more, is all I can say at the moment. You can also find us twitter at ww.twitter.com/clampettsspfld, on www.imradio.com/theclampetts and our youtube channel CERI: Care to tell us something about the Ernie Ball Battle of The Bands? MIKE: The Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands is an annual contest that the Ernie Ball company conducts in conjunction with the Vans Warped Tour. The concept is to give a platform for undiscovered bands to showcase their talent to a larger regional or national audience. The contest has launched the careers of several major artists over the last 10 years or so. We're currently in the running for one of 5 available slots during the tours stop in St. Louis, Missouri. At last glance, we occupied the # 2 position after having spent 20 days as the number one contender. Fans must create an account in order to vote, but don't let that stop you - you won't be inundated with junk emails from either the Ernie Ball or the Vans companies or any other sponsor or participant. What we've seen thus far, is that a lot of the bands involved have their fans go 'trolling' for return votes from other bands and fans in order to benefit their chosen band.....and it seems to work. We'd certainly appreciate all the help and support that we can get. We've been discussing offering logo t-shirts to any of our friends and fans that are helping us out, not only in this contest, but in any of our efforts. CERI: On your AmeriCymru profile you describe yourself as a first generation Welsh american. Care to tell us a little about your Weslsh background? MIKE: My dad was born in Swansea. He and his mother moved to New Bedford, Mass. when he was 7. My brothers and I were constantly exposed to our culture and heritage from my dad, but more so from our grandmother. She insisted on speaking to us in Welsh as much as possible. My dad was a history nut, and had an extensive library of Welsh history and social traditions, which he 'tutored' us boys on....he went so far as to insist that we watch the movie Zulu at least once a month....why? Well, as he put it, and I'm paraphrasing here - ' the most glorious victory in the british army belongs to a Welsh Regiment'. My Welsh heritage was and still is the most defining aspect of who and what I am....I even have the goch ddraig with the words Wales Forever tattooed on my left arm. CERI: Are there any Welsh or Celtic influences on your music? MIKE: I couldn't claim that my writting has any more Welsh or Celtic influence than anyone elses music I do, however, like to image myself as keeping alive the old bardic traditions of my ancestors in some remote fashion. CERI: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru and WelshSteel? MIKE: I'd just like to say to you Ceri, thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself and speak to the members of AC and WS and connect with them via these forums and websites. And, on behalf of The Legendary Clampetts, thank you for taking the time to give us a go, we hope you enjoy the music. Interview: Ceri Shaw Email