Mick Priestley interview

Guitarist of the hard rock Camdenites “Nothin To Lose”, Mick Priestley seems to be a guy with his fingers in many pies at the moment so he had a chat to Nix about what he’s getting upto. He talks about everything from his main project (Nothin To Lose) to solo projects and his view of the state of rock music at the moment.

N: You're doing solo stuff as well as being the guitarist in Nothin To Lose, tell us about that? Your DVD, solo tracks ... etc

M: I always try to write something new every night, and I`ve got a wide range of musical influences, so every now and again I`ll write something that I`ll think sounds great, but isn’t gonna work with Nothin' To Lose. Maybe I`ll write something ridiculously heavy one night, then some heart-wrenching ballad the next! It seems a shame just to let these songs collect dust on my shelves so I thought ti would be a great idea to stick out my own CD too.

I get a lot of people talking about my guitar playing too, and I feel it`s a good opportunity to inflate my own enormous ego even further by showcasing it! I`d like to do a couple of songs that are so ridiculously over-the-top, guitar-wise, that people will either go `wow! that`s the best thing I`ve ever heard!` or `What a load of shit! That`s the worst thing ever recorded. It`s just a load of noise!" A lot of guys I might listen to - Malmsteen, Vai etc - get a lot of criticism like that so it`s fine. If I was to record something and I know myself it sounds great, I know people are gonna dig it.

The guitar DVD was another idea - what I`m putting together is a complete guitar tuition course - I`ve taught guitar lessons for a few years and I thought it would be a great idea to put together a package that you can take home and use as much as you like. It`s gonna cover everything from the most basic scales and chords right through to the most ridiculous guitar licks and techniques to work up to. I like to think that no matter what your level might be, you could learn something from it! It`s cool as well that a single guitar lesson would probably cost you at least £20 an hour, no matter where you go, but you could get a full guitar course that`ll teach you everything you`ll ever need to know for less than that.

N: How have you found that stuff so far?

M: Solo stuff is a lot of fun - it gives you a lot of room to experiment with things that you wouldn`t have done before. For example, if I drop-tune the guitar to B and it sounds like Zakk Wylde, as long as it sounds cool, that`s fine! Likewise if I wanna stick some crazy instruments that you wouldn`t normally dream of using, that`s fine too! It fun to mess around with a load of different sounds and styles and see what you can come up with. To be honest with you, the solo CD idea I just dreamed up as a bit of fun. Whether it sells a million or never gets released, it`s more just about me trying to improve myself as a musician and a guitarist !

N: You've been doing some good supports for Nothin To Lose recently, what’s been the highlight of those?

M: I think the highlight for all of us recently was supporting Buckcherry at the Underworld in Camden Town. We love playing the Underworld because it`s kinda like home turf for us, but to play with those guy was cool because we`ve all been fans of the band for a long time. I think anyone with half a brain can tell that they`re a band who`ve had an influence on our sound too. The venue was packed all the way to the back from as soon as the doors opened, which was great also...especially since a lot of those people had turned up early to get a good place to see Nothin' To Lose! The crowd were great and all in all it was a brilliant night. We`ve got some possibly huge gigs lined up for the future too ... watch out for those!

N: You've got some new songs too (NTL ones) Psycho Man etc, tell us a bit more about those?

M: It`s kinda funny that everyone considers Psycho Man to be the `new song` because the truth is it was the first song I ever wrote - when I was 16 - and it`s been in the set ever since we`ve been gigging. We just kinda jazzed it up a bit. The truly `new songs` at the moment would be tracks like `Going Down`, `Devil Man` and `I Don`t Give A Fuck`....which are really exciting to play for us because there`s a great sense of achievement to be had when you`re playing tracks that you all really wrote as a band. I think we all feel that the band has really come along way and that not just as people but as a band we`re really starting to `click`. The new stuff seems to be coming from all over the place, and hardly a band practice goes by at the minute where we don`t have a new song to jam! I guess the hard bit is gonna be picking the best ones to go on the album !

N: Any label interest?

M: There`s been a lot of interest in the stuff we`re doing, but we`re not exactly bombarding record labels with it until the album`s done. We want to get everything done and finished then really go nuts with it once it`s completed.

N: Since we last spoke, what do you think of the 'unsigned scene'? The rock 'movement' in a wider view?

M: I think that it`s very exciting to be a part of the current rock `scene` here in London. There is a lot going on - probably more going on than there has been in a LONG time - and with such a wealth of talent from a seemingly endless supply of new bands popping up, it`s a great time to be part of it. There`s a lot of rubbish in there too...but that`s always gonna be the same with any scene in any style of music.

What`s great about the rock scene is there has been such a renewed interest in it over the last couple of years. Love them or hate them, I think bands like The Darkness effectively re-opened the doors and allowed a tidal wave of rock bands - not necessarily as tongue-in-cheek - to pile through. It`s great to be part of a `movement` that everyone seems to have their eye on at the moment.

N:Top 4 bands that you'd give a shout out to? (bands that you've played with)

M: I think there are a lot of bands on the `scene` or whatever that really don`t get the credit they deserve. Or maybe they do, and I`m just looking in the wrong places! Some of my favourite bands around at the moment are guys like King Lizard, The Red Star Rebels, Headrush and Crowning Glory. Guys like that. These are guys who sound great, have the right attitude about what they want to do and work hard to achieve it. If you want to be successful in a band you have to work your f**kin` balls off every step of the way and this is what these guys do. I prefer listening to guys like this anyway because it gives you a chance to hear truly new music and lets you keep up to date with what`s going on in your music scene! I`m not usually too interested in the new Trivium album or whatever....you tend to have heard it all before.

N: Refering back to when you chatted to me about Nothin To Lose, any more stalkers who carve words into apples with their teeth?

M: I don`t know what it is about me that seems to attract lunatics but it seems to be working again - the girl with the apples is just part of a long list of nutters! Some nutcase managed to get my phone number from somewhere and would bombard me with picture messages all day, every day. Like I`d be getting a dozen a day at least, and they weren`t even of anything in particular! `Here`s a picture of my hand`....`here`s a picture of my living room`....what is wrong with these people? I`ve had girls try to drag me into toilet cubicles, turn up at my house every day for a week after we only went out for one drink, and there`s a slightly worrying strain of groupies - the type that are old enough to be your mother, but because they didn`t fuck Nikki Sixx in the 80s they`re coming after you! haha

N: Your top 3 guitarists of all time?

M: Randy Rhoads was a major influence from the beginning. I remember when I was at school and I decided that the best thing for me to do was to go to university and be a dentist.

That`s what everyone was telling me I should do anyway, and in the absence of any other plans, I thought I may as well go for it. That was until my friend Paul dug out an Ozzy Osbourne record from all the old vinyl my parents had in the house, and I heard `Crazy Train` comes out of the speakers for the first time. It was one of those moments, not to sound cheesy, that I could really consider to be life-changing. Then the record was flipped over, I heard `Mr Crowley` on the other side, and I knew that`s what I wanted to do!

After that came Steve Vai, who I`d listened to for a while but being very young had never really put the link together in my mind that Vai was doing that on a guitar, I had a guitar, and could therefore do it too! Likewise with Guns n Roses....I`d heard Sweet Child O` Mine like everyone else had but it had never really occurred to me that I could do it too!

The next one was when I heard Yngwie Malmsteen ply when I was at college. By this point I was playing a lot of guitar anyway, and had learned just about every Ozzy song ever recorded, and this guy just seemed to `up the bar`....I`d never heard anybody play like that it was just a step beyond - I knew that`s what I wanted to do! Lots of people give him stick for it - you get those `he has no feeling in his playing!` people - they`re all talking crap. He does a lot of guitar arrangements that are lightning fast but you can hear that every single note is written as a piece of music. Kinda like what we do - if some dick wants to say there`s no feeling that`s fine, but they`re wrong! Personally I`m feeling every single note of it.

N: What are your plans going into next year?

M: We`re looking at a UK tour in February with another band that you`ll have heard of - we`re hoping for a double-headliner idea that`ll get loads of people down. We don`t just wanna do a tour, we wanna do the most ass-kicking rock n roll tour that anyone`s seen in years. We`re hoping to release our album in the new year , as that`s getting finished over the next couple of weeks. Look out for it - it`s gonna kick your ass !

N: Anything I've not asked you, that you think I should've asked?

M: Yeah. It`s nine inches.

To look at Mick's main project, Nothin To Lose see their MySpace at www.myspace.com/nothintolose.
Interview by Nicola "Nix" Crichton, images courtesy of Dany Serrano.

© Pure Rawk 2006