Limahl and Guy Phethean Interview pt2

Following on from yesterday, we have the second part of our fascinating interview with Guy Phethean.

May I move on now to the track ‘Destiny’ and its spectacular vocal provided by Sylvia Mason James. How did you discover her, and what was she like to work with?

I mentioned moving down to London in ’91 earlier and my association with singers and musicians there. Whilst hunting for a flat, a fellow keyboard-player told me of a room to let in a house owned by a singer called Ruby James. I moved in to Ruby’s house and discovered that she had two singing sisters, Joyce….and Sylvia….and thus the association was born.

Sylvia is another Sagittarian and as such, we all got along famously! Sylvia is a phenomenal singer (Limahl & I were gobsmacked when she started singing the vocals for Destiny – a real goose bump moment!) a consummate professional and best of all, a lovely and thoughtful person with whom I am still working with to date in a live capacity.

At what point did Jupiter as a production team cease to be?

I can’t remember the exact date but it sort of petered out around 1999/2000. As home studio technology was becoming ever cheaper and record companies could procure the services of remixers for next to nothing, we sort-of lost interest and after 7 happy & exciting years, along with many ups and downs, Jupiter ceased to be a working entity.

I assume that you have worked on some exciting projects and with some noteworthy people since the 90’s. What projects since Jupiter are you most proud of?

We are proud of all of the projects we have worked on. We made sure that they were exactly as we wanted them before they left the studio, such is our attention to detail.

Highlights obviously were the remixes on three UK No.1 singles, having OUR remix of Kim Wilde’s version of Evelyn Champagne King’s ‘Shame’ being used as the main mix and having Peter Andre in our studio to write and remix with us.

A funny ‘lowlight’ is this story. Limahl was good friends with the Dutch producers who wrote and recorded ‘(Our love is) History’ by Mai Tai – a song which Limahl always loved. As a project, we were sent the vocals and did our own house/garage remix on it. I can’t remember how it came about, but we had a meeting with then the relatively unknown SIMON COWELL in his A&R office in West London. Mr Cowell went bananas after hearing our remix saying how he’d missed signing this the first time round and will not be missing it this time, asking us to do 2 more mixes by the end of the week and he was going to release and sign it. We did a high five after leaving the office, spent the next 3 days working like dogs to complete the requested remixes and then called his office to tell him the good news but were greeted by his secretary saying that she would pass the message on.

We waited. Nothing. We called again and were again greeted by his secretary saying she would pass on the message. We waited again. Nothing. We called a third time to say that we had done as he requested and could he get back to us, to which her reply was ‘can you stop calling us please – Mr Cowell is very busy with Zig and Zag’ (who are/were 2 stuffed puppets) !!

Finally, I would like to move on to the present day. I know that your services are much in demand, and as such you are incredibly busy. What is forthcoming in the Guy Phethean diary?

I am now proud to be Musical Director of a group of session musicians called The Allstars Collective. This is an outfit formed and run by musicians FOR musicians. We all have terrible stories of how we’ve been ripped off by unscrupulous band leaders, so everything to do with the Allstars is transparent – anybody can see the accounts. We currently have something like 50 active members, all with great skill and great attitudes

Four of our members have just come off tour with George Michael and should anyone require more work due to financial worries, we will endeavour to spread the gigs around.

One of our first gigs in the mid 2000s was backing Heather Small at the Albert Hall along with a 150-piece gospel choir, for an NSPCC charity fundraiser, which raised over £2m!

We do everything from a jazz trio, session work, big and small corporate events, festivals here and abroad…even the odd wedding when they want something really special!

We are very proud to be closely associated with soul singer, Jocelyn Brown for whom we do many gigs and are close personal friends. Jocelyn sang the title track of our debut original album called ‘All About the Music’, which was also produced by Average White Band’s frontman, Hamish Stuart.

Our finest achievement came recently in Nov. 2009 when we were the house band at another charity event at the Albert Hall, this time for Gloria Hunniford’s ‘Caron Keating Breast Cancer Foundation’ where we backed Brian May, Joss Stone, Mel C, Sharon Corr, Nerina Pallot, Bananarama and Bonnie Tyler.

Allstars Collective have many videos on YouTube, are constantly doing charity fundraisers and we are in the process of recording and releasing our 2nd original album, which features performances from James Brown’s sax player Maceo Parker, our good friend Jocelyn Brown, Edwin Starr’s brother Angelo and Level 42 saxman, Sean Freeman.

The website is www.TheAllstars.co.uk

Limahl is a lovely and kind person. We still keep in touch; occasionally going for lunch or myself and my daughter popping in to his flat.

I still do the odd gig with him on his fantastic ‘Tribute to the 80s’ show where he sings the best of not only Kajagoogoo & Limahl songs but also Tony Hadley, Duran Duran, Nick Kershaw and many more. And long may he continue!

Thank you for speaking to KajaFax, Guy.  It’s been a really interesting interview and a pleasure to chat with you.

Thanks!

A huge thanks to Guy for that interview – a really interesting read and a wonderful insight into the whole Jupiter project.

Please remember to visit http://www.theallstars.co.uk/ for more information on both Guy and the Allstars Collective.

2011 KajaFax

Limahl and Guy Phethean Interview pt1

KajaFax readers may remember our recent article on Limahl and his work as a part of production team ‘Jupiter’.  As a finale to that feature, KajaFax is proud to bring you an exclusive interview with Guy Phethean – keyboard player, incredibly talented songwriter, and the ‘other’ half of Jupiter!

Good Afternoon Guy.  Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak to KajaFax about your work.

Thank you, Steve.

I understand that you and Limahl set up ‘Jupiter’ Productions sometime in the early 1990’s. Did you know Limahl prior to becoming business partners? If not, how did the partnership come into being?

Obviously I knew OF him as my girlfriend in 1984 was mad on Limahl and Alex Higgins too!!  I first met him in about 1989/90 when I was living in Nottingham and keyboard-player for a stadium-rock type band called Angels of Hope.  We were managed by a Mansfield night-club owner called David Knowles who was a close personal friend of Limahl’s and we all lived & worked in a 4-bedroom farmhouse in Derbyshire.

David brought Limahl over one day and he played my keyboards and sang for us!

Shortly after that, Limahl told David that he was working on some original tracks and needed some fresh input keyboard-wise and so I was asked if I’d like to pop down to London and do some keyboard sessions with him.

I went down to London for the weekend, stayed at his flat and worked on some tracks with him at his home studio. One of them was a version of Too Shy with a Soul to Soul type beat and a couple more which I still have the demo tapes for.

On the Saturday night, he took me to a night called Singers at The Cockney on Tottenham Court Road – a fabulous night where there was a house band and talented singers would get up and sing their hearts out! Limahl got up and sang ‘A House is not a Home’ and brought the house (and the home!) down.

It was at ‘Singers’ where I met many musicians and singers, which enabled me to move down to London in 1991 and become a professional musician down here.

At what time did ‘Red Spot Studios’ become Jupiter HQ?

After moving down from London, I was busy doing gigs with singers, when Limahl re-contacted me to tell me that he’d moved his studio to separate premises from his house to the floor above a record-company office, and would I like to work on some more projects with him.

So, I went to check out his new studio, really loved it and so we did our first track (written and recorded) as Jupiter – (The name was because we are both Sagittarians and Jupiter is our ruling planet)

The track was called Destiny and it was sung by session vocalist Sylvia Mason-James who has toured with very major artists including the Pet-Shop boys and is featured on the Jimmy Nail No.1 ‘Aint No Doubt’ as the girl who’s ‘lying’ !!

Destiny was released with a mix from Tuff n Jam and did relatively well in the clubs and on radio. This was followed by another track with Sylvia called ‘Reach Out’, before we concentrated on remixing.

We only stayed about 6 months in that office before taking over an existing studio in Shepherd’s Bush which we named ‘Red Spot Studios’.

As it’s so easy to make excuses not to work when your studio is at home, we had a strict working ethic at our new studio, working from Monday to Friday usually from midday to about 6.30pm, amounting something like 60 different projects from start to finish.

I read on Limahl’s website that ‘Jupiter’ did a great deal of remix work for some big names within the industry. Can you tell me more about that?

Yes. Our very first remix was for a guy called Toni Di Bart.

Toni was a soul singer and had written a song called Real Thing, the vocal of which was used on a house/dance remix which became massive and eventually reached number one in the UK charts. Toni asked us to replicate how the original song sounded but was more souly/funky than housey/dancey – still, it appeared as a ‘remix’ on the No.1 record.

Our other UK No.1 remixes were on ‘Mysterious Girl’ by Peter Andre and ‘Dreamer’ by Livin’ Joy.

Livin’ Joy – Dreamer – Jupiter 12″ Collision Mix
Courtesy of 16karakan16

The music that Jupiter produced was a world away from that of Kajagoogoo or Limahl as a solo artist. Did you hit any problems with ‘preconceived’ ideas when promoting your work?

Not really. Most people didn’t know Limahl was part of the team! In fact he actively discouraged it as 80’s artists at the time were perceived to be VERY uncool in a very cool-imaged music market. We had success because of the combination of Limahl’s excellent production & songwriting skills along with my keyboard-playing and the wealth of musical knowledge and experience between us.

This interviewed will be concluded in pt2 tomorrow.

The introduction feature on Jupiter:
https://kajafax.co.uk/2011/05/26/limahl-the-1990%e2%80%99s-and-production-work/

2011 KajaFax