It’s one of the best years for Cast.
Debut albums are both a curse and a blessing for musicians.
The adage about having all your life to write your debut is true (to a certain extent), but it runs deeper than that. To capture the energy, enthusiasm and passion that can only come from the first attempt is a thankless, if not impossible task.
Think then how it feels to be John Power. With not one, but two iconic debut albums (The La’s and All Change) under his belt before his 29th birthday, the Cast frontman knows a thing or two about what it takes to make a first impression. So, when he says his band’s new album captures that elusive magic, you’d better pay attention.
“I wanted to capture the energy of a debut, not in a novel way but in the sense that I was thinking about why they were so exciting,” says the Liverpudlian of new album Love Is The Call. “If I was going write a debut record for the band, how would it sound? It would be this record.”
“It’s got that energy but it’s also got an understanding and a wistfulness about living a life. It’s not like, ‘Hey, we’re here! We’ve got it all ahead of us’. I had to dig deeper for the fundamental ideas, and so – as I was thinking like that – I found this little niche of where I was between the two seminal records. There was a space between those two moments in my life where I hadn’t expressed the merging of them whilst not parodying either of them.”
During Power’s chat with Live4ever his enthusiasm for the new record is palpable, with the musician often coming back to the same point: an infectious, unbridled enthusiasm for Cast’s seventh album. It’s a pleasure to behold such joy from someone with nearly four decades in the music business.
“It’s been a great experience from start to finish, this album,” he states. “Some albums are like that. Sometimes you wanna put yourself in front of everything because it feels really good. I can’t live other people’s lives but it feels really exciting, I can’t wait for people to hear it. I’m so glad it’s coming out.”
In what must have been a frustrating wait for Power the album was recorded twelve months ago, as he explains: “This time last year I was with Youth in Andalucia recording and arranging the tracks. So there was a little bit of a time gap between it getting recorded and fully mixed, but things are what they are. It got mixed, it wasn’t sounding right, it got re-mixed and it sounded right, but that happened over the spring and summer months.”
Going into the studio with all the ideas and demos, the band hadn’t played them. It was a beautiful and simple idea; I had a focus and a vision for the record but experience has taught me in the past that that’s sometimes not enough, and sometimes it is when you’ve got everything in place, y’know. It wasn’t just about going in the studio and knocking out some good tunes. I had a proper idea of what I wanted. I had an idea of the character of the record and I had a feel for the whole colour of the album. It was going in with a framed picture of what I wanted to do.
For long-term fans of the band, the next sentence may come as something of a shock: “I’ve said that this is an album that Cast needed to make and hadn’t made,” he ponders, before elaborating: “Because of the rhythms within the songs, the jumping acoustic guitars and the rock and roll/punky beats – the DNA of that is right through punk – but in my experience as a bass player in The La’s, that was the jumping feel that we had.”
“Two separate things came into one and I kind of realised that my experience as a songwriter is one thing. Although sometimes – I suppose you think you’ve led two separate lives, if that makes sense.”
Comparing Love Is The Call to two sacred cows is brave, but the songsmith is right to be pleased; the album is bristling with verve and energy. Furthermore, it’s part of an album campaign for the makers to make such lofty claims. Unusually, if not uncharacteristically, Power has a thought process and justification:
“I wasn’t trying to parody The La’s or All Change, I was just taking my experiences from the energy of both them bands that went through me,” he explains. “I was the bass player of The La’s and then I went into guitarist, singer and songwriter of Cast. It’s quite a rich heritage so all I really had to do was go to the place where they overlapped a little bit, for an inspirational thing. We really needed to make one more seminal record – at least – but I wanted to look like I was going to complete the circle. I’m happy that this record seems to have completed the circle for me.”
“I told the band to look at it like it was the last record we’d make as Cast. That might be true, it might not be true, but the point is that I wanted to come full circle to where it started without trying to replicate something of the past. It never really left me. This album is a very present record, but I had to find my roots and inspiration again.”
“I’ve got loads of good songs, stuff recorded, ideas here and there, but the idea from me and Alan (McGee, Cast’s manager) having a conversation was, ‘Look John, go away and write a fucking good record. You can do it, I know you can do it’. That’s your ticket, in a sense, I don’t need to justify why we’ve done it. I don’t need favours or a break off people. ‘Make a truly great record that you’re happy with at that moment in time. Then you’re liberated from all that neediness’.”
All this talk of the two debut albums begs a question: with five other albums since All Change was released in 1995, in his effervescency Power seems to be disregarding everything since then. Not so, he clarifies. “All Change is a seminal record, every track runs, it’s got character and identity. I knew that was amazing but I was young and no-one was going to tell me any different. The band was on fire, it’s a classic record.”
“I’m very happy with Mother Nature Calls, but in hindsight I could have done it a different way but it still did very well and it’s perceived well, which is important as an artist, I guess,” he continues, warming to the theme.
“There’s some great songs on Magic Hour but I’m not really that arsed about the rest of it. Beetroot…maybe it should have been a solo record, but there’s some great songs on there. I know it’s produced in a very different way, but maybe it was ahead of its time. Some people love it and some people don’t. I don’t really think about the past records.”
“When I write my autobiography one day I’ll go in-depth about Troubled Times, which was a comeback record and I haven’t heard it for ages. Kicking Up The Dust was a unifying record for the band. I think there’s some really good songs on it. The point is though, perhaps the identity of it, in having a pop song, a country song, a Floydy song and then a bouncing pop song…I don’t know what the identity was of it, but there’s some really good ideas on there because I was writing them, and it felt good. But I don’t sit there listening to it. But this record feels like it’s got the identity.”
And with that, Power is off again: “Bluebird, for example, is a million miles away from Starry Eyes or Love Is The Call and all these intense, psychedelic stuff. It’s got its place, and the last track (Tomorrow Calls My Name), how it ends, the sentiment, the calling, the reassurance to everyone, myself included…when someone sings a song like that, even the singer is listening, d’you know what I mean? It moves me because I’ve touched upon that combination of people’s sounds. We’re talking about an abstract piece of work, but this whole album, for me, runs.”
“The Rain That Falls is Cast at their best, with a slight Stonesy groove. The performances are wonderful; Skin (guitarist Liam Tyson) and Keith (O’Neill drums) are the best playing of any record. My playing, singing, songwriting, everything, is in a real sweet spot. I can only say my opinion but I feel it gives something back.”
Indeed, Power is eager to offer warm praise for his bandmates too: “We ran through these songs for the first time since we recorded them and you’ve got to take into consideration that we didn’t have them all orchestrated when we went into the studio. They were ideas that were demoed and maybe they’d heard them a little bit, but they couldn’t have played them because they weren’t formed.”
“We had this rehearsal and you could just feel Skin and Keith and Martin Campell on bass, and it was just like, ‘Fucking hell, are you getting this?’. Everybody was getting it. We finished a song and there would be silence and a feeling. I don’t think we’ve ever felt like that. I can see Skin and Keith genuinely thinking, ‘This is a new feeling for the band’. Keith’s drumming, he’s swinging and playing a different type of drumming to what he’s ever done. The songs are key but they dance differently to a lot of our other stuff. That is very inspiring and gives you energy. We feel like a new band.”
“They’ve absolutely bought into it. Since the recording I’ve never known rehearsals to be so joyous as they were last week. We were flying live all last year and the year before, doing our older stuff, and we were on fire but now we’ve got this other string to our bow. It just feels great and the songs are really exciting and refreshing to play.”
It’s clear that anyone associated with Cast has much to look forward to in 2024. Tours in both the spring and the autumn, which sandwich a prestigious support slot on Liam Gallagher’s Definitely Maybe 30 dates in the summer, the latest step in a relationship that goes all the way back to the early 1990s, as Power explains:
“Our paths have crossed and meandered all throughout our careers. When he announced that tour, every band in the northern hemisphere wanted a ticket. I think it’s great he’s given us the shout for us to reconnect. It’s great he’s doing Definitely Maybe and the B-sides, and we can do songs off All Change and we’ll drop new stuff as well, obviously.”
“He’s heard the new record and he loved it, so that helped. Secondly, we do have a story, me and Liam. We go right back to The La’s days when we were 16/17 year-old kids. I bumped into him on numerous occasions in my career, and some of those occasions have been very important to him and to Cast.”
“We did meander in a positive manner,” the songwriter continues. “Cast got signed at an Oasis gig from me blagging into their dressing room when Supersonic came out. I had demos when they were unsigned. Liam came to a La’s show…all these things, which probably helped as well.”
“We’re the right band for this tour,” Power asserts, confidently, “and it’s going to be immense. 20,000 people a night and it’s gonna be great. We could reconnect with a lot of fans who maybe have forgotten about Cast, plus a massive young audience. The way I used to look at The Who and that period of music when I was 19/20, the 1990s is now like that. 30 years ago!”
There was a hell of a lot of great British music knocking around. It’s an exciting year. Even one of those things would be a very exciting thing to do, but having a new album which we genuinely feel comfortable with, then to join a massive tour and then to be touring ourselves, it’s a good year! It’s one of the best years for the band.
For a working troubadour like Power, the most exciting thing is always what’s next but, for now, he’s trying to enjoy the moment. “I want to take this time to loll about on the water,” he declares, dreamily. “I just want to float about; I don’t want to swim against the tide or dig for treasure. I don’t wanna find myself upstream in unchartered paths. I wanna just sit back while the sunlight and radiance of Love Is The Call is happening, because it’s been a long time coming.”
“I’ve been thinking about making a record like this for a long time, and I mean a long time. The rhythm and playing of these songs has been in me for a long time, trying to find its way out, and I feel it has now.”
It’s a genuine pleasure to speak with someone who, with such a rich history, knows not only the importance of peace of mind but the value of his work. “I feel this record is really exciting whilst also having a wistful underbelly. I think it’s the best record Cast could have made – some people are saying it’s the best record we’ve made – but I’m gonna let other people decide that.”
“I don’t go round the streets saying it’s the best record, but I feel very calm. It’s a fucking good place to be. I’ve made a few records in my life, and when you get it right it’s a good place to be. I’m in a good place.”
“I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
