used to do a lot of private work and whatev-
er. But it’s come into play now because I am
interested in building stuff, and renovating.
So it’s come in handy for all that sort of stuff
because I can’t have people pulling the wool
over my eyes when they’re giving me esti-
mates, because I come from that background.
I don’t know all that there is to know about
building, but I do know a fair bit.
of stuff that I think needs to see the light of
day, so we’ll see what happens.
IE: What lessons do you live by now?
SH If you’re talking about actual playing, I
just think that you shouldn’t practice too
much. Some people practice for hours and
hours each day, but you’ve just got to play
when you feel like playing. That’s all I would
02•2020
IE: How proud are you as a dad just to have
your two oldest kids, Lauren and George,
involved in the biz?
SH: It’s amazing, just fantastic to see them
out there and enjoying what they’re doing.
And George, now, for example — I went
back a week early just before Christmas, just
so I could see his headline show in London
with Raven Age, and I was able to cram in a
few gigs with British Lion, as well. So it’s
great. He’s doing great, and Lauren did real-
ly well too. She’s still got an album’s worth
say. Just enjoy it — don’t get taught to play in
a regimented way. You’ve got to be playing
something you like. And on a higher level. In
my life, I’m a realist. I think things are the
way they are, and you’ve just got to get on
with it. Whatever gets thrown at you? You
deal with it. The way we were brought up in
Britain back in the day was just basically to
do exactly that — anything happens, pick
yourself up, brush yourself off, and get on
with it.
Tom Lanham
Continued from page 41
with our favorites. We were on tour, and
we would make a list. We’d be up after a
show having a beer, we'd make a list, and
then in the morning it would get ripped up
and thrown in the trashcan. And the next
night we would start again. And this went
on for weeks. I honestly think all our
favorite choices were ripped up pretty
early along. I think by the end of it, we were
reaching for straws and [how to] possibly
do justice to them. Cover records I take a lit-
tle less seriously than the studio albums.
But they're fun and interesting, and it's a
compelling way to make music. So, I think
it's a really cool record.
Mosh: Since this is the final tour and
you’re not sure whether you’ll record
another album or not, what would you
want fans to remember the most about
this band?
RDL: I'm really proud because I saw this
band as a kid, as I said, and it's the only
band that I saw as a kid that I've played in.
[UFO] was very important to me through-
out my formative years, which wasn't just a
bass gig to grab; it was a band that I used to
stand on my seat and cheer for. So, it means
a lot to me, and it means a lot to give as
much justice to my contribution to it as pos-
sible. What I want people to remember, I
think, is that we didn't give up. When Pete
couldn't get in the country, instead of giv-
ing up, we kept going, and we made a lot of
people happy that we kept going. And I'm
glad people accepted me in that situation.
continued from page 24
it still did everything that he intended it to
do. It made this bridge between dream
logic and mundane reality, the sexuality,
the tension, the campiness - and without
the kind of visual stylization that I’d previ-
ously associated with aesthetics. And that
just changed the way I saw everything.
And paintings? Let me think. Well, a
painter that I’m currently obsessed with
now is this guy, Eyvind Earle, who was
one of the key concept designers at Disney
in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He developed this look
that became “Sleeping Beauty,” this kind-
of hyper-formalized, very modern kind of
look that is also fused with mythology and
Renaissance painting, and it was just so
smart. And it translated into every detail,
like the costuming, the landscape, the
architecture, the flags. And I’d been look-
ing at a lot of his work while building the
Pang world. There was this book last year
that I loved, called Autobiography of Red by
Anne Carson. She’s incredible. She’s a
Greek mythology historian, but rather than
just translating, she translates them —
archetype-wise and spiritually — into
novel form. It’s absolutely incredible what
she does — I can’t even fully describe it.
She gets the essence of what these myths
are trying to [say] but takes them com-
pletely out of context.
IE: Underneath all this, I think you were
just born curious.
CP: I think everyone is. Maybe with some
44 illinoisentertainer.com february 2020
And also, I'm glad that we still brought
them some happiness when we could play
live or make records. And the same thing
with Vinnie and Schenker. The fact that
Schenker wasn't there and it just couldn't
work with him. I’ve never met the guy, but
I know I've heard all the stories, and it just
couldn't work with him. And they brought
Vinnie in, and Vinnie did absolute justice to
the legacy and gave the fans a whole string
of records. I'm happy that they did that,
and they made the fans happy with all
those extra 15 years. And the same thing
with when Paul passed, and we brought in
Neil. We finished up these tours and gave
the fans what we said we were going to do,
a proper Last Orders tour. So, I guess that's
my answer to that one. Just that we contin-
ued and that we didn't give up, we kept
putting out quality stuff.
Appearing 2/14 at Genesee Theatre,
Waukegan and 2/15 at Rialto Square
Theatre, Joliet
MOSH-WORTHY RELEASES: • Sepultura
Quadra (Nuclear Blast) The Brazilian
groove metal/thrash quartet is still doing
what it does best after 35 years. • Mortuary
The Autophagous Reign (XenoKorp) The
French thrash/death metal titans released
its sixth and most punishing album to date.
• Demons & Wizards III (Century Media)
Power metal collaboration featuring Iced
Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer and Blind
Guardian vocalist Hansi Kursch return
after a 15-year hiatus with a compelling
third album.
people, it just gets channeled to more self-
serving things. But that might also be my
fatal flaw — I get kind of enthused about
anything, so I seldom walk a very straight
line. It’s a very zig-zaggy line, my career so
far.
IE: What’s your guiltiest pleasure?
CP: I don’t think I’m ashamed to be into
anything, but I think the one thing I am
ashamed to admit is that I’m very domes-
tic. I really like cooking and cleaning at
home, which maybe isn’t so in line with
being an artist. But I do get a lot of pleas-
ure from it.
IE: How is your apartment appointed?
Lavish or Spartan?
CP: I have very little. But I decided to camp
out in L.A. for a year and try it out, so I put
most of my stuff in storage and just
brought my absolute favorite things to this
very tiny apartment that I am currently liv-
ing in. The most significant piece of art in
my apartment is a poster from 1973 from
an expo at the Villa Medici in Rome. I
bought it from an Etsy vendor in Romania,
who had been keeping it in his kitchen, so
it’s completely water-stained, the corner of
it is burned-off, and it looks fucking amaz-
ing. And I bought it for $10 but spent way
too much on the frame because it’s so big.
It’s a large classical tower, and above it,
there is a sun with an older man’s face and
many small rays coming out of it, and then
behind that, there’s a landscape in a kind
of tweaked-out Renaissance perspective,
where it doesn’t entirely make sense. Then,
there’s a man holding a clock over his
head. But, the whole thing has been
exposed to so much sunlight and water
continues on page 47